• by Ray Schultz , 5 hours ago

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters have returned to the newsroom, concluding a bitter three-year strike. 

Union workers voted to end the strike by a margin of 21-4 on November 13. But it is still not clear what the company plans to do.  

The strikers entered the office at close to 10 a.m. after a morning rally. 

“I’m under no pretense this is going to be easy,” said Andrew Goldstein, Pittsburgh Newspaper Guild President, at during the rally. “People are people. We are all human. We all have strong feelings on many things, especially this.”

It was clear from some comments that anger remains. 

“Post-Gazette management broke federal law, lost at the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and now it is time for them to follow the law and treat journalists with respect,” said Jon Schleuss, president of The NewsGuild-CWA, during the rally. “We were only able to win because of the tens of thousands of working-class people who stood with us and fought with us.”

The striking journalists have published over 4,000 stories and 17,000 photos and other graphics in UnionProgress.com. the strike paper, the union reports.  

The strike started in October 2022. One issue was that the company took away its healthcare plan without bargaining in July of 2020, and replaced it with an inferior and more expensive corporate plan, the union charged. 

Earlier this month, a federal court ordered the Post-Gazette to compensate staff members for workers’ rights violations committed over the last five years, thus upholding a September 2024 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board. But the Gazette announced it would appeal the ruling up to the Supreme Court and that it would close the newspaper if it loses.