Portland, OR
The four unions representing approximately 2,000 workers at the Detroit News and the Detroit Free-Press have raised the stakes in their campaign to win a fair contract.
The AFL-CIO applauds the workers' tenacity during their 19-month struggle and backs their bold, new strategy.
In Detroit, the campaign to win a fair contract has already cost Knight-Ridder and Gannett dearly. They have lost a third of their circulation and $250 million in advertising revenue. They have lost respect in their community. Hundreds of religious leaders have condemned their actions. The newspapers have lost esteem in the journalism profession.
For their part, Knight-Ridder and Gannett have spent thousands of dollars fighting their own workers. They have financed a new workforce of strikebreakers. They have sustained massive losses, subsidizing their Detroit papers with profits from other companies. They have turned their Detroit properties into fenced, prison-like structures. They have hired an army of private security guards, who have at times physically attacked workers.
The unions' new strategy offers the companies a plan under which the workers end their strike, win back their jobs and strikebreakers are forced out. If the owners of the newspapers, Knight-Ridder and Gannett, refuse, their liability for backpay could be $80 million a year.
In addition, the unions have designed a well-funded strategy that will take the campaign for a fair contract everywhere Knight-Ridder and Gannett operate -- in Detroit, in the United States and around the globe.
The AFL-CIO will stand beside the workers as they replicate the campaign for a fair contract beyond Detroit.