In the first contract bargaining session since November 2024, during a strike that’s almost two years and eight months long, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh journalists and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette got a bit closer on a few small things, but they’re still very, very far apart.
The meeting started at about 10:15 a.m. Thursday in the Lawrence Welk Room of Downtown’s Omni William Penn Hotel. First the guild’s bargaining committee of 14 people, including some of their lawyers, moved their long table closer to the table where sat the company’s attorney, Richard Lowe, and the PG’s director of operations, Rob Weber.
Those two men agreed that sitting closer would help communication and said that in fact they’d already moved their table out from the wall behind them.
What ensued was the longest bargaining session in which some guild members had ever participated. Until about 4:30 p.m., the two sides focused on a document that the guild had created and then improved that breaks pieces of the contract into three categories so the wording can be compared: how it is in the collective bargaining agreement that expired in 2017, how it is in the most recent guild proposal, and how it is in the employer proposal. The document also summarizes the similarities and differences.
They also agreed to disagree on most of the areas where their proposals differ, but in a few instances, Lowe said the company would tentatively agree to — that is, “TA” — the guild’s proposals.
On other items, the union and the company agreed to go back and look at their respective proposals, which go back several years, for clarity. The union also requested some additional information from the company on various matters.
When the session wrapped up, the guild’s Natalie Duleba stood up and said to the room, “Well, I think we’ve made some good headway.”
But from the start of the meeting, the guild members made clear that the company must follow federal labor law, including an injunction granted by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that says the company must, at the union’s request, restore the health care plan it unilaterally ended in 2020 and that it must bargain in good faith a new contract, filing reports with the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.
When asked whether the company was going to do either of those things, Lowe said, “We’re not going to talk about pending litigation.”
Pending before the Third Circuit is the company’s appeal of the full NLRB board’s ruling, in support of its administrative law judge’s ruling, that the company failed to bargain in good faith and must restore the status quo — that is, the previous contact — until the two sides bargain a new contract.
Those are the unfair labor practice charges over which the journalists went on strike on Oct. 18, 2022. It is the longest ongoing strike in the United States.
The company appealed the administrative law judge’s and the NLRB’s rulings. The NLRB petitioned the court for the temporary injunction until it hears the most recent appeal at some yet-unspecified time, but guild members say the company is not following that order (over which it sought clarification and a rehearing, both of which were denied). Then, on June 2, the company filed a motion to expedite the Third Circuit’s hearing of its appeal and an enforcement petition, since “the National Labor Relations Board (‘NLRB’) has threatened to initiate contempt proceedings in this matter.”
In fact, on Thursday evening, the guild’s attorneys filed a response in Third Circuit court, saying in part, “Intervenor Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh/CWA Local 38061 (‘Union’ or the ‘Guild’) has no objections to expediting the case so that the NLRB’s Cross-Petition for Enforcement can be decided promptly. However, the reasoning given in the Post-Gazette’s Motion is simply a thinly veiled attempt to evade contempt penalties, which the NLRB has indicated they intend to pursue, for the Company’s continued refusal to comply with the Court’s March 24, 2025 Order granting in part, and denying in part, the National Labor Relations Board’s request for National Labor Relations Act 10(e) injunctive relief.
“Following the Post-Gazette’s unsuccessful challenges to the preliminary March 24th Order via its Motion for Clarification and its Motion for Rehearing, the present Motion to Expedite is merely the latest in the Post-Gazette’s increasingly desperate attempts to wriggle out of its duty to obey the Court’s injunction.”
So, a lot of things are in play.
Meanwhile, the union told the company on Thursday that it would be in touch with possible dates to continue bargaining a contract.
UPDATE: On June 6, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals tentatively scheduled the case for July 8.
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.
