Photos by Rebecca Cook

Detroit Newspapers apparently found a way to cut its waste fees.

Instead of trashing unsold Sunday papers, the joint operating agency for Gannett's Detroit News and Knight Ridder's Free Press is delivering the Sunday papers to homes later in the week. They are called "free samples," according to the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions. The unions' advertising and subscriber boycotts during the long contract dispute are credited with the newspapers' steep circulation declines.

The council's Alliance publication reported that Teamsters Local 2040 Secy.-Treas. Tom Page found a joint Sunday paper in his driveway despite his "No News or Free Press Wanted Here" lawn sign.

Page told the Alliance: "Inside is a flyer saying this is your free sample of the News and Free Press, your Sunday paper. If you had a newspaper company and you wanted to give people a free sample, wouldn't you give them a current paper?"

The Alliance reported that 10,000 Sunday papers are being given away weekly in the attempt to promote the scab papers.

Detroit News and Detroit Free Press boxes hang in front of the paper's downtown headquarters.

Pres. Jack Howe of Detroit 13N, which along with Detroit-Toledo-Lansing 289M and four other local unions have been engaged in a contract dispute with the Detroit newspapers since July 1995, said that his local was scheduled for another mediation session with the newspapers in early April.

Howe said that, on May 4, the unions' and National Labor Relations Board's case against the News, Free Press and Detroit Newspapers is scheduled to come before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. After the oral arguments, the union members must wait for the court's ruling on whether the newspapers must take back all locked-out workers and deliver back pay since their unconditional offer to return to work in February 1997.

Howe said that, while his members wait for that decision or for a contract settlement, his local looks forward to hosting the North American Newspaper Conference May 25-27.

In other news, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Richard Scully ordered Detroit Newspapers to reinstate three mailers allegedly fired for strike-related activities. Scully found DN's charges against the union members unfounded.

The Detroit regional NLRB office sent requests for information to about 10 percent of the union members involved in the newspaper contract dispute in an effort to estimate back pay. The Alliance reported that NLRB Regional Director William Schaub said the agency is trying to get a "ballpark figure. We want to learn which ballpark we're in: hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions."

GCIU locals 13N and 289M and their members in Detroit continue to need the support of every local union and member to help in winning the contract struggle against the giant newspaper chains Gannett and Knight Ridder.

Contributions are needed urgently to help locked-out members support their families. The locals also need donations to help pay legal defense bills, which continue to mount as Gannett, Knight Ridder and their joint operating agency, Detroit Newspapers, prolong the dispute.

Local unions and individuals may send donations to the GCIU Local 13N/289M Special Assistance Fund, 3300 Book Building, Detroit, Mich. 48226. Individuals only – not local unions – may contribute to The Newspaper Unions Assistance Fund at the same address.