Three Reagan-appointed federal appeals judges delivered a stunning blow to GCIU and other union members who remain locked out of the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and their joint operating agency, Detroit Newspapers (DN).

Apparently working from the attitude of "let's give them a fair trial and then hang them," the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned multiple rulings during the past five years by the National Labor Relations Board and administrative law judges. They concluded that Gannett's News and Knight Ridder's Free Press committed no unfair labor practices.

If that judgment sticks, it nullifies the NLRB's order for the companies to make the 2,000 union members who struck the newspapers in July 1995 and then were locked out after their unconditional offer to return to work in February 1997 whole for backpay estimated at more than $100 million and return them to their jobs.

GCIU Pres. George Tedeschi called the appeals decision "a travesty of justice. It is a perfect example of an anti-union, deep-pocket employer who continuously appeals NLRB and lower court rulings until finding a sympathetic court. And, with the stroke of a pen, three judges undid all that had been won over five long years."

Pres. Jack Howe of Detroit 13N, which with Detroit-Toledo-Lansing 289M and four other local unions struck the newspapers and DN in July 1995, said the decision was "quite a blow when everyone told us for five years that we were going to win this, especially when we won it all the way through until we hit these three Republicans." He said the ruling also proved that the D.C. Circuit Court "is unfriendly to working people and sets a precedent for the [NLRB] when they go before it in the future."

Howe urged the court decision to be a wake-up call for GCIU and other union members. "We have to wake up and get out and vote. The next president will make numerous appointments to appeals and other courts and probably the Supreme Court. If [Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. George W.] Bush gets in and appoints conservatives to the courts and the National Labor Relations Board, we'd better hang on to our wallets, because they'll be emptied," he said.

Howe said that after the decision, the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers, and the allies in the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions – including the GCIU, Communications Workers, and Teamster locals involved in the contract dispute – met to plan how to go forward.

"We are not standing still," Howe said. He said the groups and their activists are going to strengthen the subscription boycott that already has cost the Detroit papers some 35 percent of their pre-strike circulation. They are putting together a four-page tabloid to be distributed to all area union members asking them not to subscribe to the News and Free Press and developing plans for a mass rally. "We want to bring to their attention that the dispute continues," Howe said.

Howe said he was very impressed with his members' reaction to the court decision and to their strength through the long dispute. Despite their obvious disappointment, he said of those called back to work by DN, "they continue to go to work every day and fight. Every time they see an injustice at work, they fight it. No one is ready to give up. We're gong to keep on fighting until we have contracts and get the conditions back to where they're livable."

In a statement, the Detroit Metropolitan Council of Newspapers said: "The council of unions believes the court of appeals is wrong. The NLRB decision was not only reasonable, it was the correct one under the law."

Detroit Newspaper Guild Local 22 Pres. Lou Mleczko said the boycott of the News and Free Press will continue. "Because the legal system failed us, we are relying on the public," he said. "It is more important than ever that people not buy or read or talk to the News and Free Press until there are fair, signed labor agreements at the papers."

In a press release, Frank Vega, Detroit Newspapers president and chief executive officer, said the ruling proves the newspapers innocent of wrongdoing and called on the unions to return to the bargaining table.

However, the face the companies turned to the unions was the usual one. The Alliance, the unions' publication, reported that, following the appeals court decision, Gannett and Knight Ridder rescinded all their bargaining proposals made since August 1998. The companies then told the unions they would not bargain until after Labor Day.

Finding reasons to believe

The ruling by appellate judges Laurence H. Silberman, David B. Sentelle, and James L. Buckley made short shrift of the evidence amassed during the trial before Administrative Law Judge Thomas Wilks. That trial lasted five and one-half months, the Alliance pointed out.

The appellate ruling said: "Having determined that the [NLRB's] conclusion that the News committed unfair labor practices is legally erroneous and unsupported by substantial evidence, we, of course, reverse its subsequent order holding the strikers to be unfair labor practice strikers."

While taking swipes at the unions for such routine events as taking strike authorization votes near contract expiration deadlines, the appeals court judges bent over backwards to apologize for what the NLRB and the ALJ found to be illegal behavior on the part of the companies.

For example, to find that the News' behavior related to its imposed merit pay proposal wasn't illegal, the judges speculated that the News didn't provide the Guild with its repeated information requests about the company's merit pay proposal until after it was implemented because News executives probably didn't have the information. The NLRB said the evidence was substantial that they did have the information.

The judges then turned around and said the Guild negotiators were at fault because they made no counter-offer, even though they had no information on which to base a counterproposal.

The judges said the NLRB and ALJ shouldn't have compared the News' merit pay proposal with the plan ruled illegal by Silberman at two McClatchy papers in California because the News included a base 1 percent figure and then gave a general indication of the amount left over for merit raises.

During the oral arguments on the case, NLRB attorney Sharon Block repeatedly tried to make Silberman understand that despite those general numbers, the News still didn't provide any specific plan for employees to get raises over that 1 percent. News executives admitted that a Guild member could receive the highest performance evaluation, and still not get a merit raise, she noted.

In other words, Mleczko pointed out: "It was good enough [for Silberman] that Gannett told us that there was a pot of money, but we will decide who gets it and how much. To him that was good-faith bargaining. That wasn't bargaining five years ago. It was take it or leave it. I call it a sham," the Alliance reported.

Locked-out Detroit News reporter Bob Ourlian, who attended the oral arguments in Washington, D. C., said the appeals court ruling "bore little, if any, resemblance to the negotiations the ruling discussed."

As one of the Guild negotiators, Ourlian said: "I hold vivid recollections of bargaining sessions in 1994, 1995, and later. The most vivid of these is frustration: Walking into negotiating sessions week after week and confronting that stonewall of management's bargaining team."

Former NLRB Chairman William B. Gould IV, who ruled on the case during his board term, called the appeals court ruling "just incredibly tragic because of the fact that so many people have put their faith in the legal process and the board and been let down."

Gould said the appeals court decision "treats the facts selectively." He continued: The appellate judges "find new facts and just ignore what we relied upon, which is completely contrary to what a reviewing court is supposed to do under the relevant law."

Despite the setback delivered by the federal appeals court ruling, 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.

Photo by Rebecca Cook

Detroit strikers and locked out workers rally at the Sterling Heights plant to commemorate the five year anniversary on July 13, 2000.