By Susan Zachem

Photo by Rebecca Cook, Detroit Sunday Journal

The 2,000 delegates to the United Auto Workers' collective bargaining convention join locked-out newspaper workers in a demonstration at the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press building.

Detroit-Toledo-Lansing 289M members ratified a tentative three-year agreement for photoengravers at Detroit Newspapers (DN), the joint operating agency of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

Local 289M Pres. Loraine McClure said, under federal mediation, the local settled some of the items that the local bargains separately from the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions. However, she noted, major economic issues still remain for joint bargaining by the council for the six local unions involved in the 45-month contract dispute.

Local 289M is the second local involved in the newspaper contract dispute to reach a tentative pact. Detroit Typographical Union 18/Communications Workers of America ratified a tentative 10-year pact in February.

GCIU Pres. James J. Norton said the international unions are looking for further progress with the other local unions involved in the dispute, including Detroit 13N, which represents pressmen, platemakers, and paperhandlers at DN. After the locals reach tentative agreements on separate issues, he said, they expect to return to bargaining at the council level on joint economic and other major issues.

Meanwhile, Norton noted, activists from the GCIU, CWA and Teamsters involved in the Workers Justice Committee "are continuing to solicit boycott support for the locked-out unions."

Local 13N Pres. Jack Howe said that, with the new Teamsters leaders' renewal of support for the Workers Justice Council, the group "is staying very active" with frequent demonstrations at the News and Free Press headquarters and at Redwings' hockey games, as well as other actions throughout the metropolitan area.

The activists also are preparing for the Gannett and Knight Ridder stockholders meetings in May, Howe said. Gannett, which owns the Detroit News, will hold its annual meeting on May 4 at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Stockholders in Knight Ridder, which owns the Detroit Free Press, will meet on May 12 in San Jose, where the company relocated its headquarters from Miami.

Similar to the typos' tentative agreement, Local 289M's tentative pact includes a buyout offer. McClure said the buyout would potentially impact the eight Local 289M members with lifetime job guarantees who were called back after the unions' unconditional offer to return to work in February 1997. She said another seven local members remain locked out of their jobs at DN.

In Detroit 13N, Howe reported, two more paperhandlers and one platemaker were called back to work. He said all the paperhandlers who wanted to return are now back at DN, and eight platemakers remain locked out. Some 96 pressmen have returned – the majority to part-time hours – with another 30 still locked out, he said.

GCIU Rep. John T. (Sonny) Shannon Jr., who assisted Local 289M in contract negotiations, said the buyout offer for the eight members includes $70,000 plus health insurance coverage until they are eligible for Medicare.

Other terms of Local 289M's tentative pact include restoration of grievance and arbitration procedures, 2 percent wage increases in the second and third years, and an open shop provision. Shannon said that the tentative pact includes a "me too" provision so the wage, open shop and other provisions may change if other locals better these provisions in their contracts or in the council's joint bargaining.

Shannon said Local 289M's contract means that "when we win the unfair labor practice case – and we will win – the members will get backpay, and we won't have to negotiate a contract. Then we'll have time to rebuild and get back into some kind of normalization."

McClure said Local 289M members are "hanging in there. They're still together and they're still solid."

In other news on the Detroit newspaper dispute, the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., ruled on an issue that was separated from the newspapers' appeal of the June 1997 unfair labor practices ruling by Administrative Law Judge Thomas Wilks. The board upheld most of Wilks' decision last August but held out on the issue of whether the newspaper companies acted illegally by unilaterally setting the terms and conditions of employment for replacement workers.

The regional NLRB director had asked the board to overturn existing law regarding replacement workers in an unfair labor practices strike. In a three-to-two decision, the board refused and reaffirmed that companies are not required to bargain with striking unions over replacement workers' pay and benefits, even in an unfair labor practices strike.

Siding with the two Republican-selected appointees – Peter J. Hurtgen and J. Robert Brame III – was the new NLRB Chairman John C. Truesdale. Democrat-selected appointees Sarah M. Fox and Wilma B. Liebman dissented on the replacement issue, as had former NLRB Chairman William B. Gould IV before his retirement last year.

The News, Free Press, and DN chose to prolong the legal proceedings against them by appealing the NLRB's unfair labor practices decisions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Meanwhile, the NLRB asked the same court to enforce its order for the newspaper companies to reinstate all locked-out workers and make them whole for lost wages and benefits.

Members of GCIU locals 13N and 289M 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.