By Susan Zachem

Detroit 13N got some good news on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the strike/lockout at the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and their joint operating agency, Detroit Newspapers.

Local 13N Pres. Jack Howe reported that DN recalled 20 more GCIU members to the pressroom. Although the recalls were for part-time shifts, he said, "it is significant because it's the first time they've recognized our apprentices" since the six Detroit local newspaper unions made the unconditional return-to-work offer in February 1997 – the beginning of the lockout phase.

Howe said that the only GCIU members not back in the pressroom out of more than 200 pressmen who went on strike July 13, 1995, are members who were fired for activities allegedly related to the strike/lockout and those who didn't want part-time work.

All of the Local 13N paperhandlers have been recalled to work by DN and all but about eight Local 13N platemakers have returned to work, Howe said.

"The company won't bring back most of the people full-time, and we continue to push to hire more people full-time," Howe said. "But we're making slow progress. The next thing is to get contracts."

Howe said his members are holding up well considering the long contract dispute. "The hardest thing for our people right now from what I see is that working with replacement workers is probably as stressful as being out on the picket line without work. It's really difficult for them."

The locals involved in the contract dispute – GCIU locals 13N and Detroit-Toledo-Lansing 289M, Teamsters locals 372 and 2040, and Communications Workers locals 14503 (Typographical Union Local 18) and 34022 (Newspaper Guild Local 22) – marked the fourth anniversary with a week of events that let the Detroit community know the lockout isn't over.

The Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions' "Alliance" reported that the benefit for locked-out workers featuring local bands brought some 400 people to Crowley Park in Dearborn on July 10. The benefit was organized by Pat Hamel, a locked-out member of Local 372, and the Workers Justice Committee, a group of locked-out activists and their supporters.

According to the Detroit Sunday Journal, the publication produced for nearly four years by the locked-out newspaper workers, the Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS) held their second annual Drive for Justice on July 11. Locked-out workers and supporters drove cars decorated for the occasion through neighborhoods where a notorious DN spokesperson – Susie Ellwood – and Free Press columnists live. After the drive-by picketing, the group adjourned to the Electrical Workers' hall for festivities.

On the anniversary date, July 13, newspaper workers set up picket lines in front of the downtown Detroit News-Free Press building at lunchtime and at DN's North Plant in Sterling Heights during afternoon rush hour.

Also on July 13, some 250 participants held a nationwide "fax-in" to 130 newspapers and radio and television stations owned by Gannett and Knight Ridder, DSJ reported. Dennis Nazelli of Local 372 and the Workers Justice Committee organized the event, which sent the message: "Gannett and Knight Ridder: Stop attacking your workers. Obey the law. Bring back the locked-out Detroit newspaper workers."

On July 15, some 400 people turned out in front of the News building downtown for an Hawaiian Beach Luau rally organized by Nazelli and the Workers Justice Committee.

Wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis, the crowd cheered the unveiling of a 16-by-8 foot sign atop State, County and Municipal Employees Council 25's headquarters that faces the Detroit News-Free Press building. The message to the companies that repeatedly have been found guilty of bad faith bargaining and other labor law violations was "Detroit News & Free Press: Obey the Law! Settle with the Unions."

Rally speakers included Teamsters Pres. James Hoffa, Metro Detroit AFL-CIO Pres. Ed Scribner, and Auto Workers Vice Pres. Bob King. Among those sending messages were Detroit City Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey and U.S. Reps. John Conyers (D) and David Bonior (D).

Hoffa said that Gannett and Knight Ridder badly underestimated the workers they forced out in the unfair labor practices strike four years ago. "They never thought we had the guts and the integrity, but you have proved them wrong," he said.

In response to those who ask him what the problem is in settling the contract dispute, Hoffa pointed to the News-Free Press building. "There's the problem," he said. "It's corporate greed. That's what our enemy is, and that's what our fight is."

In a statement, the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions underscored the senseless corporate policies of Gannett and Knight Ridder that forced 2,000 workers onto picket lines and resulted in the advertising and subscription boycotts against the papers.

" [T]he newspapers' circulation figures continue to be eroded by one-third at a time when newspaper readership has stabilized across the country," the council said. "Depressed circulation figures at the Detroit dailies and the explosion of circulation of the suburban dailies and weeklies can mean only one thing. Although Metro Detroit readers may not understand all the complex labor issues involved, they understand when there is a continued injustice taking place – and therefore continue to boycott the Detroit dailies."

The Alliance reported that, after the July 15 rally, the Rev. Ed Rowe and other members of the Religious Coalition for Justice at the Detroit Newspapers held a meeting to develop plans for a new radio, television, and print campaign to support the locked-out workers.

Meanwhile, hearings continued on National Labor Relations Board charges related to workers allegedly fired for strike and lockout-related activities.

Some talks also are continuing, although the parties are under strict news blackout orders from the federal mediator who is assisting with those negotiations.

Newspaper Guild Local 22 member Susan Watson was a popular columnist before she was locked out of the Detroit Free Press. Now, she is still winning readers with her columns in the Detroit Sunday Journal.

Week after week during the four-year contract dispute, Watson consistently gets at the heart and soul of what the dispute means to the city and its citizens and to the 2,000 newspaper workers who were forced by unfair labor practices to strike on July 13, 1995.

In her column in the July 11 issue of the DSJ, Watson talks about what breeds the strength and solidarity that has made the Detroit dispute an inspiration to the entire labor movement.

In the beginning of the strike, Watson said, there was the "rush of victory" at events. This emotion she labels "happiness."

But the "ineffable force that keeps us going," which she calls "joy," is more long-lived. "It is the unstoppable force for good."

Here are some of Watson's thoughts on happiness and joy:

"Happiness is having hundreds or thousands of strikers and supporters spill onto the streets for a rally; joy is knowing that if only person showed up, the cause would be just as worthy.

" Happiness is having a perfect stranger tell you that he hasn't taken the daily papers since the strike began; joy is knowing that our struggle resounds in the hearts and spirit of all humankind.

" Happiness is watching the Sunday Journal defy the odds and continue year after year; joy is watching a Teamster circulation manager turn into a gifted photographer, an advertising layout person become a design goddess, and a pressman become a moving public speaker.

" Happiness is mastering some unexpected challenge, learning a new skill, finding a hidden talent; joy is accepting the fact that God can dream greater dreams for you than you can even imagine.

" Happiness is visualizing the moment the unions are declared victorious; joy is knowing that no matter what happens in this struggle, we have already won."

It isn't over yet. The contract dispute with Gannett's Detroit News, Knight Ridder's Free Press, and Detroit Newspapers, their joint operating agency, just hit the four-year mark.

Part-time jobs don't pay full-time bills and GCIU locals 13N and 289M and their members continue to need help. Plus, legal defense fees continue to mount as the companies use their deep pockets to delay justice in the courts.

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