High Court sides with Detroit strikers

[cal04]

The Supreme Court sided Monday with Detroit newspaper unions and employees who were fired for their actions during an 18-month strike in the mid-1990s.

Justices declined to hear the newspapers' appeal of a National Labor Relations Board ruling ordering the partnership that prints, distributes and sells advertising for the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press to reinstate fired employees.

The workers lost their job after the newspapers said they blocked entrances at a distribution facility and the Detroit News Building in violation of court orders during the strike that ran from July 1995 to February 1997.

The labor relations board determined that the employees had not engaged in misconduct, but were instead exercising their right to strike. It ordered the employees reinstated with backpay.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_newspaper_strikers_1

[Nickster]

1. That's great news. Some freedoms still apply. n/t

[Bozita]

2. "reinstated with backpay" ... I'm surprised

How many lives have been ruined in the interim?

[Gman]

3. I walked that picket line and blocked that entrance

along with another couple of thousand union brothers and sisters that rallied at the Detroit Free Press one day. Also haven't read or bought a copy of USA Today since.

[PassingFair]

4. I didn't work for the News or Free Press, but I WELL remember

the strike, as I worked in advertising in the Detroit area
during the strike, and I still live in Michigan. I STILL do
not subscribe either, though I had been a life-long paper-reader,
as my parents had been (we got them BOTH). USA Today makes me
:puke:

The newspapers handled themselves SO BADLY!

There are STILL a few NO SCAB NEWSPAPER signs around in my
neighborhood.

It remains to be seen whether the workers will see any of the
money that is owed to them, or what remains or their "jobs"
after all these years.

Should be interesting!

[Gman]

5. I should be surprised, but I'm not how so many here at DU

have no problem reading USA Today because they are clueless about that great strike.

[Bozita]

6. I remember the strikers' "Detroit Journal" and their website

The photo at the website of a female reporter carrying a picket sign while a goon stood in the background stays with me.

The Channel 7 video of that drunken Sterling Heights Police captain soured me on cops for life.

I've been a subscriber of the NYT since about 6 months into the strike.

Hoping you get your backpay.

[Gman]

7. I didn't work there

I was at a union convention for another union. I think I remember that picture.

[PassingFair]

11. Only 3 or 4 people are winners in this...

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061003/BUSINESS06/610030414/1019

snip>
Monday for a handful of Teamsters union members who were fired during the strike against Detroit Newspapers that began in 1995 to return to their jobs with back pay and benefits.

Fewer than five individuals were affected by the decision.



...funny how obscure they're being about HOW MANY are affected though...

Doesn't it "strike" you as strange that the exact number of strikers
is not given?

[Bozita]

10. Does anyone have access to that photo?

If I were ever to write a book, that'd be on the cover.

[Vidar]

8. The Supremes get something right for a change.

[gulfcoastliberal]

9. Proliferation of Unions is te only thing that can save what we know as

"America". Otherwise it's only a matter of time before something like 1776 happens again...

Remember we owe a blood debt to the union brothers and sisters who paid with their lives for our 40-hour work weks, the end of child workers, ad nauseum. If not for their efforts we'd be living in copany towns, making company scrip in eternal bondage, working in perilous jobs that'd fire you if you got injured. Unions are absolutely essential to the American economy. Too bad so many congressional dems disagree - by their actions, not their cheap talk.

[Omaha Steve]

12. Backpay MINUS what they have earned on ANY jobs since they were fired

I've been there too. I know. Great news though.