Like us, the 2,000 US workers are faced with an almost total media boycott.
The US strikers' paper now has a circulation of several hundred thousand in the Detroit area. This should stir us to build up our circulation!
The strike started last July and involves six different up unions at two major Detroit newspapers, the 'Free Press' and 'Journal' owned by two huge national media corporations (Knight-Ridder and Gannet) who are organised in a Joint Operation Agreement and combine to produce a Sunday edition.
After concessions given up during the last contract in 1989, one striker said his pay had been cut by $10,000 a year.
Now the employers want more casualisation, merit pay and cuts in health care.
Union-busting is the main prio aim of these newspaper giants. Reminiscent of the Pinkerton thugs in the early days of the US labour movement, the newspaper bosses have contacted Vance security to bring in 2.000 goons to police the strike.
Last year there were mass rallies and pickets involving thousands of Detroit workers.
Sunday papers had to be airlifted out by helicopter. High-speed trucks narrowly missed strikers at the gates.
Police attacked and beat up dozens of workers, fired tear-gas and arrested many others. Workers retaliated with rocks and bottles.
The newspapers went to court for an injunction limiting the number of pickets which immediately ended the rallies.
A union boycott of the scab papers means circulation has plummeted by tens of thousands and major advertisers have pulled out. But the multi-billion owners are prepared to go to any lengths to break the unions.
The national union AFL-CIO claims the Detroit strike is priority and have provided organisers and start-up money for the strikers' newspaper.
