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Newspaper Guild's International President Joins Strike Rally
YOUNGSTOWN -- The labor battle that must be won is the battle in Youngstown, vowed the international president of The Newspaper Guild -- Communication Workers of America."This struggle is front and center right now," said Linda Foley, referring to the strike at The Vindicator, now in its fourth month. Foley was in Youngstown Saturday to attend a rally strikers held in front of the Vindicator production building.Foley said she came to deliver two messages, one to Vindicator general manager Mark Brown and his mother, publisher Betty Brown Jagnow, and one to striking workers. Her message to the company: "Don't dictate. Negotiate. The only way to solve this is to come to the table and negotiate. Get to the table and bargain in good faith," she said.Foley's message to striking reporters, photographers, page designers, graphic artists, classified advertising salespeople and circulation workers: "Stay together. Stay strong. We will prevail. We will get a fair deal."The strike at The Vindicator is unusual, Foley related, because the company is refusing to talk. "Where employers talk, they get contracts. I would think that they would want to talk here too because they'd want to get back [employees back on the job] as soon as possible."Jim Graham, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents workers at General Motors Lordstown Assembly plant, also had a message at the rally for Brown: "Don't send me anymore letters!"Graham was referring to a letter dated March 1 that was sent to striking workers and leaders of other unions who have supported them during the strike. The letter claims that the newspaper guild "is continuing its campaign of misinformation" and accuses the guild's negotiating committee of "failing to communicate" the facts of the company's offer to striking workers.The Vindicator printed its most recent letter to striking workers in Sunday's edition of the newspaper, and prefaced it by stating the guild has not tried to schedule a bargaining session since the last one, Jan. 18. That assertion "is absolutely untrue," said Anthony S. Markota, president of Local 11 of the guild.Brown repeatedly has told reporters that the guild voted to reject its "best and final" contract offer and, given his newspaper's last seven years of financial losses, there is nothing more to negotiate.At Saturday's rally, Graham blasted Vindicator management for continuing to send letters while refusing to sit down and talk. An earlier letter sent by the newspaper to its striking employees explained how to resign from the union and cross the picket line. Since the strike began Nov. 16, 15 of 171 workers have crossed the picket line. Their names were read aloud at the rally, which Graham noted in his remarks, vowing that no one at his union will talk to reporters working for The Vindicator."When you turn your back on your brothers and sisters, you don't deserve to be part of a union," he said, pledging continuing support for striking Vindicator employees from union workers at GM's Lordstown complex.Jim Kastner, president of UAW Local 1714, which represents workers at GM's Lordstown Metal Center, echoed Graham's sentiments, telling strikers that his union supports them and The Valley Voice, the weekly newspaper published by the striking Vindicator workers. "We want your paper in our lobby," he said, asking for coin boxes to be installed so GM employees could buy the paper at work.Another local labor leader, Nick Nichols, retired president of the International Electical Workers Union--Communication Workers of America, told strikers he too received the letter hand delivered to him byMark Brown, who saw Nichols visiting with striking workers on the picket line."Letters don't negotiate," Nichols stated. "You must sit down at the table."Nichols also chastised Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey. The strike at The Vindicator, one of the city's major employers, has gone on too long, he said, and the mayor should be doing whatever he can to help bring it to an end. "If George Bush was here, he would have broken his neck to get here."Noticeably absent at the rally, the UAW's Graham pointed out, were the dozen or so guards dressed in black combat boots and paramilitary garb that The Vindicator has had on its payroll since the strike began. At the last rally, the guards lined up across the entrance to The Vindicator production building in an apparent show of force. During Saturday's rally, the gate across the entrance was closed."