[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H3890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, from grocery stores in Kansas City to 
casinos in Las Vegas, from the strawberry fields in California to the 
K-Mart stores in North Carolina, to the poultry workers who are working 
across the South, working people across this country are speaking out 
for justice, and unions are their voices.
  There is something special that is happening in the country that a 
lot of the media is missing. Working people's wages and benefits have 
been eroding now since 1979. Eighty percent of the American people have 
only gotten 2 percent of the income increases since 1979, and they are 
finding out that what made the middle class and what made people strong 
in this country during the 1940's and the 1950's was joining together 
and banding together so they could get a decent reward and wage for 
their work.
  This weekend, we will again hear those strong voices loud and clear 
from Detroit. At least 50,000 workers, their families, and supporters 
are expected to participate in Action Motown '97, which is a 
mobilization solidarity for the Detroit community, locked out newspaper 
workers, and union members.
  I am going to be there, and we will be speaking out to workers, to 
the labor movement in our community and against the management of the 
Detroit News and Free Press. The News and Free Press have locked out 
nearly 2,000 hard-working men and women since February of this year, 
and these workers sought to resolve a 2-year labor dispute by 
unconditionally offering to return to work.
  How were they treated when they tried to jump-start contract talks 
and tried to return to work? They were locked out, replaced and told to 
go home.

                              {time}  1300

  It is clear to me that the News and the Free Press are willing to 
lose millions of dollars in an attempt to break the unions. How clear 
is it? Their combined circulation is down 286,000 readers. Despite huge 
ad rate discounts, 1,500 advertisers have stayed away from the papers, 
causing a 24-percent dip in advertising revenue.
  Yet the most startling fact is not statistics but a quote made 1 
month after the newspaper workers took a stand for justice by Detroit 
News editor and publisher Robert Giles. He said, ``We're going to hire 
a whole new work force and go on without unions, or they can surrender 
unconditionally and salvage what they can.''
  Does that sound like someone who is willing to bargain in good faith? 
Despite a 1994 Free Press editorial, which stated, ``The U.S. Senate 
should approve a bill that would prohibit companies from hiring 
permanent replacements for striking workers. The right to strike is 
essential if workers are to gain and preserve wages.''
  That was the Free Press in 1994. It seems clear that the hiring of 
permanent nonunion replacement workers has been a newspaper goal all 
along, because the Free Press does not practice what it preaches. The 
Free Press and its editor Joe Stroud reneged on their editorial and 
took a gutless way out, turning their backs on these workers. This is 
what they said in an editorial that was written in an about-face in 
1995, and I quote. They said, ``We intend to exercise our legal right 
to hire replacement workers.''
  I think Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit best put it when he said, 
``The hiring of permanent replacement workers is not an acceptable 
solution. If striking workers are threatened with being permanently 
replaced, this practice seems to undermine the legitimate purpose of 
the union and to destroy the possibility of collective bargaining.''
  The News and the Free Press are owned by two of the biggest 
conglomerates in the world, Gannett and Knight-Ridder, who have deep 
pockets and are willing to lose millions of dollars to set an example 
in Detroit. They are trying to break the backs of unions and deprive 
2,000 workers of their jobs and their families of sustenance. Their 
actions are unfair, they are unjust, they are illegal, and we will be 
marching as we marched in Decatur for workers in that city, as we 
marched for strawberry workers in California. We will be in Detroit 
because many of our parents and grandparents fought too hard and too 
long for the gains that unions have made, for the 40-hour workweek, for 
pensions, for health care benefits, you name it.
  I could go on for 10 minutes here with all the things that unions 
have brought America, not just people who belong to unions. Those 
benefits benefited everybody in our society. Now they are being taken 
away one by one, piece by piece by conglomerates and multinationals 
like Knight-Ridder and Gannett. We are going to be there, I encourage 
everyone to be there, I encourage everyone to join Action! Motown '97 
this weekend.

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