Newspaper Workers continue Protest

Continuing their two-year vigil, locked-out Detroit newspaper workers brought their protests in May to the Washington, D.C. area home of Gannett Company CEO John Curley. Gannett owns The Detroit News. Many community and religious leaders have supported the workers. The Detroit Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church began a boycott of the Detroit newspapers in 1996. During its annual meeting in May, the conference instituted an economic boycott against USA Today, Gannett’s flagship newspaper, “to protest the lack of progress in settling the dispute and to press for early resolution.” The conference called upon the entire denomination to join the protest. The denomination will decide on the resolution in spring 2000. The Detroit newspaper strike began in 1995; all workers offered to return to work two years later, but many of their jobs had already been filled. Currently 1,400 workers remain locked out of their jobs at the News and the Detroit Free Press, which is owned by Knight-Ridder. “We’re exploring new strategies and committing new resources to achieve justice....We’re not going away,” said Teamsters president James P. Hoffa.