(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Big Labor Law violators among corporate honchos should face “strong fines and potential jail terms” for their law-breaking, says NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Jon Schleuss, who wants the Block Brothers of Pittsburgh to feel that lash.

“We’ve got CEOs paying millions of dollars to attorneys to violate the law,” Schleuss said of the Union Busters whom the likes of the Blocks, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Howard Schultz of Starbucks and the Walton clan of Wal-Mart routinely hire.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) calculates such Union Busters reaped $433 million in 2022, the last year for which figures are available.

Schleuss singled out the Block Brothers, owners of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as an example.

The Guild’s Pittsburgh Local and several other Unions have been on Strike against The Post-Gazette for two years and counting.

And last year, The Guild set its modern record for Strikes.

Most were one-day walkouts, from large chains of exploitative papers.

Pittsburgh isn’t.

The Blocks unilaterally imposed a more expensive and skimpier health plan on the paper’s Unionists, after no raises for at least five years, and offered raises so small the higher premiums would eat them all up.

That was the Blocks take-it-or-leave-it offer.

The Workers overwhelmingly rejected it and struck.

The Blocks are defying National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) bargaining orders, with the Board having ruled against the two.

It now seeks to wield its strongest tool, a Federal Court 10(j) injunction, citing irreparable harm to the Workers and ordering the Blocks to both immediately take them back, restore the old health plan and make them financially whole - including expenses workers incurred while being out.

Otherwise, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo demands the Blocks face the courtroom music.

“At the Post-Gazette, the actual cost” of settling with the Guild and the other Unions, “is minuscule compared to what they’re spending” to fight the Guild and its allies, said Schleuss.

It’s also minuscule compared to dragging out bargaining at their other paper, The Toledo Blade, for 17 years.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: News Guild’s Schleuss: Give big labor law breakers fines and jail terms – People's World (peoplesworld.org)