Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 13:11:15 -0400
From: "Charles Brown" <charlesb-AT-CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Subject: M-TH: Fwd: I'vw w/ Detroit newspaper striker Barb Ingalls


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From: Jim Davis <jdav-AT-MCS.COM>
Subject:      I'vw w/ Detroit newspaper striker Barb Ingalls
To: LABOR-L-AT-YORKU.CA

INTERVIEW WITH DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKER BARB INGALLS

[Editor's note: On July 13, 1995, some 2,500 employees of the
Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press went on strike against
owners Gannett and Knight-Ridder, who had been trying for some
time to bust the unions at the two papers. Thirty-three months
later, the strike continues.

The Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS) sponsored
a speaking tour so that the strikers could educate the public,
gain support across the West Coast and promote a nationwide
boycott of USA Today. After they were locked out, some of the
strikers started the Sunday Journal, a Detroit weekly striker-run
newspaper funded entirely by advertising.

At the forefront of the struggle is Barb Ingalls, a 41-year-old
graphic designer who had been working at the Detroit newspapers
for one year and one week when the strikers were locked out in
1995. Barb is a member of Detroit Typographical Union Local 18 as
well as a member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Today her strike job is classified as director for the Sunday
Journal with, as she puts it, "a minor in mischief and mayhem."
Barb is incredibly outspoken, articulate, and passionate about the
strikers' cause.

The following is an excerpt of an interview Barb Ingalls granted
while she was on a speaking tour in Oregon. The interviewer is
Amanda Levinson.]



PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: What kind of press, if any, are the strikers
getting in Detroit and nationally? Are you finding that the
community is supportive?

BARB INGALLS: One of our people went to the Media and Democracy
Forum last fall in New York City and met with a couple of people
from the New York Times, and they just said, "It's old, it's
boring news, and we're not going to write about you." Public radio
is really a bad joke. In fact, in the local NPR [National Public
Radio] station, one of their people is a really important scab who
crossed our picket line.

We had 100,000 people for a labor march, one of the largest labor
marches in the United States last June, and the local station said
it was 7,000 people. We have to rely on going door to door. When
people find out that we're still [on strike], they're incredulous,
they're supportive.

We've had people call when we're right there and cancel their
subscriptions [to the Free Press and the News]. But we're working
in the dark. We have radio ads that none of the stations will
play. They won't buy them, they say that they're too
controversial. We have newspaper ads which only one newspaper
would buy. We're under a total media blackout.

I am representing a group called ACOSS, which is Action Coalition
of Strikers and Supporters, and what's happened is that we got
really tired of waiting for the courts, and we got tired of
waiting for them to grow hearts -- it's not going to happen. So a
group of really wonderful people around the country have networked
and brainstormed and put these tours together. Word of mouth is
what has kept us alive, and my joke is that if I have to talk to
everybody in America one by one, I'll do it.


PT: What do you see in the future of the strike and what are the
things you need to really win?

BI: I believe really strongly that this strike isn't just about
Detroit. It's a national issue about union busting. So what we
need to do is to stay on the road. We need crews of people out on
the road in Arlington, Virginia, where Gannett's headquarters are,
and we need to have people there working the streets and getting
publicity and raising hell and having demonstrations and making it
embarrassing. We need to be able to continue the ad boycott and
costing them money. We're trying to spark a nationwide boycott of
USA Today. USA Today is Gannett's No. 1 money maker. We're also
trying to raise money across the country.

What's important right now is that the people on strike and a lot
of the community supporters have decided that we can't go on like
this, waiting and waiting for the courts to work. When they write
the history of the strike, and the victory of it, it's going to be
because people wouldn't put up with it anymore and came up with
these ways to deal with it and ended it. It's going to end up
being the workers' strike and the workers' victory.

To support the strike, you can send money to: Detroit Newspaper
Striker Relief Fund, 450 W. Fort Street, Detroit, Michigan 48226.

You're also encouraged to visit the Sunday Journal website at
http://www.rust.net/~workers/strike.html

For more information on ACOSS, write: Action Coalition of Strikers
and Supporters, 5750 Fifteen Mile Road Box 242, Sterling Heights,
Michigan 48310-5777 or visit the website at
http://members.aol.com/actmotown/index.html


******************************************************************
This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition),
Vol. 25 No. 5 / May, 1998; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL
60654, pt-AT-noc.org or WWW:

             http://www.mcs.com/~league

For free electronic subscription, email pt-dist-AT-noc.org
with "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Feel free to reproduce; please include this message with
reproductions of this article.
******************************************************************



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