Journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette officially went on strike at noon today, with striking members demonstrating outside of the newspaper's North Side offices.
"We are going to be starting a strike publication," Alex McCann, secretary of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, tells Pittsburgh City Paper. "We are in the process of building that up. And so the journalism of the people who are out on strike will be available to members of the community very, very soon."
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been locked in a tense labor stand-off with the Post-Gazette and its parent company Block Communications for several years. The content creators joined more than 60 workers in the paper’s design, printing, distributing, and advertising departments who first walked off Oct. 6 in response to lapsed health care coverage.
McCann adds that "while in the short term, it may seem as the strike is depriving people of our work, the reason that we're out here is to ensure that we secure, in the long term, the ability to provide news coverage to Pittsburgh."
PHOTOS: Post-Gazette journalists strike; promise to publish "strike publication"
