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pittsburgh
'AI Will Not Scab Us': Post-Gazette Newsroom Decries Use of Artificial Intelligence
"As newsroom jobs continue to disappear due to corporate greed and mismanagement, we stand firmly against any use of AI that takes work out of union members' hands," said one labor leader.
Jan 23, 2024
Amid a nearly 16-month strike by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette employees, the union representing workers at Pennsylvania's top newspaper by circulation on Monday filed an official grievance condemning the use of artificial intelligence to create an illustration published in the previous day's edition.
"The Post-Gazette's attempt to replace our labor with artificial intelligence is a serious concern to journalists not just in Pittsburgh, but all across the country," Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president Zack Tanner said in a statement Tuesday. "As newsroom jobs continue to disappear due to corporate greed and mismanagement, we stand firmly against any use of AI that takes work out of union members' hands."
Post-Gazette production, distribution, and advertising workers have been on strike since October 2022, primarily over the loss of their healthcare plan. According to union officials, Block Communications, the paper's owner, refused to pay an additional $19 per week for each employee to keep workers' existing coverage.
The paper's workers have been without a contract since March 2017, when the previous collective bargaining agreement expired without a replacement.
Newspaper Guild workers are demanding:
- An end to the impasse in contract negotiations;
- Undoing the unilaterally imposed working conditions and reinstatement of terms of the expired 2014-17 newsroom contract;
- A return to the bargaining table to reach a fair deal with the journalists represented by the Newspaper Guild; and
- Meeting the healthcare demands of striking sister unions.
Block Communications has hired more than two dozen strike-breaking workers to ensure continued Post-Gazette publication during the prolonged union action. However, this is apparently the first time management has passed over human workers in favor of AI.
"AI will not scab us," the Newspaper Guild defiantly declared, using the colloquial labor term usually reserved for human beings who cross picket lines.
Common Dreamsreported last year how the AI and fake content industries pose an increasing threat to journalists' livelihoods around the world.
"As the [Post-Gazette] resists working with us to put an end to this strike, they continue to sink to new lows in an effort to crank out whatever product they can cobble together," Jen Kundrach, a striking illustrator at the paper, said Tuesday. "That they've resorted to the use of inferior, AI-generated images rather than custom art by a staff illustrator shows how little they must value the talent of their guild staff. They'd rather squander that talent and put out a subpar newspaper than come to the table and reach a fair agreement with us."
Post-Gazette workers are buoyed by a January 2023 National Labor Relations Board ruling that found management did not negotiate in good faith, imposed illegal working conditions, and unlawfully surveilled unionizing workers. Block Communications legal representatives appealed the decision. Strikers and their supporters are slated to attend a Saturday strategy session at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers Union Hall at 10 19th Street in the South Side Flats.
Tanner asserted that if management thinks "that this fight is over, they are dead wrong."
"Workers on strike won't stop fighting, because Pittsburgh deserves a newspaper created by union labor, not artificial intelligence or scab workers," he added.
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Cardiovascular ER Visits Plunged After Pittsburgh Coal Plant Shut, Study Finds
"Our analysis adds to the growing body of scientific evidence that policies implemented to regulate and reduce fossil fuel-related air pollution have real public health benefit," said a study co-author.
Aug 04, 2023
Emergency room visits by people suffering heart attacks and strokes significantly decreased almost immediately after one of the largest coal-processing plants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shut down in 2016, a study published this week revealed.
The study—published in the journal Environmental Research: Health—found "immediate and/or longer-term cumulative local cardiovascular health benefits" after the January 2016 closure of the Shenango Coke Works on Pittsburgh's Neville Island following millions of dollars in government fines for polluting the air and water over its 54 years of operation.
Researchers Wuyue Yu and George Thurston observed a 90% drop in sulfur pollution, "as well as significant reductions in coal-related fine particulate matter constituents (sulfate and arsenic) after the closure," resulting in "a 42% immediate drop... in cardiovascular emergency department visits from the pre-closure mean."
The study found an even greater long-term reduction in cardiovascular ER visits, which plummeted by 61% in the three years after the plant's closure.
"The immediate and long-term benefits from dramatic reductions in exposure to air pollution are also analogous to the steady reductions in illness and disease that have been observed over time following smoking cessation," Thurston, a professor at the Departments of Medicine and Population Health at NYU Langone, said in a statement.
"Our analysis adds to the growing body of scientific evidence that policies implemented to regulate and reduce fossil fuel-related air pollution have real public health benefit," Thurston added.
Each year, air pollution kills more people worldwide than wars, tobacco, and various diseases combined—around 8.7 million deaths annually, according to one study, or nearly 1 in 5 of all global fatalities.
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'Huge Victory for Workers': Judge Excoriates Starbucks for Union-Busting in Pittsburgh
"Time is ticking, Starbucks and the longer you continue your anti-union crusade," said Starbucks Workers United, "the more the public will learn about your truly heinous actions against workers."
Jul 04, 2023
In what union members called a "huge victory for workers," an administrative judge with the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that coffee giant Starbucks violated federal labor law by terminating organized workers in several Pittsburgh locations, accusing the company of orchestrating a "purge" of employees leading the unionization effort.
The ruling by Judge Robert A. Ringler found that the company and local store managers in Pittsburgh abused their power and unlawfully targeted workers organizing with Pittsburgh Starbucks Workers United. As part of the decision, Ringler ordered the company to reinstate four fired workers and compensate any employees who lost income due to the illegal labor practices.
Noting how the specific union members were consistently treated differently than other non-union employees and ultimately fired, Ringler said in his ruling that a "repeated pattern of unlawful activity abundantly demonstrates a casual relationship between their firings and union activities."
Three of the fired workers were part of the union's 5-member bargaining unit, a fact that Ringler suggested was not a coincidence. "Starbucks fired 3 of the 5 members of the Union's effects bargaining team," he said in the ruling. "This appears to be less than coincidental. Or put another way, a whopping 60% firing rate for the effects bargaining team seems more like a purge than an evenhanded practice."
Tori Tambellini, one of the workers fired by Starbucks, applauded the judge's ruling. "I absolutely cannot wait to be back on the shop floor with my coworkers, fighting for the contract we deserve," Tambellini said Monday.
Starbucks Workers United, the national union behind the push to organize the stores, said the 50-page ruling by Judge Robert A. Ringler "exposes the ludicrous and simply implausible excuses Starbucks has used to justify their union-busting actions. It also shows just how far the company is willing to go to stop workers from organizing, and just how scared of their own workers this company is."
According toMashed:
Starbucks' Pittsburgh union alleged that the Starbucks corporation and shift supervisors abused their power and interrogated, threatened, and unjustly terminated members of the union. Supervisors allegedly stated that union members would lose their benefits, be barred from transferring stores, and would be deprived of shift assistance during rush hours. The supervisors also engaged in unlawful surveillance to determine which employees were working with the union.
As workers at Starbucks stores nationwide have racked up organizing victories, the company has been hit numerous times with NLRB rulings that found unlawful labor practices.
"Not even a multi-billion dollar corporation like Starbucks is above the law," Starbucks Workers United tweeted Monday night. "Workers are fighting back against Starbucks' illegal union-busting campaign and are WINNING. This ruling is just one step in our campaign to hold Starbucks accountable."
"Time is ticking, Starbucks and the longer you continue your anti-union crusade," the union added, "the more the public will learn about your truly heinous actions against workers. It's not too late to stop this now, do the right thing, and come to the bargaining table in good faith."
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