Unions Mount Boycott over Toledo Blade Lockout

Newspaper workers represented by CWA and five other unions at the Toledo Blade are winning support from major advertisers, subscribers and politicians as they battle a union-busting publisher that so far has locked out more than 200 production and circulation workers, including 16 typographers represented by Printing Sector Local 63.

The 350 editorial employees represented by the Toledo Newspaper Guild-CWA remain on the job, but they are expecting to be locked out any day as newspaper management attempts to impose demands to abolish all job security and union security protections in the union contracts.

"This isn't about money, it's about breaking our unions," said Larry Vellequette, Guild mobilization coordinator and spokesman for the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions. "We've already offered millions of dollars in wage and health benefit concessions to help make the newspaper profitable again. But the Blade wants to take away our rights and be able to outsource every job whenever it wants."

The Blade brought in a notoriously anti-union law firm from out of state to handle negotiations and prepared for the lockout last weekend by importing replacement workers and putting them up in area motels.

Already, 65 advertisers have pledged to withhold advertising, and support has grown this week both from advertisers and readers who have dropped subscriptions in response to a new CWA radio and billboard campaign. The workers also got a major boost from the county commissioners who announced that they would stop running paid legal notices in the Blade.

The unions' campaign website is www.stoptheblade.com.