The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor by Chris Rhomberg offers a timely analysis of one of the longest strikes in recent American labour history. In July 1995, six local trade unions representing 2500 employees went out on strike against the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press over 'unfair labor practices'. The strike was a response to an anti-union campaign that had been mounting since the alliance of the two Detroit newspapers under a joint operating agreement in 1989. The newspapers hired replacement workers and spent millions of dollars on surveillance and police reinforcements. But despite unprecedented strike-breaking efforts, the strike received widespread public support from national and local civic leaders, autoworkers and other unions and grassroots community activists. The newspaper itself was a terrain of struggle: the newspapers waged a media war against the strikers, while the strikers organized advertising and circulation boycotts and published their own strike newspaper. The Detroit newspaper strike descended into an all-out civic war of attrition. Eventually, the unions were forced to accept the terms of management and in 2000 the unions lost their 'unfair labor practices' case on appeal. This detailed and insightful account of the Detroit newspaper strike has important implications for the uncertain future of the labour movement and of grassroots community activism in the 21 st century.
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