Laid-Off Employees Get Reprieve at Detroit Papers

Gannett Co.’s Detroit News and Knight-Ridder Inc.’s Free Press on Thursday delayed a planned price hike and recalled scores of laid-off workers after a Washington judge temporarily blocked the papers’ joint operating agreement.

The newspapers had said their prices would go up today by 5 cents a copy and that they had sent layoff notices to about 500 workers because of the merger--which would have combined the two papers’ circulation and advertising operations, effective Thursday.

Outgoing Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III approved the joint operation Aug. 8, saying the Free Press would fail otherwise. Knight-Ridder threatened to close the Free Press--which is losing $35,000 a day--if the deal was not approved.

But late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green granted a 30-day restraining order against the joint operation, saying that Meese’s approval may have been “arbitrary and capricious.”

Although there had been indications that Knight-Ridder would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals, company Vice President Frank Hawkins said no action was taken Thursday.

“We are studying the situation with some intensity, but we have nothing to say today,” Hawkins said.

Although the first papers published under the merger would have hit the doorsteps today, the two newspapers said they must now retain their separate business operations until a scheduled court hearing Sept. 8.