39 Protesting Truckers Arrested as 2 Pittsburgh Papers Return

Striking drivers on Monday linked arms and blocked trucks trying to deliver the first editions of the city’s two daily newspapers published since May. Police arrested 39 protesters.

Delivery trucks were unable to leave the Pittsburgh Press Co. building, but an undisclosed number of copies of the morning Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the afternoon Pittsburgh Press were delivered from other sites, a spokesman for the company said.

Some demonstrators hurled chunks of asphalt and bricks at a truck as it tried to leave the Press Co. parking lot early in the day. Others spat on a man who entered the parking lot, and many pickets shouted at workers in the newspaper building.

At midday, about 500 demonstrators linked arms in front of the parking lot, chanting “Scabs go home!” and “Unions, yes!”

The Pittsburgh Press Co. on Monday asked an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court judge to set a limit on the pickets outside the building. The union was to present its case today.

Neither paper had published since May 17, when drivers belonging to Local 211 of the Teamsters Union went on strike over a company plan to streamline delivery and eliminate 450 of 605 jobs and all 4,500 youth carriers. The company said Monday that it had modified its plan, proposing instead to eliminate 275 jobs and all youth carriers.

The Pittsburgh Press Co., which publishes the Press and prints and distributes the Post-Gazette, said earlier this month that it would resume publication with non-union drivers brought in from Massachusetts.

Late Sunday, a federal mediator proposed a one-week delay in resuming publication. Spokesman Randall Notter said the company rejected the proposal because the Teamsters were unwilling to make concessions.