A striking education reporter confronts his replacement

A local education reporter describes what it’s like being on strike for six months, having someone else covering the beat, and forging a new relationship with the local teachers union.

By Andrew Goldstein

She stood silently in  the corner of the school corridor, holding a notepad and cell phone.

I stood a few feet away, eyeing the green and white Pittsburgh Post-Gazette press pass hanging from a lanyard around her neck.

I had been anticipating a moment like this for months, waiting to give someone a piece of my mind. I inched closer, thinking about what I should say.

I was at Colfax K-8 school in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood that warm March day for the same reason she was – reporting on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s visit to the school to tout his proposed state budget, which would include tax breaks for teachers.

For the past three years, I had been the Post-Gazette’s K-12 education beat reporter. This is a story that I unquestionably would have covered for the Post-Gazette.

But not that day.

That day, I was reporting for the Pittsburgh Union Progress, the publication of striking Post-Gazette workers.

I had been on strike since October alongside many of my colleagues from the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, the union that represents newsroom employees at the Post-Gazette, as well as workers in four other unions.

And it incensed me that the Post-Gazette was hiring replacement workers rather than negotiating a deal.

I had seen some of the new hires at picket lines outside of the Post-Gazette newsroom, but this was the first time I had seen one at an assignment.

“Are you with the Post-Gazette?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “are you Andrew Goldstein?”

“I am,” I said, and then added “you know, you’re welcome to come out on strike with us.” She said that she understood. We stood around awkwardly for a few minutes until the governor arrived. I covered the press conference, but in the back of my mind, I knew I needed to say more.

When the press conference ended, the reporter quickly made for the exit. I caught up with her just before she got to the door.

“Hey,” I said. “One more thing.”

I had been anticipating a moment like this for months, waiting to give someone a piece of my mind.

I remember the day I signed my Newspaper Guild union card.

It was early March 2015, and I was pulled into a side office just off the Post-Gazette newsroom to write my name on a small manila-colored piece of paper. I didn’t really know what to think about it.

At that point, I had already interned at the Post-Gazette for six months, reporting, copy editing and doing a series of odd jobs that were more like chores that management gave me, taking advantage of my naivete.

But the Post-Gazette was the place I wanted to be. It was my hometown newspaper, the newspaper I read growing up as a student in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and admired while at Point Park University, a college just a few blocks away from the newsroom in downtown Pittsburgh.

It wouldn’t be long until I realized the value of working in a unionized newsroom. After signing that card, the extra chores I was given faded away, and I was able to focus on my reporting. I collected overtime pay for the long hours I worked, and I was protected during three rounds of buyouts.

I was working alongside incredible talent, and it felt like our newsroom could do anything — despite the conditions inside growing more austere and the staff continually shrinking.

In just a five month span of 2018, we covered a statewide grand jury report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the killing of 17-year-old Antwon Rose, an unarmed Black teenager who was shot three times in the back by a white suburban police officer, and the massacre at Tree of Life synagogue, for which we were awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting.

In the background of all of this great work, though, was the growing labor strife at the Post-Gazette. By the time we won the Pulitzer, the Block family, which owns the Post-Gazette, was years into a union-busting campaign.

I was working alongside incredible talent, and it felt like our newsroom could do anything.

When I became the newspaper’s K-12 beat reporter in late 2019, it was only natural that one of my regular sources of stories were teachers unions. That became crucial when, just three months into my time on the beat, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, drastically changing schools and so much else basically overnight.

I wrote countless stories about the impact of school shutdowns, distance learning, mask mandates, the push for vaccines for school staff members – many of which included perspectives from teachers unions.

And then, after more than three years of stories and building up sources in education, the strike started.

No one wants to strike. It’s not easy. It’s not fun. But the Post-Gazette took away health insurance from workers in the paper’s production unions, and we couldn’t justify working any longer even though the guild was in a different, still unenviable, situation with its contract.

The workers in those unions – which include ad sales representatives, mailers, pressmen, drivers and other positions – needed benefits just as much as the journalists whose names are well known in the community, and they are just as important to the production of the Post-Gazette as we are. And besides, if we are not willing to stand up to our own employer when our coworkers are treated so badly, then why would anyone in our community trust us to stand up for them?

One of the first things I did during the strike was get in contact with as many of my sources as I could to tell them that I was walking out and asking them to respect our picket lines.

Just a few days into the strike, the president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers invited me to speak to a group of school employees at their union headquarters. I had spoken to groups there before, but always in my role as a journalist. This time, I would speak as a fellow union member who needed their support.

Asking for help from people who might be sources for stories was ethically questionable, but I felt an obligation to do whatever I could to make the strike successful. I had always had a good rapport with the federation, and long before I was a professional journalist, the members of this union were my teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The support of the teachers and so many other unions, organizations, and individuals, has helped our strike keep moving forward for more than six months. I like to think it’s because they, too, recognize the value in what the Post-Gazette could be.

Just a few days into the strike, the president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers invited me to speak to a group of school employees.

While it is deeply meaningful to take a stand with my colleagues, that doesn’t make it any less difficult.

Strike pay, which comes from our union, is $400 a week for full-time employees, a fraction of our typical salary. Unemployment benefits, which we filed for in late October, have yet to materialize even though it appears we are eligible for them by law. Some strikers have had to take part-time jobs or have kept themselves afloat by freelancing. We have also raised more than $300,000 for our striker fund, which has helped to pay rent, mortgages, auto payments and other bills.

I consider myself lucky because I’ve had support from my family with nearly everything through this ordeal. My grandfather on my dad’s side, Joseph Goldstein, once held several officer-level positions in Bakers and Confectionery Union Local 44 in Pittsburgh, and he had been on strike multiple times. My parents frequently offer financial assistance.

The more difficult aspect for me is the constant anxiety. I have not had a waking moment since the day the strike began that I haven’t thought about ways to resolve this situation. It’s hard when so much of it is out of my control, but I will never stop trying.

And it’s clear to see how the Post-Gazette’s coverage has declined with a replacement reporting staff. There are fewer local stories, and because unions and many people are sympathetic to the strikers’ plight, they’re less likely to talk to these new reporters, which means the stories are more thinly sourced.

It’s clear to see how the Post-Gazette’s coverage has declined with a replacement reporting staff.

After the governor’s press conference, I stood face to face with the reporter at Colfax K-8 who was doing my job.

“I just hope that someday you understand why we’re doing what we’re doing,” I said.

“I hope you understand why we need to do this, why this is so important.”

She told me she hadn’t actually voiced an opinion on the strike.

“What side of the picket line you stand on is all I need to know about your opinion,” I responded, adding that Post-Gazette management wouldn’t protect her, but her fellow workers would.

Andrew Goldstein is a K-12 education reporter on strike against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and serving as Post-Gazette unit chair for the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. In his eight years at the Post-Gazette, Goldstein covered crime, politics, religion and other topics in addition to education. You can follow him at @angolds.   

Previously from The Grade

Covering education in a unionized newsroom (Rachel Cohen, Vox)

Furlough journal, day one; staring at the screen (Linda Borg, Providence Journal)

How I survived being laid off from my first newspaper job (Aaricka Washington, LAist)