Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (Ohio) crossed a virtual picket line by publishing an opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday, according to the union whose workers are on strike at the newspaper.
Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild-CWA, told HuffPost that there was no excuse for Vance, the running mate of former President Donald Trump, not to be aware of the strike that just entered its third year.
“JD Vance has crossed a very obvious picket line by striking Americans,” Schleuss said. “And JD Vance is a scab just like anybody else who crosses a picket line.”
Early Thursday, the Post-Gazette ran a piece under Vance’s byline entitled “Kamala Harris’ prejudice against Catholics,” in which he criticized the Democratic nominee for skipping the Al Smith dinner last week to campaign. The dinner traditionally features a roast of both candidates and benefits Catholic charities; Trump attended and said a bunch of nasty stuff.
Vance’s piece does not appear to have run in any other publications. Beneath his byline, it reads: “Special to the Post-Gazette.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond Thursday when asked how the op-ed came about and whether Vance was aware of the strike. The Ohio senator visited striking auto workers last year on a picket line in Toledo.
Workers at the Post-Gazette have been on strike since October 2022 in a long-running battle with owner Block Communications.
“JD Vance has crossed a very obvious picket line by striking Americans. And JD Vance is a scab just like anybody else who crosses a picket line.”
– Jon Schleuss, president, NewsGuild-CWA
The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that enforces collective bargaining law, has found that the company failed to bargain in good faith and illegally imposed new working conditions, leaving employees with higher health care costs and less vacation time. The NLRB recently went to federal court seeking an injunction to force the company to the bargaining table.
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Striking journalists from the paper have maintained their own strike publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress, and asked other journalists not to cross the picket line by performing work for the Post-Gazette.
Schleuss said the picket line applies not only to professional reporters and editors but to contributors like Vance, whether they are paid for their pieces or not.
“You can deliver that message to any other publication,” he said of writing an opinion piece. “Don’t go into work for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, don’t click on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, don’t share articles from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”
