By: Mark Fitzgerald While the strike of newsroom and circulation employees at The Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio, goes into its second month, a walkout at another Buckeye State newspaper begun at nearly the same time is now long settled.
On Nov. 19 -- three days after 179 Newspaper Guild-represented employees walked out in the northeastern city of Youngstown -- about 20 motor-route carriers for The Portsmouth Daily Times began a strike over the issue of compensation for rising gas prices. The 13,881-circulation paper owned by Heartland Publications is in the bottom of the state, across the Ohio River from Kentucky.
The Daily Times strike settled so long ago that the negotiator for the drivers' union had to look up the date during a telephone interview today.
"Let's see, they went on strike Nov. 18, and we had the ratification vote the Wednesday night after that," said Jonathon Bowman of Teamsters Local 92. "What day was that?" It was Nov. 24.
Bowman said the unit, which had unanimously rejected the newspaper's contract offer just before the strike, approved the final agreement unanimously as well.
The key sticking point, he said, had been the compensation levels for gasoline under the old contract, which expired last June. The new agreement, Bowman said, includes an escalator clause that increases or decreases compensation to the drivers by one-tenth of one cent for every one cent change in the price at the pump.
The brief strike did not affect subscribers served by the non-union carriers who walk their delivery routes.
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