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Support news strikers, not publisher

To the Daily:

Dean Bakapoulos's column on Neil Shine and the Detroit newspaper strike ("A striking protest," 1/19/96) fails to recognize that there are two sides to this story.

It is a standard ploy to claim that all strike violence is caused by labor unions. However, in this strike, newspaper-hired thugs and local cops beat strikers with impunity, while strikers have been arrested for merely picketing the newspapers. Last summer, a newspaper truck was driven into a crowd of strikers at full speed, a matter under criminal investigation.

The Detroit newspapers have repeatedly refused to bargain in good faith, a violation of federal law. The newspapers (which made more than $50 million in profit the year before the strike) want to lower their workforce and wages at the expense of workers.

They have refused the offer of newspaper workers to return to work under the old contract until the negotiation of a new one.

There is absolutely no merit to the suggestion that Detroit Free Press publisher Neil Shine is an innocent man in this strike. He has crossed a picket line of his former colleagues to go to his job. He receives a generous salary and health benefits from the newspaper while reporters, printers and delivery people huddle outside warming their hands over wood burning in garbage cans.

Everyone who works or reads has a stake in the Detroit newspaper strike.

You can support the strike by buying the Detroit Sunday Journal, published by striking reporters, editors and workers.

It is a way to support people who are fighting for the rights of all Americans to decent jobs and honest news.

Russell Olwell

Ann Arbor resident