On July 13th, 1995, 2,500 workers at the Detroit News and Free Press walked off the job. Neither management nor the unions would have guessed that the dispute would drag on for years, not to mention end up before the courts and National Labor Relations Board.
To this day, the strike and its subsequent lockout is the last major American labor dispute in journalism.
Today, two of the strikers, Allan Lengel and Greg Bowens, along with Lou Mleczko, former head of the Newspaper Guild, join Ben Duell Fraser to reminisce on the 20th anniversary of one of the last great American labor disputes.
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Police and strikers clash. Photo by Daymon J Hartley.