Updated November 11, 2025 at 6:12 AM EST
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals held on Nov. 10 that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette violated federal law by unilaterally changing terms and conditions of employment without first bargaining to an impasse with the union.
The Post-Gazette released a statement fervently disagreeing with the ruling, promising to appeal the decision, and calling it a threat to all free press in the region "striving to operate responsibly amid extraordinary financial pressures."
"For generations, the Post-Gazette has chronicled Pittsburgh's triumphs and challenges, holding the powerful to account and giving voice to its communities. We have endured wars, economic collapse, and seismic industry change — but this moment represents an existential threat unlike any we have faced before," the Post-Gazette statement reads.
Meanwhile the AFL-CIO released a statement celebrating the ruling.
"Today, a federal court ruled that the Post-Gazette must meet its obligations under the workers' collective bargaining agreement, including providing health care coverage, a short-term disability plan, a 40-hour workweek and workers' right to appeal discipline," the AFL-CIO wrote in a new release.
The ruling comes amid a 3-year-long strike that began when the Post-Gazette changed terms of employment for union workers. Despite this victory in the courts, the strikers face significant challenges going forward. Many months of appeals may lie ahead, according to Ernest Orsatti, a longtime Pittsburgh labor lawyer with Quatrini Law Group who is uninvolved in the ongoing litigation.
"NLRB and the administrative law judge all found as a fact that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette committed an unfair labor practice of bad faith bargaining in the dealings with the union and ordered that they reinstate the terms and conditions of the expired contract," Orsatti said. " The law requires that when unions and employers bargain that they not change any of the terms and conditions of an expired contract until they bargained the impasse."
When the Post-Gazette failed to restore the term and conditions, the NLRB petitioned the 3rd Circuit to enforce its order. After oral argument and an injunction, a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit agreed that the Post-Gazette bargained in bad faith and directed it to comply with the national labor board's order.
"PG Publishing's proposals as a whole would have required the Guild to cede to PG Publishing the most fundamental of employment terms," said the 3rd Circuit in its opinion. "Guild [union] members would have been afforded more rights working without a contract than by accepting all of PG Publishing's proposals."
The 3rd Circuit also declined to entertain the Post-Gazette's argument that the remedy ordered by the NLRB was outside the Board's power. The court upheld the NLRB ordered remedy of compensating employees for any loss of earnings, benefits and other direct or foreseeable economic losses.
By enforcing the NLRB's order, the court directed the Post-Gazette to reinstate the status quo and resume bargaining. But the 3rd Circuit's order does not take immediate effect.
" The parties are so still so far apart and we still have a long way to go before I think we see a final resolution of this dispute," Orsatti said.
The Post-Gazette has 14 days to appeal to rehear the case en banc, meaning a larger panel of judges from the 3rd Circuit will decide whether to reconsider the case. And after that, the Post-Gazette can petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, though the chances of the court taking the case are extremely low.
The process of appealing en banc will likely take months and that means that, if the Post-Gazette does ask the Supreme Court to hear the case, then it will not be considered by the highest court until next fall.
" I'm still not completely optimistic that [workers and management are] ever gonna reach an agreement," Orsatti added. "Knowing that they've got experienced lawyers from out of town who know the system and they know how to work the system, and knowing how weak our labor laws are … I have to temper my optimism with the fact that it's not over."
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