Labor Landscape
The family-owned company that operates The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cited mounting losses and labor constraints for its closure. A final edition is expected on Sunday, May 3.
The shuttering of the Post-Gazette comes after a three-year strike by newspaper employees who were asking management for better wages and working conditions. The strike ended in November 2025 after an appellate court ruled in favor of union workers. The Post-Gazette was found to have violated federal labor law by cutting health care benefits and failing to bargain fairly.
Reporters argue that the paper owners never bargained in good faith. “They were so disingenuous,’’ said Joyce Gannon, a Post-Gazette reporter for more than 30 years. “We are still wondering why they did not try to sell the name or the website,’’ she added.
Mike Vargo, a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer, said the Post-Gazette was never a paper of record like the New York Times is for that city or the San Jose Mercury News that covers Silicon Valley. “My concern is that we lose enterprise reporting for our local community,’’ said Vargo.
“With all the money they spent fighting employees, they could have given raises and kept the paper going,’’ said Gannon who left the paper in 2021.
On Jan. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the paper, stating that the Post-Gazette was required to adjust its health insurance coverage for union members. Hours later, Block Communications announced that the paper would shut down.
The company, Block Communications, said it has lost more than $350 million over the past 20 years while publishing the newspaper. In a statement, it said the financial pressure facing local journalism had made “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.’’
The company also cited recent court decisions that required the Post-Gazette to operate under the terms of a 2014-2017 labor contract, which it described as imposing “outdated and inflexible operational practices.’’
The Post-Gazette has a paid circulation of roughly 83,000 and publishes news online daily and in print editions twice a week. It has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes, including in 2019 for coverage of a shooting that killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue.
“It’s a tragedy that a city like Pittsburgh has lost the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette because of the decisions by an ultra-rich, ultra-right-wing family,’’ said Allan Dodds Frank, a former president of the Overseas Press Club and a former intern at the Post-Gazette in 1968.
Metropolitan newspapers across the country are struggling to adjust to steep declines in readership and ad revenue. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Star-Ledger in Newark stopped offering print editions in 2025. Thousands of local newspapers shut down in the last two decades, according to Northwestern University’s 2025 report in the state of local journalism.
Block Communications Inc. is a family-owned multimedia company based in Toledo, Ohio. The Post Gazette’s roots date to 1786.
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