follow-up: detroit's new newspaper

The Detroit Sunday Journal, a slim tabloid put out by the unions striking the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, was born in November, the labor dispute's fourth month. Officials at the News and Free Press, partners in a Joint Operating Agreement between Knight-Ridder, Inc. and the Gannett Company, Inc., say the strike paper has not hurt them. But the unions claim a Journal circulation of more than 300,000 and several major advertisers, and say that anything that pressures the newspapers is a plus for them. They are counting on Detroit's historic empathy with the labor movement to draw readers.

The three major unions in the strike have put up $500,000 in start-up costs for the paper, which is printed in Grand Blanc by a printing company that puts out a lot of United Auto Workers publications. The AFL-CIO, meanwhile, is contributing some money and staff support to the strike.

Both sides have also traded lawsuits -- the unions claiming that the paper's JOA violates federal antitrust laws, and the newspaper companies, using the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, claiming that a pattern of violence by the unions has led to more than $1 million in physical damage.

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