Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette
	Vindicator Sportswriter Pete Mollica and strike dog Molly are on the picket line outside the newspaper's office in Youngstown, Ohio. Molly's owner is Stephen Siff, a Vindicator reporter. Workers for the newspaper have been on strike since Nov. 16. In the background is photographer Scott Galvin.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- After 52 years as a librarian at The Vindicator newspaper, Martha Clonis was making less than $9 an hour.

Now she is walking a picket line with 170 reporters, photographers, copy editors, circulation employees and delivery drivers. For Clonis, 74, Youngstown's newspaper strike could be the final act of her working life.

The strike began Nov. 16 and it shows no sign of ending. Neither side is talking to the other. Both promise not to soften their hard lines.

"It's a matter of attrition -- who blinks first," said Anthony Markota, president of Local 34011 of the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America.

Vindicator General Manager Mark Brown disagreed, saying the dispute boils down to tight finances, not stubbornness.

"We've made our last offer. It's not going to get any better," said Brown, whose family owns the newspaper.

Brown said The Vindicator had lost money for seven consecutive years and probably would for an eighth, in part because of the strike. Even while operating in the red all that time, he said, the paper never laid off anybody to improve its bottom line.

Management has offered unionized employees what amounts to 2 percent raises in each of the next three years, Brown said. The union said the total was 1 percent in each of the first two years. Bonuses for certain employees are included in the company's calculation.

The international guild recommended that workers accept the offer, but the local's leadership considered it too low. Youngstown union members rejected the proposal Dec. 8 by a 99-36 vote.

More than half of the guild's members make less than $9 an hour. They contend that the company's offer would, at best, add a few pennies to their paychecks.

Guild members are angry after accepting wage freezes for the past four years. They also lost shift pay for night work, and their contributions to health insurance premiums increased.

"The company expected us to fold, and every year we did fold," said Jack Ralston, who has worked in The Vindicator's circulation department for 45 years.

Markota concedes that, to the union, this strike is more about taking a stand than money.

"We're striking for what we know will be a lousy contract, but we're trying to make it fairer," he said.

Each day, guild members picket The Vindicator's downtown offices and production plant in three-hour shifts. They spend the rest of their day producing a weekly strike paper called the Valley Voice.

In a recent issue, the guild used a full page to chastise advertisers who have stuck with The Vindicator during the strike. Another ad, placed by steelworkers, urged The Vindicator's 70,000 daily subscribers to drop the paper until the strike is over.

Markota said the guild's goal is to cause The Vindicator so much financial pain that it will sweeten its offer.

Brown maintained that the union's efforts were failing. He said advertising revenues were "tracking ahead" of projections, and circulation had remained about the same.

Only eight of 179 union members have crossed the picket line to return to work, so management has hired temporary reporters and editors from at least eight other newspapers to produce The Vindicator. Brown would not identify the papers that are helping him, but they include the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Mobile (Ala.) Register and the Berkshire Eagle, of Massachusetts, all of which are part of corporate chains.

Imported workers are receiving salaries from their hometown dailies, plus wages and expense money for two-week stints in Youngstown.

Top-ranking editors of the New Orleans and Mobile newspapers declined to talk about why they sent handfuls of their staff members to work on The Vindicator.

"I'm really not interested in being interviewed for a story like that," said Jim Amoss, editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

For his part, Brown said he asked friends who run corporately owned newspapers to help The Vindicator continue publishing during the strike. He would not permit a visiting reporter to enter The Vindicator newsroom last week, saying he did not want replacement workers subjected to publicity and, perhaps, harassment.

These days, no bylines appear on Vindicator stories. The paper is relying heavily on wire copy and reporters from elsewhere to fill space.

Brown, though, said he was happy with the makeshift system and the quality of work done by his replacement crews.

"We're getting as good or better stories than we did before," he said.

Of the eight workers who crossed the picket line to return to their jobs, seven are district managers in the circulation department. Union President Markota holds the same job.

Brown said the support he is receiving from circulation employees is a repudiation of Markota's insistence on a strike. Brown contends that the strike occurred mostly because of changes the company wants to implement in the circulation department.

For instance, management wants Markota and other district managers to drive their personal cars for most company business and carry $300,000 of insurance coverage. The company would pay mileage reimbursement and provide each of those workers with a $1,000 bonus next year. Brown said circulation employees would make money through the arrangement, and that the company could trim the size of its fleet.

Union members, though, said they do not trust management to be fair.

Many insist that Brown could have settled the strike for what he is paying to hire replacement workers. Union members guess that reporters recruited from other papers receive $20 an hour in Youngstown. Top scale for Vindicator reporters is $17.83 an hour.

Brown would not discuss pay for replacement workers, other than to say they are receiving a flat rate and an allowance for living expenses. But, he added, reporters coming to Youngstown from other papers are a relative bargain because The Vindicator does not have to pay their benefits.

Guild members are receiving $300 a week in strike pay from their union, plus health insurance coverage.

Many who worked in the news department are taking home less than half of what they made. But for those on the bottom of The Vindicator's pay scale, strike pay means a small raise. Others such as librarian Clonis are making about what they would have if they were still on the job.

In theory, Clonis could have retired a decade ago, but she said she could not afford to. Plus, the health insurance coverage she received through The Vindicator was important to her. She sees the strike as a chance to fight for a living wage.

Brown said the company must spend money on equipment, as well as people, to remain competitive. The Vindicator's giant letterpresses are among the oldest in the country and have to be replaced soon. He estimated that fewer than 20 of 1,400 U.S. dailies rely on such an outdated printing system.

If the strike drags and The Vindicator's losses continue, Brown said, one thing is certain: The company will reduce the offer it made to strikers.