Post-Gazette journalist fought for newsroom employees’ rights
HAROLD JOHN TKACH | Aug. 24, 1941 - Feb. 27, 2020
Harry Tkach was admired as a skilled editor and talented reporter, but he found his true calling at the negotiating table.
A retired copy editor and longtime reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Tkach also served for 13 years as president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, representing newsroom employees.
“Harry was a good reporter. Nobody could ever accuse him of wasting words,” said his friend and former colleague Ernie Hoffman of Hempfield. “But the union is where his real love was. His legacy will be the contracts he negotiated.”
His son Matthew Tkach, of Dormont, agreed.
“It turned out to be his passion,” he said. “He loved it and was involved with the union for a long time.”
Mr. Tkach, 78, died Feb. 27 of complications from Parkinson’s disease at the Dormont home he moved into 35 years ago.
He was raised by a single mother in the Homestead area and played center for the former Homestead High School football team.
In 1963, Mr. Tkach graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
He started his newspaper career in Westmoreland County before being hired by the Post-Gazette in the mid-1970s as a copy editor.
By 1977, he became a staff writer, reporting mostly about crime and federal courts — not always an easy beat for a reporter.
“He did a lot of the mob stories in the 1970s,” his son said. “He was threatened a couple of times, but he had connections and got to go out on the early morning raids with task forces.”
His father’s most memorable assignment was probably the so-called “Kill for Thrill” trials of John Lesko and Michael J. Travaglia, who were convicted of murdering four people, including an Apollo police officer, during an eight-day rampage after Christmas in 1979, his son said. Travaglia died while on death row in 2017. Lesko remains on death row.
“That was my dad’s story,” Matthew Tkach recalled. “I remember I would come to the federal courthouse and sit with my dad while he would work on his stories.”
He met Martha “Susan” Coakley at a singles dance mixer, and the couple hit it off right away, his son said.
“She had three kids and my dad had two kids, so it was perfect,” he said.
They married in 1982. Mrs. Tkach died in 2016.
Mr. Tkach joined the Guild leadership in 1977 as treasurer, and by 1990, he was elected president. He retired in 2003.
A passionate advocate for the rank and file, Mr. Tkach “never wavered in his commitment to workers’ rights,” said R.J. Hufnagel, who served as Guild president from 2007-10.
“I recall an op-ed he wrote during my service as Guild president that chastised other union members for buying cheap foreign products and for using automated checkout machines at the grocery store and other things he considered antiworker,” he said. “He was always committed to the cause of labor, the craft of journalism, and the dignity of the work we all did.”
Mr. Tkach helped to negotiate contracts with pay raises, increased pension benefits and an expanded internship program, Mr. Hoffman recalled.
And he always put the newspaper first.
“Harry’s philosophy regarding the PG was that the edition comes first. If there was a problem or dispute, he would never allow it to interfere with production of the paper,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He believed that what was good for the PG was good for the members of the Guild.”
“He always seemed like an elder statesman to us,” said current Guild President Michael Fuoco, who described Mr. Tkach as a mentor. “He was union through and through. He was very passionate and pragmatic, but he was also a fighter.”
Mr. Tkach sought to raise the profile of the newspaper by making life better for those who helped to produce it, Mr. Hufnagel said.
“Harry understood that to produce a strong newspaper required reporters, photographers and editors who were well-paid, well-trained and committed to their community,” he said. “He really is one of the reasons why the Post-Gazette was, for so long, one of America’s great newspapers.”
After retirement, Mr. Tkach devoted more time to his favorite hobby — model railroading.
“We moved his train display from the attic to the basement, where we set up a platform for it,” his son said. “He had five tracks running at one time. That was his retirement goal — just to sit down there and run his trains and clean his tracks.”
During the last weeks of his life, Mr. Tkach and his son grew closer than ever, he said.
“He wanted to come home and die with dignity, and I wanted to grant his wish,” he said. “We had some good times — we watched Pitt basketball and football or enjoyed a movie together or just had quiet time. He was a good man, and I was proud to take care of him.”
Along with his son, Mr. Tkach is survived by his daughter, Mary Jean Tkach, of Durham, N.C.; his stepchildren Amy Bailey Hoffman of Coraopolis, Dan Bailey of Los Angeles, Calif., and Katie Bailey Schruben of Brentwood; and 11 grandchildren.
His funeral was Monday.