into 1992 with no agreement on a new contract. The Teamsters employees finally walked off the job on May 17, effectively putting a halt to the publication of the Press and the Post-Gazette. The Teamsters refused to drive the small delivery trucks more than half full. In the press room was a union featherbedding provision under which its members had to set up every ad that appeared in the newspaper, even if it ran years before; in the case of ads prepared by outside print shops, those ads were still set up in the type the Press had, a proof run, and then dismantled, the backlog of such ads could be several years long. With the increasing rise of electronic media, and more younger readers not reading newspapers, the Press could no longer sustain the union practices of the past. The unions would not budge and did not believe that the previous business model could no longer be sustained and afforded. A short sound bite on national TV by the then-mayor supporting the unions was the death knell, and Scripps-Howard consequently ended the newspaper. All the union jobs were lost, as were the jobs of over 100 non-union employees of the newspaper. An attempt by both papers to resume distribution, with replacement drivers, began with the July 27 issues of both papers and lasted two days until they halted publication again due to resistance from the public and civic leaders. The second day, July 28, marked the final edition of the Press. After months of failed negotiations, Scripps put the Pittsburgh Press up for sale on October 2, 1992. Block Communications, the owners of the much smaller JOA paper, the Post-Gazette, agreed to purchase the paper, effective November 30, upon the settlement of the strike. The first issue of the newly combined Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the first in nearly six months, was published on January 18, 1993, as a single combined newspaper incorporating many features and personnel from the Press, which would no longer be published. The loss of the Pittsburgh Press came as a shock to many Pittsburghers, who expected the larger paper to survive the strike. In return for the sale of the Press, Scripps received The Monterey County Herald. The sale required a ruling by the U.S. Department of Justice as the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 regulated the JOA. Resurrection online On November 14, 2011, Block Communications