Day 3 - First edition

Journal lawyer Richard A. Perras is scheduled to question Schick about his two and a half days of testimony on the history of bargaining in the dispute between the Guild and the Journal. The Guild's last contract expired on Dec. 31, 1999.

This morning, Schick's testimony focused on numerous allegations that the company failed to provide, or delayed unreasonably in providing, information that the Guild needed to bargain effectively.

For example, Schick testified, the company waited until July 2001 to respond to the Guild's November 2000 questions about the health plans being offered to employees -- providing the needed information more than seven months after the plans went into effect.

The company never answered the Guild's questions about procedures and policies in a new incentive program for advertising salespeople, Schick said.

In another case that Schick described, the company refused the Guild's request for information related to the disciplining of a company employee. The Guild was seeking files that would reveal whether the company had just and sufficient cause to discipline the employee and whether it had treated him in the same way it had treated other employees.

Schick testified that the company in 2000 stopped providing the weekly payroll summaries that it used to provided to the Guild. Instead, it provides a monthly report that does not have all the information the Guild needs to enforce its contract, he said.

The Guild's contract, which is still in effect, requires that the company provide certain information on weekly basis. The information, Schick explained, is needed so that the Guild can monitor the use of temporary employees, employee workloads, eligibility for vacations and benefits, leaves of absence, and other workplace and wage issues. In the past, Schick said, the payroll summaries have been used to support grievances.

Schick testified that he believed the payroll summaries that the company previously provided were generated in the normal course of business. In contrast, he said, it appears that the company is producing the monthly reports specifically for the Guild.

In his testimony Monday and Tuesday, Schick detailed how the company bit by bit imposed pieces of its contract proposal without the Guild's consent, and in some cases without ever negotiating. He also described the modifications the Guild made over the years to its contract proposal -- changes the company rejected without making counterproposals.

The complaints against the Journal have been brought by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that enforces labor laws. The hearing, in Pawtucket City Hall, is scheduled to run until the end of next week. So far, testimony before Administrative Law Judge William G. Kocol has proceeded a brisk pace, and the hearing appears likely to finish on time.

Daily reports on the trial will be posted here on www.journalontrial.org. The Web site also has directions and a map to Pawtucket City Hall, 137 Roosevelt Ave. The trial starts at 11 a.m. on Monday and at 9 a.m. on the other days. Here's how to get there:

From Providence and points south: Take Rte. 95 north to School Street exit. Turn left at bottom of ramp onto School Street. Pass Apex on the left and go through one light (one-way right) to next light, bearing left. Go to light at Slater Mill and Visitors Center, making a right onto Roosevelt Avenue. City Hall will be on your right, with parking on left. Trial is on third floor.

From Boston and points north: Take Rte. 95 south into Rhode Island. Take exit 29, Downtown Pawtucket. At end of ramp, merge onto Broadway. Go about two-tenths of a mile and turn right onto Exchange Street. Turn left on Roosevelt Avenue. City Hall will be on your left, with parking on the right. Trial is on the third floor.

Felice J. Freyer is the Providence Journal's award-winning medical writer. She joined the paper in 1982 and was assigned to the medical beat in 1989. A member of the Guild's Executive Committee since 1994, she has taken a leave from the newspaper to cover the trial.

There is much more information about the dispute at the Guild's main website, www.riguild.org. E-mail the Guild at png@riguild.org. The union's mailing address is: The Providence Newspaper Guild, 270 Westminster St., Providence, RI 02903. Telephone: (401) 421-9466. FAX: (401) 421-9495.