Day 3 - Final edition

The Journal's trial on 46 charges of violating federal labor law entered its third day yesterday, with Schick completing the first phase of his testimony in the morning and facing cross-examination in the afternoon.

The charges stem from a 2½-year dispute between the Journal and the Providence Newspaper Guild, whose last contract expired on Dec. 31, 1999.

The focus of yesterday's testimony was the Guild's information requests.

In his opening argument Monday, Perras had accused the Guild of "piling on information requests" in order to delay negotiations. Yesterday, he questioned Schick about whether the Guild's queries asked for things that the Guild didn't really need, were overly broad, or unduly burdened the company.

One of the complaints against the company alleges that the Journal delayed for months in providing certain information about retirement plans. Perras pointed out that at the time of the request, ``the company was in transition" and human resources personnel were busy moving nonunion employees into a new plan. "Wasn't the Guild aware" of this, he asked.

"This was part of a pattern of non-response,'' Schick said. ``The company never gave any indication of hardship with the workload in the department.''

After the Guild finally got the company's response, Perras continued, ``Is that information reflected in any changes in [the Guild's] bargaining position?"

No, Schick replied, because the information wasn't needed for bargaining, but for another purpose: "This was an attempt to find out why the money in the 401k had been misallocated," he explained.

Schick had testified yesterday morning that the company in 2000 stopped providing the weekly payroll memorandums that it used to provide to the Guild. Instead, it now 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 a weekly basis. Until 2000, the company had chosen to fulfill that obligation by providing the payroll memos. 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.

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

On cross-examination, Perras asked Schick whether the Guild, in negotiations, had sought to expand the contract article concerning information requests, by specifying that the payroll memos be provided.

"No," Schick replied. "We were already receiving them. … It's not our practice to negotiate over things that are not being contested."

Perras asked whether the payroll memos were ever used to support a grievance. Schick replied: "It is rare that we have a grievance that does not in some way relate to the payroll information we have on the payroll memos.''

Noting that the Guild never narrowed its request for the payroll memos to a particular grievance, Perras asked whether the Guild thought its request might be burdensome.

"No,'' Schick replied, "since the company had been providing them for 35 years and had no problem.''

Later, Perras asked Schick whether a request for information about leaves of absence -- information that the Guild had previously gleaned from those payroll memos -- was also burdensome. Schick replied that the company was creating more work for itself by drawing up monthly summaries "rather than running the payroll memo through the copy machine like it had been doing for years.''

In one case, the Guild had sought information related to an employee disciplined for alleged sexual harassment. Perras asked why the Guild requested all the company's files on other cases since 1995 involving either sexual harassment or sexual discrimination, instead of just focusing on harassment.

Schick explained that harassment and discrimination are both aspects of the same law. He said the Guild had reason to believe the employee had been treated differently from others, and needed to ascertain how the company had handled other such cases in the past.

Another case concerned a dispute over an employee's long-term-disability payments. Perras asked why the Guild sought information on three years of such payments throughout two bargaining units. Schick acknowledged that the Guild only needed the information on the employee in question.

Perras also questioned the Guild's information requests related to parking. The company had proposed eliminating most of the parking provisions in the Guild contract. In exchange, it said that Guild members could park for free, but this agreement would not be in the contract and would be subject to change at any time. The Guild asked where its members would park, how many parking spaces would be available, and whether the company intended to sell one of its lots. The company did not respond.

Perras yesterday asked Schick why the union asked such questions when its main objection to the plan was that it was outside the contract. Schick said the union also objected to the fact that the plan was subject to unilateral change by the company. And the Guild's questions about parking availability were relevant to those objections, he said.

"If there were 30 acres of parking lots,'' he said, "it's unlikely this would ever have become an issue at all.''

Perras did not ask Schick about his testimony yesterday morning that the company dragged its feet in providing information on health plans. Schick had testified that 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 information more than six months after the plans went into effect.

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

In his testimony Monday and Tuesday, Schick had 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 at a brisk pace, and the hearing appears likely to finish on time.

The trial is scheduled to resume today at 9 a.m.

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.