Early edition

Journal's Trial Starts Today

The charges, which have been accumulating since 1999, deal primarily with unilateral changes to benefits and working conditions, the company's refusal to provide information needed to bargain or its unreasonable delay in providing it, and the company's refusal to bargain.

The Guild reported this alleged law-breaking to the National Labor Relations Board, which investigated and found our charges meritorious. The board then issued its complaints against the Journal, the equivalent of an indictment.

Over the next two weeks an administrative law judge will hear testimony from the Guild and the Journal. He can rule at the end of the two weeks, but he is more likely to consider the evidence and provide a written ruling in two or three months.

The judge will decide whether the Journal violated the law and what it must do to correct any misdeeds. Either side can appeal the judge's decision to the full National Labor Relations Board. The board's ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So the Guild does not expect an immediate return from this proceeding. Eventually, however, the payout to our members could be substantial. It could include, for example, both back pay and reimbursement for certain medical and dental expenses.

Meanwhile, the litigation is costly for the company but not for the Guild. The Journal is being represented at this week's proceedings by two high-paid lawyers from Edwards & Angell. The federal government is prosecuting the case, but the Guild's lawyer will be on hand -- paid for by the Guild's parent union, the Communication Workers of America, which will also pay our legal bills if the matter is appealed.

The Guild expects to prevail on many, if not most, of the charges, because they involve obvious violations of well-established law. The NLRB's complaints do not push the envelope or raise ambiguous legal questions.

The law requires the Journal to negotiate with the union over changes in benefits. But, instead, the company imposed inferior and more costly health and dental plans, took away a holiday, changed vacation eligibility and gain-sharing benefits, changed parking and bus-pass benefits, and changed the method of payment for taxi use.

The company is also required to negotiate changes in working conditions, but it unilaterally instituted a mandatory training program for online advertising, modified work hours and overtime in News, changed an incentive program for advertising sales people, changed porters' duties, and reduced lobby security to a single shift, among other things.

Another complaint concerns the company's "regressive bargaining" in retaliation for legal union activity. In February 2001, the company changed its contract proposal, taking off the table an offer of 3 percent wage increase for 2000 and replacing it with no raise. In a letter to Guild members, the company said this change was because the Guild was organizing a consumer boycott. Such retaliatory bargaining moves are also illegal.

Recently, the NLRB dropped one complaint and added one; it will also a drop another complaint when the hearing opens, which is why we now have 46 charges instead of 47.

The NLRB dropped the complaint concerning the company's decision to remove reporter Brian Jones from a high-profile beat because he had spoken out publicly on union issues. The board gave this complaint a "meritorious discharge" - meaning that it knew the company had violated the law by retaliating for union activity. But the NLRB decided not to pursue it because Jones no longer works at the Journal and thus there is no remedy.

The NLRB plans to drop a complaint that the company had refused to allow an employee to take unpaid leave to do union work, because it only happened once.

It added a complaint that the company restricted reporter Karen Ziner to working in Providence because she had a disability that temporarily prevented her from driving.

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.