Providence Newspaper Guild - Guild Leader April 14, 2003

GUILTY!
(Again)

Ruling
(.pdf)
(html - one 26-page file)
(added 12.5.03)

Summary of the charges and reports of both trials at journalontrial.org

Guild Membership Meeting
Noon Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Nominations for Executive Committee & Unit Council
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Contract Bargaining

The Providence Journal has been found guilty on five charges brought against it by the National Labor Relations Board in the trial last fall. In September, the same judge found the Journal guilty of 22 charges from a previous trial.

In his ruling on the 20 unfair-labor-practice charges, Administrative Law Judge William G. Kocol found the company:

• Illegally transferred reporter Karen Ziner to an entry-level nighttime assignment covering police.

• Unlawfully stopped giving makeup tasks to features department copy editors, depriving them of small grid earnings.

• Engaged in direct dealing in February of 2002 by communicating a contract proposal directly to Guild members before union negotiators had a chance to review it.

The judge also ruled the Journal illegally failed to provide the Guild with information related to discrepancies in 401k payments and employee personnel data used in enforcing the contract.

Kocol dismissed charges related to the company's withdrawal of the year 2002 wage offer, the refusal to bargain over the February 2002 contract offer and the refusal to negotiate over the effects the 2001 buyout program had on remaining workers.

Guild leaders are still digesting the 24-page, single-spaced opinion, which arrived in today's mail, and will provide more details soon.