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Contract 2000
Notice to members

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2.22.02

Journal refuses to talk

Company response to Guild invitation to talk

The Journal today refused to meet with the Guild to discuss the terms of its recent contract offer. As a result, the scheduled trial on 47 federal charges against the Journal will go forward as scheduled on Monday at 11 a.m. in Pawtucket City Hall.

The company said that it would not explain the details of its offer unless the Guild accepted it in advance and also dropped all the unfair-labor-practice charges. (Once those charges are dropped, they cannot be reinstated.)

In a letter delivered 37 hours after the Guild requested talks, the company characterized the Guild's response as a "rejection of our offer." In fact, the Guild had agreed to postpone the federal trial and negotiate around the clock for two days, in order to better understand the company's offer and to strive for a settlement.

The company's letter asserts, "There is no element of our offer that is unclear." But then the letter goes on to say that after the Guild agreed to the terms, "the details would have been worked out in negotiations." The company says that Guild members should have said "yes or no" to a contract whose exact contents were unknown.

The Journal's contract offer took up less than a page. It called for "fringe benefits" that are identical to those in the Pressmen's and Teamsters' contracts. When the proposal was made on Wednesday, the Guild did not know what was in those contracts.

This morning, the Journal provided copies of the Teamsters' and Pressmen's contracts. Those contracts give the company a blank check to do whatever it wants with wages or benefits -- changing or withdrawing them without bargaining. This would allow the Journal to remove aspects of our contract that were never in dispute.

Thus the Journal's "new offer" appears to be significantly worse than what was already on the table. Guild members have much more protection under our expired contract -- which is still in effect -- than under the contract that company now proposes. Additionally, we have more to gain by proceeding with the federal trial than by accepting the company's proposal.

2-22-02