By Suzanne Sprague
DALLAS – Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 Reporter: Ellen Liberman was a reporter at the Providence Journal until just a few weeks ago.
Ellen Liberman, former Reporter, Providence Journal: I'm really glad I left. I mean, the morale is just terrible. This goes way beyond the normal level of grousing. There is a lot of deep despair and anxiety there.
Sprague: Liberman worked at the Journal for seven years and is among 38 reporters and editors who have left the paper in the past year and a half. That's when their union, the Providence Newspaper Guild, began negotiating a new contract with the Journal's management.
Liberman: We were told from the company negotiators that this was the deal and take it or leave it. There were never any negotiations over the contract. For a year and a half it's been, "We're offering you this, and we're not going to talk about anything else."
Sprague: Liberman says that frustrated employees even more than the proposed contract. And when the Guild didn't take what management offered, Liberman says vacation time and medical benefits were slashed. So, the National Labor Relations Board is taking the Providence Journal to court next month. The hearing could prove embarrassing to Dallas-based Belo Corporation, which purchased the Journal in 1997 to expand its newspaper holdings.
Brian Jones, Reporter, Providence Journal, and Member, Providence Newspaper Guild Executive Committe: Where this hostility on the part of management is coming from, whether the local managers here in Providence or the corporate officers in Dallas, is a question. We don't know.
Sprague: Brian Jones is a reporter at the Providence Journal and a member of the Guild's executive committee.
Jones: But certainly the coincidence of the time is after Belo took over, we ran into much more difficult relations than we had in a long time with management. So we have to assume that the switch to Belo had something to do with it.
Sprague: Officials with Belo and the Journal declined to comment for this story. But in a statement last year, the Journal said it's confident it will be vindicated. And the Labor Board's Scott Burson says while his office believes the journal illegally cut staff benefits, he's seen worse.
Scott Burson, Attorney, National Labor Relations Board: In other sorts of cases, there are sometimes allegations of more extreme conduct where the employer actually refuses to recognize the union and ceases to deal with them, but that is not the case here.
Sprague: Still, many Journal staffers believe Belo is trying to shut down their union. After all, none of Belo's three other newspapers are unionized; and profits are falling. Industry reports carry headlines like "The outlook for Belo is weak." Texas Christian University Journalism Professor Ernest Perry says this is a tense time for the Journal.
Ernest Perry, Journalism Professor, Texas Christian University: What Providence is going through is a changing of the culture of the newspaper from one of a privately-owned family type of newspaper to one that's owned by a corporation that also has properties in other areas. When they're owned by corporations, they tend not to have a very good relationships with unions.
Sprague: And with declining newspaper circulation nationwide, it's also a tense time for other publications. So many will eagerly watch the results of next month's hearing. A decision likely won't come until the end of the summer. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.