The Santa Barbara News-Press, which is embroiled in a bitter dispute with its newsroom employees, filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Teamsters union Tuesday.

The Teamsters responded by calling the accusation “frivolous” and a tactic intended to hinder and delay a unionization effort.

The charge, filed with the National Labor Relations Board in Los Angeles, is the latest in a volley of allegations as the paper's newsroom employees try to unionize under the Teamsters' Graphic Communications Conference.

Newsroom employees have complained that News-Press owner Wendy McCaw, her co-publisher and fiancé, Arthur von Wiesenberger, and then-acting publisher Travis Armstrong have engaged in unethical behavior that has undermined the balance, fairness and integrity of the news-gathering process.

The newspaper has made similar accusations against several former employees.

In July, seven senior editors, a long-time columnist and a reporter resigned in protest. Since then, other newsroom staff, including at least four reporters, also have quit.

Tuesday's charge from the newspaper comes just days after the union filed a fifth unfair labor practice allegation against the News-Press.

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The newspaper's management complained Tuesday that the News-Press' name and trademark have been used in campaign and organizing materials “to falsely create the impression” that the paper endorses the union activities.

The newspaper also contends the union used certain supervisors and managers to solicit and urge editorial employees to sign Teamster authorization cards.

In a press release from the newspaper's public relations consultant, the News-Press alleges newsroom managers “openly urged” employees to accept the union amid considerable friction between senior editorial personnel and the paper's management.

The newspaper asked the National Labor Relations Board for a full administrative investigation and ruling on whether “coercive management involvement” tainted the card-signing process.

The News-Press also asked the NLRB to postpone hearings on the Teamsters' petition until federal regulators have investigated the union's conduct.

In response, union leaders said the paper's newest allegation is intended to again delay a representational hearing scheduled for Thursday and a representational election that the NLRB is supposed to schedule no later than the third week in September.

Union officials contend the paper based its charge on “hearsay” - alleged reports that managers encouraged union support. Teamsters representatives also called it a “nonsensical and specious premise” that a union can't refer to the employer in a labor dispute.

Teamsters representatives charged that the News-Press' latest filing is an attempt to postpone a hearing at which the newspaper's management must explain its stance on employees unionizing

The union asked the NLRB not to postpone that hearing.

Last week, the union claimed the newspaper canceled one reporter's column, intimidated another reporter involved in the unionizing effort, arbitrarily changed reporters' beat assignments, revised the company's conflict-of-interest policy to discourage reporters from speaking out, and engaged in illegal surveillance.

August 23, 2006