Due ProcessĪn employer must conduct an interview or a hearing before issuing discipline, and must take action promptly. An employer who has not enforced a rule in the past can “reset” its policy so long as it notifies employees that it will punish all offenders in the future. A union must prove that employees ignored the rule without penalty over a prolonged period of time and that management was aware, or should have been aware of, the infractions. Prior EnforcementĪn employee may not be penalized for violating a rule or standard that the employer has failed to enforce for a prolonged period.Įxample: An employer cannot discipline an employee for coming into work a few minutes late one day, if the employer hadn’t enforced this rule for a long time and was aware of other employees coming into work late. The rules must be clear and should not be ambiguous or vague, such as do not engage in “boisterous conduct” or do not exercise “poor judgment.” 2. Employers can publicize rules a number of ways: distribution, bulletin boards, e-mail, meetings or classes. Examples include theft, insubordination, fighting, sleeping on the job. However, this doesn’t apply to self-evident misconduct. Fair NoticeĪn employer may not discipline an employee for violating a rule or standard whose nature and penalties have not been made known.Įxample: An employer cannot discipline an employee for taking a call at work on his/her cell phone, if the employer never notified the employees that this was not permitted. In preparation for “Just Cause: A Union Guide to Winning Disciplinary Cases,” Schwartz reviewed some 15,000 disciplinary awards which revealed wide agreement on the following basic principles: 1. Schwartz, author of “The Legal Rights of Union Stewards” and other publications, has updated Daugherty’s seven tests to better reflect the way arbitrators decide cases. What is a “just cause” standard? In 1964, labor arbitrator Carroll Daugherty introduced “The seven tests of just cause” in the form of seven questions. Many arbitrators have gone so far as to hold all employers to a “just cause” standard, whether the contract uses the words or not. Our main contractual weapon is often summed up in one short sentence, “Employees shall be disciplined or discharged only for just cause.” In some contracts the words used are “proper cause” or “fair cause.” The importance of a sentence like this is that it binds the employer to imposing discipline not just for any reason (cause) but the reason has to be a “just” reason. Stewards must be ready to deal with situations ranging from gross discrimination by the boss on who gets disciplined to union members who sometimes seem to go out of their way to get themselves in trouble. Stewards must be ready to handle all sorts of discipline cases, from warnings to suspensions to firings. One of the main reasons workers join unions is to gain protection against unfair and unjust discipline that employers hand out.
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