Policy and practice are out of sync and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is missing in action. These are just some of the reasons for the shocking attacks on chapter leaders in NYC public schools. These elected members of a school are being brought to mandatory arbitration under “Just Cause” for termination, and this is all wrong.
In NYC, UFT Chapter Leaders are being charged and brought to 3020-a quickly, just like the teachers they are supposed to represent. As a result of this process, very few people want to be Chapter Leaders. Mayor Mike Bloomberg built his 3-term mayoralty on getting the tenure laws changed or so meaningless that no tenured teacher remained in the public school system, over which Bloomberg had total control. The current Mayor Bill de Blasio followed Bloomberg’s lead on opposing tenure by maintaining a steady stream of accused educators into and out of city ‘rubber rooms’ while they await 3020-a compulsory arbitration.
No Mayor has, to date, successfully made the changes to the teaching force that they wanted, as “Tenure” and the Taylor Law are Constitutional, and must be either changed by the NY State Legislature, not by fiat of the Mayor or Chancellor. Tenure rights still exist in New York State as public policy.
One consistent theme of the past twenty years has been the attacks by Principals on Chapter Leaders (CL) in NYC public schools. Chapter Leaders get in the way. They want to stop the removal of a teacher accused of some misdeed for any or no reason; they will grieve something the principal does to a staff member, and sometimes they will win the grievance, which is not good, say principals whose goal is to remove the targeted employee from the school budget.
Any act or speech which makes the Department of Education or a member of the administration “look bad” is punished with charges and threatened with termination, because the machine works only when all systems face the same direction. The UFT is missing in action as the CL’s rights are steadily and constantly ignored and denied.
1. The contentious situation between principals and Chapter Leaders
There is a current disconnect between policy and practice in NYC concerning the rights of chapter Leaders. According to the Chapter Leader Handbook, CLs are the collective voice of the union staff in the school. As the voice of the many, and elected to office, CLs who take their responsibilities seriously will speak on the members’ behalf when necessary and tell the principal what the staff is concerned about. Bad move, although this is a duty of the CL.
Here is an excerpt from the UFT Chapter Leader Handbook, 2013:
“Ways to keep your chapter informed –
1) Hold regular chapter meetings in your school or site. To bolster attendance, publicize the meeting date, time and location in advance and prepare an agenda that covers timely topics. Invite members to ask questions and raise issues, and then brainstorm how the chapter can tackle those issues. Report on your monthly consultation meeting with the principal and solicit suggestions about what needs to be on the agenda of the next one. Report on other UFT activities to your chapter and promote the union by explaining the actions and positions it takes and talking up union
victories.
2) Publish a chapter newsletter. As chapter leader, you should publish a newsletter, whether printed or electronic, as frequently as your time allows and the situation requires. The weekly Chapter Leader Update is an excellent source of content for your newsletter (just cut and paste relevant parts), but always add your own school’s activities in the mix.
3) Use your school’s UFT bulletin board. Every school must have a bulletin board reserved in an accessible place for the UFT (see Article 19F of the UFT/DOE contract). Keep your bulletin board useful by posting up-to-date information about the union’s activities, including budget and other legislative fights, as well as important grievance and arbitration decisions and collective-bargaining updates. Post all UFT materials on the bulletin board as soon as you receive them. Invite members to get involved in union initiatives.
4) Face-to-face communication. Personally approach members who are directly affected by the issues. Make a point of introducing yourself to new members in your school and offer them your support. Hold Monthly Consultation Meetings with the Principal – Improvements in your school are up to you, and your members. The principal must meet monthly with a UFT consultation committee to discuss matters of school policy and implementation of the contract. (Agree. Art. 19H) The UFT chapter should decide how it wishes the school procedures and routines to be changed and give guidance to the committee that meets with the principal. Minutes of these meetings should be made available to the chapter members preferably through the chapter newsletter or at chapter meetings.
Legislation and political action:
Political action, including legislative efforts, are vitally important to the welfare of our schools, our members and our union. Because education is a public function, publicly funded and regulated by the city and state and to a lesser extent the federal government, it’s crucial for union members to be politically involved. Rights that we have won at the bargaining table can be weakened or nullified by legislation. Legislative campaigns are a staple of our political work, and chapter leaders are important to their success. Every chapter should have a committee that is active in the union’s political work.
Organizing a legislative campaign
Elect or appoint a COPE/legislative representative for the chapter, along with a committee of
assistants so that there is one person to cover each floor, department or lunch period. That way your team can reach everybody to distribute information and materials, to collect back completed letters if you are doing a letter-writing campaign, and also to solicit COPE checkoff cards. Make sure to pass on information from the union dealing with legislation to the legislative representative and his/her committee.
Letter-writing campaigns
Be sure to follow UFT instructions in addressing letters to the chairperson of the committee considering a particular bill in each house, to legislators from each member’s home district,
and to key people as directed by the UFT. Always identify bills by their bill numbers. Keep letters short, to the point and personal. Provide sample letters. AVOID FORM LETTERS. Create a routine for writing letters. Devote one lunch period to it, or set up a legislative corner with stationery and directions in the faculty lounges and workrooms. Have all the completed letters mailed by the school legislative committee. Keep track of members who have participated in your letter-writing effort.
COPE
A critical responsibility for you and your political action team is the collection of COPE payroll
deduction cards from each member. COPE is an acronym for Committee on Political Education. COPE is the union’s political action arm. UFT members make voluntary contributions to COPE so that the union can make political contributions to candidates who share our concerns about education, human rights and labor issues. Members need to fill out only one card one time in their career. If they are returning from a leave, they should check their payroll stub to see if deductions are being made. In addition to collecting COPE cards, it is important to encourage members to volunteer for the UFT’s telephone banks and other political activities.
UFT endorsements
For local (New York City) races—Mayor, City Council, Borough President, District Attorney—
recommendations are made to the UFT Executive Board and Delegate Assembly. For statewide and national races, recommendations are made to the NYSUT Board of Directors. Generally, new people running for office are screened at the borough, district or city level. Incumbents’ voting records are very carefully scrutinized, as well as their activities in their home districts.
Creating parent support:
Meet and confer with the Parent Association – Parents of your school can be strong allies. Reach out to the leaders of the PA/PTA and develop ongoing communications. Alert them to your chapter’s priorities and program when appropriate and advisable and find out what issues are of concern to parents. The chapter leader should confer with PA/PTA leaders on issues such as school-based management, safety and improvement of school-wide programs. Parents also might be interested in learning more about UFT-sponsored programs and materials that offer direct help to families, such as Dial-A-Teacher, the union’s annual parent conference and the UFT Scholarship Program. Make sure Dial-A-Teacher information is distributed as soon as it arrives. It really helps students complete their homework.
Parent outreach is of the greatest importance to the UFT, because from partnership comes progress for all our kids. The UFT has a great parent liaison in every borough (contact them through the borough offices, listed at the front of this manual), along with conferences, workshops and committees to help engage parents in all critical areas of their children’s education. School + parents +
students = success.
Contract enforcement/conflict resolution:
Your job is multifold – In addition to your work in building the chapter and organizing your school, you have an important role in resolving grievances and enforcing various contracts. It is important that you deal with situations in the school in a way that demonstrates that the UFT is concerned about members’ professional welfare, and that it stands ready and able to help them.
One of the purposes of the grievance procedure is to secure the satisfactory resolution of disputes. That is why the UFT places so much emphasis on the “conference” rather than the “hearing” as a step in the procedure. This is by no means merely a semantic difference. It is a frank recognition that there must be free communication and mutuality of striving in order to reach such resolutions.
A word of caution – Don’t let personal likes and dislikes influence your decisions. Always keep in mind the need for unity in the chapter. If a problem seems likely to arouse dissension within the chapter, try to handle it so as to secure a consensus rather than a simple majority. Seek assistance from your district representative if you need it.
Chapter elections and referenda:
There are a variety of elections that may be conducted in your school under your direction. The procedures for properly running those elections are contained in the booklet How To Run A Chapter.”
The underlying assumption is that the CL is protected by the First Amendment and the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and his or her speech is protected when he/she meets with a principal about staff concerns. This is no longer true, at least in the minds of principals.
For many years principals have not given any special consideration to anyone in the CL elected position. In fact, as their “job” is not just to teach, but to file grievances against the principal, grieve and report all violations of the contract and law, and in general watch out for every staff member’s health, safety, and welfare. A principal who sees these responsibilities as obstruction of, and hindrance to, the leadership required, may, and will, go after charging the CL and removing him or her from the school.
The process available to principals to charge and remove employees who “get in the way” gives no special consideration to CLs who, a principal may say, is either incompetent as a teacher or commits corporal punishment. However, when a CL speaks out as a CL on behalf of the constituents who elected him/her, policy considerations and the Collective Bargaining Agreement give the CL a “right” to say what the many cannot.
Yet in practice, large numbers of Chapter Leaders are brought to 3020-a for simply asserting the concerns of the staff. It is essential to keep in mind that labor arbitration systems are the result of negotiated arrangements between often powerful institutional parties who are concerned with collective, as opposed to, individual rights. (Alexander v Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147, 7 F.E.P. cases 81 (1974)). When a CL is brought to arbitration and the issue under review becomes one of whether or not the CL has the right to speak out about collective concerns, then an arbitrator should give special attention to the “right” of the CL to say what these concerns are, pursuant to the CBA, and this speech is protected. As the context of the speech under review here incorporates public employees, the standard of review is raised to a level where additional questions such as “bad faith” and “just cause” must necessarily be attached to outcomes of the protected speech.
Thus, if a CL speaks out as a messenger of information and concerns from the staff to the principal, and is subsequently punished, policy and practice are not in sync.
In labor arbitrations, arbitrators are selected pursuant to and derive their authority from, the collectively bargained agreement. They are constrained to avoid dispensing their own brands of industrial justice. (United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S. Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424, 46 L.R.R.M. 2423 (1960)).
Martin Scheinman and Dan McRay, in their very interesting article “Labor Arbitration and the First Amendment” (ADR News November 2011/January 2012, p9, 32-39) write that:
“Arbitral standards of just cause place primary emphasis on whether the employer has been harmed as the justification for discipline – rather the offensiveness of the speech or conduct” and, “‘Just cause’ is the typical standard an employer must meet in order to discipline an employee protected by a collective bargaining agreement. Lurking in the background when the employer is a government entity is the First Amendment and whether it requires some different test or heightened restriction on discipline of speech than just cause requires.”
Scheinman and McRay ask,
(a) can a just cause analysis allow a public employee to be disciplined for engaging in
conduct protected by the Constitution?
(b) If not, should the application of the just cause standard include an explicit analysis of First Amendment cases?
They argue that First Amendment jurisprudence does not just focus on employer harm…(but also) whether the speech is on a matter of “public concern” (i.e., “newsworthy”). They review the termination of a teacher who worked for the NYC Board of Education and was also a leader of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). This organization encouraged sexual activity between adult men and underage boys. The arbitrator, in that case, ruled that the employer could, indeed, terminate the teacher because of his political expression and association as well as because his presence in the school would cause too great a disruption of the normal day. (p. 33).
Scheinman and McRay continue,
“Government employers have less authority than private employers to restrict free speech of their employees because the First Amendment only applies to government action. However, the government has greater authority to restrict the speech of its employees than it does members of the general public because of its obligation to ensure the efficiency of its operations….public employees do not give up all their First Amendment rights when they accept employment with the government. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled a government has no right to discipline an employee for outside political speech or associations absent a showing of harm to the operations of the employer.” (pp. 34-35)
Under the Pickering test (Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School, 391 U.S. 563 (1968)) the court first determines whether the employee is speaking on a matter of public concern as opposed to a private matter. Because speech involving matters of public concern is closer to the “core” of the First Amendment, a government employer has less authority to impose discipline than for speech involving private concerns. The Supreme Court has defined a matter of public concern to be a “subject of legitimate news interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public at the time of publication.” (p. 35). City of San Diego v. John Roe, 543 U.S. 77, 83-84 (2004).
“If the matter is of public concern, under the Pickering test the burden shifts to the employer to show the reason for the discipline was not to penalize the employee for the speech, but rather because there is a substantial showing that the speech is, in fact, likely to be disruptive to government operations.” (Waters v Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 674 (1994).
Scheinman and McRay believe that “Proof of demonstrated harm to the employer is a more reliable standard…..even if the employer is harmed, the employee might still win if he or she has a sufficient “interest” in the speech….The greater the interest of the employee, the more harm the employer must show to justify discipline. The lesser the interest of the employee, the less harm the employer must show.” (p. 38)
2. Implied covenant of good faith
The Chapter Leader may rely on the contract and the CL duties and responsibilities as a part of a common-law employment “contractual” doctrine. This ‘doctrine’, agreed to in the UFT-DOE Bargaining Agreement, guarantees a safe environment in which to work and offers an implied in law covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Rosen v Gulf Shores,Inc. 610 So. 2d 366, 369-70 (Miss. 1992). Express or implied in fact promises usually obligate the employer to continue employment as agreed to in the bargaining agreement until the occurrence of a condition subsequent, which is any fact the existence or occurrence of which by agreement of the parties operates to discharge a duty of performance after it has become absolute. In the instant case CL and employer agreed to continue working together with both sides protecting and preserving rights of the other in terms of safe and secure environment, etc. Restatement of Contracts § 250(b) (1932); Murray §101, at 553-56. American Bank Stationery v Farmer, 106 Nev. 698, 799 P.2d 1100, 1102 (1990).
In Rethinking Wrongful Discharge: A Continuum Approach by Robert C. Bird, (University of Cincinnati Law Review, Winter, 2004, 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 517) Bird writes:
“Employers acting with just cause treat their employees with punctilious concern for fairness and equity. Only the most qualified employees are promoted. Office politics and arbitrary decision-making do not infect the employment relationship…….. Whenever the employer acts, it subjectively believes that it has the company’s altruistic motives in mind and objectively possesses substantial evidence or good reason to support its decision. Anything less than substantial evidence cannot justify the employer’s conclusion that the employee is “guilty” of misconduct. Finally, the employer’s disciplinary action is evenhanded, proportionate to the proven offense, and considers the employee’s length of service with the company. If the employer fails to achieve any or all of these high standards, it risks punishment in a court of law. This is the idealized domain of “just cause” employment.”
Estelle D. Franklin asks questions in her Maneuvering Through the Labyrinth: The Employers’ Paradox in Responding to Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment-A Proposed Way Out, 67 Fordham L. Rev. 1517, 1562 (1999) (citing Enterprise Wire Co., 46 Lab. Arb. Rep. (BNA) 359 (1966) (Daugherty, Arb.)):
“The arbitrator, as stated by Franklin, articulated the following factors: (1) Did the company give to the employee forewarning or foreknowledge of the possible or probable disciplinary consequences of the employee’s conduct? . . . . (2) Was the company’s rule or managerial order reasonably related to (a) the orderly, efficient, and safe operation of the company’s business and (b) the performance that the company might properly expect of the employee? . . . . (3) Did the company, before administering discipline to an employee, make an effort to discover whether the employee did in fact violate or disobey a rule or order of management? . . . . (4) Was the company’s investigation conducted fairly and objectively? . . . . (5) At the investigation, did the [factfinder] obtain substantial evidence or proof that the employee was guilty as charged? . . . . (6) Has the company applied its rules, orders, and penalties evenhandedly and without discrimination to all employees? . . . . (7) Was the degree of discipline administered by the company in a particular case reasonably related to (a) the seriousness of the employee’s proven offense and (b) the record of the employee in his service with the company? Id. (citing Enterprise Wire, 46 Lab. Arb. Rep. (BNA) at 363-64)). The standard was applied strictly, the failure to satisfy even one of the seven factors would preclude a finding of just cause. Id. (citing Enterprise Wire, 46 Lab. Arb. Rep. (BNA) at 362); see also Grief Bros. Cooperage Corp., 42 Lab. Arb. Rep. (BNA) 555 (1964) (Daugherty, Arb.).”
3. Cases
The Department wants arbitrators at 3020-a hearings to believe that a finding of “Just Cause” is subjective and discretionary. In New York State and New York City it is not, at least in disciplinary hearings where public school tenured teachers are involved.
Richard Santer, appellant, v Board of Education of East Meadow Union Free School District
Like other public employees, teachers “do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door, even though it is plain that those rights are somewhat diminished in public employment” (Melzer v Board of Educ. of City School Dist. of City of New York, 336 F3d 185, 192, cert denied 540 U.S. 1183, 124 S. Ct. 1424, 158 L. Ed. 2d 87). HN5 In determining whether a disciplinary measure taken against a public employee violates the employee’s First Amendment rights, a court must first determine whether the speech that led to the discipline related to a matter of public concern. If so, the court must balance free-speech principles against the threat to effective government operation presented by that speech (see Pickering v Board of Educ. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U.S. 563, 88 S. Ct. 1731, 20 L. Ed. 2d 811; Melzer v Board of Educ. of City School Dist. of City of New York, 336 F3d at 193; Rankin v McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 384-388, 107 S. Ct. 2891, 97 L. Ed. 2d 315). The government bears the burden of showing that the disciplinary measure is justified (see United States v Treasury Employees, 513 U.S. 454, 466, 115 S. Ct. 1003, 130 L. Ed. 2d 964; Rankin v McPherson, 483 U.S. at 388; Melzer v Board of Educ. of City School Dist. of City of New York, 336 F3d at 193).
Santer’s “speech” regarding collective bargaining issues indisputably addressed matters of public concern (see Clue v Johnson, 179 F3d 57, 61; Boals v Gray, 775 F2d 686, 693). Moreover, despite the evidence establishing that the manner in which the protest was carried out interfered with the safe and effective drop-off of students (see Matter of Trupiano v Board of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free School Dist., 89 AD3d 1030, 933 N.Y.S.2d 106), we find that the District failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that Santer’s exercise of his First Amendment rights so threatened the school’s effective operation as to justify the imposition of discipline (see Rothschild v Board of Educ. of City of Buffalo, 778 F Supp 642, 656).
The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that HN6 “the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools” (Shelton v Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487, 81 S. Ct. 247, 5 L. Ed. 2d 231). The disciplinary measures imposed on Santer would likely have the effect of chilling speech on an important matter of public concern—the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement.
In the Matter of the Application of Lisa Capece f/k/a LISA GRANDE, Petitioner, against Margaret Schultz, Individually and in her capacity as Community Superintendent of Community School District 31, COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT 31, by its Trustees and/or Directors; and THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Respondents.
In her verified petition, petitioner alleges that she was subjected to harassment and discriminatory treatment at the hands of the administration of P.S. 1, in particular Principal Gordin and Assistant Principal Lisa Arcuri, at least in part in retaliation for her union activities. In support, petitioner reiterates that she received solely satisfactory evaluations, letters of praise, and commendations from the previous administration and her colleagues for the prior two and a half years of her probation, as evidenced by, inter alia, the six initial “Supervisor Observation Forms”, and APPR’s dated June 6, 2005, June 1, 2006 and June 18, 2007, some of which were authored by Principal Gordin, herself. According to petitioner, everything changed after March 15, 2007, “in apparent revenge” for her continuing activities as the UFT co-chapter leader. It is further alleged that “in order to create their false and fabricated file” of unsatisfactory performance, Principal Gordin and co-conspirator Assistant Principal Arcuri engaged in “an intense, guerilla campaign of intimidation, criticism and unwarranted attacks upon her…and a pattern of issuing her conflicting instructions and engaging in discriminatory treatment.” By way of example, petitioner notes that in her final June 18, 2007 APPR, although she received an overall “satisfactory” rating, three of the twenty-three categories were rated “unsatisfactory” by Principal Gordin based upon her alleged manipulation of test score data using a “skewed” analysis to compare the performance of petitioner’s students against other students. Allegedly, no other fifth grade teacher was evaluated in this way. In addition, petitioner claims that during the observations of her teaching performance by Principal Gordin on or after March 15, 2007, the latter engaged in a series of disruptive actions calculated to intimidate petitioner and disrupt her lessons from proceeding as planned. Illustrative of the foregoing, is the Principal’s purported sorting through items on and inside petitioner’s desk while the latter was trying to teach, examining folders that were irrelevant to the lesson, and interrupting petitioner during “guided reading” and “share time”. Petitioner also claims to have been “denied continued enrollment” in a literacy workshop for teachers due to her observance of a Catholic holy day of obligation which happened to coincide with the first day of the workshop. It is claimed that none of her colleagues were similarly penalized. Her petition also includes other instances of alleged harassment and abuse on the part of Principal Gordin in support of the contention that her termination was unjust and that she was “singled-out by an administration that took revenge for her serving as an advocate for unionized colleagues.”
Stated alternatively, judicial review of the discharge of probationary employee is limited to whether the determination was made in bad faith or for an improper or impermissible reason (see Matter of Swinton v Safir, 93 NY2d 758, 763, 720 N.E.2d 89, 697 N.Y.S.2d 869; Matter of Johnson v Katz, 68 NY2d 649, 650, 496 N.E.2d 223, 505 N.Y.S.2d 64). In such cases, it is the employee who “bears the burden of establishing such bad faith or illegal conduct by competent evidence rather than speculation ” (Matter of Rossetti-Boerner v Hampton Bays Union Free School Dist., 1 AD3d at 368). Were it to be held otherwise, substantial evidence of, e.g., bad faith, would be required in every case of a probationer’s dismissal, thereby standing the probationary process on its head (see Matter of Cipolla v Kelly, 26 AD3d 171, 812 N.Y.S.2d 462). Thus, the law has developed that the appropriate standard of review to be applied in these types of cases is whether the determination to terminate petitioner’s probationary employment was arbitrary and capricious (see Von Gizycki v Levy, 3 AD3d 572, 574, 771 N.Y.S.2d 174).
Consonant with the foregoing, it is the Court’s opinion that petitioner herein has sustained her evidentiary burden by the production of sufficient evidence to raise a material issue of fact as to whether or not her discontinuance was made in bad faith, i.e., as a “retaliatory measure designed to punish her at least in part for her exercise of her constitutional right to engage in activities as a member of the local teachers’ union” (Matter of Tischler v Board of Educ., Monroe Woodbury Cent. School Dist. No. 1, 37 AD2d 261, 263, 323 N.Y.S.2d 508).
Here, the evidence before the Court indicates that the unsatisfactory performance evaluations and alleged incidents of professional misconduct occurred solely within the period that she was engaged in union activities. This is also the same period during which she filed the harassment grievance against Principal Gordin. In fact, even the recommendation of discontinuance by the majority of the members of the Chancellor’s Committee was forced to concede that the onset of petitioner’s “negative evaluations…[happen to] coincide with her…election as the union’s co-chapter leader.” All teachers have the right of free association and union membership as guaranteed by the First Amendment, and where the dismissal of a probationary teacher represents a substantial interference with his or her First Amendment rights, “such action cannot be permitted to stand unless it can be shown that the conduct in question has a clear relationship to the maintenance of an efficient educational system, and the dismissal was motivated by a desire to benefit the system rather than to interfere with the exercise of his or her constitutional rights” (id. at 264).
Under these circumstances, since the retaliatory nature of petitioner’s dismissal cannot be determined on the facts thus far adduced and the reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom, judicial review is mandated (see Matter of New York City Dept. of Envtl. Protection v New York City Civil Serv. Comm., 78 NY2d 318, 323, 579 N.E.2d 1385, 574 N.Y.S.2d 664), and the matter must proceed to trial (CPLR 7804[h]; see Martinez v. State Univ. of N.Y.-College at Oswego, 13 A.D.3d 749, 750-751; cf. Matter of Anonymous v Commissioner of Health, 21 AD3d 841, 844, 801 N.Y.S.2d 302; but see Matter of Johnson v Katz, 68 NY2d at 650; Matter of Weintraub v Board of Educ. of City School Dist. of City of NY, 298 AD2d 595, 748 N.Y.S.2d 685).
Accordingly, the petition is granted to the extent that the parties are to appear for a Preliminary Conference on September 15, 2009 at 9:30 A.M.
Local Union 1392, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner, v. National Labor Relations Board, Respondent; Indiana & Michigan Electric Co., Intervenor
No. 85-5221
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
786 F.2d 733; 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 23325; 121 L.R.R.M. 3259; 104 Lab. Cas. (CCH) P11,797
February 13, 1986, Argued
March 26, 1986
PRIOR HISTORY: On Petition for Review of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board.
CASE SUMMARY
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Petitioner union filed a petition for review of a decision by respondent National Labor Relations Board, which ruled in favor of the employer. Respondent found that the employer did not violate § 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act when it imposed a harsher discipline on 2 union officers than on 10 other employees.
OVERVIEW: Petitioner union filed unfair labor practice charges against an employer under § 8(a)(1)