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JULY 28, 2000

STAFF & BENEFITS

A Buddy System for Disciplinary Meetings
Nonunion employees now have the right to take a colleague with them


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When it comes to disciplinary matters, it look's like three is no longer a crowd. Under a new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, nonunion employees now have the right to bring a co-worker to any meeting with a boss that's expected to end in discipline. Faced with such a request, employers may opt to cancel the meeting. Employees can't be disciplined for refusing to answer questions in private.

The decision's reach could be sweeping. It extends to nonunion workers the "Weingarten rule," which gives unionized employees the right to have a union representative in any meeting the employee "reasonably believes might result in disciplinary action." The ruling essentially gives that right to the 90% of the U.S. workforce -- including a large swath of small-business employees -- that isn't unionized.

Employers excluded from the NLRB's jurisdiction include public utilities, railroads, airlines, and nonretail businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenue or retail businesses with less than $500,000 in annual sales.

Experts on labor policy disagree over the ruling's true impact. One opponent is Cleveland attorney Steven Moss, who represented the nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation of Northeast Ohio against two of its former employees in the case that led to the recent NLRB ruling. "It's really a trip-wire for employers," he says. He argues that the rule will make it more difficult for employers to investigate sensitive matters such as sexual harassment or to deal head-on with serious performance problems.

Others, however, are slower to sound the alarm. "It's not the overwhelming calamity that some people think it is," says Mike Bartlett, manager of labor-law policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Employers who who violate the NLRB's ruling face no civil fines, and Bartlett says he's not convinced that employees will use the option very often.


By Julie Fields

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