Takeaway: Do not treat union-covered employees differently from nonunion employees in the terms and conditions of their employment. Disparate treatment may be considered discrimination or interference with an employee's rights based on union support, activity or membership in violation of the NLRA and may result in an unfair-labor-practice charge.
An employer violated an employee's Weingarten right to have a union representative present during questioning about a workplace safety incident, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled, despite the employer's argument that the right did not apply because it had already made the decision to discipline the employee.
The decision came in an appeal by the employer for review of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determinations that the employer had engaged in numerous unfair labor practices during several incidents.
In the safety incident, a union-covered employee had moved an item into a paint booth on a forklift and proceeded to paint with the forklift still in the booth. The operations director notified the employee of the safety violation, and two days later the plant manager called the employee into the office to question him about the incident. The employee asked for a union representative to be present during questioning, but the plant manager refused the request, saying the company only wanted to ask some questions about the incident.
When the employee arrived, an HR professional presented him...
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