Before terminating an employee, one must have a termination program in place. Every i must be dotted, every t crossed. And when it comes to terminating an employee who is a union negotiator, one must not only be sure that every legal step has been taken, but one must demonstrate that such firings have nothing to do with upcoming negotiations. If a firing takes place during a union negotation, the company is inviting all sorts of problems, ranging from NLRB hearings to court cases, from slowdowns to strikes.
A Vermont telephone company. VTel, has recently fired an employee who is an elected union negotiator. The union and management have brought their cases to The National Labor Relations Board, which will have to decide if the company broke union negotiating laws.
The company claims there is a diminished workload as a result of an increase in DSL customers who do not require as much technical support as dial-up customers.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) however, claims that there were other motives behind the firing.
The union represents only employees who work on the regulated side of the business, not the DSL side. The company claims it had every right to fire the employee.
The union claims that federal law prohibits a compnay from making staff changes while negotiating a contract.
This is another case of management waiting too long to act. If they wanted to remove the employee as part of their negotiating strategy, they should have done so long before the contract came up for negotiation.
My corporate clients have strategies and tactics in place months before it’s time to negotiate with a union.
