Non-Trivial Pursuits
Case studies in basic legal rights. (Any resemblance to persons or institutions living or dead is largely coincidental.)
1. Two Minutes
What does the word "collective" mean in the phrase "collective bargaining?"
When can an individual employee or group of employees bargain their own contract with management?
2. Three Minutes
Two nurses -- Stanley and Bernice -- are sitting in the cafeteria on their break, talking about problems at work. The big problem, they both agree, is all the mandatory overtime which they are being forced to do. They feel like their personal lives are being affected and the quality of care they can provide is falling. They are also mad at the manager who assigns the overtime, Glenda Driver. Stanley draws a cartoon of Glenda, showing her shaking a nurse's hand and secretly preparing to stab her in the back. The cartoon is very popular with their coworkers who copy it and pass it around. Glenda Driver is given a copy of the cartoon. The next day Bernice and Stanley are both suspended for one week for insubordination and unprofessional behavior.
Can they be suspended for what they did?
What can they do?
3. Three Minutes
Stanley and Bernice go to the National Labor Relations Board to file an Unfair Labor Practice charge. The NLRB hearing officer says she will investigate but that the NLRB policy is to defer to the union grievance procedure. Back at the hospital, one co-worker suggests they file a lawsuit. Another says they should go to the union. When Bernice and Stanley go to the union representative, Mary Napoleon, to file a grievance, they are told that they are the ones causing a problem and they have nothing to file a grievance about.
Can they go to court?
Can the union representative refuse to file or handle their grievance?
What should Bernice and Stanley do?
4. Three Minutes
After reconsidering Mary's decision, the union goes ahead with Bernice and Stanley's grievance. Meanwhile, their co-workers meet after work in a local restaurant and write up a petition calling on the Hospital to rescind the suspensions and to fire or transfer Glenda Driver. When they circulate the petition in the hospital, union representative Mary Napoleon takes the petitions, tears them up, and tells them that they have to stop interfering in union affairs or else they will be suspended.
Can they be suspended for what they are doing?
Can the union discipline them for it?
What should they do?
5. Two Minutes
The "Stanley and Bernice Support Committee" is formed by nurses and other workers at the hospital. The committee meets after work and has issued a set of demands on the union including support for Bernice and Stanley, action to fight the misuse of overtime, and demands for proposals to be presented in contract negotiations. Some people are also talking about running for union office in the next election. The next day, Bernice gets a letter from the union warning her to stop "creating dissension and division in the Union."
Can the workers form a committee in the union?
Can the union discipline or threaten a member for what s/he says about the union?
6. Three Minutes
Two weeks later, the union's chief negotiator and the Council President issue a joint statement that there is a new tentative agreement, that it is a great achievement which everyone should support, and that there will be a ratification vote by mail ballot next week. The Stanley and Bernice Support Committee, which has doubled in size and is now known as the "Caregivers for Justice and Democracy," has been asking the union to provide the exact language of all the new contract provisions, including what has been removed, changed, or added. The union has refused. Now the committee is calling on members to vote no and is asking the union to send out its leaflet to the membership, since the union sent out a letter calling for people to vote yes. The union refuses to send out the leaflet.
Do the members have a right to see the contract before they vote?
Does the union have to send out their leaflet?
What should the committee do?