Opinion ID: 185453
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reprimanding Karen Richardson for Union Solicitation during Worktime

Text: 13 On May 7, 1998, East Tawas plant manager Rod Kaschner and supervisor Jeff Binder called ten-year East Tawas employee and active union member Karen Richardson into Kaschner's office. Richardson memorialized the exchange in a letter to Kaschner of same date: 14 Rod asked me to sit down. He then said he has had a few people on the floor complaining to him about me talking about union related activities and union informa tion to them and they were offended. He told me then that any more conversations about the union were to be kept outside, in the lunch room and on my off time. He said I wasn't to be talking about the union on the floor any more to anyone. 15 Letter from Karen Richardson to Rod Kaschner (May 7, 1998) (emphasis added). Kaschner responded with his own letter the following day, in which he agreed with Richardson's description. He added only that [t]he point again of the whole meeting was if an individual is not interested in talking with you about union activities, you should respect their wishes and avoid such discussions. Letter from Rod Kaschner to Karen Richardson (May 8, 1998). The Union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board alleging that East Tawas management had discriminatorily applied the plant's worktime no-solicitation policy to union solicitations in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA. 16 Relying on the above letters as well as testimony from Richardson that she suffered no punishment and had resumed union solicitation on the floor after a mere seven days, the ALJ found that the Act was [not] violated because management was essentially telling Richardson not to bother her fellow employees ... and I see at most a de minimus or insignificant infringement on Karen Richardson's Section 7 rights. Board Decision, at 5. The Board disagreed. 17 The Board acknowledged that ITT's no-solicitation rule was valid on its face, inasmuch as it prohibited all solicitations of any kind by any employee during worktime. Id. at 1 (quoting ITTA Northern Plants Fluid Handling Employee Handbook 31). In practice, however, the Board found that East Tawas management did not enforce the rule, letting employees and managers talk about a variety of subjects and engage in a number of solicitation activities at their work stations. According to the Board, Kaschner's and Binder's May 7 admonition not to engage in any discussion of the Union with any employee on the production floor constituted impermissible disparate treatment. Board Decision, at 2. The Board rejected the suggestion that the violation was somehow de minimus and ordered management to post notice that it would cease disparate enforcement of the neutral nosolicitation policy. Id. 18 This petition for review of both 8(a)(1) violations followed.