Court Opinion

ID: 9635689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:59:47.22885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:32.916886
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Judge Mencer :
I respectfully dissent. I cannot conclude, as the majority does, that “confronting an employee with oral charges of unsatisfactory job performance, informing him that disciplinary action was being recommended and requesting his resignation, all as happened here, amounted to a constructive discharge and constituted 'the commencement of proceedings’ as that phase is used in Appendix F.”
Appendix F of the agreement in question provides, inter alia, as follows:
“The Employer shall furnish written notification of supervisory . . . charges against the employe at least twenty-four (24) hours prior to the commencement of proceedings.”
Here there was no such notification, but there was none needed since the grievant resigned. However, accepting the majority’s determination that under the facts here the grievant was constructively discharged, it does not seem to me that (1) confronting an employee with unsatisfactory job performance, (2) informing him that disciplinary action was being recommended, and (3) requesting his resignation constitutes the “commencement of proceedings.” Without such a conclusion, written notification was not required and the agreement had not been violated.
The arbitrator’s award, based solely on his determination that a prior written notification of the commencement of proceedings had not been afforded to the grievant, should not be allowed to stand on a record which cries out that no proceedings were commenced.