holding that an employer may threaten an employee with discipline in seeking to compel compliance with investigatory questions regarding employee misconduct if the employer’s inquiry is still in the investigatory stages
How later courts described this case
- holding that an employer may threaten an employee with discipline in seeking to compel compliance with investigatory questions regarding employee misconduct if the employer’s inquiry is still in the investigatory stages
- in pre-arbitration interview of employee, employer “may be prohibited from prying into union activities, or using the interview as an excuse to discover the union strategies for arbitration”
- “[T]his court has stressed . . . that the [NLRB] possesses an unmatched expertise in distilling and identifying the coercive effects of employer conduct.” (citation omitted)
- suggesting employer coercion needed to make rights "enforceable"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ROBB, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I concur in Judge Edwards’ opinion except that I would not remand to the Board the matter of the Steward Whitwell.
On the remand the Board of course will be required to reach a conclusion based on the evidence in the record. In my judgment however there is nothing in the record to suggest that Whitwell was entitled to special protection because of his status as a *726 union steward. As Judge Edwards points out the questioning of Whitwell “was purely factual in nature, concerning solely the events that occurred at the plant on February 3.” (Op., at 714). In other words Whitwell was interviewed simply as a witness, not as a steward, and the questioning had nothing to do with his activities or functions as a steward. On these facts I think Whitwell’s status as a steward did not insulate him from his duty to disclose what he knew about the incident of February 3.