Background
PROTECTED BEHAVIOR Facts: Federal labor law protects an employee’s right to engage in a union organizing campaign on the employer’s property as long as the employee is on his or her own time. Non-employee union proponents do not enjoy that same right. Wallace, an employee of Earle Industries, was fired for insubordination because of the following incident. A union organizing campaign was under way at Earle Industries when the Reverend Jesse Jackson came to the plant to address the employees during their lunchtime. He and two union officials, who were not employees at the plant drove into the plant’s parking lot in a flatbed truck and Rev. Jackson spoke from the back of the truck to the luncheon crowd. The union officials refused to leave when told they were trespassing, and they were arrested. Jackson went toward the plant to ask plant officials to have the union representatives released. Wallace was among the crowd accompanying Jackson to the plant. Jackson entered the plant through the “Employees Only” entrance and was met by a plant manager who asked him to leave. The manager told him he could reenter the plant through the Visitor’s Entrance. According to the plant manager, Wallace told Jackson that the Visitor’s Entrance was locked and encouraged him to bypass the manager and go to the vice president’s office. After a few exchanges, Jackson did just that. All of this activity was captured by the news media on film. At the vice president’s office, Jackson was again asked to leave and reenter through the Visitor’s Entrance. The vice president then met with him and eventually the union officials were released. Wallace was called in by management about a week later and asked to explain her actions. She denied telling Jackson that the Visitor’s Entrance was locked, saying she had really been saying, “clocked,” and was encouraging her fellow workers to make sure they were off of the clock. The company fired her for insubordination and dishonesty, using the tape as evidence. She appealed to the NLRB, and it ruled that the company had fired her in violation of federal law because all of the events complained of were part of an organizing campaign and therefore the employer could not discipline her. The company disagreed and appealed the decision to the U.S. Circuit Court. Decision: The court reversed the Board, saying that Wallace’s actions, although undertaken in the context of union activity, exceeded what an employer need allow: first, by bringing a non-employee into the plant through an “Employee Only” entrance, and then by ignoring the request of the plant manager to have Jackson leave, Wallace undermined the employer’s authority in front of other employees and the news media.
Questions
Why you think confrontations such as the one described in this case still occur in the workplace after over 100 years of union organizing in the United States?.
Would the plant manager have diffused the situation by escorting the Reverend Jackson to the vice-president’s office and ignoring the entrance violation?
Do you think Wallace’s behavior toward the plant manager should have resulted in discipline?