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NLRB limits “Weingarten” rights to union workers

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that nonunion employees are not entitled to have a co-worker present during an interview that might lead to disciplinary action, marking the fourth time in 23 years that the board has changed its position on the issue. The decision overrules the board’s 2000 decision in Epilepsy Foundation, which extended the so-called “Weingarten” rights of unionized employees to employees working in nonunion workplaces.

     The case involved three nonunion IBM employees who had been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee. The employees asked to have a co-worker present during the employer’s second round of investigatory interviews, but the requests were turned down. IBM discharged the employees a month after the investigation, and they filed unfair labor practice charges against the company, claiming that the denial of representation was unlawful. An administrative law judge who heard the case sided with the employees, applying Epilepsy Foundation, but has now been reversed on appeal by the board.
     Click here to read the NLRB’s decision in IBM.