Your Rights
Know Your Rights!
A contract violation happens if this contract is breached in some way. If this is suspected to be the case, an employee can file what is called a grievance.
What’s a grievance?
- A grievance is a worker complaint of a potential contract violation or violation of the employer’s own policies and procedures. The purpose of this is to find a remedy for the situation.
- If you have any questions or concerns about your working conditions in relation to our negotiated contract or the below listed rights, please contact an AFSCME Local 517 Steward.
YOUR RIGHTS:
It is your legally protected right to organize and form a union. These rights are protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
It is illegal for an employer to stand in the way of employees exercising their rights to organize. Your rights are clear. Management cannot lawfully:
- Fire, threaten to fire, discriminate against, or punish employees in any way for union activity;
- Bar employees from discussing the union with co-workers during non-working hours;
- Ask employees about the union, union meetings, or any other questions pertaining to the organizing and administration of your union;
- Coerce employees by changing or threatening to change wages, hours of work, shifts, overtime or any other conditions of work.
Weingarten Rights, Garrity Rights, Loudermill Rights, and Tennessen Rights
- Weingarten Rights apply to the right of a unionized employee to request union
representation for any investigatory interview conducted by their employer, in which the employee has the reasonable belief that the discussion could lead to disciplinary action. These rights are based on the 1975 United States Supreme Court decision NLRB v. J. Weingarten Inc. The Weingarten decision itself applies only to private sector employees, but the federal government and many states have extended similar rights to public employees via legislation, court decision, and/or rulings by state labor boards. In some cases, unionized public employees have enshrined Weingarten Rights into their collective bargaining agreements. - Garrity Rights apply to the right of a public employee not to be compelled to incriminate themselves by their employer. These rights are based on the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision Garrity v. New Jersey. Garrity Rights apply only to public employees because the government itself is their employer.
- Loudermill Rights require due process before a public employee can be dismissed from their job. These rights are based on the 1985 United States Supreme Court decision Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill. Generally, these rights require a public employer to offer to have a “pre-termination” meeting with the affected employee; at this meeting, the employer presents their grounds for termination, and the employee is given the opportunity to respond. Like Garrity Rights, these rights only apply to public employees because the government itself is their employer, and the Constitution only applies to actions taken by the government. A private sector employee – for example, a manufacturing worker – possesses only Weingarten Rights, and only if the private sector employee is in a unionized workplace. A public sector employee possesses Garrity Rights and Loudermill Rights because their employer is the government, regardless of whether he/ she works in a unionized workplace. The same public sector employee may possess rights similar or identical to Weingarten Rights, provided they work in a unionized workplace.
- Tennessen Rights. The government must give individuals notice when collecting private or confidential information from them. This is referred to as a “Tennessen warning notice.” Government may also call it a “privacy notice,” a “notice of collection of private/confidential data,” or something similar.