Union Demands - Larry Melton - Essay Example

In the apartment building the supervisor, Larry Melton, was very mad that the employees were interested in forming a union.

Mr. Melton began a behavioral pattern that was hurting the employees because he was making inquiries to several employees about the dealings of the union with the janitorial workers. Larry Melton was harassing the employees by calling them at home with questions about the affairs of the union. Larry did not have the right to call the employees after labor hours and ask them about things that occurred outside the workplace. He was violating both the trust of the employees and their privacy. Some of the claims of wrongdoing by the union in regard to the actions of the company included:

• Repeatedly interrogating employees about union activities.
• Threats of reducing benefits.
• Threatening the employees for refusing to reveal the identities of those who attended the union meetings.
• Forcing employees to reveal the nature of the private union meetings.
• Making employees offer better medical benefits if they fail to join the union.

In my opinion, the majority of the claims made by the union were true. Larry Melton acted in an unethical manner in regard to the union activity with the janitorial workers. He pushed the employees to tell him information that they did not have to reveal. His actions constituted harassment. The company realized that Larry Melton acted wrongly and to protect the firm the company decided to terminate his employment contract. One of the arguments of the company was that they were not aware of the behavior of Larry Melton and that his actions were not sponsored by the company.

Despite his action is wrong, the company claimed they were not coercive and that he simply wanted to know if the union had the support of the employees to determine if a true majority existed. The company also claimed that neither George Thompson nor any of the employees were threatened. The language used by the supervisor was vague and inconclusive. The firm also claimed that the increase in medical benefits offered was a routine annual increment that was in no way used to manipulate the decision of the workers in regards to accepting or not the union. When comparing the arguments made by the union and by the company I believe that the union has the more persuasive argument.

I do not think that the statement made by Nord is fully protected by free speech as the company claimed. In reality, Nord was against the union from the start and one of his first directives as the supervisor was to ensure that the unionization of the janitors did not occur. The union wanted the NLRB to accept the request for unionization based on the authorization cards submitted by the union before the election. The union believes that these cards should be accepted because the results of the election were coerced by the company. The claim of the union does not have any legal validity because the union did not prove the true existence of coercion. Coercion can be defined as the use of intimidation to obtain compliance (Dictionary, 2012).

The entire ordeal with the union and the company regarding the rights of the janitors had lots of inconsistencies that may have affected the results of the elections. I believe that the best course of action is for a new election among the janitors to occur to truly determine if the majority of the janitors want a union or are happy without its existence. This case study was very interesting because it showed a scenario in which a company felt threatened by the existence of a union. Overall I believe that the company acted in an unethical manner in its efforts to prevent the janitors of the company to become a part of a union. In the United States, all non-managerial workers have the right to unionization. There are 14.8 million workers that belong to unions in the U.S. (Bls, 2012). Read More