Premium
Employers Must Beware of Scapegoating When Disciplining Employees During Union Activity
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
management report for nonunion organizations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1530-8286
pISSN - 0745-4880
DOI - 10.1002/mare.30665
Subject(s) - scapegoating , labor relations , action (physics) , discipline , business , law , political science , public relations , law and economics , sociology , politics , physics , quantum mechanics
Employee discipline seems to become more complicated by the day. The concept of at‐will employment has been steadily eroded by a bevy of employment discrimination and related laws that prohibit discipline and termination on an ever‐increasing number of bases. For 85 years, the National Labor Relations Act has provided one of the longest‐standing limitations by prohibiting discipline based on employees' support for a union. Businesses faced with disciplinary decisions will often rely on the fact that they did not know a disciplined employee had engaged in protected activity as a defense if the lawfulness of its action is challenged. However, as recently announced in Napleton 1050 Inc. v. NLRB (D.C. Cir., October 6, 2020), an employer's lack of knowledge of an individual's participation in protected activity will not win the day with respect to an otherwise unlawful act.