Employer's "out of the ordinary" action was unlawful surveillance

[Omaha Steve]

http://hr.cch.com/news/employment/031408a.asp

A nursing home employer engaged in unlawful surveillance when an administrator came in on Saturday, her day off, solely for the purpose of observing union activity, then stood by the exit door and watched the entire duration of a union meeting being held outside. A three-member panel of the NLRB reversed an administrative law judge's dismissal of the Section 8(a)(1) charge (Sprain Brook Manor Nursing Home, LLC, 2008-09 CCH NLRB ¶15,039).

While an employer may observe open union activity on or near its property, it may not behave "out of the ordinary" to give employees the impression of surveillance over their union activities, the Board noted. In this instance, the administrator's Saturday presence was out of the norm, and thus gave an unlawful impression of surveillance.

A 2-1 Board majority also held that the employer's hiring of a second, armed security guard, and its deployment of two guards during shift-change periods while employees were engaged in protected activity, reasonably tended to intimidate or coerce employees and thus violated the Act. Member Schaumber dissented on this issue.

For more information on this and other topics, consult CCH Employment Practices Guide or CCH Labor Relations.

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