Know Your Rights

This article is to educate NATCA members on the legal rights they have under various circumstances. For purposes of this article, it will not matter whether a ratified contract or the imposed work rules govern.

 

Meeting with Management

  Always insist on your right to a representative:

• If it is possible that disciplinary action may result, a representative is an entitlement. Members should get in the habit of making a request for a representative.
• In the past, a representative was an entitlement only for formal discussions and Weingarten (information gathering/questioning). Performance meetings were excluded.
• However, the FAA initiated a program of discipline based on performance. When they made this change, they opened the door for union representatives to attend performance meetings
• The member, and/or representative, should make it clear to the manager in question that he/she “proceeds at their own risk” if a representative is denied.
• NATCA members should always anticipate that disciplinary action may result unless a written document is signed over to them saying otherwise. (e.g. a written declination of discipline.)

  In a meeting with management a member may (without personal attacks):

• Ask questions
• Actively participate in the meeting
• Propose solutions
• Suggest other avenues of inquiry
• Make comments and express concerns relative to the topic
• Seek clarification
• Raise objections to management question types and forms (e.g. never answer a compound question: “Did you leave early and falsify government logs?”), lack of documentation, lack of proof, hearsay, assumptions, and other improper activity by management
• Challenge assumptions, documents, evidence, witnesses, and other aspects of the meeting
• Review all evidence
• Have the right to know who said what and when it was said. Contained herein is the right to confront an accuser
• Request a break to gather thoughts, obtain evidence, get counsel, or otherwise seek relief

Look for common management mistakes:

• Legal Wording: If a legal charge is placed against you, management must meet the burden of proof (theft vs. unauthorized taking).
• Compound Charges: Management must prove both (leaving early and falsifying logs).
• Excessive Charges: If you have seldom or never before been counseled, yet suddenly the manager lists several accusations.
• Incorrect Charge: Not reporting an error vs. giving false information during the investigation.
• Penalty too strong.
• The agency is required to prove the charge(s) it makes, not the ones it should, could, or would have made.

Conduct of Manager:

• If the manager denies you the right to a representative, but insists on a “note taker”, insist on you own witness.
• The manager must be professional, not personal.
• If a manager acts improperly, make charges.  A manager who insists on meeting with you alone invites accusations of sexual misconduct, assault, and other problems. This would include accusations that stem from simple misunderstandings (a pat on the shoulder [assault] or feeling clothes in determination of compliance of dress code [sexual assault]). 

Notes:

• If the manager refers to notes obtained from and/or written by someone else, or otherwise are not an ”extension of his/her own memory”, there is a major problem.
• The agency system of records, which is a product of federal law, forbids such notes.
• The manager can only use his/her own notes unless the agency system of records has been followed. To be in compliance with the system of records, you would have had to be given a signed dated copy with its submission to the manager in question plus been provided an opportunity to rebut the note and have said rebuttal attached during distribution.