SEIU Local 509 Member's Suspension Reversed, Thanks to Pyle Rome

The Commonwealth Employment Relations Board
agreed with Attorneys Kate Shea and James Hykel that a SEIU Local 509 member must be made whole for a three-day suspension issued in violation of state law.

The State suspended an employee, also a Local 509 member, for forcefully requesting a fair hearing and getting in a heated exchange with an employer representative during a grievance meeting. A Department of Labor Relations hearing officer agreed with Local 509 Attorney Tod Cochran that the suspension violated Section 10(a)(1) of Chapter 150E. This provision generally prohibits public employers from taking actions that could tend to intimidate or chill employees from exercising rights to engage in activity protected by the law, such as filing grievances. It generally has been interpreted to protect impassioned, but non-threatening, statements by union representatives.

Although the Hearing Officer found the suspension to be illegal, he did not order the State to make the employee whole for the three days the member went unpaid. The Hearing Officer believed that he could not, generally speaking, order a make whole remedy for a 10(a)(1) violation.

CERB, on review of the decision, disagreed. CERB ordered the State to rescind the discipline and pay the three days of wages inappropriately withheld from the Local 509 member.