Public Employee Press

New law guarantees the right to union presence during employer interrogation

In a victory for DC 37 members and all public sector workers in New York State, on July 18 Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed legislation that provides all employees, regardless of their civil service status, the right to representation at any meeting with managers or supervisors when it appears that questioning may lead to disciplinary proceedings.

The DC 37 Legal Dept. began working with the union’s Political Action and Research and Negotiations departments to craft the bill after the state’s highest court ruled earlier this year that public employees do not have an inherent right to such representation under the Taylor Law on public sector labor relations. The legislation was sponsored by Assembly member Peter J. Abbate and Sen. Joseph E. Robach.

The new protection is similar to the “Weingarten Rights” of private sector employees. Employees subject to Section 75 of the state Civil Service Law have similar protections, and the Citywide Contract contains similar protections for the permanent employees it covers. But the Court of Appeals decision meant that provisional, probationary, noncompetitive or labor class employees would not have had the right of union representation in disciplinary interviews.

The new law makes it an improper practice for a public employer to refuse a public employee the right, upon the employee’s demand, to representation by the employee’s union when it appears that he or she may be subject to disciplinary action. If the employee requests representation, the employer must give the employee a reasonable period of time to obtain such representation. It is important to remember that the employee must request union representation at the time of the employer’s questioning.