SPFPA™ Explores Your Rights During Company Interrogation

1. SPFPA™ Explores Your Rights During Company Interrogation

2. As the leading voice and advocate for security professionals across the country, SPFPA™ works hard to ensure each member has the representation needed to protect themselves from unfair labor practices while pursuing the wages, benefits and work conditions they deserve, This includes the services of dedicated union stewards, the most vital function of which is to prevent employer intimidation of workers during closed-door interrogation meetings when employees are often at their most vulnerable.

3. Interrogation and Intimidation The International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA™) knows that without a trained, knowledgeable union steward at your side, a closed-door company interrogation can be an intimidating and even detrimental process—one in which guards or supervisors trained in interrogation techniques may try to coerce you into confessing to wrongdoing for which you have no actual responsibility or knowledge. Fortunately, you do have the right to union representation during investigatory interviews, a right solidified by the 1975 U.S. Supreme Court decision NLRB v. J. Weingarten.

4. Knowing Your “Weingarten Rights NLRB v. J. Weingarten involved a clerk under investigation by the Weingarten Company, thus enshrining your rights to union representation during an investigatory interview as “Weingarten Rights.” As an SPFPA™ member—or member or any NLRB-certified union—you are encouraged to assert your Weingarten Right to a union steward during any such interview.

5. A steward can provide help in a variety of ways. These include: • Helping articulate what happened during the event in question. • Raising any extenuating circumstances that may be important. • Advising against the blind denial of everything (which can give the perception of guilt). • Preventing you from making harmful admissions. • Preventing the loss of temper and/or being fired for insubordination. • Providing a key witness that prevents any false accounts of the discussion.

6. What Defines an Investigatory Interview? As an employee, you may only invoke your Weingarten Rights during an investigatory interview, generally defined as: An event where a supervisor or manager questions you to obtain information as the foundation for discipline, or to ask you to defend your conduct. If you have a reasonable belief that adverse consequences may result from what you say during an interview, you may request SPFPA™ (union) representation.

7. Such interviews usually pertain to • Drinking • Drugs • Accidents • Absenteeism • Records falsification • Property damage • Poor attitude • Insubordination • Fighting • Poor attitude • Safety rules violations • Work performance It’s important to note that every management-initiated discussion, such as ordinary shop-floor discussions, are not investigatory interviews. There must be a reasonable belief or possibility that discipline may result from the interview to take advantage of your Weingarten Rights.

8. Knowing the Weingarten Rules According to the Weingarten decision, several rules apply to investigatory interviews: 1. You must make a clear request for union representation before or during the investigatory interview. You cannot be punished for doing so. 2. Once the request is made, the employer must either: • Grant the request or delay the interview until the union rep arrives. • Deny your request and stop the interview immediately, or • Provide you a choice of 1) proceeding without representation, or 2) ending the interview. 3. If you are denied the request for representation, and management continues to ask questions, they are engaging in an unfair labor practice. In this case, you have the right to refuse to answer, and you may not be disciplined for doing so.