By Christopher Casillas
The three-member Commission, hearing an appeal in a complex case involving numerous allegations of discrimination and interference involving the SNOCOM 911 Regional Dispatch Center, recently affirmed a decision issued by the Hearing Examiner sustaining numerous unfair labor practice charges. The case originally involved nearly a dozen and one-half independent allegations of unfair labor practices alleged by the SNOCOM Dispatchers’ Association, many involving a strong anti-union bias by SNOCOM’s Director, Debbie Grady, against the then-President and Vice President of the Association. In an abbreviated decision, the Commission upheld all of the Examiner’s findings and conclusions outlining the scope of SNOCOM’s unlawful behavior.
The case stems back to actions taken in late 2009 by the newly-appointed Director at SNOCOM, Debbie Grady. Upon arriving at SNOCOM, the Director exhibited an immediate disdain for the Association and its leadership, and at the behest and direction of two officials with the City of Mountlake Terrace—Assistant City Manager Scott Hugill and Chief of Police Greg Wilson—Grady embarked on a targeted campaign against the Association’s President and Vice-President at that time. Over the course of a few months, both union officials were the subject of numerous investigations into alleged policy violations and subsequent disciplinary actions. The pair of union officials were even set out on administrative leave for an extended duration based on false allegations for which they were later cleared. The case also involved numerous allegations of SNOCOM making unilateral changes to mandatory subjects of bargaining and violating employee Weingarten rights. The original decision can be found here.
Upon finding that Scott Hugill had encouraged Grady to lie in an effort to entrap, and discipline, the Association President and that the numerous other complaints and disciplinary steps taken against these two Association officials were done with an intent to discriminate, the Examiner sustained many of the Association’s complaints concerning discrimination and interference. The alleged policy violations against the union officials were found to have little merit, but there was evidence to sustain a finding that they were principally motivated by an anti-union bias. To remedy this, the Examiner ordered the removal of disciplinary acts in the employees’ personnel files and to compensate both officials for lost wages and overtime opportunities as a result of these disciplinary proceedings that, the Examiner concluded, were done with an intent to discriminate against union officials for their role in the Association.
Other allegations lodged by the Association were also sustained by the Examiner, including finding that the employer unilaterally changed a work rule concerning discussions about union-business in the workplace and for violating the Weingarten rights of employees during an investigatory interview. The Weingarten violation involved actions by yet another Mountlake Terrace official, Assistant Chief Pete Caw, who in conducting one of the investigatory interviews of the union President at that time told her representative to sit down and “shut up” during the course of the interview—a clear violation of Weingarten.
