An Anti-Nepotism Policy
LABOR RELATIONS
Professor: Virginia Beer
3/17/2013
Antinepotism policies are management policies in which a company will prohibit relatives in supervising a relative, work in the same department as a relative, or exert influence over a relative's hiring, salary, or promotion. Relative is a member of an individual's family, including wife, husband, son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, grandmother, grandfather, stepparent, and stepchild.
The antinepotism statute was clearly not intended to prevent relatives from working together. The statute simply prohibits one who has the authority to employ, appoint, promote, advance, or recommend same from using that authority with respect to his or her own relatives.
Prohibited Actions and Supervisory Relationships:
Simply put, employees cannot hire or supervise anyone closely related to them. Specifically:
1. No employee shall be involved in any way in the recruiting, interviewing, hiring, processing, evaluating, promoting, disciplining or terminating a close relative to work as an employee, consultant or independent contractor for the agency.
2. Employees cannot provide a close relative’s resume to Department employees or discuss a relative’s application with anyone in the Department.
3. Employees may tell relatives about a public listing for a job, but may not otherwise help them obtain the job.
4. No employee shall supervise or manage directly or indirectly a close relative or member of the same household. For purposes of this policy, supervise or manage shall include but not be limited to giving, furnishing or overseeing work assignments, evaluating or approving performance evaluations or tasks and standards, recommending or approving a discretionary act regarding working conditions, salary, promotion, time and leave, etc.
5. Failure to disclose the foregoing relationships is a violation of the DOHMH’s Anti-Nepotism Policy and Code of Conduct Rule 1.15, and may result in disciplinary action with resulting penalties ranging up to and including termination of employment.
UNION POSITION:
The Issue that is presented in this case is that Mrs. Keith Walton was terminated from employment on January 2006 for allegedly violating the anti-nepotism company policy. The union position is that the company has no right to impose against making an arrangement when polices are imprecise and contradictorily applied. The Union stays that not all employees had access to the General Operational Manual and that not all employees were familiar with the meaning of the word “antinepotism”. The Union also claims that the policy was released in the year 2003 making it a formal document before that they did not understand nor view the employee handbook as a policy manual.
The union argues that the language use under the 1995 Anti-nepotism policy handbook sates that violators “may” become subject to immediate discharge on the first offence and that eventually the employee was discharged for something that he did not know and that management required a conference among them to decide how it shod be applied in a given situation.
COMPANY`S POSITION:
The company believes that the union is trying to obtain through arbitration what they fail to obtain during negotiations the repealing or change in interpretation of the policy relating to the employment of relatives. The company argues long standing, consistent enforcement and well know antinepotism policy. Company argues that language of the employee handbook “May” vs. “Shall” is only semantics and that precedence shows that this type of violation has always lead to termination and that there are past cases that have been resolved in the way.
CONTRACT LANGUAGE:
When it comes to agreements, in general, and
