EMPLOYER DISCRIMINATION; ADVERSE ACTIONS – Warning Letters, Reprimands, Evaluations

Single Topic for Decision 2090M

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* * * OVERRULED IN PART ON OTHER GROUNDS by Walnut Valley Unified School District (2016) PERB Decision No. 2495. * * *

An employer’s action is adverse if a reasonable person under the same circumstances would consider the action to have an adverse impact on the employee’s employment. Employer’s memorandum was an adverse action where it made several changes to employee’s working conditions, including altering his work hours; imposing additional conditions when calling in sick; prohibiting him from leaving his work station or even the floor without permission, going to the floor where his wife worked, using his personal laptop and cell phone, discussing specified issues with staff, socializing with other employees, and having public contact. However, a memorandum simply informing an employee of the employer’s expectations and advising him that failure to abide by those expectations may result in disciplinary action was not an adverse action. Issuance of directive instructing employee to provide a doctor’s certificate upon his return to work and to contact his supervisor within an hour of his start time when calling in sick was not an adverse action, where a reasonable person under the same circumstances would not consider the directive to have an adverse impact on his or her employment and the directive did not give unequivocal notice that the employer had made a firm decision to take adverse action.