EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION; INTERFERENCE WITH RIGHT TO SELF OR UNION REPRESENTATION; WEINGARTEN RIGHTS – Highly Unusual Circumstances

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Correctional officers had a right to representation due to the highly unusual circumstances of the Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) interviews. Several officers declined to participate voluntarily in the interviews, leading OIG to compel their participation by serving each of them with a subpoena. OIG convened the meetings at officers’ jobsites, but in management or other private offices away from the employees’ ordinary worksites. Although OIG investigators are not in the same chain of command as officers, OIG’s role in the interviews lent them an aura of formality which predictably aroused the officers’ anxieties and suspicions. As one officer testified, formal interviews are a rare occurrence at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Another officer understood OIG’s function as investigating allegations of wrongdoing—even if his belief was unfounded given OIG’s limited statutory mandate—it informed the officer’s perspective that OIG’s involvement in an interview could portend a finding of misconduct. (pp. 29-30.)