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Fighting on the Job

If a worker wants to get into quick, serious trouble on the job, there's no better way than to get into a fight. It's a recipe for disaster. Not only can someone get hurt, but it can very easily cost the assailant his or her job.

In the best of all worlds a steward would be able to spot trouble coming and head it off--without risking getting punched in the process. But it's the exceptional steward who can always be in the right place at the right time, and then have the skills to keep tempers from flaring. The result is big trouble for the steward who has to do whatever's possible to save someone's job from going down the tubes.

What do you do when management's discipline for fighting is simply too harsh, when someone is unjustly suspended or fired? How do you create a defense when, so often, it appears as if a workers has fouled up? Fortunately, in somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of the cases before them, arbitrators either reverse or reduce penalties against workers disciplined for fighting. The Cases that go to arbitration are those the union sees as having a chance of winning, of course, but that's still a high proportion.

In many of these casers, the employer simply missed up their handling of the case. They may have disciplined the worker before conducting an investigation. Maybe they didn't properly question all the participants or witnesses to the fight. Perhaps they may not have disciplined workers in a consistent manner, or the employer didn't take into account extenuating circumstances such as long service or a spotless prior record. Whatever the employer's failure, it may be enough to save a job--and give a workers another chance, hopefully with a new understanding of the importance of keeping a cool head.

Cases involving fighting seem to fall into three categories: those incidents where one worker attacked another without provocation, cases where the discharged person was provoked into fighting someone else, and cases where the grievant was a victim of aggression. Some examples follow:

Unprovoked Aggression

Workers involved in cases where they've been charged with attacking someone else without provocation are the most likely to find themselves losing their jobs or facing suspension for long periods. However, even in these cases, the arbitrators still modify or reverse the discipline in a little less than half of the cases.

In one case, for example, an employee suddenly charged across the room, hit a fellow workers in the ear, and was fired. The arbitrator ruled that the grievant should be reinstated, but without back pay, because under the company rule, discharge was discretionary, the employer didn't take into account the grievant's unblemished past record, the grievant apologized immediately, and there was no indication the behavior would ever occur again.

In another case, though, an employee attacked a co-worker and was discharged for "unacceptable conduct" under the company rules. The employee was already subject to a last chance agreement concerning unacceptable conduct. The arbitrator upheld the discharge.

Provoked Aggression or Victim of Aggression

In an off-duty incident, a worker called a salaried person "a scab" while in a bar, and then hit him, leading to a 30-day suspension. The arbitrator decided the employee was not treated disparately, but reduced the suspension to ten days because the only similar case on record had resulted in a three-day suspension. The arbitrator said that the company had been lax in enforcing its rules.

In another case, a bus driver was fired for fighting with a passenger. It turned out that the passenger initiated the violence by verbally harassing the bus driver, then punching him several times. The passenger then followed the driver off the bus and threatened to beat him up. The grievant defended himself by slapping the passenger's face and called his supervisor over to assist. The arbitrator reinstated the driver with full back pay and benefits.

Due Process

An employer must follow due process, including the careful investigation called for in the agreement, before discharging employees for fighting. An employee who fought with another worker won reinstatement in spite of having violate a company rule. Why? Because the company had failed to hold a pre-discharge hearing required by the contract, had failed to properly investigate surrounding circumstances in the dispute, and didn't consider extenuating factors and the employee's work record.

Another workers was reinstated after threatening a co-worker with a duct housing unit and screwdriver. The arbitrator said the company had not proven she threw the duct housing unit, she had a 12-year record with no discipline or threat of violence, and her co-worker did not appear at the hearing nor did she claim to have been intimidated.

Employers must send a clear message that workers will be punished if they get into fights.

Before arbitrators uphold a discharge penalty, however, they take into account the degree to which the grievant was involved in instigating the fight, the severity of the incident, and other extenuating factors. If they develop doubts as to any of the preceding considerations, they tend to reinstate, reducing the penalty to suspension, with or without back pay.

--George Hagglund. The writer is professor emeritus at the School for Workers, University of Wisconsin - Madison

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