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Ten Rules to Prepare Witnesses for the Grievance Hearing
Last week you went to a disciplinary hearing in which you presented the case for the union. Your case rested on the testimony of another member who you brought to the hearing. Then management questioned the same member. All of a sudden he got flustered and backtracked on the story. The witness no longer sounded credible, even to you. What happened?
A disciplinary case will be judged on the facts and you must present those facts through documents and witnesses. When you use a witness you must make sure of the witnesses' story. A solid grievance investigation including good interviewing techniques are basic to this process. But there is more.
A good grievance is only as good as the witnesses and the grievant. You must insure that the story they tell is consistent and they stick to it. That means you must adhere to the following rules in preparing your witness.
1. Know what your witness will say. Once you have interviewed the witness, sit down with him or her and tell them the questions you will ask. Plan those questions according to the information the witness has offered.
2. Go through a dry run of your questions ahead of time. The questions and answers at this stage are meant to increase their comfort level, not to put words in their mouth or get them to memorize their story. Anyone can see through a concocted story or one too-well rehearsed.
3. Tell the witness what they can expect in their cross examination by management. Give them some possible company questions ahead of time and see how they respond. Tell them you will make sure that the company does not go off base on their questions.
4. Answers should be brief and non-technical. Tell them not to argue.
5. Witnesses must not be evasive. If they cannot remember or do not know, they must say so. "I don't know," or "I can't remember" are perfectly reasonable answers. They do not necessarily weaken a witnesses' story despite what they might think. "No" and "yes" are also respectable replies to questions.
6. When the company questions the witness on cross-examination, answers should be as short as possible. Do not let your witnesses do the work for the company. Make the company prove their case.
7. If the witness is sure of the facts, tell them to use words like "I remember." Words like, "I think" or "I believe" are weak and do not necessarily indicate facts.
8. Don't let witnesses get shaken by cross-examination. When you have a particularly strong witness, management may try to get the member excited, make them lose their temper or get careless with an answer. What they are trying to do is destroy a witness' credibility. Step in to prevent this. Don't let your witnesses be hounded or badgered. Don't let anyone put words in their mouth.
9. During your interview with the witness, walk them through the entire hearing. They have to know ahead of time what to expect. Describe to them the physical layout of the room, who will be there, and what will happen. The more they know ahead of time, the more comfortable they will be.
10. In any proceeding, tell the witness to admit, if asked, that they have spoken with you ahead of time. Don't let them think that the interview conference isn't part of the process. If they are asked, "What did your union representative tell you to say at the hearing," the proper reply is, "He/she told me to tell the truth."
Disciplinary hearings are uncomfortable and stressful events for members and witnesses. Once you realize this fact, you must try to do everything in your power to make your people more comfortable. Following these 10 simple rules will help.
SEVEN WAYS TO LOSE
A WINNING GRIEVANCE
What's worse than losing a grievance? It's losing a grievance that you and everyone else knew was a 100 percent sure winner.
Losing "sure winners" happens every day -- not because of the quality of the grievance, but because of the way the union handles it. Making a fundamental error or forgetting a basic detail can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Here are seven sure fire ways to lose even the best grievance.
1. Missing a Deadline
If you were management, would you give the union a little slack if they tiled an appeal too late -- especially on a case that was going to cost the employer either a lot of money, authority or embarrassment? No way.
If you have to do something within a certain time frame, get it done. It could be filing a document, preparing for a hearing, submitting a brief or filling out a form. It makes no difference. The longer you wait, the greater the chance that you'll miss the deadline and lose your case.
2. Wait Until Somebody Brings the Issue to You
Just because nobody brought a problem to your attention earlier doesn't mean the union shouldn't have known about it. If it started happening a year ago, and nobody made it an issue until recently, it may be too late to do something.
That's why somebody, preferably a group of stewards, needs to examine changes in the workplace as they are happening. Can management do that under the terms of the contract? Does it hurt employees? Is it legal? If you wait until someone complains about it, it may be too late.
3. Fail to Arrange for Witnesses to Attend Hearings
You may have a fantastic eyewitness who will verify everything the grievant alleges. But if you wait until the last minute to notify the eyewitness about a hearing date, you may find that he or she is out of town, in the hospital, or just plain unreachable. Then where will you be with no corroborating testimony?
Be sure your witness knows when and where the hearing is, too. Witnesses aren't much good if they show up at the wrong place or time to testify.
4. Don't Prepare Your Witnesses
There's nothing like the sinking feeling you get in a grievance session when a grievant or witness says something that destroys your case. Go over every question you will ask beforehand. Witnesses shouldn't volunteer information. Their answers should be short, factual, and to the point.
5. Fail to Cite the Most Compelling Section of the Contract
Some people routinely add the words "other related sections" to the part of the grievance form that asks you to specify the contract section that was violated. Later in the grievance process, somebody may figure out that some other section of the contract provides a stronger argument. Always check the full contract first. Talk it over with someone else who knows the agreement. Cite all the articles that reasonably seem to apply. But if you can hold open your options (by listing "and other related sections") until you are asked to be more specific, you may buy some time to strengthen your case.
6. Get Personal
It lessens your victory if management drags out the grievance process needlessly long. If they stall things because they think they can win, there's not much you can do. But when they do it just out of spite and personal animosity, maybe you could have prevented it by keeping the grievance process strictly professional and not a grudge match between two individuals.
Winning is its own reward. You were right and management has to acknowledge it. Don't give them an unnecessary reason to postpone the final resolution.
7. Figure Out What Winning Really Means After It's Too Late
"Winning" is not always as clear as it seems. sometimes winning means getting redress -that is, undoing a wrong or winning some sort of compensation for the victim. In other cases winning means setting a precedent for the future. In yet other cases, winning may be seen as holding management accountable for its actions -- an apology, public acknowledgment that they were wrong or embarrassment of a particularly authoritarian boss. Know what kind of win you want when you start the process, because these goals may be competing -- or even exclusive of each other. You may "win" the grievance, in the formal sense. But if you didn't demand the right resolution, it probably won't feel like much of a victory.
