Employee says he was at work, but wasn't

HR54321

Help!

We have an employee who was supposed to show up for work, and didn't.

The complications are that he didn't show up for the first shift after the shift changed (he did sign that he understood the new shift assignments), and the timeclock was broken, so people were writing their hours in.

The timeclock was out of commission for about 18 hours.

He claims he was there, but the other employees on the shift say he wasn't. The supervisor had a warning letter prepared to give to him, but because the employee claimed he was there he didn't issue the letter.

This is a union employee, so we would like to keep the other employees on the shift out of it.

Thanks for any suggestions!

LindaS

If there isn't any way for you to VERIFY that he wasn't at work (performance rates, etc.) and you have more than one employee who states that he wasn't at work, I would go ahead and give him the warning letter as well as not pay him for the time. The union will probably file a grievance and in the process of 2nd or 3rd step you can let the committee know you have several EEs who stated that he wasn't at work and require him to provide some type of proof he was.

HR54321

Thank you, Linda. I think I'll follow your recommendations!

Don D

It depends on who the witnesses are. If they are staff of some responsibility level, have been with you for awhile, perhaps are trainers or leadpersons or known to be proficient in their jobs and not discipline problems themselves, I would agree that their statements should carry 'some' weight. Where was the supervisor? How could he work a whole shift and not know who was or was not on duty? That seems to be a major lapse in responsibility if you do have supervisory coverage on each shift. There's not going to be any way to keep the other union employees 'out of it'. The business of unions, as you know, is to stay involved IN IT at all times, often to your dismay.

I think I would go with Linda's suggestion and mete out the discipline, write him up, have something in the file about the witness reports and how they know what they say they know, then let the grievance advance and see where it goes. It no doubt won't lead to an upheld termination, but I doubt the union will prevail in having the whole thing quashed. The first question an arbitrator would ask would be about the 'absent supervisor'.