Costco policies concerning internal surveys are under surveillance to be “too wide” and in violation of employee rights.
On Monday, the judge of the National Council for Labor Relations in the United States, Andrew Gollin, decided not to against Costco in a case involving the confidentiality agreements that workers should sign when they raise management problems.
The specific case was subjected to the name of Jessica Georg, who in 2022 used Costco’s “open door” policy to file an internal complaint that she was sexually harassed by a colleague, according to documents.
As part of the process, Georg was required to sign a privacy agreement which prevented him from discussing the opening with colleagues. She then received a letter from Costco who declared that the employee had been dismissed, the case was closed and that “we hope and expect” that the information would continue to remain confidential, According to documents.
The NLRB and Georg each refused to comment on this story, and neither Costco nor his lawyer responded to the request for business insider.
In a briefing, Costco’s lawyer, Paul Galligan, argued that the confidentiality rules are intended to protect the integrity of the survey and are in the common interest of the company and the workers.
“This helps employees to be frank in their statements knowing that their statements will be treated with confidentiality. It is probably more critical in an industry such as retail where employees work in close collaboration,” said Galligan.
He also said that in the briefing, the rules were not intended to dissuade employees from discussing things such as wages, working conditions or the training of a union.
But Costco’s investigation revealed that the individual on whom Georg also complained of several previous complaints against him, and Georg later said that she considered that she or his colleagues having similar experiences thought that they could risk their work if they shared information on the behavior patterns presumed by an individual employee on which they had raised worries.
A more personalized confidentiality agreement could still protect sensitive information while ensuring that workers of their rights to protect themselves from harassment, said NLRB lawyers in a dissertation.
NLRB lawyers argued that Costco’s policy “seems to protect the harasser that has made individual complaints again and again, because no one outside the investigator is aware of the series of harassment”.
Costco lawyer argued that the company’s manual of the company explains that the requirement of confidentiality is not intended to discourage workers from exercising their rights. The NLRB argued, and the judge agreed that the fact that workers sign a separate form (as it was) could reasonably cause confusion for a typical worker and lead them to fear for their work.
Part of the appeal proposed by judge Gollin is that Costco publishes an opinion in the only warehouse in which the violation occurred, because the NLRB has not proven in a conclusive manner that similar forms of confidentiality have been used in all the American locations of the company.
The case now goes to the Board of Directors of the NLRB, exceptions to the decision due before June 2.
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