Weingarten Rights, Garrity Rights, Loudermill Rights, and Tennessen Rights

  • Weingarten Rights apply to the right of a unionized employee to request union
    representation for any investigatory interview conducted by their employer, in which the employee has the reasonable belief that the discussion could lead to disciplinary
    action. These rights are based on the 1975 United States Supreme Court decision NLRB v. J. Weingarten Inc. The Weingarten decision itself applies only to private sector employees, but the federal government and many states have extended similar rights to public employees via legislation, court decision, and/or rulings by state labor boards. In some cases, unionized public employees have enshrined Weingarten Rights into their collective bargaining agreements.
  • Garrity Rights apply to the right of a public employee not to be compelled to incriminate themselves by their employer. These rights are based on the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision Garrity v. New Jersey. Garrity Rights apply only to public employees because the government itself is their employer.
  • Loudermill Rights require due process before a public employee can be dismissed from their job. These rights are based on the 1985 United States Supreme Court decision Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill. Generally, these rights require a public employer to offer to have a “pre-termination” meeting with the affected employee; at this meeting, the employer presents their grounds for termination, and the employee is given the opportunity to respond. Like Garrity Rights, these rights only apply to public employees because the government itself is their employer, and the Constitution only applies to actions taken by the government. A private sector employee – for example, a manufacturing worker – possesses only Weingarten Rights, and only if the private sector employee is in a unionized workplace. A public sector employee possesses Garrity Rights and Loudermill Rights because their employer is the government, regardless of whether he/ she works in a unionized workplace. The same public sector employee may possess rights similar or identical to Weingarten Rights, provided they work in a unionized workplace.
  • Tennessen Rights. The government must give individuals notice when collecting private or confidential information from them. This is referred to as a “Tennessen warning notice.” Government may also call it a “privacy notice,” a “notice of collection of private/confidential data,” or something similar. 

You have a right to conduct union activities.

“You have the right to organize a union to negotiate with your employer over your terms and conditions of employment. This includes your right to distribute union literature, wear union buttons, t-shirts, or other insignia (except in unusual “special circumstances”), solicit coworkers to sign union authorization cards, and discuss the union with coworkers. Supervisors and managers cannot spy on you (or make it appear that they are doing so), coercively question you, threaten you or bribe you regarding your union activity or the union activities of your co-workers. You can’t be fired, disciplined, demoted, or penalized in any way for engaging in these activities.”

– The National Labor Relations Board

What does this mean as a grad student?

  • Your advisor, staff, or UMN administration CANNOT prohibit you from organizing or supporting GLU-UE!
  • This legal right applies equally to both domestic and international students. For more information of particular relevance for international students, please see GLU-UE’s International Student page.
  • If your advisor, or UMN staff, threaten your funding, degree progress, or academic standing in retaliation for your support of GLU-UE, they are violating federal law. Contact us if this occurs! You can learn more about illegal retaliation from the US Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, and report illegal union-busting activity when you see it. 
  • You have a right to safe, healthy, and fair working conditions. Many employers, sometimes UMN, violate these fundamental rights. This includes the right to a workplace free of recognized safety hazards, the right to compensation for injury, and the right to a workplace free of age, ethnicity/race, gender, religious, or sexual discrimination.
  • You cannot be assigned to more difficult work tasks or given an increased workload in response, or retaliation to, union organizing; nor can you be removed from your projects or thesis work. This constitutes an unfair labor practice, and an NLRB investigation can be conducted.
  • You have the right to have a member of the union present at any meeting with the employer that may involve disciplinary action
  • You do not have to incriminate yourself for something that you are being disciplined for
  • You cannot be fired without the employer giving you an opportunity to fix the issue that is leading to your termination
  • The employer must notify you if they are collecting information from you regarding an investigation