Nature of Organizational Conflict and the Organizational Negotiation Process

Case Discussion
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UTC RAILCAR REPAIR SERVICES, LLC, d/b/a UNION TANK CAR COMPANY and Case No. 25-CA-283635 AUSTIN LEE SHEPHERD, an Individual
Organization Conflict
The respondent of the case, a UTC Railcar Repair Services organization, leases and manages fleets dealing with railroad cars. In the records, these are referred to as cars. The respondent also has 13 or more facilities, with the actions being performing maintenance on the rail cars. The case, therefore, concerns one of the facilities operated by the company, a facility located in Muscatine, Iowa. In this company, the respondent employs a total of 110 persons. In the facility, there are 5-7 write-up inspectors; there is also a supervisor who has a task for preparing and estimating the needed costs for repair. The other party, Shepherd, also the Charging Party, was working in the facility, and they have been working for four years. Out of the four, the last two companies have worked as write-up inspector a total of 25 times (Ashley et al., 2022). The respondent, however, terminated the contract of the Charging Party, Shepherd, on September 20, 2021. Tim Robinson was the immediate supervisor of Shepherd's at the time of the termination of the contract. Robinson was not happy with the ending and took necessary steps by reporting to the relevant authorities, such as writing to John Austin. Austin is pertinent to get the complaint because he has been the facility's plant manager working with the respondent since 2021.
The case of Shepherd is that he was criticized for sharing his payment or wages that he receives with his co-workers, and it led to Shepherd being summoned to a meeting with the management of the company. The situation happened after Shepherd retrieved his pay while working part-time (McShane & Von Glinow, 2023). Shepherd went ahead and informed Martinez, who is another write-up inspector, about the payment. Shepherd said he was being paid 33 dollars per hour (Ashley et al., 2022). The information was shared with other write-up inspectors in the facilities, and the respondent was not happy with the information sharing of information. The situation escalated, and other underwriters, Rufner and Bierman, confronted Shepherd about the higher pay than what they were getting.
Witnesses were south after to get and understand the reasons for Shepherd's termination. Two witnesses gave different accounts and reasons for the ending. According to the information by Austin, Shepherd was told, "with changes in the budget, we were going to have to eliminate the part-time position effective immediately" and "end his employment with Union Tank." On the other hand, Robinson gave a different opinion of the termination of Shepherd. Robinson states that the company told Shepherd the following: "this was purely a decision being made because we just didn't like how the part-time position was working out." Robinson further indicates that the termination of Shepherd's contract is something that "clearly had nothing to do with the events that happened on Friday," Which means it had nothing to do with the incidences of Shepherd discussing his pay with his colleagues. Austin was clear and strong that there were no other reasons present that could lead to the termination of Shepherd's contract other than budgeting and staffing.
Describe the Organizational Negotiation Issues.
The negotiation issues of the organization are that they do not have a third party that helps in managing or guiding the negotiations. The General Counsel alleges that the respondent of the case was at the forefront of violating the law section 8(a)(1) on September 17, 2021. It was the time when Austin and O'Brien made instructions to Shepherd that Shepherd was not to discuss his wages with any co-workers. It was also when Austin threatened Shepherd with information that he would be terminated if he discussed his wages further with colleagues. During the meeting about the issue, Austin stated that employees were banned from discussing their wages. O'Brien made further confirmations by saying that what Austin communicated was likely policy. Which was not known to the employees but was used as a mode of preventing the employees from discussing their wages. The negotiations were one-sided because Austin and O'Brien's statements interfered with Shepherd's rights. His rights included discussing the wages with co-workers and employee communications; therefore, they were ...