By Kate Acheson
An arbitrator in State of Iowa, 130 LA 1130 (2012, Jacobs) found the Iowa Department of Corrections has just cause to terminate an Iowa State corrections counselor for failing to do enough interviews with inmates.
The counselor admitted he sometimes did not do the interviews, despite knowing he was supposed to, because he felt it was not necessary.
As one of two employees responsible for assessing inmates to determine appropriate placement in the system and for assessing any special needs they might have, the counselor was required to interview an average of five inmates a day. In 2009, a supervisor began to observe that the counselor was on the computer regularly while sitting with interviewees. The supervisor suspected the counselor was not actually performing interviews and sent him multiple email messages reminding him of the requirement that he perform an average of five interviews per day.
The supervisor continued to worry that the counselor was not performing interviews and began an investigation. After discovering that the counselor regularly used the internet for personal reasons during work hours, that few of the inmates assigned to the counselor recalled being interviewed, and that the counselor admitted to not conducting interviews in 10-20% of the cases because he felt it was unnecessary, the Department of Corrections terminated the counselor.
The counselor’s union contested the termination, claiming that the State failed to show just cause because (1) no clear corrective notices were given, (2) the investigation was imperfect because it relied, among other things, on inmate testimony, and (3) others with similar offenses had been given less harsh of punishments. The union also argued that the discipline was too stringent in light of the employee’s 18 years of service.
Despite the union’s arguments, the arbitrator found adequate proof of appropriate termination in the record. First, the emails to the counselor from his supervisor provided ample notice of the need to do an average of five face-to-face interviews a day. Even though the supervisor’s email messages did not directly list termination as a possible repercussion of failing to meet the requirement, the communications clearly conveyed workplace expectations and that the counselor needed to correct his behavior.
Second, the arbitrator found that the State’s investigation, although imperfect, was proper because it was undertaken in the best way possible given the nature of the allegation and there with no evidence of bias.
Third, the arbitrator found that although progressive discipline had been applied in other cases, he held that the employer can skip steps in progressive disciplinary schemes if the infractions are serious enough. The interviews were intended to gauge security risk and special needs of inmates, and the failure to complete them was a serious risk of liability to everyone in the prison. Finally, the arbitrator found the punishment was proper in light of the counselor’s tenure because there was nothing to indicate that the counselor would not repeat his bad behavior and that his failure to engage in interviews he knew was required showed a disregard for corrective action.
