[Fg-general] Agenda Item April 14th 2009 General Meeting - Staff Conflict/Discipline procedures

[David]

2009/4/9 Luke Closs <lukecloss at gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 6:34 PM, David <dave at thehackery.ca> wrote:
>> Link to draft Disciplinary Policy and Procedure
>>
>> http://wiki.freegeekvancouver.org/article/Staff_Disciplinary_Policy_and_Procedure
>
>
> I have a question about Stage 0: REPORT.  Is there a stage or step of
> "acceptance of the report"?

No,  All reports are accepted. The validity of the report can be
questioned once the investigation is opened.

>
> I was re-reading this page while thinking about how we would have
> applied this to our past events.  At the top of MINOR OFFENCES, it
> says that we should try to deal with things informally.  If complaints
> are made to directors, is there immediate acceptance of the complaint
> and it goes on the formal record?

Earlier in the document it does state that nothing happens until a
full investigation.  So there is nothing recorded until a corrective
measure, if any, is taken.

  Or would directors ever "push back"
> and look for ways to resolve it informally?  Do directors always just
> assume this has been done?  Is there an investigation done into the
> complaint?

Yes, all complaints must be investigated.  Hopefully this procedure is
not used a lot. A complaint form could be created, with a question
about what measures have been taken, if any, in the past.  That type
of information would be vital for other staff to see and the directors
chosen to be involved in the process.

This procedure assumes that staff has tried to deal with an issue
internally but failed to do so. We are mainly dealing with major or
gross misconduct. I don't think most things would make it to stage 0,
as the staff collective should have ways of dealing with most
problems.

> I think there is a larger impact of this policy with respect to our
> Principles (as Ryan so thoughtfully pointed at in the other thread).
> Are we as a collective group wanting to use this kind of procedure
> that is not 100% completely transparent?  Do we have other acceptable
> alternatives?

Transparency cannot compromise the rights of a  person to a fair
investigation. There remains a need for confidentiality in the
process.

Discipline/corrective measures are HR issues and cannot be totally
transparent to the
membership due to privacy issues.  The organisation, its directors and
staff have a responsibility not to release certain information that
could possibly damage another persons reputation or ability to obtain
employment elsewhere.

I would like to clarify something important in the nature of the
document. While the actual  process only involves a couple of staff
members, the information during this process is transparent to all
staff,  but not all the directors.  The reason for this lies in the
Appeal system.  For such a system to work  you need an un-biased but
invested person/s to fill that roll, which in the proposal the
directors fill that role.

In my opinion the only time the general membership should be informed
of this process is if Stage 4 is executed.  However I think the
information released must still be put in general terms due to privacy
concerns mentioned above.  This is really the tricky part.

Do we use a standard line like "X was dismissed due to not following
policy and procedure", and trust that the membership, knowing the
process would realise the seriousness of the situation - that X was
given 1 oral warning and 2 written warnings, or that in some
situations the misconduct was so serious they were dismissed
immediately.  Or would the public notice be even more detailed but
still containing vague information like in the instance of major theft
etc. Would  FG publicly state "X was dismissed due to gross
misconduct".

There should probably be some standard statements designed ahead of
time so this doesn't become a huge issue when the need to explain to
the general membership arises.

-- 
David