Summary:

Unrest between members of two different unions at the San Francisco Airport had gotten so bad that an employee was afraid to come to work. Our investigators conducted over 100 interviews of employees in order to help resolve the issues that were causing the conflict and unrest.

The Story:

The Carpenters and Machinists who work at the airport are represented by two different unions. Those unions had been experiencing inter-union conflicts. Members of the unions were harassing each other with disparaging verbal comments, written notes left in the locker areas and other undesirable actions, making the workplace a hostile environment. This conflict escalated when one of the union members found a wooden replica of a gun that had been put in his work locker. He was terrified and refused to return to work.

The San Francisco Airport is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. Our firm was hired by the City Attorney's office and our investigation was done under their direction.

Our task was to attempt to find out who had placed the gun in the locker and, more importantly, discover the source of the conflict so it could be resolved. We conducted over 100 interviews of members of the two unions (some individuals were re-interviewed). Although the culpable parties to the "gun" incident were not discovered, the interviewing process unearthed a number of deep-seated, long simmering inter-personal issues between members of the two unions.

 

After our report was completed, the City brought in an outside mediator who, knowing the background of the conflict that we had discovered, was able to resolve the issues to the satisfaction of the parties.