Law360 (June 5, 2019, 4:36 PM EDT) — The U.S. Postal Service violated federal labor law by firing a worker over his exasperated response to a negative performance review given days after his reinstatement following an earlier firing dispute, the National Labor Relations Board said Tuesday.
Overturning an agency judge’s ruling that Larry Thurman Pretlow II’s firing was legal even though his bosses set up the evaluation because of his earlier legal challenge, the unanimous board panel said it would be unfair to let USPS couch its decision to can Pretlow in an outburst it courted.
“Here, [USPS] asserts that it discharged Pretlow because his conduct prevented it from completing its evaluation of his work performance,” the board said. “However, because the respondent initiated the evaluation in retaliation for Pretlow’s prior grievance and arbitration, the evaluation itself was unlawful.”