Nature of Organizational Conflict and the Organizational Negotiation Process

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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 co...