I have experienced an aspect of this. The supervisor only wanted me to talk to him, and only in his office. Asking questions of the employees was not allowed (although I could observe). If I spoke to any employees they were 'punished' by losing OT or whatever else he could think of (time off denied, etc). He framed the concept (to management), as I was interfering in their work and costing them production time. Management largely accepted this and I never got it resolved. We were not ISO, so I couldn't bring any leverage from there, but we were accredited to a national quality system (NAHB) which did require internal audits.

