Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike (fwd)

Stephen E Philion philion at hawaii.edu
Wed Oct 27 13:00:56 PDT 1999


NYTImes October 27, 1999

Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

I n an effort to turn up the pressure during its three-day-old

strike against Overnite Transportation, the teamsters union

deployed an unusual weapon on Tuesday: a former Overnite manager

who said the company systematically broke the law by dismissing

workers who supported the union.

Dale Watson, a former operations manager in Overnite's trucking

terminal in Memphis, said the company dismissed "several hundred"

workers at the terminal over the last four years because they

favored unionizing Overnite, the nation's largest nonunion trucking

company.

In an affidavit and a telephone news conference, Watson backed the

teamsters' accusations that Overnite had brazenly and repeatedly

violated the law in seeking to rebuff the drive to unionize its

8,600 drivers and dock workers.

Watson said company managers had a "hit list" designed to dismiss

union supporters, and he added that he had followed his superiors'

orders by helping eliminate more than 40 pro-union workers since

1995.

Federal labor law makes it illegal for any company to fire or

retaliate against an employee for supporting a union. The

International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been seeking to organize

Overnite since 1994, and has filed dozens of charges with the

National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of dismissing

or retaliating against union supporters.

Overnite officials said on Tuesday that Watson's comments were made

out of vengeance for the company's dismissing him last week.

Ira Rosenfeld, an Overnite spokesman, called Watson's statements

"absolutely ridiculous" and said the company has not fired workers

for supporting the teamsters.

"There is no hit list, and there never has been a hit list," he

said. "This is a gentleman who was fired last week for poor

performance."

Watson said he had no idea why he was fired. He said that to push

out union supporters, company managers often gave them demerits

when they arrived at work a few minutes late, but did not do the

same to union opponents.

"There's too much injustice being done to employees," said Watson,

who said he came forward because he was so upset with how Overnite

treated its employees.

The strike began at the Memphis terminal on Sunday and spread

nationwide on Monday. The teamsters said they called the strike to

protest unfair labor practices by Overnite.

Rosenfeld said the strike was having a negligible effect. He said

only 600 workers were on strike, and he asserted that the teamsters

picketed fewer terminals on Tuesday than the 40 they had picketed

on Monday.

Sharply disagreeing, Dave Cameron, a teamsters' spokesman, said

more than 2,000 workers were on strike on Tuesday, with the

picketing expanding to 109 of Overnite's 166 terminals. Cameron

maintained that the strike was disrupting Overnite's operations and

costing the company millions of dollars.

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