Opinion ID: 47947
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Illegal Threats, Discipline and Discharge in Iuka

Text: 5 In July 2001, Dynasteel altered employee benefits and required workers to purchase some of their own equipment. Employees found this to be an unwelcome development, and discussed forming a union. Eddy Goss and Dee Vaughn, the only two permanent employees in the maintenance department, spearheaded the effort. 6 When local supervisors learned that employees were possibly forming a union, they responded with hostility. The Iuka plant manager, Mark Jones, told Goss that Dynasteel would shut the doors and fire everybody before [it] let a Union come in. In July, shop foreman Glen Adcock told a group of employees virtually the same thing. In August, Jones again told Goss in front of co-workers that there wouldn't be no union, and supervisor Bill Sanders subsequently put his arm around Goss and told him that if a union started, you'll be the first one fired. There were several similar incidents. 7 In mid- to late-September, Goss and Vaughn contacted the Steelworkers and Boilermakers unions. Following the unions' advice, the pair contacted 80 to 90 percent of the Iuka plant employees and collected names of those interested in forming a union. On the morning of October 3, foreman Adcock asked Goss whether the workers were starting a union, and he replied probably so. Adcock then indicated that he would have to get Goss involved in management so he could not be involved with the union. 8 He then pointed to a number of tools left out overnight and a work truck with its windows down, and instructed Goss to fill out disciplinary forms for Vaughn and a temporary maintenance employee, Tim Barnes. Goss objected to filling out the disciplinary forms, but eventually did as instructed. Goss told Vaughn and Barnes that he was forced to write them up and not to worry about it. Adcock then called Vaughn and Barnes to his office and issued their disciplinary forms. By all accounts, this was the first time Goss administered any type of punishment. 9 Later that same day, Goss was called into manager Jones's office and terminated. Jones said it was not his decision and that the company's general counsel, Jack Melvin, told him to fire Goss. Goss called Jones again the next day and tape recorded the conversation, where Jones once again claimed he fired Goss at the direction of Melvin. While admitting to these statements, Jones claimed at the administrative hearing that Goss was fired for poor job performance and for leaving work equipment out unsecured overnight. 10 The following week Vaughn organized approximately 25 employees, including Goss, for a lunchtime union meeting at a nearby diner. Vaughn drove a company truck along with two other employees to the meeting. During the meeting, supervisor Sanders walked into the diner and looked around without purchasing anything while Jones waited for him in a truck outside. When Vaughn returned from the meeting, Adcock called him into an office and terminated him, supposedly for taking a company truck off the premises. While Dynasteel's handbook does provide that employees are forbidden from taking company trucks off the premises without permission, several employees testified that the rule was regularly disregarded without consequence. 11 In mid-October, after their terminations, Goss and Vaughn returned to the plant wearing union buttons and were greeted in a reception area by secretary Glenda Basham. In a tape-recorded conversation, Basham indicated that they would not be rehired while wearing union buttons and reiterated that the company did not want a union. General Counsel Melvin then emerged and asked them to leave the property. The NLRB did not fault Dynasteel for Basham's statements as she was not a supervisor. 1 12