UE Committee Wins
Reinstatement For
Unjustly Fired CDC
Co-Worker
WHITAKERS, N.C.
The Consolidated Diesel Company Workers’ Unity Committee/UE
successfully mounted a campaign earlier this year to win reinstatement of a
co-worker unjustly terminated by the Cummins Engine division.
The CDC worker, who had been critically injured and
hospitalized as a result of domestic violence, was terminated because her
"non-work related" injury prevented the former temporary
assembly-line worker from completing a four-month assimilation period as a
permanent technician.
Her co-workers in Team 5-A sent a delegation to CDC Human
Resources Dir. Larry Williams to complain the action was unfair because
a male worker hired at the same time missed work because of a
household accident but had been allowed to finish his assimilation
successfully.
When this meeting produced no result, the entire team signed a
letter of protest to Williams. This was followed by a special issue of Unity
News, the newsletter of the CDC Workers’ Unity Committee/UE. Several
workers responded to the newsletter’s appeal for letters to Cummins Engine
Co. Chairman Jim Henderson seeking his intervention in the case.
Workers across the plant at all levels were outraged that the company would
terminate the woman for having been the victim of a brutal assault.
TOP BOSS RESPONDS
The response to Unity News was so overwhelming that
Williams came to a Team 5-A meeting to promise that CDC would
"consider" rehiring their co-worker with a doctor’s release. CDC workers
received personal letters from Cummins top boss Henderson assuring them the
company intended to support her and all victims of domestic
violence.
She returned to work on May 3 and successfully completed
her assimilation two weeks later. However, she had not received her short-term
disability pay or medical insurance coverage for the time she was out. Her
injuries required five separate surgical operations. Unity News took up
this issue; the company has since agreed to pay her medical bills.
This is the second time in three years that the Unity
Committee/UE has organized a campaign which resulted in reinstatement of an
unjustly fired worker.
UE News - 11/99
