April 2, 2004
Update: 3/30/04 Resources News Stories Conclave Contributions LRT Discussion
(See the declaration of boycott sent to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg)
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Organization: North American Samizdat
Title:
"Health & Safety - We will follow healthy and safe business practices at work by recognizing that workplace violence, threat of violence or carrying weapons is not tolerated [emphasis added- NAS] and using care when handling hazardous substances."
Page 17: Verizon's rigid policy makes no exception for self defense against an attacker. It ignores the fact that multiple studies have shown that licensed concealed weapons carriers are far LESS likely to commit a firearms crime than the general population, and that locales which have liberalized carry laws have experienced REDUCTIONS in crime. Verizon should welcome CCW holders, not ostracize them. Instead, the management of Verizon prefers a workforce which has been rendered "safely" helpless against aggression. The company will happily send an employee to an remote office in a crime-ridden neighborhood in the middle of the night without the means of defending his life against a mugger or murderer. They would prefer to see a secretary raped in the company parking lot, than to see her with a defensive gun in her hand. Armed self defense is the he expression of a basic survival instinct, the desire to survive, a right shared by all people. Verizon denies its employees that right to survive. Verizon prefers helpless employees, and would rather pay out death benefits than see a confident, responsible worker capable of protecting himself. Verizon has proved that this policy is no mere lip service intended to release it from liability in the event an employee does find it necessary to use a firearm defensively. On Monday, December 29, 2003, while on vacation hundreds of miles from his work place, Jeffrey L. "Hunter" Jordan was arrested in Ohio for carrying a concealed weapon, a defensive handgun. Mr. Jordan was in fact licensed by the state of New Hampshire to carry that firearm, just as he was licensed to operate the equally dangerous SUV (see CDC figures on cause of death, vehicle accidents vs. firearms) he was driving when he encountered Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Timothy J. Timberlake. Trooper Timberlake chose to give Mr. Jordan's New Hampshire Driver's license "Full Faith and Credit" at the same time that he refused to recognize the carry permit. At worst, Mr. Jordan was accused of a technical paperwork violation, a nonviolent offense. The validity of the charge will not be tested in court until May 27, 2004, when Mr. Jordan goes to trial in Ashland, Ohio. But when Mr. Jordan returned home, he found telephone messages waiting on his personal answering machine. One message, time stamped January 6, 2004 was a Verizon manager, <REDACTED>, insisting that Mr. Jordan contact her immediately even though he was on vacation. She asked that he bypass his union (Mr. Jordan is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which has a collective bargaining contract with Verizon) and speak directly to her. Later that same day, Ms. <REDACTED> left another message stating that as of that date, he was indefinitely suspended. The suspension violates the union contract which requires a hearing before an employee may be suspended. Mr. Jordan hasn't been paid since. In a letter dated <REDACTED>, another Verizon manager, <REDACTED>, Director - COEI, informed Mr. Jordan that he was retroactively fired, effective January 7, 2004. Mr. Jordan has not received his back pay (due even based on the bogus termination date), nor the contractually required severance pay. Again, Verizon neglected to conduct the contractually required hearing before taking this action. Verizon Communications is so terrified of the very idea of an honest, respectable, responsible, well-trained licensed firearm owner that they fired him without cause, cheating him of thousands of dollars in owed monies in the process. North American Samizdat questions why a company needs its employees to be helpless. We also question Verizon's logic in banning licensed gun possession, when the plain facts show that licensed carry reduces crime. Verizon's written policies and actions prove that it is so anti-life and anti-gun that it wants dead employees, and a safe working environment for criminals. Verizon is not a company with which honest Americans, and especially the estimated 100 million gun owners, should do business. Boycott Verizon Communications to teach it the error of its ways. Other companies have pursued similar anti-American, anti-gun policies and paid the price. Smith & Wesson, once beloved of gun owners, went bankrupt and sold for pennies on the dollar. CitiBank and Bank of America survived, but learned that anti-gun positions are very bad for business. Dell Computers likewise lost the business of gun owners. Unless and until Verizon Communications revokes its policy banning lawfully possessed defensive weapons, and returns jobs and full back pay to anyone it fired or suspended for violating that grotesque policy, I call for a total boycott of all Verizon Communications services. Clearly, it is time for Verizon Communications to get the cold shoulder of 100 million decent Americans.
RESOURCES Verizon's Code of Business Conduct
Archive copy of the Code of Business Conduct
Book Review - More Guns, Less Crime
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URL: http://www.libertyroundtable.org/projects/freehunter/terminated.html