“On March 16th, I received a few phone calls from inside the plant. Some workers were telling me that a couple of members had been driven out on a medical cart by security wearing facemasks and that they were being removed from the plant for suspected Covid-19 symptoms. I reached out to my local leadership to try to organize to protect us all. I did not hear back from our local leadership and the very next morning when I came in to work, I was told by a supervisor that I was immediately being put on suspension pending an investigation. When I inquired as to what the suspension was for, he said he didn’t know. I had him call labor management at my company, Caravan, and they weren’t able to provide me with any information.
The following day, I was called to a meeting with plant management; I had an international representative with me. I was told I was being terminated. As the reason, they quoted a Shop Rule Violation 2, which is assaulting, fighting, threatening, coercing or interference with employees or management. And they provided a Facebook post that I had made inside of a private Facebook group that deals with on-the-job site conditions and union member concerns. All the post said was it had been reported to me that some people had been walked out of GM with suspected Covid-19 symptoms and I had reported it to local leadership. That was the reason they used to terminate me.”