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A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Kohler Corporation by 100 replacement workers who were fired when the company settled a year-old strike with United Auto Workers Local 1000. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, Eastern District, Western Division, under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and Arkansas common law “to redress wrongful terminations, fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and civil conspiracy.” The case has been assigned to Judge Susan Webber Wright.
“Kohler used these employees for a year to keep their business open,” said Scott Lancaster, the attorney representing the fired employees. “They profited from the employees’ hard work, just outright lied to them and told them they were part of the Kohler family, and they threw them away at the end of that time.”
Lancaster said the fired employees are at least due 60 days pay.
“WARN requires 60 days notice and they didn’t give them six minutes notice,” Lancaster said. “They just called them in and fired them.”
For breach of contract and fraud, the fired workers are due compensation for damages, Lancaster said.
“They promised these employees in writing that they were a permanent part of the Kohler family and specifically told them the settlement of this strike would not affect their status as Kohler employees,” Lancaster said. “They settled the strike and fired them contrary to what they had been promising them for a year.”
During the year of the strike, the replacement employees made financial decisions based on Kohler’s promises, Lancaster said.
“Many of them gave up other jobs,” Lancaster said. “They went out and bought cars. They went out and bought homes. Many of them are left in a position of extreme hardship now.”
The union strike began Dec. 9, 2006 and 140 replacement workers were fired March 6, 2008.
According to the complaint, the replacement workers “incurred significant risk in crossing the picket line, subjecting themselves to constant harassment, mistreatment, insult and physical violence at the hands of the union workers” and have lost insurance coverage or are being required to pay over 10 times the previous premium, now that they have been fired.
The replacement workers allowed Kohler to avoid “serious jeopardy” at its plant and “prevent a shutdown,” the complaint states.
According to the complaint, plant manager Jerry Stone circulated a memo that said, “Kohler Co. is taking the position that all of you have the status of permanent replacement workers because the strike called by the UAW is an economic strike. What this means is that if and when this economic strike comes to an end, the company will not release you from employment in order to create job openings for the strikers to return to.”
On Nov. 5, 2007 Stone sent an e-mail that told supervisors, “Make sure and reinforce with your associates that they are permanent Kohler associates and any strike settlement would not affect that,” according to the complaint.
Kohler’s determination to return striking workers to their jobs was not made by the National Labor Relations Board, the complaint states.
No hearings or court dates have been scheduled for the case yet, and Kohler has until April 14 to respond. Kohler officials did not respond by press time to calls and e-mails concerning this article.
(thedailycitizen.com)