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When You’re Looking for a Hero, Study Dwight Biermann
Many are the men and women who have had their legs knocked out from under them while standing on principle.
It happened to Dwight Biermann, who got fired in 1997 for refusing to participate in a training class that would have prepared him to act as a scab in the event of a strike at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Biermann has bounced back, however, supported in his cause by The Newspaper Guild-CWA although Biermann was not a union member.
"I can’t believe the guts of this guy, to stand up to management although he had no union backing him," observed Jerry Minkkinen, executive director of TNG-CWA Local 71, Chicago. The Chicago local and its attorney, Kenneth Edwards, pursued the case on Biermann’s behalf.
Biermann got his victory in a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board late last year, when it found that the American Publishing Co. had illegally fired him after he refused to take training to serve as a replacement worker in the event the TNG-CWA went on strike.
Biermann was working at an APC-owned newspaper, the Herald Palladium in St. Joseph, Mich., as a computer systems coordinator, when APC executives ordered him fired for his refusal to participate in the training as a "scab in waiting."
The NLRB ruled against company attorneys who tried to argue that Biermann was part of management and that he was obligated to do things that might not meet with his approval.
The NLRB disagreed and said an employee, even one not affiliated with a union, can lawfully refuse to cross a picket line. The board ordered the company to pay lost wages to Biermann, which amounted to about two weeks of his $37,000 annual salary. He has since been hired as a production manager at the State News, at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Although the Newspaper Guild unit at the Chicago Sun-Times authorized a strike, it was averted when Guild members and management reached a contract agreement on Nov. 19, 1997.
Biermann was fired Nov. 13 — the day he declined management’s request that he travel to Chicago for training on their systems. He continued:
"While I do not have a problem with training there while the employees are not striking, I believe it would be dishonest on my part — since I have no intention of crossing an active picket/strike line. As this is a corporate request, I understand that my stance on this issue could very well cost me my job — or at the very least damage my standing/reputation in the company. I accept that."
Biermann told management that he couldn’t, in good conscience, cross a picket line because his family and friends were "union people."
It happened to Dwight Biermann, who got fired in 1997 for refusing to participate in a training class that would have prepared him to act as a scab in the event of a strike at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Biermann has bounced back, however, supported in his cause by The Newspaper Guild-CWA although Biermann was not a union member.
"I can’t believe the guts of this guy, to stand up to management although he had no union backing him," observed Jerry Minkkinen, executive director of TNG-CWA Local 71, Chicago. The Chicago local and its attorney, Kenneth Edwards, pursued the case on Biermann’s behalf.
Biermann got his victory in a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board late last year, when it found that the American Publishing Co. had illegally fired him after he refused to take training to serve as a replacement worker in the event the TNG-CWA went on strike.
Biermann was working at an APC-owned newspaper, the Herald Palladium in St. Joseph, Mich., as a computer systems coordinator, when APC executives ordered him fired for his refusal to participate in the training as a "scab in waiting."
The NLRB ruled against company attorneys who tried to argue that Biermann was part of management and that he was obligated to do things that might not meet with his approval.
The NLRB disagreed and said an employee, even one not affiliated with a union, can lawfully refuse to cross a picket line. The board ordered the company to pay lost wages to Biermann, which amounted to about two weeks of his $37,000 annual salary. He has since been hired as a production manager at the State News, at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Although the Newspaper Guild unit at the Chicago Sun-Times authorized a strike, it was averted when Guild members and management reached a contract agreement on Nov. 19, 1997.
Biermann was fired Nov. 13 — the day he declined management’s request that he travel to Chicago for training on their systems. He continued:
"While I do not have a problem with training there while the employees are not striking, I believe it would be dishonest on my part — since I have no intention of crossing an active picket/strike line. As this is a corporate request, I understand that my stance on this issue could very well cost me my job — or at the very least damage my standing/reputation in the company. I accept that."
Biermann told management that he couldn’t, in good conscience, cross a picket line because his family and friends were "union people."