# Fired For Doing The Right Thing



## MA-Caver (Mar 11, 2011)

Three men who worked for a temp agency hailed as heroes for finding a bomb and reporting it_ immediately _to the police who sent a bomb squad out and dismantled the bomb set along a parade route, were fired for handling the situation poorly. Read on:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_re_us/us_mlk_parade_explosive_fired



> The men were employed by Labor Ready and working under contract for  the Spokane Public Facilities District when they found a backpack  containing the bomb about an hour before the scheduled start of the Jan.  17 parade.
> They alerted police, who were able to defuse the bomb.
> "For the first two days, basically all we did was get  chewed out," worker Mark Steiner told KHQ of Spokane. "We did this  wrong. We did that wrong. I don't know what you consider calling 911  wrong after two minutes after we found it."


 Me either... I mean two minutes is NOT a long time considering. 




> "We'd go out, and we'd clean up parking lots," he said. "Who knows  what happens when you see a backpack sitting there?  The first reaction  is to pick it up and that's what we did, and we opened it, saw wires  sticking out of it and called police."


 Sounds like something an average Joe would do. I mean generally those who work for temp agencies aren't usually anti-terrorist trained individuals who'd be able to spot a suspicious package. 
Hell they called the cops as soon as they realized what they had, not like they walked around with it showing everyone saying "dude, c'mere look at this!" 


> Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Spokane Mayor Mary Verner have praised the three workers in speeches for being vigilant.


 Gee Mary how about giving those guys a job... permanent ones... even if it's a low level city maintainence job like doing what they were doing for the Temp Agency? 



If it were me I'd be suing the company hard-core. Purty stoopid reason for firing them. They did the right thing considering the job that they were given to do in the first place. They could've just left it there thinking it belonged to someone and they'll be back for it, or taken it back to the office and turned it in to their lost and found.


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## Steve (Mar 11, 2011)

I think there's more to the story.  I'd have to know more about what really happened to have an opinion.


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 11, 2011)

MA-Caver said:


> Three men who worked for a temp agency hailed as heroes for finding a bomb and reporting it_ immediately _to the police who sent a bomb squad out and dismantled the bomb set along a parade route, were fired for handling the situation poorly. Read on:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_re_us/us_mlk_parade_explosive_fired
> 
> Me either... I mean two minutes is NOT a long time considering.
> ...


Sue for what? They violated their instructions right?
Sean


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## granfire (Mar 11, 2011)

So, what exactly were they doing wrong? 

:idunno:


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 11, 2011)

granfire said:


> So, what exactly were they doing wrong?
> 
> :idunno:


I'm Sure Labor Ready would rather its employees not dig around in suspicious looking backpacks, for fear of the accusation of theft, for one thing. The company I work for won't use labor ready anymore because of all their stupid rules, but they have these rules for a reason, What if those guys died and killed a few others in the bookstore while they were digging around that bomb?
Sean


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## Aiki Lee (Mar 11, 2011)

I think if the average joe came across something that seems odd, they'd investigate. I think Steve might be right thinking there's more to this, but whatever it was they were doing before hand they did the right thing by calling 911. What if they didn't for fear of getting fired or something like that and it didn't get reported?


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## Nomad (Mar 11, 2011)

Touch Of Death said:


> I'm Sure Labor Ready would rather its employees not dig around in suspicious looking backpacks, for fear of the accusation of theft, for one thing. The company I work for won't use labor ready anymore because of all their stupid rules, but they have these rules for a reason, What if those guys died and killed a few others in the bookstore while they were digging around that bomb?
> Sean



I think it's really easy for people after the fact to say "what if".  The fact is that they handled the situation well and no one was hurt, in part thanks to their quite timely reaction.  They should be lauded for their actions, not punished.


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## K-man (Mar 11, 2011)

Seems like a beat up to me. The guys were employed for the few days then the job was finished. End of story.



> Steiner, Brandon Klaus and Sherman Welpton had been hired to perform cleanup work during the parade and noticed the backpack on an outdoor bench.
> Stacey Burke, a spokeswoman for Labor Ready, said the three lost their jobs only because most of the company's positions are temporary. "They can still find employment through us," Burke said, and they have been.
> 
> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...AOL-?SITE=INLAF&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


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## granfire (Mar 11, 2011)

K-man said:


> Seems like a beat up to me. The guys were employed for the few days then the job was finished. End of story.



Well, a temp agency sends you on the next job. So no, they would have not been 'unemployed' (not sure tho how they handle pay when you are not on a job tho)


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## K-man (Mar 11, 2011)

granfire said:


> Well, a temp agency sends you on the next job. So no, they would have not been 'unemployed' (not sure tho how they handle pay when you are not on a job tho)


True, but the company claims they can still apply for temp work and they are. 


> "They can still find employment through us," Burke said, and they have been.


Normally you are on the books as available, not on the books as an employee.

Obviously a company like that will have an 'employed' pool of people to cover normal commitments and another pool to cover busy times such as this parade which may have needed them to expand their workforce significantly for a few days.

I think that this is a story about 'heroes' being hard done by, and I'm not sure that there isn't a simple explanation.


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 11, 2011)

K-man said:


> Seems like a beat up to me. The guys were employed for the few days then the job was finished. End of story.


Yeah, you don't get fired from labor ready, they choose to use you again or not. Its not like we have a parade every week.
Sean


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## LuckyKBoxer (Mar 11, 2011)

> they later lost their temporary jobs


umm last I looked Temporary did not mean permanent.


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## Sukerkin (Mar 11, 2011)

Hmm, sounds a bit harsh on the surface I do have to say.

Quite agree about the fact that they should not have been poking about in a suspicious package tho'.  But I grew up with the threat of being blown up by the IRA and keeping an eye out for unattended bags etc was part of the drill for us.  It's one reason why even now, people of around my age will take their bags and coats with them wherever they go when out and about - it's not that we fear theft so much as being worried about coming back to see our suitcase going up in a controlled explosion courtesy of the bomb squad .


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## granfire (Mar 11, 2011)

Sukerkin said:


> Hmm, sounds a bit harsh on the surface I do have to say.
> 
> Quite agree about the fact that they should not have been poking about in a suspicious package tho'.  But I grew up with the threat of being blown up by the IRA and keeping an eye out for unattended bags etc was part of the drill for us.  It's one reason why even now, people of around my age will take their bags and coats with them wherever they go when out and about - it's not that we fear theft so much as being worried about coming back to see our suitcase going up in a controlled explosion courtesy of the bomb squad .



Ah, yes, the 'good old times' 

Thankfully the rest of the world is lacking that experience. But it seems we have to rethink our lives now, too.
(somebody had his antique microphone blown up like that at an airport near here....I can just imagine how the bomb squat was going about it. )


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 11, 2011)

Incidently, I went to that bookstore the next day not knowing what had happened. Things seemed odd. LOL
Sean


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## jks9199 (Mar 11, 2011)

granfire said:


> Well, a temp agency sends you on the next job. So no, they would have not been 'unemployed' (not sure tho how they handle pay when you are not on a job tho)


Depends on the temp agency, and the employee.  Most that I'm familiar with work pretty simple:  if they don't have work -- you don't work.  When a contract or job ends, if they've got something, you may be sent to it.  If they don't -- you get told to call in tomorrow (or whatever their method of divvying up jobs is).


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