Workers Awarded for Wrongful Termination
October 1, 2007
Three railroad workers from Oklahoma City were recently awarded in punitive damages for being wrongfully terminated from the company they were employed with.
A federal jury reportedly awarded the workers $145,000.
Wrongful Termination
The three workers, Rick Morton, Paul Lister and Kris Puig were employed by a subsidiary of Watco Cos., Stillwater Central Railroad.
The men claim that they were fired for attempting to form a union.
Morton reportedly contacted the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen to discuss forming a union.
"We wanted to feel secure in our jobs and without a contract, we have no security," explained Morton.
Three days after all three men attended a union meeting, they reportedly met with the company manager's who told them that they had heard about their attendance at the meeting and the men were allegedly fired on the spot.
Workers Claims
Lister, who worked as a conductor, claims that he and the other plaintiffs wanted to form a union in order to address the health and safety problems at the company.
"Within a couple of weeks of me working there, I started realizing how bad it was," explained Lister.
Court documents claim that all three of the men reported unsafe operations and violations of regulations.
Morton, who worked as an engineer, also reported that there was an obvious disparity between the treatments of the workers.
"Some workers were treated well, some were treated poorly," says Morton.
(Source: NewsOK)
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