Tommy McGoey, leader of the Liskow & Lewis labor and employment law practice group, has recently won arbitrations for two firm clients. Both cases involved wrongful termination grievances filed by the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

In the first case, a particleboard plant in Simsboro, LA terminated an employee for dishonesty and obstructive behavior during an investigation of his unauthorized visit to the plant at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night during a leave of absence to take pictures of plant machinery. The employee, who had pending unfair labor practice and EEOC charges against the company and his union, gave conflicting reasons for his clandestine activities. The arbitrator found both the employee and his union steward not credible and, notwithstanding the employee's 35 years of service at the facility, upheld the company's imposition of the ultimate sanction of discharge.

The second case arose at an alumina plant in Gramercy, LA, and involved an employee who was the chief of a volunteer fire department. After exhausting three weeks of vacation, the employee asked for a two-week leave of absence between Thanksgiving and Christmas to travel to California and pick up a new boat for his fire department. The supervisor could not accommodate the request due to manpower shortages at a critical time of year and so notified the employee. After he unsuccessfully argued his request to four higher levels of management, the employee decided to make the trip anyway. While in California, he called in before missing each of five shifts and gave the reason for his absences as "personal." At the arbitration hearing, the employee claimed that he could not be terminated because his absences had to be handled through the standard absence procedure, which called for a lesser penalty. The arbitrator found the employee's conduct to be insubordination and job abandonment and upheld the termination.