LAKEFRONT ON LANGDON
In 2004, a Black man who we’ll call Steve was hired for a classified job. This meant an increase in pay of around $6000 a year, along with health insurance, paid time off, and Union protections. Steve had worked as an LTE for several years, including stints in the Memorial Union kitchen, as a custodian and in the Rathskeller. He was always able to get hired to another “temp” position whenever he had worked six months at another job.
Steve had a run of bad luck right after he was hired to his represented job. His brother died; he took a day off work for the funeral. He took another day off to provide emergency care to his child. He called in sick twice in six months due to illness, providing a doctors excuse for one of the abscences.
Our Union contract allows workers to take off work without penalty for the funeral of a family member and to provide emergency care to a close family member. Wisconsin Union attendance policy says that absences will not be held against a worker if medical verification is provided. Steve had stomach flue; apparently Jim Long, the manager at Lakefront on Langdon wanted him preparing your lunch anyway.
In essence, Steve was fired, after years of working as an LTE for poverty wages, because he missed one day of work in six months. Steve had found a lawyer to represent him in a discrimination law suit on a contingency basis and was set to go to trail in November 2007 when he in a serious car accident that made it impossible to continue his case. So the University got lucky this time.
