Complaint Review: Tropicana Bradenton Plant - Tropicana Products - Tropicana Manufacturing PepsiCo - QTG Management - Bradenton Florida

This makes no sense other than absolute retaliation. Yesterday, Friday 9-28-2007, I get a call from my Union Business Agent, Robert Tuttle. He tells me my grievance was not heard at the GRC and is remanded until 10-19-2007. I ask him my status and he confirms that I am suspended. This conversation was mid afternoon. However, TODAY, 9-29-2007, I get ANOTHER bogus reprimand that was dated 9-25-07, and a letter of termination that was dated 9-28-07! They came to my house together by certified mail. I am already on suspension "pending investigation" with 5 bogus reprimands. Now, I get terminated while on suspension? How does that happen? The reprimand is signed by Wendell Butler as my "steward", but he is the Union President. The supervisors signature is illegible with no printed name. This reprimand is dated 9/25/2007 and is fairly illegible, so I cannot make a copy of it. However, this is what I can make of it. "Refusal to comply or assist in the operations or the services of the company when reasonable requests are made by supervisory personnel". WHAT?????? I have been on suspension since 9-21-2007. These people are obviously clueless, and this is an obvious attack on me because I held them accountable. I have done NOTHING wrong here. NOTHING!! Every violation was on the part of Tropicana management! This whole thing escalated ONLY due to unethical and illegal actions by Tropicana HR Management.

As a result of my safety and compliance complaints, I have once again been retaliated against by Tropicana HR. Javier Feliciano of HR wrote me 5 reprimands at once and "suspended me "pending investigation". This is their idea of "corrective action".

As of Tuesday afternoon, corrective action was initiated by John Fitzgerald Jr. It's just a shame that these issues had to be escalated to the top before being addressed.

As of Tuesday afternoon, corrective action was initiated by John Fitzgerald Jr. It's just a shame that these issues had to be escalated to the top before being addressed.

As of Tuesday afternoon, corrective action was initiated by John Fitzgerald Jr. It's just a shame that these issues had to be escalated to the top before being addressed.

As of Tuesday afternoon, corrective action was initiated by John Fitzgerald Jr. It's just a shame that these issues had to be escalated to the top before being addressed.

I was a nice guy with the last OSHA report. I faxed a copy to the company as soon as I faxed it to OSHA. That gave them ample time to take corrective action. However, they have continuously engaged in their harassment, so this OSHA report I faxed in a couple of days ago will not give them any forewarning. And, this is a biggie. I will not post the defects here as I want them to be totally suprised. They think they are so smart, let them try to find this very major issue on their own. After all, I went through the proper in house procedures when I reported the issue last Jan of 2007. They have had nearly 9 months to fix the problem, and have not even addressed it in that time. That is how things are done at Tropicana. They are strictly reactive instead of proactive, and the bulk of the management suffers from gross incompetence.

That ramp would have been broken and still in service indefinitely had I not filed a written OSHA complaint on it. That is just the way it goes at tropicana. We still have most of the dock locks broken or in some way defective and they have been like that for years! They just never get fixed until something gets damaged or someone gets hurt! Then the driver gets fired or reprimanded and it's business as usual with the broken dock locks until the next time! I filed several unsafe condition reports on them back in january of this year, and they are still broken. Bob Opfergelt, shop steward can confirm this.

Typo: Andrew Justus not Justice. Sorry Andrew!