Man Fired for Wearing Bush Sweatshirt at Obama Rally

[pintobean]

<snip>
(USC) -- Don't try wearing a Bush hat or sweatshirt at an Obama rally.

Duane Hammond says it's what got him fired. Hammond is a union stagehand who was part of the crew that built the platform for the Obama event on campus.

He came to work early this morning wearing clothing that says "George H. W. Bush". Hammond's son is in the Navy, currently serving on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George H. W. Bush.

Hammond says he was not trying to make a political statement. He says he got the sweatshirt and hat during a visit to the aircraft carrier on Family Day. The back of his sweatshirt has a large drawing of the ship.
<snip>

http://blogs.ktla.com/news_custom_eric/2010/10/man-fired-for-wearing-bush-sweatshirt-at-obama-rally.html

Pics at the link.

[Ken Burch]

1. Did this REALLY happen?

The story has "set-up" written all over it.

[emulatorloo]

8. Yeah there is something not right about this.

Crazy Comment People of course are acting as if the Democratic Party fired him

[Bitwit1234]

30. I don't know about this but remember when Bush was in and

some people wore T-shirts saying he was the worst president ever. Well some people in Maryland got fired because of it, this was all over the news.

[DainBramaged]

2. The Booshe fucks had people ARRESTED for Democratic T-Shirts

this bastard should consider himself lucky, refused to take the shirt off, what an asshole.

[awoke_in_2003]

81. huh???

To begin with, it was a shirt from the aircraft carrier GHW Bush. But let us say, for the sake of the argument, that the shirt was a pro-George Bush shirt. SO FUCKING WHAT. The 1st amendment allows one to make an ass of one's self as long it is not hurting anyone else. And if this story is actually true, we should be railing against it. Just because the right did bad things before doesn't mean it is right for us to do it, too.

[Drale]

3. If he got fired

I doubt it was because of a sweatshirt he was wearing.

[LaurenG]

4. I hope this isn't true

Duane Hammond says it's what got him fired... So I'm hoping he misunderstands or doesn't want to say what really got him fired. Being fired over a piece of clothing is so 2000-2008.

[leftstreet]

9. Seems fishy. It's a union hating blogofest at that link

:puke:

Seems staged

[awoke_in_2003]

82. Yes it does...

but I agree with Lauren, I hope it isn't. Just because republicans spit on the bill of rights doesn't mean we should, too.

[JSK]

5. I saw the guy interviewed at USC on KTLA this morning

And I felt immediately that something is not right with this story.

[emulatorloo]

15. Self Delete -- never mind! n/t

[KurtNYC]

55. did he look like this guy....

http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2009/08/return-of-phil-parlock.html

Phil Parlock

"Phil Parlock was a notorious serial victim, who claimed to have lost dozens of signs at the hands of big, mean union thugs going all the way back to 1996 when he alleged he was knocked to the ground for displaying a “Remember Vince Foster” sign at a Clinton rally."

[proud2BlibKansan]

69. LOL! I thought of Parlock as well

Remember when he brought his young daughter to a rally and claimed she had been harassed?

[KurtNYC]

84. the guy in the union t-shirt on the left is his son

and pharlock has his own hand holding "the daughter's" sign. Totally staged. You had to look close to see his hand holding her sign.

[proud patriot]

6. It's in my union contract that I can't wear political attire

I so wanted to wear my YES WE DID shirt after Obmaa won , but I couldn't .

[arbusto_baboso]

10. But a shirt with an aircraft carrier on it isn't political.

[mkultra]

58. it is if its a US presidents namesake

then its both.

[Abq_Sarah]

71. Uh.. no, it's not

It's a United States Air Craft Carrier, not a political endorsement.


Would this even be an issue if his son served on the USS Harry S. Truman?

[JSK]

11. It wasn't technically political attire

It was a sweatshirt and hat from the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush. Very bizarre story.

[proud patriot]

47. I see your point

hmmmm kinda makes me skeptical of the story

[jennied]

7. He shouldn't have been fired. Sad.

[GSLevel9]

12. I HOPE it's not true...

I don't care if he was wearing "KTULU for President" garb... you don't do that shit.

[awoke_in_2003]

83. wait a minute there...

are you dissin' KTULU? :)

[hatrack]

13. Parlock

http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2004/09/bogus-assault-father-freeper-of-year.html

[emulatorloo]

18. LOL n/t

[pinboy3niner]

26. Ha! A little skepticism is not a bad thing.

Thanks for the link, hatrack. :toast:

[LisaM]

52. I was trying to come up with that name, n/t

[sarge43]

14. When does a union supervisor have the right and responsibility to fire someone?

Kick him out of the union, maybe. But doesn't the man work a company, a contractor? This doesn't pass the smell test.

[pintobean]

17. His supervisor is in the same union as him.

I assume.

[sarge43]

23. Assuming that, the union has total control over hiring and firing?

Pardon the questions, I don't know butkus about union procedures.

[pintobean]

31. Poor wording.

Forget the union for the next sentence.

The stagehand was fired by his crew's supervisor.

It's his supervisor on the job. They are both union. The union wasn't involved until after the firing.

[sarge43]

45. Thank you for the clarification. Makes all the difference. n/t

[LiberalFighter]

25. If the supervisor can hire or fire they can't belong to the union.

[pintobean]

34. We can and do in my union.

The owner of the company I work for is in my local.

[LiberalFighter]

37. Which union?

Any idea when the local received its charter?

[pintobean]

40. I don't care to divulge that info.

It's construction. Most of them work the same way here. If a supervisor fires a man, he calls the office to have the guy's check sent out to the job. The fired man is payed up to the time he is handed his check.

[AuntPatsy]

16. Another BS political ad to be bandied about throughout the internet and beyond, welcome to election

games where only half of the story is told leaving out the most important facts, nothing unusual really, I just wish such shanigans were not so easy to occur and so often these days...

[emulatorloo]

19. Wingnuts are already acting like the Democratic Party fired him

[AuntPatsy]

24. That is exactly the intent of the whole stunt, and like throwing red meat out to a pack

of rapid wolves they lap it up without clear conscience thought a clear view of today's teapartrepbconskkk members...

[grantcart]

20. Why did you omit what the Union spokesman said?

James Wright, a business representative from IATSE Local 33, says the union is still investigating what happened.

"If he was sent home because of the sweatshirt, he will be paid for the day," he said.

[pintobean]

22. Copyright.

That would have only been 3 paragraphs, but it would have been the whole story. I wasn't sure, so I went with caution.

[emulatorloo]

29. It is a pretty crucial bit of information.

I know what you are saying about the copyright issue. I usually try to summarize anything else important. after I have quoted the three paragraphs.

[pintobean]

32. Good for you.

[emulatorloo]

53. Just trying to be helpful - hope you didn't take it the wrong way n/t

[bettyellen]

59. you meant good for Du, right because this OP is misleding because of your piss poor edit.

[pintobean]

62. I didn't edit anything. I copied and pasted what is allowed

starting from the beginning of the article. The idea behind the copyright rules is to give readers a taste so they can determine if they want to read the whole article. I won't summarize to skirt around giving credit where it is due. I provided the link. The rest is up to each individual.

That being said, it's a very poorly written article.

[bettyellen]

63. FYI: You're allowed to choose any three paragraphs. that's why people "snip" to edit or......

paraphrase pertinent info they could not include, you might want to try it next time. It would have been a much better post.

[pintobean]

64. I've explained why I do it the way I do

If you don't like it, don't read my posts. I'm not changing it to satisfy you. If you want to be better informed, click the links and read the original articles.

[Name removed]

68. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seabeyond]

67. man, i thought it was four paragraphs all this time. nt

[grantcart]

46. That's what I though unfortunately it left the impression that the union was unreasonable.

[RaleighNCDUer]

41. Yep. the awful "he was FIRED" doesn't mean shit if he gets paid for the day

and it was a one-day job, as I assume setting up a stage for a rally would be.

[Ken Burch]

54. It could just as easily be "guy gets paid day off for wearing Bush t-shirt".

n/t.

[Name removed]

74. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Poor common sense maybe

But I guess you could also be fired for wearing a Reagan or Carter shirts.

Those ARE command shirts and hats...

Stoopid and yes, wrong.

[Marr]

27. I don't buy it.

I don't believe they'd fire him for wearing a Bush shirt, and I don't even believe that anyone would miss the fact that it was a reference to the ship. What's more, honestly, a great number of the union men I've known were Republicans, and often far right. Their politics simply stopped at their wallet.

[eleny]

28. I'm skeptical about this

[Gold Metal Flake]

33. WRers always complain that being in a Union means you CAN'T be fired.

They say that you can fuck off all day and still keep your job if you are Union. This story, as noted above, stinks of Parlock.

[blue sky at night]

35. I don't believe this............

eom.

[dulgar]

36. OK, Lets get some facts straight about this.

One, when a union member shows up to a show/event call such as he did, he is supposed to have on stage Blacks....What are stage blacks might you ask? They are black shirt, black shoes, black pants, black socks, no logos of anything on them(though sometimes small logos are accepted or overlooked). This is written in the contract so he can be fired for not showing up in the specified attire. Now he showed up to the event in attire that offended some of the management. He was asked to turn his shirt inside out and remove his hat, he refused and thus was fired by management, not the union, for not complying with the contract.

[kelly1mm]

80. Why would a shirt and hat of the USS Bush offend anyone? nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

87. Good point - and that is info that is missing from the story.

Was he expected to work the stage, or was he only there for pre-show set up? I think that would determine if he was required to wear stage black.

And so much of the hand-wringing misses the point - he IS a union man, and if he was removed from the site without cause he can always take it up with the union. If it was a non-union site, he'd have no recourse at all.

Unions protect workers, even from the union itself.

[DFab420]

38. Fired is the wrong word

He was sent home from the job for wearing inappropriate attire.

The Union reps are looking into it. He'll probably still get paid for the day.

this is a NON-issue.

[iamtechus]

39. The jerk was obviously looking for trouble and he found some.

The shirt was a souvenir and not the kind of thing that one wears to a labor job that destroys clothes. You can bet that he didn't just grab the first shirt in the drawer that morning.

[tsuki]

44. That is very true. Thank you for pointing it out. nt

[SoCalDem]

51. And that's why places , buildings, ships, etc should NOT be named for politicians until they have

been dead for at least 25 years.. It takes the "sting" out of the wearing of the souvenirs.

If a ship or building NEEDS a name, why not a more generic one, if for no other reason than to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Would that ship be named the GHW Bush, if it had been built 25 years after the old fool had croaked?

[joshcryer]

61. No doubt. I go through a whole set of clothing every month.

If that was one of his work shirts it'd be destroyed.

[Bonhomme Richard]

42. A union guy. Go figure. n/t

[spanone]

43. i don't believe it. but if it's true, it's wrong.

[Motown_Johnny]

49. +1

[Tarheel_Dem]

48. If he was sent home for inappropriate attire, I have no problem with that.

I do hope that he wasn't "FIRED" for it. I wonder when his "Joe The Plumber" style tour begins? He'll be a media maven for sure. :eyes:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

50. RW propaganda hoax FAIL.

[BolivarianHero]

56. Introducing Joe the Stager...

Republicans see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

[BolivarianHero]

57. Introducing Joe the Stager...

Republicans see defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory and are getting desperate.

[mzteris]

60. I don't believe this one whit. n/t

[political_Dem]

65. Something always happens in Trojanland... ;D

[Bozita]

66. And my bullshitometer says ...

[XRubicon]

70. Operation Chaos II. nt

[emulatorloo]

72. ***UPDATE: Duane Hammond says union officials called him this afternoon to apologize for the incid

ent."

Same link OP gave.

[AzNick]

73. Dems, we are better than this, seriously.

But why would they name a ship after Bush Sr? Oh yes, unlike his son, he actually won a war.

[MilesColtrane]

75. Accurate article, except for the headline.

I guess KTLA wouldn't get as many hits if they updated the story to, "Man Sent Home for Wearing Bush Sweatshirt at Union Job Site - Apology and Payment in Full Followed".

[Nailzberg]

76. Stupid article. The union doesn't hire or fire anyone. They represent workers.

The whole reason this guy is gonna paid even though he was sent home from the job site, is because he has a union backing him up. Typical anti-union slander piece.

[jillan]

77. I can't help but wonder if this is another Breitbart production.

[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

78. The real scandal in all of this

is the fact that the United States Navy has an aircraft carrier named after the smack dealing, terrorist training, Kennedy killing son of a Nazi traitor. (And father of an idiot chimp, besides)

[pintobean]

79. I'm a Navy vet and a union member. Here's my take.

I see three possibilities.

1. It's a political stunt - with or without assistance/direction

2. The guy is very proud of his son's service and very stubborn

3. He's too stupid to realize why his attire would be a problem.

I would love to know how the conversation between him and his supervisor went. I'd also like to know if the union or the contractor will end up paying the balance of his pay. Either way, it's 'shut-up' money. They just want this to go away.

[TexasObserver]

85. I don't believe him. He wore it to piss off his fellow workers.

I don't buy his act at all.

He chose to wear it to an event for Obama.

[savalez]

88. +1

[Doctor_J]

86. This is a lie

and an attempt by this loser to get on Fox "News"