Manufacturing plant: No place to preach hatred

By Raymond Dreyfack -- Plant Engineering, 4/1/1999

I get along with everybody," Instrument Repairman Russ McIntyre claimed.

A known member of a hate group, McIntyre preached hatred and violence to anyone who would listen.

How he felt was no secret to Maintenance Foreman Al Schacht, but he didn't what, if anything, he could do about it. He had tried more than once to reason with the bigot, or at least to try to get him to keep his feelings to himself.

"Life's too short to waste passion and energy on hate and intolerance," he had argued. "Especially if the objects of your venom are people you work with side by side and day to day. It makes life unpleasant for your coworkers and unpleasant for you."

McIntyre didn't dispute what he said. In fact, he kept his mouth shut with an arrogant superior smirk on his face. When Schacht was done, he asked coldly, "End of lecture?" And that was it.

Schacht sighed. "Yeah, McIntyre, end of lecture."

Then one day the supervisor heard through the grapevine that McIntyre had been issuing threats of disruption and trying to organize violence in response to a civil rights town meeting. When the foreman confirmed the rumor with a police official he knew, he decided to talk to his boss, Fran Merrick, about it.

Question: In Plant Engineer Frank Merrick's shoes, what action would you take in response to McIntyre's activities?

Merrick's response: Merrick's first step was to put feelers out in the plant to conclusively flesh out the repairman's bruiting as a violence-prone racist and bigot. He then checked with a second police official and obtained further evidence of McIntyre's touted intention and solicitation to disrupt the civil rights meeting.

"This breaches his responsibility as a representative of this company to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the public." Merrick told Schacht. "In my view, that's ample grounds for dismissal."