Anti-Smoking Crusader at MO Chrysler Plant Laid Off [08/11-3]
Excerpts from: Worker who crusaded against smoking at car plant is laid
off
By Kim Bell St.
Louis Post Dispatch [08/08/03]
The woman with asthma who is trying to get DaimlerChrysler to snuff out smoking
at its Fenton plant has been laid off.
Rossie Judd, an eight-year veteran of the auto plant, said Friday that the
plant's personnel office told her she was being laid off and would need to file
for unemployment.
Judd said she had given her employer a note from a doctor July 30 saying her
asthma meant she was unable to work near smoking or paint fumes and should not
wear a mask that workers in the paint department wear.
Chrysler spokesman Dan Bodene said, "The extent of her medical restrictions
were such that we literally couldn't place her anywhere in the plant."
Chrysler is meeting with Pat Lindsey, of the grass-roots group Tobacco Free Missouri,
and representatives from the General Motors and Ford plants to discuss how all
of the auto manufacturing plants in the St. Louis area can comply with Missouri's
Clean Indoor Air Act.
That law says that companies may designate no more than 30 percent of the total
work space for smoking areas. DaimlerChrysler, GM and Ford plants here all allow
smokers to light up just about anyplace. Those long-standing policies were challenged
once Judd's complaint surfaced in June.
Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board has dismissed Judd's unfair labor
practice charge. Judd had complained that Chrysler retaliated against her by sending
her to the paint department, the plant's only nonsmoking department. Judd also
said the union failed to process her grievance about secondhand smoke.
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