Flag Day at Kaiser
In honor of Flag Day (June 14), Ed Hoffman, a 10-year Kaiser employee who works as a shop steward at the Mead plant, joined three coworkers in placing American flag stickers (measuring approximately 1.5" x 2.5") on the sides of their hardhats. A few hours later their supervisor, Tom Lynch, told them that they must remove the stickers.
"[Supervisor Lynch is] really in a catch-22," says Hoffman. "He’s not against the flag; he’s just following policy. But I told him he’d have to give me a direct order to make me remove the flag sticker. So he did."
Hoffman says he was told by Lynch that Kaiser sees the stickers as graffiti that deface company property.
"Is the American Flag graffiti? No. This is a control issue," Hoffman contends. "It’s bitterness from the strike. They say, ‘Let the healing begin.’ But all they have done since we came back is try to spank us."
Kaiser spokesperson Susan Ashe says, "We do have a rule for safety concerns that has been in place for over two years with respect to hard hats. They are company property. We don’t allow them to be altered, modified or defaced in any way. This is primarily in response to manufacturer’s recommendations. We wouldn’t want to mask any defects."(L. U.329 Webmaster's Note: Kaiser requires you to put a minimum of two or as many as four of their own stickers on your Hard Hat when it's issued to you.)
Hoffman maintains that before the strike, workers decorated their hardhats with stickers – mostly union stickers. He sees the forced removal of the flag sticker as symbolic of the strained employer/employee relationships at Kaiser. Admittedly, he’s not doing his part to deescalate tension. The day after Flag Day, he wore a homemade T-shirt that reads, "Kaiser, the anti-American company." And, of course, there’s the 4’ x 8’ sign in his yard that proclaims, "Kaiser orders workers to remove US flag." None of that is going to get him the Employee of the Year Award. But Hoffman doesn’t seem to care. As he puts it, "This company has gotten so controlling with us workers that they won’t even let us wear a tiny patriot symbol."
Connye Miller