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This story does support a firing. Absent from every issue is the story behind the charge. He was insubordinate and contrary...how? This is a ferry for goodness sakes. Get there on time, pilot by best practice, and if you don't, it is management's responsibility to document, and lay the groundwork for firing. They usually don't. Then they complain that it's the darned unions fault.

This guy has a pilot's license, and was the captain of a ship. When he is under way, interferring with his judgement is bad. He had a collision as the pilot of the same ship, and was commended for his actions in that mechanical failure.

He did not let a DOT inspector on the bridge. Firing offense...maybe. Piloting ability questions...no! If management had questions about his piloting abilities or his deportment, they could fire him. All they need to do is spend the effort. They did not want to. Plain and simple.

If this excuse of a manager could put him onto a graveyard run, for non piloting issues, why couldn't he keep him there? If he really thought of him as a threat back then, why didn't he fire him, and then be forced to rehire by the union appeal? The answer is pretty easy. He did not know that there was a piloting issue in the past, or he was a bad manager did not know how to fire him and should be named in the upcoming lawsuits.

My sad question is what is going to happen to this pilot if the DOT investigation shows something similar to the last accident on the same ship, mechanical failure? Or the question of his actions, if it shows that he saved a bunch of people that would have died? You don't get that kind of a license for nothing (Wesley Clarke excluded of course).

I agree with you about the scribes, they don't even know what they write about anymore. Someone says boo, and they print it. Logic free and rumor based.

DK

It is very difficult to fire civil service employees, I agree. And the increase in numbers is unsupportable by need. But when Clinton fired the travel office to put her cronies there, and had the FBI accuse the head of a crime, that was immoral. Civil service is there to prevent politicians from controlling the bureacracy directly. That is scary!