Posted on 07/26/2005 12:40:20 PM PDT by wmichgrad
When Tom Kekoni showed up for work at Babbitt's Sports Center on May 17, he had no idea it would be his last day.
That morning, a sales manager approached Kekoni, a 46-year-old certified mechanic, and asked him whether he had made a certain recent purchase.
The mechanic acknowledged he had, and the sales manager informed him that he didn't need to punch in for work.
Kekoni thought the guy was teasing him.
"Too late, I already did," Kekoni responded.
A little later, the sales manager again approached Kekoni, asking if he believed him.
Kekoni said he did, but he wanted to "hear it from the horse's mouth," referring to his boss, Eddie Babbitt.
Babbitt then fired Kekoni.
The reason?
Kekoni had just bought a 2005 Harley-Davidson Superglide motorcycle. Babbitt's sells products that compete with Harley, such as Yamaha and Polaris.
"How would it look if my mechanic drives in on a competitor's product?" Babbitt said.
Both Kekoni and Babbitt admit to the firing, which broke no laws.
According to Jack Finn, an administrator with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, Babbitt did nothing illegal.
"Michigan employment is termed 'at will', and as a result an employer can terminate an employee without cause," Finn said.
Kekoni and Babbitt sharply disagree over whether a policy existed against owning competitors' products.
Kekoni, 47, alleges no such thing existed. "There was no policy," he said.
Babbitt, meanwhile, claims the policy always has existed. "It's been a standing policy here forever," he said.
Babbitt added that Kekoni should have been tipped off to the policy by two incidents prior to his firing.
The first was a firing about a month before Kekoni's. Babbitt terminated another employee for buying a Honda off-road motorcycle from a different vendor.
Before that, Kekoni said he approached a sales manager concerning some used Harley bikes in Babbitt's showroom. After Kekoni inquired about purchasing them, he said the sales manager told him, "You don't want to do that."
Kekoni said it wasn't clear to him why the sales manager responded the way he did.
He would later end up buying the bike through Sandy's Harley-Davidson in Fremont, and it already had been shipped when the other employee was fired.
Shortly after letting Kekoni go, Babbitt said his business came under fire from Harley sympathizers and owners.
"I've been blasted online ... it's not easy being the boss," he said.
Kekoni said he learned nothing can be done legally. He remains upset about the reasoning behind his firing.
"Everybody in my opinion has the right to own and buy what they feel they want to have," he said. "It shouldn't be dictated to you by your boss."
Kekoni said he plans to keep the bike.
"It's a helluva thing to get fired over."
Negative advertising is the stongest form of advertising.
Spread the word in that town.
Yeah man! Getting fired for ridin a hog! Almost makes it seems like it isn't a bunch of yuppies riding harleys nowadays!
Well that mechanic has good taste...Harleys are the best of the bikes and if you want to ride a 'bike' best be a Harley....goood man!!!!
they have a perfect right to do it, but it is pretty stupid. They will lose more businesses now than they ever would have by having an employee drive a harley.
Here's hoping the Harley shop will hire him.
Glad to see no one's screaming for a Law to prevent this.
If you own the company, you should be able to hire/fire anyone you choose, for any reason you choose.
If that's the way they want to act then to hell with them.
Looks like it's time to go to work for Sandy's Harley-Davidson.
The only thing the employer did was give the mechanic an opportunity to find a better job.
I wouldn't fire him for buying a Harley, I'd fire him for buying any motorcycle that cost 20K.
And you should not blame someone who blows your brains out because you did it for a whim !
Including if the employee is the wrong race, sex, age, or disabled, right? Lunatic.
try to do that at any auto dealership/ manufacturing plant, say goodbye to half your employees.
you can't drive by any of the GM plants without seeing the lot half full of ford, dodge, harley, jeep, and a bunch of imports. dealerships are just as bad, but they can't complain as much being that they don't discriminate in selling used cars.
He will need his mechanical skills to keep the Harley running!
The mechanic should be thankful he was spared from working even one more minute under that idiot of a boss. Something tells me a Harley shop will be hiring him any day now...
People like that don't deserve to run a business, I hope he go bankrupt. These companies have no business in dictating employees private lives.
Umm yea this bites
Yeah, exactly. Who are you to tell a business owner what the parameters are in regards to his employment policies?
Are you for individual property rights, or not?
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