Posted on 08/15/2002 3:48:26 PM PDT by PJeffQ
Posted on Thu, Aug. 15, 2002
Scana bans Confederate flag from company property
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Scana Corp. employees have been told to keep Confederate flag paraphernalia off company property.
South Carolina's largest utility also has ordered employees not to drive company vehicles to Maurice Bessinger's barbecue restaurants, The (Columbia) State reported Thursday.
Bessinger has been an outspoken Confederate flag supporter.
"Both the flag and Maurice Bessinger are divisive issues," said Scana spokeswoman Cathy Love. "For us to continue to be successful, we must have healthy, collaborative relationships with customers and co-workers. Divisive activities that disrupt harmony in the workplace are bad for business."
Bessinger said Scana's order was a "cowardly unconstitutional act."
"I have said before that one of our problems in trying to preserve our constitutional rights as a free people is simply a fact that the big corporations in this country have gotten in bed with the radical leftist NAACP and other pressure groups," Bessinger said Thursday in a statement.
Love didn't say whether Scana would fire workers for displaying the Confederate flag. She said any flag display "will be appropriately addressed by the company."
Scana, parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas and other subsidiaries, has 5,480 employees, including 2,219 in the Columbia area, where Bessinger's restaurants are located.
Love said Scana employees can eat at Bessinger's during their lunch hour. But they'll be expected to park company vehicles off the restaurants' property. Vehicles can go on the property if Bessinger's restaurants have electrical service problems, she said.
It's not the first boycott of Bessinger and his distinctive yellow barbeque sauce. In 2000, major retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Kroger, stopped selling Bessinger's sauces because of literature offered at his Columbia-area restaurants, including one tract that suggests early Africans liked slavery.
In his new self-published book, Bessinger claims black Americans preferred segregation.
He has sued retailers who removed his sauce from their shelves, saying his products were dropped because of his political and religious views.
Bessinger also has drawn criticism for replacing the U.S. flag at his restaurants with the Confederate flag. That came after the state Legislature, under pressure from a boycott led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, removed the Confederate flag from atop the Statehouse dome.
Although many state business leaders worked to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome, Scana's action moves the state's long-standing battle over the Confederate flag to the business arena in dramatic fashion.
Ike McLeese, president and chief executive of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, said the new flag ban might be an effort to head off further problems. McLeese said the company has had to deal with racial problems in its work force.
Earlier this year, a group of black SCE&G employees sued the company, saying it denied promotions to black workers and did little to counter racial insults and pranks by white co-workers. The company has denied the allegations.
Love said employee concerns triggered Scana's action, but she wouldn't discuss a specific complaint. She said the ban doesn't prevent workers from expressing views on their own time and away from company property.
"We are addressing issues related to Scana property, both at our physical work locations and regarding where our property goes."
The directives triggered outrage from a Confederate heritage group. Don Gordon, commander of the 250-plus-member Wade Hampton Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said his group may sue Scana.
"This is a freedom of speech issue," he said. "It has fallen to the Sons of Confederate Veterans to defend our liberty."
Information from: The State
They also happened to BE loyal Americans. A hell of alot more loyal than the tyrant Lincoln who suspended the constitution and killed thousands of his countrymen. Sheesh! Let's not loose sight of who was in the right here.
OUC backed down after a potential lawsuit based on the 1st Ammendment/Freedom of Speech. Almost all the lawyers said OUC would lose this case in a huge way. I suspect it was rogue HR manager who made an irrational decision.
True to his Southern Heritage, Mr. Jones simply said all he wanted was his job back.
Well screw him then. Must be friends with Osama. Why not put the flag of Iraq or the swastika up? They both fought against the United States and killed loyal citizens of it too.
Did I see on another thread that you are a first generation American? Have you worn an American uniform? Did your dad? Your Grandfathers? All of my family did and I'm as proud of those who stood up for their rights in the South as I am the one at Valley Forge, New Orleans, Bexar, San Jacinto, Cuba, Normandy, The USS Cleveland ........
What has the % historically been? As a first generation American, I would be interested in that %.
12 posted on 8/15/02 2:07 PM Pacific by pittsburgh gop guy [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Wonder who's "feeling" the Love? Would anybody really want to.
it's a free country and scana can do as it pleases.The fact that this IS a free country is exactly the reason why Scanna shouldn't be allowed to make such a decision as this. Or does the U.S. constitution not apply once you enter Scanna facilities?
Yeah, and Lincoln represents a people that brutally murdered innocent southern civilians.
Now if you don't like the confederate flag, don't fly one. But what business is it of yours to weigh in against others who wish to do so? And that includes supporting a company's decision to ban its employees from eating at certain restaraunts over their lunch breaks because those restaraunts happen to fly the flag.
What an exemplary act of Christian Principle in the finest tradition of a true Southern Gentleman.
I'll admit, I might have been tempted to go for the mad-dog laaw-ya and a comfortable early retirement.
It's generally a shade of blue unlike the industrial browns frequently seen in the urban cesspools of yankeeland. Let it go - repeat after me
Thanks but no thanks. Mimicing a fool does little good for one's own image.
i am too! if everyone who felt like you and i would quit their jobs (OK OK NOW is not the time), then these companies would have to rethink their thoughts. corporations are there to make money for the shareholders -- not to further some socialistic agenda.
i choose my own circumstances most of the time. i know the rules of companies and can either stay with them or leave them. it is my choice. no government should be strong enough to place rules on companies. if the workers and shareholders knew what was going on and had the backbone to act, these companies would straighten out right away.
besides my k-mart example, i toss out martha stewart as another example where shareholders have strongly spoken against her criminal acts.
You certainly are doing that.
Ah so you have a Nazi heritage. I imagine that is worse than a Confederate heritage. Right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.