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Posted: 8/21/2005 3:53:28 PM EDT
I just got my NRA letter today, it says that Weyerhaeuser fired 12 employs for having weapons in thier vehicles in a public parking lot while they were at work. The company took advice straight out of a Brady Compain booklet on "how to make your company gun free". Weyerhauser told employs that if they refused a search by security they would be fired! Weyerhauser was among three other companys, ConocoPhillips Co, AOL, and Halliburton, that where mentioned for simuler actions in the letter.

A buddy of mine was just trying to get a job at Weyerhaeuser recently, I thought it sounded like a good place to work, I even thought I might apply, now "Weyerhaeuser" is a dirty word in my house!

The NRA provides a post card for each company, all you must do is put a stamp on it and sighn it and drop it in the big blue box. PLEASE do so! These companys MUST know who is the majority. I strongly urge everyone to flood ALL Weyerhaeuser office phones with calls telling them what you think of this BS! This just hits to close to home, Weyerhaeuser being THE major employer in my town.

If you are not a member yet, I strongly urge you to join the NRA and OFF. We need your help to keep this land free!

Stay safe and God bless!
J Hoffa.
Link Posted: 8/21/2005 10:10:18 PM EDT
[#1]
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 8:05:05 AM EDT
[#2]

Quoted:
I just got my NRA letter today, it says that Weyerhaeuser fired 12 employs for having weapons in thier vehicles in a public company owned parking lot while they were at work. The company took advice straight out of a Brady Compain booklet on "how to make your company gun free". Weyerhauser told employs that if they refused a search by security they would be fired as per written company policy (recently revised)! Weyerhauser was among three other companys, ConocoPhillips Co, AOL, and Halliburton, that where mentioned for similar actions in the letter.
... (deleted)



I've ammended your post to reflect the true events. While I don't agree with Weyerhauser's policy and attitude (some exec got a burr up their ass it seems), they had every right to do what they did. Right or wrong, don't tread on peoples's rights.

Needless to say, it's a similar law in Oregon and Texas (I'm sure others). The owner of the property has every right to deny you entry onto property if you do not comply with their requests. I.E., if my work says, "no guns allowed on company property" (must be posted on the exterior of the business in Texas) they have every right to do so.

If I am denied entry, and then don't show up for work, well, that's grounds for being fired.

Fight for carry rights, but do it for the right reasons.
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 10:58:10 AM EDT
[#3]

Quoted:
Link?


I just e-mailed NRA asking where I can find this on the web. Hopfully I can have a link up soon.
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:02:45 AM EDT
[#4]
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:09:03 AM EDT
[#5]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I just got my NRA letter today, it says that Weyerhaeuser fired 12 employs for having weapons in thier vehicles in a public company owned parking lot while they were at work. The company took advice straight out of a Brady Compain booklet on "how to make your company gun free". Weyerhauser told employs that if they refused a search by security they would be fired as per written company policy (recently revised)! Weyerhauser was among three other companys, ConocoPhillips Co, AOL, and Halliburton, that where mentioned for similar actions in the letter.
... (deleted)



I've ammended your post to reflect the true events. While I don't agree with Weyerhauser's policy and attitude (some exec got a burr up their ass it seems), they had every right to do what they did. Right or wrong, don't tread on peoples's rights.

Needless to say, it's a similar law in Oregon and Texas (I'm sure others). The owner of the property has every right to deny you entry onto property if you do not comply with their requests. I.E., if my work says, "no guns allowed on company property" (must be posted on the exterior of the business in Texas) they have every right to do so.

If I am denied entry, and then don't show up for work, well, that's grounds for being fired.

Fight for carry rights, but do it for the right reasons.


I meant that it was a parking lot where the general public could park, ie; Jonny rapist, Jamol car jacker, ect, ect. I could pull in and park with a ma duce mounted in the bed of my Datsun and it would be ok, but the dumb fuck who works for Weyerhaeuser can't have a .22.

By going so far as checking cars, IMO, Weyerhaeuser is saying they don't want it to be AT ALL possible for you to carry to & from work. Apparently these guys where going hunting after work, that's why they caght 12 at one time, when I worked for the federal government we allowed you to have whatever you wanted in the parking lot, AS LONG AS it was the outside, non-gated lot. When we had a retirement party we could have liquier out in the parking lot, but not inside.
I hope if someone gets raped or car jacked, or even murdered at a Wyerhaeuser plant that they will get the best lawyer money can buy and sue them for all they are worth.
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:11:16 AM EDT
[#6]

Quoted:

Quoted:



I see you have recently moved from NJ to OR.


Yes, I just realized last night after posting this that I had never changed that.
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 5:04:49 PM EDT
[#7]
I had emailed Weyerhaeuse yesterday, they got back to me today. BIG long e-mail about how Weyerhaeuser IS a pro-2a company, how they support the NRA, how unfortunate it is that all gun owners are not members of the NRA. What I found disturbing though was that Weyerhaeuser PR people sited a bunch of BS statistics, like "violence is the leading cause of on the job death for woman and the second leading cause for men", how they thaut it an emergency to "protect" thier employs. They claimed that "some of our supervisers know what it is like to tell a family that thier loved one isn't comeing home because a coworker killed them with a gun". All of this shit is SOOOOOOOOOO bogus, it obviosly came straght from the Brady campains "how to keep your work place gun free" pamplet! As soon as I heard those BS statsI knew it was pointless to try to talk to these fruit cakes!
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 9:34:02 PM EDT
[#8]
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 10:41:45 PM EDT
[#9]
Hope you can read this.


Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:01:28 PM EDT
[#10]
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:29:51 PM EDT
[#11]

Quoted:
That is an email?  I thought you would just copy and paste.


Sorry man, I've done that before, but I couldn't get it to work on this, so I spent about an hour & half printing, scanning, cropping, sizing and puting on tinypic.com. I take the loooooooonnnnnnngggg way! Maybe I'll get the NRA letter up here another day?
Link Posted: 8/22/2005 11:39:30 PM EDT
[#12]
Notice how they say "we did not conduct the search during gun hunting season", as if hunting is the ONLY legitimate reason for owning a firearm. As if it would be okay if you had a gun at work during hunting seaon, but not because you are a female who lives in a bad neiborhood and has been repeatedly raped, beaten and left for dead? Or has an evil ex who has threatened your life?

I'm sorry guys, I just get worked up over this stuff.
Link Posted: 8/24/2005 2:37:14 PM EDT
[#13]
Another thing thats been brought up re their statistics concerning "homicide being the leading cause of death in the workplace,etc",is the question of active duty military personel (read battle zone combatants) and LEOs being included in the Dept Of Labors numbers. That kind of ups the odds don't it?
Link Posted: 8/25/2005 12:06:53 PM EDT
[#14]
Cripes, I'm surprised they didn't say it was done "for the children".

Don't worry, everything is done to keep you safe.
/sips KoolAid

My company has a similar policy.  And that's where I leave that.
Link Posted: 8/25/2005 4:44:24 PM EDT
[#15]
What they fail to grasp is people do not carry gun in their cars incase they want to shoot someone from work they bring it that day and carry it inside with them not leave it in the car. Be funny if a woman with a restraining order for ex with permit to carry sued them for preventing her from protecting herself from and documented threat.
Link Posted: 8/25/2005 7:23:07 PM EDT
[#16]

Quoted:
Cripes, I'm surprised they didn't say it was done "for the children".

Don't worry, everything is done to keep you safe.
/sips KoolAid

My company has a similar policy.  And that's where I leave that.


I realize most companys, even gun shops, have to say that for insureance reasons, but searching cars? My God! I'm sure they have a rule against porn at work as well, would they search cars for it? Then fire a guy who had a old issue of Play Boy under his seat, that he lost three years ago? I think this is a Nazi tactic, Weyerhaeusers way of saying they support the government move to take our weapons and they want to be part of the action!
Link Posted: 8/26/2005 12:00:17 AM EDT
[#17]
After thinking about this,I could swear I read a news item about this over at The High Road and supposedly the search was actually for drugs because an employee ODed OTJ and it wasn't the first time it'd happened there.   I could probably find the link over there but its getting late. I'll look tomorrow.
That was easy here it is.

Weyerhaeuser Fired Workers
Who Had Weapons in Cars,
And Legal Dispute Unfolds

By SUSAN WARREN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 26, 2004; Page A1

VALLIANT, Okla. -- In late summer of 2002, Steve Bastible put three bullets into a dying cow at his ranch, threw the emptied rifle behind the seat of his pickup and forgot about it.

A few weeks later, the rifle cost him his job of 23 years.

That Oct. 1, in a surprise search, Weyerhaeuser Co. sent gun-sniffing dogs into the parking lot of its paper mill here. Mr. Bastible and 11 other workers were fired after guns were found in their vehicles. The timber company said the weapons violated a new company policy that extended a longtime workplace gun ban to the parking area. The fired workers said they knew nothing of the new rule.

The firings outraged many in this wooded community in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. In rural Oklahoma, carrying a firearm in one's car is commonplace. "In Oklahoma, gun control is when you hit what you shoot at," says Jerry Ellis, a member of the state legislature.

Now, the dispute is reverberating beyond the borders of tiny Valliant, located in the southeast corner of the state. In response, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law giving Oklahomans the right to keep guns locked in their cars in parking lots. But just days before the law was to go into effect this month, several prominent companies with Oklahoma operations, including Whirlpool Corp. and ConocoPhillips sued to stop it. A federal judge put the law on hold pending a hearing.

Meanwhile, several of the paper-mill workers have filed wrongful-discharge lawsuits against Weyerhaeuser and its subcontractors, which employed the workers. "This is a heck of an injustice that needs to be fixed," says their Tulsa lawyer, Larry Johnson, 72 years old, who has spent a lifetime studying the second amendment.

On one side, companies are trying to keep guns away from the workplace, driven by real-life horror stories of disgruntled employees on the rampage, stalking the hallways and shooting down bosses and co-workers. On the other side are employees who argue that guns help keep law-abiding workers safer.

The debate transcends partisan politics. Nearly 90% of voters in the county are registered Democrats, and yet 66% of county voters cast ballots for George Bush for president, in part because they viewed him as more pro-gun.

The new law was sponsored by Mr. Ellis, a Democrat from McCurtain County. It passed unanimously in the Oklahoma Senate, and on a 92-4 vote in the House. "I just didn't think the state should be dictating weapons policy to property owners," says J. Mike Wilt, a Republican from Bartlesville who was among the four voting against the law.

Mr. Ellis, a former mill worker himself, counters: "These are good, hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens. I just wish these big companies could understand that these people are not a threat to anybody."

Guns are part of everyday life in McCurtain County, where many residents hunt and ranch, and houses are miles apart. In the local gun and pawn shop in the county seat of Idabel, worker David Brakebill spreads out a map on the counter and points to the green blotches representing vast expanses of tree-covered wilderness. "When you call the police," says Vicki Luna, an owner of the gun store, "they don't get there for 30 minutes -- if they can find your house."

The Weyerhaeuser paper mill has been the largest employer in town for more than 30 years, providing about 2,500 jobs in the area and contributing more than $55 million annually to the local economy in taxes, payroll and community donations, according to the company. The whole gun flap actually started with an apparent drug overdose at the plant. Plant manager Randy Nebel hired a security company to bring in four dogs to search for drugs and guns in the parking lot. The dogs didn't find any drugs but zeroed in on several vehicles containing firearms.

The company then ordered the workers to open the suspect cars so that they could be hand-searched. A dozen workers, four Weyerhaeuser employees and eight who worked for subcontractors, were suspended for having rifles, shotguns or handguns. A couple of days later, they were fired as part of Weyerhaeuser and its subcontractors' zero-tolerance policy for major safety violations, the companies say.

Jimmy "Red" Wyatt, a 45-year-old father of five who worked his way up from the factory floor to supervisor in his 22 years at the mill, says he often carried his rifle to scare off coyotes threatening the cattle he raises in his spare time. A shotgun also found was left over from bird hunting with his sons the day before.

Mr. Nebel says that firing Mr. Wyatt, a model worker, was difficult. But after clearing the parking lot of guns, "I believe the plant is safer," he said.

The plant manager said the new gun rule had been in place since January 2002 after reversing a previous policy that had allowed workers to leave their guns locked in their cars. The company says it told workers in writing and during "team meetings" of the new policy. "It was well known this would be dealt with severely," said Mr. Nebel. Mr. Wyatt and the other fired workers say they never were told of the changed rule.

Hearing of the case, the National Rifle Association referred the workers to Mr. Johnson, a longtime gun-rights advocate. Mr. Johnson contacted Mr. Ellis, and together they crafted what was to become the new law. In a recent brief supporting the law, Mr. Johnson sprinkled his legal arguments with historic quotes from poets and philosophers. "I even quoted Christ," he says, reciting a snippet from the Book of Luke in which Jesus admonishes his followers, "Let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one."

In fighting the law, Oklahoma companies are walking through a community-relations minefield in what is known as an NRA stronghold. The Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce normally supports the NRA. But it says it joined the lawsuit opposing the law because it believes companies should be able to exclude weapons from their premises.

"Things happen at work that make people mad: They don't get a raise," explains attorney David Strecker, who is representing the chamber. "If a gun is handy, someone might use it, and that's just something employers don't want to risk."

In a surprise move at a hearing on the law in U.S. Chief District Judge Sven Erik Holmes's Tulsa court Tuesday, Whirlpool withdrew from the case, leaving ConocoPhillips and Williams Cos. to lead the lawsuit. Mr. Johnson, who has joined Rep. Ellis in calling for a boycott of Whirlpool and the other companies involved in the lawsuit, said he believes Whirlpool succumbed to worries it might be punished by pro-gun rights consumers. "People are taking it very, very seriously," he said. "Look at how politicians have suffered when they get on the wrong side of this issue."

Whirlpool responds that it had only been seeking clarification on the law, and that it believes a recent brief by the Oklahoma attorney general gives them the green light to maintain their no-gun policy, resolving their concern. A spokesman for Attorney General Drew Edmonson, however, said he didn't agree with that interpretation. Neither did Steven Broussard, the Tulsa attorney for Conoco and Williams. "We feel that nothing has changed and it's very important for us to get a resolution of this," Mr. Broussard said.

The law remains on hold as the legal dispute unfolds in court.
publius is offline Report Bad Post  
Link Posted: 8/26/2005 4:31:48 PM EDT
[#18]

Quoted:

Quoted:
That is an email?  I thought you would just copy and paste.


Sorry man, I've done that before, but I couldn't get it to work on this, so I spent about an hour & half printing, scanning, cropping, sizing and puting on tinypic.com. I take the loooooooonnnnnnngggg way! Maybe I'll get the NRA letter up here another day?



For future reference, it's a lot easier to do this:

1. Put the email full screen on your monitor,
2. Hit the Print Screen button above the Insert key
3. Open MS Paint
4. Edit > Paste
- An exact copy of what you were just viewing (a screenshot) will be pasted into MS Paint.
5. Go to File > Save As > choose a destination, name it, and select to save it as a JPG.
6. Upload away.

Link Posted: 8/27/2005 8:29:09 AM EDT
[#19]
Well If weyerhauser did that at thier mills here in Oregon they would loose a LOT of employees at thier mills because most have guns in thier rigs depending on the time of year. Thats OK tho. Weyco already sucks For thier Crappy Land use policys and thier really bad timber managment practices. They have been coming west for 100 years as they strip trees off the land.
Link Posted: 8/29/2005 10:20:15 PM EDT
[#20]
Link Posted: 8/30/2005 9:34:53 AM EDT
[#21]

Quoted:
Huh?



We had fruit sniffing dogs in Florida!
Link Posted: 8/30/2005 9:45:58 AM EDT
[#22]
Link Posted: 8/30/2005 7:45:43 PM EDT
[#23]
Gun sniffing dogs are nothing new, they actually are just sniffing the propellant (powder), they also can find explosives. I used to drive truck, long haul, the varios state DOT inspectors used these dogs (for guns and drugs), they would lift the dog right up into your rig. Varios lawyers tried to see if we could get around it by saying we had a severe allergy to "pet dander" and then it would be a medical reason for not letting the dogs in.
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