You Can’t Wear That Here!

Recently, at the Lincoln Hills Juvenile Detention Center, longtime Lincoln Hills School employee Ron McAllister was sent home Thursday without pay for refusing to take off a T-shirt with the AFSCME logo on it.

When he returned to work Friday, McAllister, who also serves as the local union president for workers at Lincoln Hills, again was ordered to remove all clothing that had union logos on it, AFSCME representative Troy Bauch said.

Wisconsin DOC spokeswoman Linda Eggert said the DOC, which oversees the school, planned to launch an investigation Monday into the allegations.

“We’re taking it very seriously,” Eggert said Friday.

Bauch said McAllister has worked at Lincoln Hills for more than 30 years and that he and other workers never had been told they couldn’t wear union T-shirts to work until late this week. Workers are allowed to dress casually at work, Bauch said.

He said Lincoln Hills Superintendent Paul Westerhaus allegedly told McAllister both Thursday and Friday that he could not wear union apparel at the school.

Eggert said Friday that no recent changes have been made to the dress code for Lincoln Hills employees, and that workers can freely wear union T-shirts, as long as they don’t contain political messages. The shirt McAllister wore had the AFSCME logo and “We Make America Happen” emblazoned on it, but contained no political message, Bauch said.

The DOC will try to substantiate the claims as part of its investigation, Eggert said. She said if a worker’s rights were violated, then the DOC will “take appropriate action,” but she did not elaborate.

“We want to make it clear that people can wear a union T-shirt,” she said.

Unfortunately in Fitzwalkerstan Wisconsin, our friends on the right appear to be trying to gain favor of the republican party, by trying to outcrazy or outbash unions more than their peers. What they never count on is the fact that in Wisconsin we push back!

IRMA — A disagreement between workers and management about wearing union clothes at work sparked both a state investigation and a Monday protest rally.

About 75 people marched Monday outside Lincoln Hills School in Irma, where an employee was sent home without pay last week for wearing a union T-shirt.