
{"id":15638,"date":"2011-02-03T10:10:52","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T15:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=15638"},"modified":"2011-02-03T10:27:55","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T15:27:55","slug":"fired-workers-receive-unemployment-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/02\/03\/fired-workers-receive-unemployment-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Fired workers receive unemployment benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\nCHAPEL HILL  \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Two Chapel Hill Public Works Department employees who were fired in October have been awarded unemployment benefits by the state Employment Security Commission.<br \/>\nThe two men, Kerry Bigelow and Clyde Clark, had been denied benefits after the town claimed they had violated its detrimental conduct policy. The ESC decision states that Bigelow and Clark were fired for allegedly threatening and intimidating behavior toward supervisors, team leaders and residents and refusing to perform their duties. Clark also allegedly took unauthorized pictures of his crew leader.<br \/>\nBut according to the decision, the town failed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153provide any first hand testimony regarding any of the alleged incidents related to the claimant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s termination.<br \/>\nBigelow and Clark had been denied benefits in a prior decision. Bigelow is now eligible for $341 a week, with a maximum benefit of $8,866; Clark will receive $337, with a maximum of $8,762.<br \/>\nAfter being fired from their jobs, the men filed a grievance against the town and a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They say they were targeted for having filed grievances in the past alleging racial bias in job placements and promotions and unsafe working conditions.<br \/>\nBeginning Thursday, the men will appeal their firings to the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Personnel Appeals Committee, which is comprised of community members selected by the town council. The committee will then make a recommendation to Town Manager Roger Stancil, who will determine whether the men will be rehired.<br \/>\nBigelow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hearing will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Chapel Hill Public Library; Clark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will be Feb. 9, also at 7 in the library. Per the men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request, the hearings will be open to the public.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got nothing to hide,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Clark said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We want it all out in the open.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nTown officials declined to comment, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters.<br \/>\nA report provided to the town in October by Kevin von der Lippe of Capital Associated Industries \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a Raleigh-based company that, according to Stancil, provides management advice, project work and consulting on a range of employment matters \u00e2\u20ac\u201c stated that von der Lippe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s investigation revealed that Bigelow and Clark had engaged in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ongoing negative and inappropriate interactions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with citizens along their waste-collection route and that they had been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153consistently insubordinate to their supervisor,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d undermining his authority.<br \/>\nSummaries of interviews with co-workers in the private investigator\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report contain allegations of insubordinate behavior and poor job performance by Bigelow and Clark.<br \/>\nBut their attorney, Al McSurely, countered that the co-workers were intimidated by the interview process, that his clients received no notice of any resident or co-worker complaints against them and that Bigelow was given excellent reviews by his supervisor until February, when he filed his grievance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Chapel Hill Public Works Department employees who were fired in October have been awarded unemployment benefits by the state Employment Security Commission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15639,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions\/15639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}