Liberty Activist Retroactively Fired by Verizon Communications
PRESS RELEASE FROM THE LIBERTY ROUND TABLE
3/30/04; For Immediate Distribution
On March 29, 2004, Jeffrey "the Hunter" Jordan, a resident of New Hampshire, received notice dated 3/26/04 that Verizon Communications had fired him, retroactive to January 7, 2004. In the letter, the stated reason for the firing was "failure to comply with the policies outlined within Verizon's Code of Business Conduct". No details on how Mr. Jordan failed to comply with the company's policies were provided. Jordan is planning to fight this action. Friends of his at the Liberty Round Table, a group that advocates individual liberty and personal responsibility, have begun calling for a boycott of Verizon over the company's questionable actions regarding his case.
There is reason to believe the firing is related to Mr. Jordan's arrest on 12/29/03 in Ohio for carrying a concealed weapon. At that time he was on his way home from a holiday visit to his family in Kansas. After being detained a few days in the Ashland County jail, and despite having arranged for extra time off from Verizon, Jordan returned home to a phone message from his employer stating that he was suspended from his position.
Why has Mr. Jordan been suspended and then retroactively fired, without any hearing on either action, as is required by the terms of his employment contract? These questions have gone unanswered, as requests to Verizon seeking information on its activities have not brought any response.
Sunni Maravillosa, a friend of Jordan's and a fellow Liberty Round Table activist, said, "It is curious that Verizon is apparently firing Hunter for actions taken hundreds of miles from his Verizon work sites, in his own vehicle, and while on personal time. Also, that they've taken this action in violation of his contract, and without any due process or presumption of innocence, should be very troubling to all Americans."
Carl Bussjaeger, a friend of Jordan's in New Hampshire, commented, "I look forward to Verizon explaining in court why they met with Hunter's union after January 7th to discuss his ongoing suspension. If he was already fired, wouldn't that have been a dandy time to mention the fact?"
Jordan has issued the following statement: "I have for years now been subject to the day-to-day thoughtless tyrannies inherent in any big corporation. I have consciously chosen to tolerate these very real oppressions as part of the cost of earning a living, but now the corporate bureaucrats have gone too far.
"Verizon has consciously chosen to ignore one of the fundamental assumptions of American jurisprudence -- that a man is innocent until proven guilty. They've also chosen to blatantly violate the contract that tens of thousands of union employees fought long and hard over the years to hammer out.
"I am confident that justice will prevail in the end, and am fully prepared to fight these petty tyrants hiding behind the corporate veil just as strongly as I have every other sort I've run across in my journey through life."
People interested in joining the fight against this injustice are encouraged to write to Verizon, for which address information and letter templates can be found here:
http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/huntersamples.html
For the latest news on Mr. Jordan's case, see the official "Free Hunter" web pages:
http://www.libertyroundtable.org/projects/freehunter/
For further comments, please contact Sunni Maravillosa, co-founder of the Liberty Round Table
(http://www.libertyroundtable.org), at
Sunni@free-market.net.
