Court Hears It His Way : Former Parcel Delivery Driver May Have the Last Honk Yet
Dominic Garcia loved his job as a driver for United Parcel Service in Stockton, but not enough to break the law for it. So he took action.
“I believe in standing up for principle, for what’s right,” he explained in a telephone interview Tuesday. “And breaking the law by honking a horn isn’t one of them.”
Garcia, 41, was hopping mad when his employer tried to fire him in 1983 for insubordination after he refused to honk his truck’s horn at delivery stops as set down in company procedures. Unnecessary use of a vehicle horn is a violation of California law, Garcia pointed out.
He refused to budge even after company officials agreed to pay any fines that might be leveled at him and other non-honking delivery drivers.
“If you can’t draw the line at that law, where do you draw the line?” he asked.
Garcia eventually served a 10-day suspension without pay, but appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, which refused to intervene.
Went to Appeals Court
So Garcia took the case to a federal appeals court, which saw things differently Tuesday, overturning Garcia’s suspension and sending the matter back to NLRB, which will reconsider the matter of Garcia’s petition for lost wages.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that UPS could not punish Garcia, since he cited his refusal as a concerted (employee) action that was sanctioned under a collective bargaining agreement between the company and the Teamsters union.
“We do not believe a refusal to break a law can be categorized as an abusive manner of enforcing contract rights,” said the appellate decision written by Judge Thomas Tang of Phoenix.
Furthermore, the appellate judges took a dim view of any UPS policy that would encourage employees to knowingly violate traffic laws in exchange for company responsibility for any subsequent fines.
“We believe that even though UPS and other employers may think they have legitimate business reasons for placing themselves above the law, we as a court must not reinforce such a view,” the ruling said.
‘We Strongly Disapprove’
“We expressly disapprove any such accommodation which serves only to breed or reinforce a cynical view of the operation of law in this society--that those with enough sophistication, money and influence are exempt from its requirements and may be specially licensed or privileged to ignore and disobey the law and that obedience to the law is reserved for the unsophisticated, the poor and the powerless.”
Garcia, who left UPS after 18 years as a driver last year when he was elected secretary-treasurer of his Teamsters local in Stockton, was obviously pleased with Tuesday’s ruling.
“UPS doesn’t care who they wake up with the honking,” he said.
Spokesmen for UPS could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
