Read Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond for Free Online
Authors: Mark Ames
discrimination codes:
Pursuant to your letter of August the 7th, 1987, I think I should point out that Mr. Wesbecker’s, quote, condition, unquote, as you call it, is not the issue here. The local ordinance forbidding discrimination in the workplace clearly applies to handicaps, both physical and mental. The only question at issue is to what extent, if any, does Standard Gravure make accommodations for its handicapped employees. The commission is not in the habit of letting complainants or respondents decide what information in an investigation is relevant or irrelevant. The respondent who refuses to cooperate in an investigation leaves us only two resources to draw an adverse inference as directed by EEOC and to require needed documentation through court-ordered subpoena. In an effort to avoid both these extreme actions, we once again request the following information and items.
To which Warman replied:
We have never exempted employees from working a particular function on a permanent basis. We will continue to accommodate Doctor David Moore’s request to, quote, if possible, unquote, allow Mr. Wesbecker to work at places other than the folder, but we cannot totally exempt him from this duty permanently.
Mattingly and the commission decided that it was useless trying to reason with Warman and Standard Gravure. For one thing, Warman was simply lying. The plant’s union president, Don Frazier, admitted to Mattingly that there were indeed three employees he could name off the top of his head who had been permanently removed from working the folder, thus confirming Wesbecker’s supposedly paranoid sense that he was being persecuted. I mention his persecution paranoia because in nearly every account I have read on this case, and in my personal interviews with former employees, everyone seems to agree that Wesbecker suffered from an irrational persecution complex. Indeed “persecution mania” is one of the supposed signs to look for in an employee ready to snap, according to more than one profiling attempt. Yet when pressed, most people close to this case will admit that Wesbecker was indeed badly mistreated, singled out, and pushed too far. But somehow what struck all of these people, even those sympathetic, was the fact that Wesbecker would show his sense of persecution rather than “tough it out.” It was as if that admission, that focus on what was wrong and terrible at the plant, was a violation of the social code—and it made him therefore seem, after the fact, like a wacko. Either he was right, in which case all the other workers who didn’t protest seem like cowards or suckers, or he was paranoid and weird, in which case they were the normal ones and he the lone freak.
Mattingly gave up negotiating with Warman and sent Wesbecker’s case before an antidiscrimination panel. The panel agreed with Mattingly that there was probable cause for action—that “discrimination had occurred”—and gave him what he thought would be powerful leverage in negotiations with Standard Gravure. Incredibly enough, seven months later, Warman continued to stonewall him, as if merely out of spite. Or out of the sense that since she represented the business side, she couldn’t possibly lose.
Negotiations failed. One year and two months after Wesbecker brought the complaint—which itself was preceded by years of frustrating and devastating attempts to reason with Standard Gravure while it was being stripped and downsized—Mattingly ended the fruitless negotiations and passed the case on to his supervisor, Elizabeth Shipley, an attorney.
6
Rocky’s Best Friends
After the Standard Gravure murder rampage, the media drew a portrait of a pugnacious psycho nicknamed “Rocky” who snapped, thereby framing the rage murder in terms of Wesbecker’s fragile mental health. And indeed Wesbecker was not a smiley All-American winner. Wesbecker suffered from manic depression (as do one in six Americans at
Pursuant to your letter of August the 7th, 1987, I think I should point out that Mr. Wesbecker’s, quote, condition, unquote, as you call it, is not the issue here. The local ordinance forbidding discrimination in the workplace clearly applies to handicaps, both physical and mental. The only question at issue is to what extent, if any, does Standard Gravure make accommodations for its handicapped employees. The commission is not in the habit of letting complainants or respondents decide what information in an investigation is relevant or irrelevant. The respondent who refuses to cooperate in an investigation leaves us only two resources to draw an adverse inference as directed by EEOC and to require needed documentation through court-ordered subpoena. In an effort to avoid both these extreme actions, we once again request the following information and items.
To which Warman replied:
We have never exempted employees from working a particular function on a permanent basis. We will continue to accommodate Doctor David Moore’s request to, quote, if possible, unquote, allow Mr. Wesbecker to work at places other than the folder, but we cannot totally exempt him from this duty permanently.
Mattingly and the commission decided that it was useless trying to reason with Warman and Standard Gravure. For one thing, Warman was simply lying. The plant’s union president, Don Frazier, admitted to Mattingly that there were indeed three employees he could name off the top of his head who had been permanently removed from working the folder, thus confirming Wesbecker’s supposedly paranoid sense that he was being persecuted. I mention his persecution paranoia because in nearly every account I have read on this case, and in my personal interviews with former employees, everyone seems to agree that Wesbecker suffered from an irrational persecution complex. Indeed “persecution mania” is one of the supposed signs to look for in an employee ready to snap, according to more than one profiling attempt. Yet when pressed, most people close to this case will admit that Wesbecker was indeed badly mistreated, singled out, and pushed too far. But somehow what struck all of these people, even those sympathetic, was the fact that Wesbecker would show his sense of persecution rather than “tough it out.” It was as if that admission, that focus on what was wrong and terrible at the plant, was a violation of the social code—and it made him therefore seem, after the fact, like a wacko. Either he was right, in which case all the other workers who didn’t protest seem like cowards or suckers, or he was paranoid and weird, in which case they were the normal ones and he the lone freak.
Mattingly gave up negotiating with Warman and sent Wesbecker’s case before an antidiscrimination panel. The panel agreed with Mattingly that there was probable cause for action—that “discrimination had occurred”—and gave him what he thought would be powerful leverage in negotiations with Standard Gravure. Incredibly enough, seven months later, Warman continued to stonewall him, as if merely out of spite. Or out of the sense that since she represented the business side, she couldn’t possibly lose.
Negotiations failed. One year and two months after Wesbecker brought the complaint—which itself was preceded by years of frustrating and devastating attempts to reason with Standard Gravure while it was being stripped and downsized—Mattingly ended the fruitless negotiations and passed the case on to his supervisor, Elizabeth Shipley, an attorney.
6
Rocky’s Best Friends
After the Standard Gravure murder rampage, the media drew a portrait of a pugnacious psycho nicknamed “Rocky” who snapped, thereby framing the rage murder in terms of Wesbecker’s fragile mental health. And indeed Wesbecker was not a smiley All-American winner. Wesbecker suffered from manic depression (as do one in six Americans at
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