WWW . ThESkANNEr . COm
O CTOBEr 26, 2011
S EATTlE , W AShiNgTON
V OlumE XXXiii, N O . 52
25
CENTS
i nSide
‘Captain America’
page 2
Occupy Seattle
page 3
Troy Johnson
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
page 5
Day of Protest
hertz
Fires
muslims
Somali workers claim
company violates
labor agreement
photo BY SuSan fried
SEATTLE (AP) — More than two dozen
Somali Muslim drivers for Hertz at Seattle-
Tacoma International Airport are being fired
after refusing to clock out for daily breaks
during which they normally pray.
The 26 workers drive the company’s
rental cars to and from the airport for clean-
ing and refueling. They are among 34 Hertz
employees suspended Sept. 30 for failing to
clock out before breaks.
Teamsters Local 117, which represents the
workers, said Hertz agreed during contract
negotiations last year that union members
would not need to clock out during prayer
breaks. But the company maintains workers
were violating a settlement with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission
reached two years ago.
“From our perspective, Hertz didn’t even
follow their own internal policy,” union
spokesman Paul Zilly said Friday. Hertz
didn’t provide a verbal or written warning
Eric roberts, brother of Aaron roberts, who was shot by Seattle Police in 2001, speaks at the 16th Annual National
and jumped right to suspension, he said.
Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, repression and the Criminalization of a generation Oct. 22 at Westlake Park.
“It was a huge disappointment and a
The annual event, which was organized by the October 22nd Coalition, hopes to shed light on police brutality in
tremendous frustration,” Zilly said.
America.
Eight of the 34 suspended workers signed
the company’s new clock-out agreement
and have returned to their jobs, company
spokesman Rich Broome said in an email.
Termination letters have been sent to the
rest.
“The failure of many employees to return
to work promptly after prayers had created
an unmanageable, unfair work environment
oins multistate coalition neys general urged the FCC to those other than the phone serv- using a wireless or landline at the Seattle airport location,” Broome
urging FCC to ban unautho- enact rules that prevent such ice provider add unauthorized service.
wrote. Clocking out ensured that everyone’s
In 2002, the Associated Press interests were preserved, he said.
rized charges on telephone charges, known as “cramming” charges to phone bills for non-
bills, write stronger regulations – a fraud that a recent U.S. call related services such as reported that then-Oregon The company gave suspended workers
Senate report found costs con- email, website hosting, discount Attorney General Hardy Myers until the end of the day Thursday to sign the
on phone and wireless services
buying programs or voicemail fined Qwest Communications clock-out agreement, if they wanted to be
OLYMPIA – Washington sumers about $2 billion a year.
“Consumers are fed up with services. Investigations by the $575,000 to settle complaints reinstated, Broome told The Seattle Times.
State Attorney General Rob
McKenna today called on the attempts to slip charges onto attorneys general, as well as the Denver-based telephone The firings were first reported by KOMO-
federal government to adopt their phone bills in order to trick complaints received by their company had packaged extra TV.
stronger regulations to protect them into paying for services offices, reveal that consumers but unwanted services to Zilly said Friday that instead of an ultima-
consumers against unauthorized they never asked for and don’t usually do not intend to pur- Oregon customers.
tum, the company should have sat down
Myers said Qwest also had with the union to negotiate this change.
third-party charges on telephone need,” McKenna said. “Today chase these services and rarely
bills. In a filing with the Federal we ask for the federal govern- make use of them. Most con- misrepresented its wireless “Whenever there’s a change in working
Communications Commission ment’s help hanging up on sumers are also unaware that service and high-speed Internet- conditions and you’re working under a col-
they are exposed to such fraudu- access service.
(FCC), McKenna and a multi- cramming schemes.”
“Cramming” occurs when lent billing practices just by
state coalition of 16 other attor-
Phone Bill ripoffs Continue
McKenna calls on feds to protect consumers from ‘cramming’
J
See ripoff on page 3
indeX
News ........................3,5
A&E .............................2
Calendar ....................2
Opinion .......................4
Books ..........................6
Bids/Classifieds............7
See hertz on page 3
White Supremacists Write Newspaper
Seattle murder suspect says he targeted ‘non-White’ Victim
O
ne of two suspects in a Northwest
killing spree that left four people
dead wrote in a letter to a newspaper
that they killed the last victim, in California,
because he was “non-white.”
The Oregonian newspaper reports it
received the letter discussing the killing
from David “Joey” Pedersen.
According to the newspaper, Pedersen
wrote that he and his girlfriend, Holly
Grigsby, were looking for another vehicle to
help them stay ahead of the law when they
killed Reginald Clark in Eureka, Calif., in
early October, just before they were finally
caught.
Since their arrest the two white suprema-
cists have given statements and interviews
bragging about the crimes they are accused
of committing.
The pair is being held in Washington state.
Both pleaded not guilty Wednesday to two
counts of aggravated murder in the death of
Pedersen’s father and stepmother.
In his letter to The Oregonian, Pedersen
used white supremacist justifications for the
death of Clark. Pedersen wrote he and
Grigsby decided to kill a “non-white.”
“We felt it’d be optimal if, in securing
See murder on page 3