Hormel employees angry ;br; in wake of bomb threat

Published 12:00 am Friday, September 17, 1999

For at least 25 Hormel plant workers, Monday’s bomb threat was no joke.

Friday, September 17, 1999

For at least 25 Hormel plant workers, Monday’s bomb threat was no joke.

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They want to know why the plant was not evacuated, and they want to know now.

"We never heard about the threat from anyone here," union steward and plant employee Rod Rykes told KAAL’s Carla Johnson. "We feel we should have been notified on our shift of the bomb threat and at least given the option of going home without pay."

Rykes and fellow steward Tom Percival were joined by more than 20 other plant employees in the skate park opposite the plant’s rear parking lot Thursday afternoon.

The threat Rykes was referring to was called into the plant cafeteria Tuesday, once at approximately noon, then again at 12:35 p.m. The incident report from the Austin Police Department says both threats were reported to a Pinkerton security guard by the woman who answered the calls. A third call was answered by the security guard – there are conflicting reports of that call, but no further threats were issued.

At this point a witness said another employee came into the kitchen and asked what was going on. When told of the bomb threat, she said that "Puddy was doing it as a joke."

Puddy, whose real name is Denovious Pitchford, came into the plant at approximately 3 p.m. and admitted to making the calls, but only as a joke. He was subsequently arrested for making terroristic threats.

That Pitchford admitted to making the calls as a joke is of little concern to some of the plant employees. Of more concern to them is the fact that plant manager Floyd Albers and safety director Randy Dawes chose not to evacuate the plant or notify employees of the threat.

"I can’t fathom that they wouldn’t stop production for even a half hour, even two hours, to sweep the area," Percival said. "My child could have grown up without a father if that threat had been real … Who gave them the power to say ‘Sorry, we didn’t evacuate and now your Dad is dead?’ We just want to know why."

On Tuesday, Austin Police Chief Paul Philipp told reporters officers had responded to the scene and spoken to Albers, who declined to order a plant evacuation and told police a search would be unproductive.

Albers said that particular section of the report was erroneously reported, and that a "thorough search of the plant was conducted department by department by security guards and plant management." Albers said the decision not to evacuate was based on the results – or lack thereof – of the search.

Philipp said it is police policy to work with the victims of bomb threats, but not to take control.

"We won’t order an evacuation," he told reporters. "We make it clear it’s their responsibility."

According to Percival, company procedure lists evacuation as the third step in proper procedure to responding to a bomb threat – the first two being to notify the company CEO and security.

"We just signed a contract which passed by only 4 percent," Percival said. "Who’s to say it wasn’t some disgruntled employee … The company says they care about their employees – if that were true they would have taken that bomb threat a little more seriously.

"We’re not against Hormel – it’s our life," he added. "We just want to know why."

Union officials have also contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Labor Board about the bomb threat.