IA-97-169, Transcript of Interview of MR Ross in West Palm Beach,Fl Re OI Rept 2-96-027
| ML20149E900 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/13/1997 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
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| Shared Package | |
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| References | |
| FOIA-97-169 NUDOCS 9707210120 | |
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ++ +++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW
- 6. --------------------------------x
'7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
9 MICHAEL R. ROSS : (Not assigned) 10 :
11 --------------------------------x 12 Thursday, February 13, 1997 ,
13 14 1601 Forum Place 15 Suite 1010
)
'16 West Palm Beach, Florida l l
17 l l
18 The above-entitled interview was conducted at l
19 2:35 p.m. I 20 BEFORE:
21 JAMES D. DOCKERY - Investigator 22 1 23 EXHIBIT 24 s Q PAGE OF I4 PAGE(S)-
25 9707210120 970711 PDR FOIA 4 L08897-169 PDR NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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a 2
1 APPEARANCES:
.2 On' Behalf of the Witness:
3- FRANK J. MCKEOWN, JR., P.A.
-4 1601 Forum Place, Suite 1010 5 ' West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 6
7-8 9 .
.10 11 12' 13 14-15
'16 17.
18 19 20' 21 22 23 24-25 NEAL R. GROSS
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- 1. P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (2:35.p.m.)
'3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: For the record, l
4 today's date is February 13th, 1997. The time is I
5: approximately 2:30 p.m. l 1
6 I'm Senior Investigator James D'. Dockery of 7 the NRC Office of Investigations and I'll be conducting 8 this interview.
9 During this proceeding, which is being 10 recorded for transcription, the NRC Office of
-i 11 Investigations will conduct an interview of Mr. Michael L.
12 Ross. This interview pertains to 01 Investigation Number ;
13 2-96-027.
14 The location of this interview is Suite 1010, 15 Centurion. Tower in West Palm Beach, Florida.
16 Mr. McKeown, I would ask you to identify 1 17 yourself for the record.
I 18 MR. MCKEOWN: My name'is Frank J. McKeown, Jr.
-]
l 19 I'm an attorney. I practice under the firm of Frank 20 J.McKeown, Jr., P.A., at the address previously stated.
21- I've been practicing law for approximately 35 ;
22 years in the-State.of Florida. I'm licensed in the State
-23~ of Florida. .
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Mr. Ross, would you !
\
G c 25 raise your right hand?.
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4 1 MICHAEL L. ROSS, 2 a witness herein, having been'first duly sworn, was 3 examined upon oral interrogatories and testified as 4 follows:
5 EXAMINATION 6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: For the record, would 7 you state your full name, please?
8 MR. ROSS: Michael Lee Ross.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And by way of 10 identification, could I have your date of birth and social 11 securfty number?
12 MR. ROSS: My date of birth i
, ~
13 , @ ) The social security number i 14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Before we went on the l 15 record here, I showed you my credentials, identified i
16 myself, so you would understand that I am a Special Agent 17 with the Office of Investigations. Do you understand 18 that?
19 MR. ROSS: Yes, I do.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And also I gave you a 21 copy of Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code 22 regarding the necessity that you tell the truth in these 23 proceedings. Do you understand that sanction?
24 MR. ROSS: Yes, I do.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What we want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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5 1 discuss-today is the-Complaint that you made with the 2 Department of Labor, I believe it was in June of 1996, and 3 that Complaint essentially stated that you were wrongfully 4 discharged from your employment by Florida Power & Light; 5 is that correct?
6 MR. ROSS: Yes.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What I'm going to do 8 here is I have, as you can see, a set of questions that I 9 have written out. Basically I'm going to go through your 10 Complaint and ask you questions-about points in your 11 Complaint.
12 We'll try to get through this as quickly as 13 possible. They are pretty specific questions and I know 14 the generalities, as I told you. i 15 Quoting from your Complaint, "During 1994 16 while employed as an INC" -- that's Instrumentation and j- j 17 Control - " specialist in the calibration laboratory, Mr.
, 18 Hal" --
and this name -- is the name, Blehm --
i 19 MR. ROSS: Yes, it is.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: B-L-E-H-M -- "another i 21 INC specialist who was in charge of the calibration lab 22 requested that I falsify readings and data sheets j 23 pertaining to calibration of measurements and test 24 equipment. I refused to do so."
25 Can you tell me to the best of your NEAL R.' GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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6 1 recollection, exactly when in 1994 did that occur?
2 MR. ROSS: It was in early '94.
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Early meaning 4 springtime or shortly after --
5 MR. ROSS: Yes, springtime.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I realize that's been 7 a while ago, but can you put even a month to it?
8 MR. ROSS: No, I'm not sure that I can.
9' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was it after February.
10 MR. ROSS: It may have been. I would say that i
1: would be the best month that i; would be in.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, you think it 13 could have been February?
14 MR. ROSS: Yes.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: All right. Were there 16 any witnesses to that?
17 MR. ROSS: To the --
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: To him asking you to 19 falsify readings and data sheets?
20 MR. ROSS: No, no.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The two of you were I
22 working alone?
23 MR. ROSS: Well, I was working and he was --
24 we weren't really working together but he saw what I was 25 doing.
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7 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, you state that, 2 "Mr. Hal Blehm, another INC specialist who was in charge 3 of the calibration lab,'" what was his title?
4 MR. ROSS: INC Specialist.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he a supervisor?
6 MR. ROSS: He was just an INC Specialist, the 7 same as I was, except he was -- the actual supervisor was 8 John Halverson but John Halverson does whatever Hal Blehm 9 tells him to do.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Hal Blehm is a 11 subordinate of --
12 MR. ROSS: Yes. Hal Blehm was the same as I ;
i 13 was, an INC Specialist, but it's pretty much whatever he j 14- says goes. He's the one that is technically knowledgeable 15 and respected as the expert there.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Your Complaint says 17 that he was in charge of the calibration lab.
18 MR. ROSS: Well, he basically he is. He 19 didn't have the title but he says to do this and it's I
20 done, i I
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he have any. I 22 supervisory function over you?
23- MR. ROSS: I was told by John Halverson that I 24 should listen to --
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he senior to you?
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8 1 MR. ROSS: Yes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He had more time 3 working in the lab?. ,
l 4 MR. ROSS: Yes.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. He was not a 6 manager, though; is that correct?
I 7 MR. ROSS: No, he did not have a title.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did anyone at all 9 formally report to him?
10 MR. ROSS: Well, I believe he, you know, kept
, 11 the time logs and what not.
1 12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he make work I
13 assignments? l 14 MR. ROSS: If he told you what to do, then you l 1
15 did it.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: More or less on a job 17 by job basis?
18 MR. ROSS: Right.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he pretty 20 experienced?
21 MR. ROSS: He was pretty experienced, yes.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who did Blehm report 23 to? j
, \
'24 MR. ROSS: John Halverson.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was Halverson's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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9 1 title?
2 MR. ROSS: Cal Lab Supervisor, or something 3 like that. He had a couple of other jobs, I think, 4 procedure upgrade or something or other. !
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERy: Can.you tell me 6 exactly what " readings and data sheets" that he asked you 7 to falsify?
8 MR. ROSS: These were -- there are two types 9 of pressure gauges, Ashcroft and Heise, so I believe this 10 was a Heise. And there is basically, you could categorize 11 them four different ways.
1 12 There is things that have a maximum pressure 1 13 of less than 1,000 pounds per square inch and those are 14 done on one piece of equipment and that's not what I'm 15 talking about.
16 I'm talking about a piece of equipment that 17 calibrates gauges that have maximum readings in excess of 18 1,000 pounds. That is on a dead weight system, where you 19 have a pressure pump, an amitech (phonetic) pressure pump, ,
)
20 to apply pressure to do the calibration and you have a 21 place to put the gauge into the system and you have a 22 piston. And this piston provides an area for which you 23 can place weights on so when you put weights on an area, 24 such as pounds per square inch, that's where you derive 25 the applied pressure to perform the calibration.
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10 1 Now, there is a standard way of Edoing a 2 pressure calibration, which is'a nine point check. And 3 you go at 0 percent, 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent,
- 4 100 percent, 75 percent, 50 percent, 25 percent, and 0 5 percent again.
{ 6 Now that sounds like you're just repeating the
[ 7 first four measurements and the last four measurements, l
8 but they are actually different because of a term called 9 hysteresis.
4 10 Now, what that means is that say there is two 11 50 percent readings, okay, the first 50 percent reading is 12 approached from the lower direction, you would go 40, 41, ,
13 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, and then stop and 14 observe the reading. Now, if there was a resistance to 15 movement or hysteresis, the gauge might not be all the way 16 at 50 and you could tap it and see if it goes the rest of 17 the way to 50 and wherever that is.
18 So if there is a little bit of hysteresis on l 19 an applied 50 pound or 50 percent reading, it might read 4
! 20 only 49.5.
21 So now when you go up through the-100 percent 22- and then the 75 percent and then you're coming down, now i 23 you're approaching 50 percent from the higher end. So '
.24 you're approaching from 60, 59, so on and so on, down-to 25 50.
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r- - . - . . - .- . . - - .- -- . .- - -
p 11 1 So there is a difference in that you want to 2 make sure that you're getting an accurate reading on both' 3 ascending and descending because the plant has equipment 4 that has to operate at certain pressures and some of
-5 those, we want some things to happen when a pressure drops 6 below something and we want some things to happen when a 7 pressure goes above something.
8 So that's why if you're going to use a gauge 9 to go and calibrate all those different types of things, 10 it needs to be certified in both directions.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DC TERY: What did he ask you to A. do that was in your view incorrect?
13 MR. ROSS: Just to copy the first four over l 14 into the last four because it was quicker.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And that's 16 unacceptable procedure.
17 MR. ROSS: Well, he's a very knowledgeable and i l
18 highly respected person and I'm not. I was not regarded {
19 as being super knowledgeable or whatnot like him, and at 1 20 firet I felt, well, you know, maybe the readings are the 21 same and he's knowledgeable and this is the way that he 22 wants, to do it and whatnot. But, I mean, I told nim that i 23~ there is nine readings and I'm going to take nine 24 readings. '
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is there a written !
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12 1 procedure for this?
2 MR. ROSS: A data sheet, there is a data 3- sheet, and-I tried to find the written procedure for Heise ;
- o 4 but I couldn't.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do me a favor, please,
{
6 and spell Heise for the record?
7 MR. ROSS: Now, you're making me nervous, i 8 It's either H-E-I-S-E or -- I think it's E-I-S-E.
~
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: It's not High C?
10 MR. ROSS: No , no, it's H --
I
~
. 11 MR. MCKEOWN: I have it, H-E-I-S-E. 1
- I
\
12 MR. ROSS: We were correct, great. j l
13- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You told him that you i
14 were going to do it according to the data sheet?
15 MR. ROSS: Well, I didn't use those words. I 1
16 just said, "There is nine - " l 1
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me the words, if 18 you can. Recall the conversation and how it went for me. .
19 MR. ROSS: Well, I was doing some of them and 20 when I started to do the descending ones, I mean, you can 21 tell, because you're changing weights and the way that l 22 you're doing the changes of the weights, and he just said, 1
23 "Just copy the first four over, it's quicker."
24 And, you know, I said, "There's nine blanks 2 51 here, I'm going to put nine readings."
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13' 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you in the INC 2 Lab'at the time?
3 3 MR. ROSS: INC Calibration Lab, yes.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: . Calibration Lab. You 5- were the only two in there, I think you stated before?
6 MR. ROSS: Yes.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did Blehm react 8 when you insisted on doing it the correct way?
9 MR. ROSS: Well, he just said, "Well, you're 10 not qualified. Stop doing that."
il And I'm not sure whethe r we actually kept that 12 data sheet or not. He might have just thrown it away or
- 13. whatnot.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he insist or did 15 he let the matter drop? What was the outcome?
16 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, I did what he, you 17 know, I did what he told me and I stopped doing it and 18 went back up front.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How many calibrations 20 were you supposed to -- was it just the one instrument or
- 21. were you doing several?
22 MR. ROSS: It was just one when he saw it and 23- then there was a later time when I was doing some and 24 that's when I think Larry Sloan said, " Hey, you're just.
.25 supposed to~do, you know, copy the last four over, it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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14 1 quicker that way," and everybody was in there at that <
2 time, Hal Blehm, John Halverson was closer to us than you 3 are right now, he was standing right there. I think he 4 was talking to Hal or looking at Hal.
5 And Larry has a, you know, he doesn't whisper 6 or stutter or anything, he made it clear, you know, 7 "Halverson knows about, that's the way Hal wants it done, 8 that's the way Sonny wants it done," blah, blah, blah.
9 And again, I just said, "Nine blanks, nine 10 rea' lings . "
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOcKERY: When you say the data 12 sheet, there is actually an entry for nine different 13 entries on that data sheet? ;
14 MR. ROSS: Yes.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did he react when 16 you refused to falsify it; did he become angry, did the 17 two of you have words?
18 MR. ROSS: John Halverson didn't say anything. i l
l 19 Hal Blehm said --
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let's go back to the 21 first time we were talking about.
22 MR. ROSS: Oh, the first time.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Yes, we think it may 24 have been in February.
25 MR. ROSS: Well he just said, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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15 l I
1 "You're not qualified _to do that stuff."
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -So you didn't finish
- 3 the, is it fair to say, calibration?
4 MR. ROSS: That's correct, or calibration 5 check.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who eventually q 7 completed the calibration check?
)
8 MR. ROSS: Somebody would have done it. Now, 9 I think it's important to say that I could do calibrations 10 of a Cal Lab qualified instrumentation specialist and 11 Larry would allow me to work under his guidance. He felt 12 comfortable with me doing whatever work. But none of the ;
1 1
13 other ones would.
14 So I could do stuff if Larry was around or 15 whatever or I would do stuff and he wouldn't have any 16 problem signing, that he was comfortable with me doing 17 work.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was this a major 19 confrontation between the two of you?
20 MR. ROSS: Between --
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Between you and Blehm?
22 MR. ROSS: No, I wouldn't consider it a major 23 one at the time.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were there angry words 25 exchanged?
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- 1 MR. ROSS: No. I I
-2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you consider that l l
3 significant enough to go to Blehm's supervisor and say, l 4 " Hey, this guy is not doing,it.right."
5 MR.'ROSS: Well, at that time, I had a lot of 6 faith and whatnot in Hal and he just had so much i
7 experience and everyone said good things about him. I
)
8 felt really that it was merely a technical error at the I 9 time and'that, you know, well, we had just moved the Cal l 10 Lab and done a lot of things and improved procedures and 11 done all kinds of things, and I felt that he just hasn't, ;
12 you know, modified it enough where it only would have five i
13 blanks on it.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, if I understand 15 you correctly then, basically the only reason to do it.the 16 way Blehm wanted you to do it was to save time; is that a 17 correct statement? ,
P 18 MR. ROSS: Yes.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Again, quoting from i l
20 your complaint to the Department of Labor, "As a direct 21 result of this refusal, I was refused further training 22 and/or certification."
23 By this refusal, you're referring to your 24 ~ refusal to falsify the data.
25- MR. ROSS: Yes.
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17 -
I' 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did somebody ever tell 2 you that as a result of that you weren't going to receive ;
A 3 further training or certification?
4 MR. ROSS: No, no one'ever came to me and 5 said, "Because of your safety concerns, we're going to get 6 rid of you," or anything, nobody came and said blatant 7 stuff like that, j 8 SPECIAL AGENT'DOCKERY: Absent ,omebody saying
! 9 that, how is it you know that that incident was "a direct i 10 result" of your refusal to falsify the document?
11 MR. ROSS: The notice in the environment l
.12 change and also there was a second incident with the Larry 13 Sloan and the John Halverson and the Hal Blehm and I
^
14 believe Sonny was also in the room --
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Why don't you start at 16 the beginning on that incident, because that I wasn't 17 aware of, and approximately when it happened.
18 MR. ROSS: They were fairly close together.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Days, weeks, best 20 estimate?
i 21 MR. ROSS: Well, both would be in the spring, 1
.22 both would be early '94 area.
23 And on this one, I was finished with the other 24 stuff I was doing'so I went to do one of those and help 25- out and Larry said,. "Just-do this,'" and I guess --
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'l SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERYi Let me stop you there. j 2 When you say, "Just.do this," again only -- '
3- MR. ROSSr Just copy the first four-over, ,
J 4
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, I. understand. ,
. 5 MR. ROSS: The same thing or' whatnot, and 6 "It's quicker that way." And when I told him, "There's J. 7'- nine. blanks, I think I should do nine readings," and he ;
8 said, "Well, Halverson knows about it, that's the way Hal 9- wants it done, that's the way Sonny wants it done."
- 10 And as far as me saying, "There's nine i
11 blanks," he says, you know, he just says, "Well, I don't j
. \
l 12 know, I just do what I'm told." l I
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is saying that
- 14 again?
15 MR. ROSS: Larry Sloan. But, I mean, John 16 Halverson is right here, John Blehm is right there, I 17 mean, nobody hopped in on the conversation and they i 18 definitely heard it. It's a quiet room. If Larry says 19 something, you hear it.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Am I correct in saying 21 that Halverson was the only supervisor present?
22 MR. ROSS: Yes, and he was in charge of that ;
23 area, officially by title and everything.
1
-24 And I also told Larry or really everybody that l
.25 I wouldn't.have any problem doing-the, you.know, doing i
l
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- 19 l l
1 that,_if you change the data sheet, because there's other i
2 times when I've requested data sheets changed and there I 3 hasn't been a. problem.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me ask you about 5 that, then. Who generates this data sheet; is that a --
6 MR. ROSS: I believe Hal -- it comes out of 7 the computer and, you knew, whatever Hal wants to put in 8 the computer, they put in the computer.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: It would seem to me 10 that there would be a procedure somewhere for that.
i 11 MR. ROSS: Well, _here should be. I'm sure '
12 there is something. I don't have it with me.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you recall ever 1
14 having seen it? '
~
15 MR. ROSS: A Heide procedure from the Company?
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Yes. I 17 MR. ROSS: Yes, I have seen a Heise procedure 18 from the Company.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did it address that i 20 calibration?
21 MR. ROSS: Yes. Well, it addressed the 22 calibration of Heise --
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did that procedure, if l
24' you' recall, call for nine different readings? '
25 MR. ROSS: No, it does not call for nine 1
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20 l a different readings. But it calls for an ascending and a 2 descending reading at 50 percent in addition to some other '
'3 things.
4' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who was responsible 5 for making training decisions, in other words, deciding 6 who would receive training?
7 MR. ROSS: As far.as which training?
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Any training you feel 9 you were refused.
10 MR. ROSS: I think for understanding we should 11 divide that into Cal Lab tre.ining and then other' types of 12 training from the INC shop.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I guess what I'm ,
14 interested in is any training you feel you weren't 15 afforded because of your protective activity.
iL 16 MR. ROSS: Okay. Well, let's talk about the i
. 17 Cal Lab. Really anything.and everything -- Larry showed
- . 18 me some things, but Hal did not, Sonny did not. There is 19 a check sheet --
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me stop you there 21 so I am clear. When you say showed you things, you're 22 talking about training by the other technicians or 23 specialists within the lab?
'24 MR. ROSS: Yes.
25' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay.
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21 E l- MR. ROSS: See, that's-something that is 2 unique to the calibration laboratory. I've gone through a 3- lot of training at Florida Power'& Light.
4' As an operator, you get ~ trained in the 5 classroom and then you go out and do Job Performance
- 6. Measures. And a Job Performance Measure has certain 7 things as the supervisor is checking you out. Their name 8 and signature goes.on it, your name, the date, the JPM 9 nutber.
10 And then there is three areas on the bottom 11 because you get three tries and if you fail it, well, you I I
12 get to try it again. It's three strikes and you're out :
13 before-they will say that you're not qualified.
14 And that's how I had always, you know, done 15 any type of training at Florida Power & Light, whether I 16 was an operator or whether I was an INC Specialist. They 17 have really a nice INC training laboratory outside the la protected area in the training building and that is run by i i
19 several people over there, that's a different group.
I 20 But we would go get our formal training and 21 some of the JPM's we would do in the lab and some we would 22 come back to the plant and do and various supervisors or 23 whatnot would sign them and I'm sure that those are -- I 24 guess those are over in training. There is a big vault 25 over there in~the training building that.would.have all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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l' those kind of JPM's.
2- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And a JPM is --
3 MR. ROSS: A Job Performance Measure. Now, in 4 the Cal Lab,.I had never been given any of these papers, 5 no JPM's, and I'm not really sure that JPM's actually 6 exist in the Cal Lab.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was anybody else in 8' the Cal Lab, to your knowledge, given JPM's?
9 MR. ROSS: No, not to my knowledge, but to my 10 knowledge, everyone else was given a Qualification Check 11 Sheet or something or other, and this is a sheet that has 12 the various qualifications and it has like training date 13 on it and there is none of the three things on it, you 14' know, first try, second try, third try, or anything like 15 that. It just had trained and a date and an initial or 16 whatnot.
17 That's unique in that they're saying that, 18 "Well, the supervisor can't qualify you on anything.
19 Another INC Specialist has to qualify you on it," Hal 20 Blehm or Sonny.
21 So I was never allowed to have that sheet.
22 And we're going to try and get that stuff --
23 MR. MCKEOWN: You're digressing. Just answer 24 the question.
25 I think the question was, if I understand it, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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23
'1 and you do'this to me all the time -- just listen to his 2- question -- his question was, "Were you trained" and 3 you're off in left field. Now get back to the training.
4' MR. ROSS: Okay. So, no, I was not trained on 5 anything in that sheet formally and I was never signed for 6 it and I was never certified.
7 The only work that I could do would be under a 8 qualified Cal Lab person and someone who was willing, 9 which would have been Larry Sloan.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, how many people 11 in the Cal Lab were qualified to train you?
12' MR. ROSS: Larry Sloan, Hal Blehm, Sonny 13- Arishiro. and there are some people that were not working 14 in there but_that are Cal Lab. qualified and I believe that 15 was Chris Martin and I think there was another one or 16 maybe two. I saw that later on a list.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there anybody at 18 that time in the Cal Lab who was in the same position that 19 you were, that their work had to be overseen by others?
20' MR. ROSS: Julie Simms.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So from the standpoint 22 of qualifications then, she was your only peer?
23 MR. ROSS: I don't know if you would call her 24 a peer, but in some respects I guess that would be 25 accurate. But-she would get training.
NEAL R. GROSS
. COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCREERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N.W
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24
~1 And as a result of these'other' things, . John 2 Halverson called me down'to'his office.one; Friday and said 3 -
because--I'm' incapable of learning and because of, you know,- Hal;Blehmtand Sonny Arishiro think that I'm
=
4 5 incapable of learning or not competent to do the stuff
'6 right now, that' they.' re going to have ' to' j ust start 7 training Julie on' Monday instead and he wanted me to-.take 8 more charge of stuff up front as far as the' issue and
'9 whatnot.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Draw a connection for 11 me.
12 MR. ROSS: Well, there's two rooms --
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: No, no, no , wait.
14 MR. MCKEOWN: Listen to the question.
.15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Draw a connection for 16 me between your disagreements over the procedure for the 17 calibrations of the Heise instrument and subsequent lack 18 of training.
19 Was anything said, "If you don't do it this 20 way, we're not going to train you;" make that connection 21 for me.
22' -MR. ROSS: Well, I guess they're pretty sharp 23- people. They're not going to come and say, "Unless you
.24 violate this, I'm going to fire you." No , they're not 25 that blatant'and they're not'that dumb.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W -
. (202) 23m33. wAswinntnw . n c wvis.m, ~ ~ . ..,,
25 1 But it's fairly clear that the more people 2 that are qualified the more work that can be done and the 3 better things can run.
4 And the one thing that throughout this whole i
l' 5 entire episode that I haven't been able to get is someone I
6 just to come down and look at some things,-look at'how'a
( 7 Heise gauge is calibrated or cal checked, look at how a 8 torque wrench is cal checked. In fact, I showed them --
9 they didn't.know how to adjust a torque wrench, okay --
10 MR. MCKEOWN: Michael, I'm going to interrupt 11 you.
12 MR. ROSS: This is the connection, it really 13 is.
14 MR. MCKEOWN: Okay.
15 MR. ROSS: No one in there knew how to do the 16 torque wrenches to make some adjustments. So they called 17 the experts. So they called the so called experts. I 18 think Steve Baum was from QC or QA or something and he 19 didn't know how to do it.
20 And they called Julie because she used to work I 21 in construction and dealt with all the torque wrenches and i-22 she didn't know how to do it. She was not really in there 23 all the-time, she just came in to help some.
24 So nobody.could figure it out and I showed 25' them, you'know,'"Well, look, right here change the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE , N W.
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0 26
'l spacers." .I mean, .it wasn't a real --
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there a written 3 instruction-for that?
4 MR. ROSS: Well, there was a picture, you.
5 know, they had the manuals.out and there was a picture and 6 it's not real hard'to see --
7 SPECIAL' AGENT DOCKERY: You mean, this entire 8 group of INC technicians did not know how to calibrate a
- 9 torque wrench?
'10 MR. ROSS: That is envrect. Well, they didn't 11 know how to do this part of the calibration.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Had you ever done that 13 before or did you just intuit it from the --
J 14 MR. ROSS: It was -- that's the -- you've just 15 reached on the point that I'm trying to make.
16 They go in a round about way, instead of 17 saying "Because you're not falsifying, we're going to fire l 18 you," they went-in a round about way and said, "Well, 19 you're incapable of learning or don't know what you're 20 talking about," so just not to pay attention to me, and 21 "We want you to work up here, up in the front and take 22 charge of this - ". ,
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, before we get 24 away from this, who told you you were incapable of 25 learning?
NEAL R. GROSS
' COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
7 . _.
27 1 MR'. ROSS: John Halverson, the supervisor, and 12 he told me that Hal Blehm and Sonny Arishiro had said that 3 to him.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did Halverson ever
-5 tell you or'did he.ever -- was he angry-at you for wanting 6 to perform the correct-nine steps of calibration of the 7 Heise gauge? Was there any kind of anger --
8 MR. ROSS: He didn't argue with me at that 9 point. He just handled it in the other way, "Well, Hal 10 and Sonny don't think you're capable of learning," so he 11 just avoided the issue.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When was that i
13 statement made in relationship to the nine step versus !
14 four step calibration of the Heise gauge?
15 MR. ROSS: It would have either been in the i
16 middle of it or after the second one.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, again --
18 MR. ROSS: I want to say that it was after the 19 second one, but --
if we had talked in 19en instead of 20 1997 and had I really had the official Heise manual and 21 had I had the understanding that we had to do it the way 22 the Heise manual said, I would have made better notes and 23 whatnot at the time. I l
l 24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Have you since had j
'25 access to a'Heise manual? l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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.28 4 1 MR. ROSS: 'Yes, Heise S mailed one to me and I' 2' have that.
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What instruction is 4 there in there?
j- 5 MR. ROSS: Well, it talks about --
it i
6 definitely clearly talks about hysteresis and about the 7 ascending and descending. And I also spoke with the i
8 quality control manager at Heise and I also spoke with the
- 9 dial gauge indicator person at Heise.
10 And this is where I really became 110 percent i
11 pos. ive of really what was going on. Initially, way back 12 in early~'94, it was, you know, "Well, FP&L has a QC and a 13 QA type of.doing things," one is are right things being 14 done and the other is are things being done right.
l
< 1 15 And as a spec, I am concerned that I am do.ing j 1
1 16 things right. And it's not really my decision as to what I 17 things are done.
1.
. 18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What's the safety
- 19 significance here?
20 MR. ROSS: What's the safety significance?
21 Well, we come out and say that we're going out and 22 measuring a gauge that causes an actuation to happen, 23 okay, so if the plant is supposed to shut down beccuse 24 something is over-pressurizing or because there is not 25 enough pressure, well, how do you know that that is going NEAL R. GROSS
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., _ ~ _ _
29 1 t'o happen?
'2 If you were only concerned with ascending 3 readingsLand not descending readings, maybe there would be
! 4. less of a safety concern, but --
5- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I think you stated
< 6 earlier you have not yet seen any plant. procedure related 7 to the calibration'of that device; is that correct?
8 MR. ROSS: I haven't recently. There are so 9 many procedures there, I'm not sure about every procedure 10 that I have seen or haven't seen. But had I seen 11 something that said what we're talk 44g about now, I think
- 12 that I would have remembered it. ,
j 13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What specific training I l
-l 14 or certifications were you denied?
15 MR. ROSS: Any calibration lab certifications, 4
16 any of them, I don't have any of them.
- 17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- Did you ever make any 18 written request of any kind for training?
19 MR. ROSS: Well, yes I filed a grievance in 20 '95.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And the nature of that-22 grievance was that you weren't being trained?
23 MR. ROSS: Yes.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you now happen to 25 have a' copy of that grievance?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANStRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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30 i
1 MR. ROSS: 'I'm not.sure whether I~ brought that 2 with me but they.would have that-down there and I may be 3 able to find that.for you.
4
- .4 MR.'MCKEOWN
- I've seen it. Where is that 5 diary thing, that book you had? Let me see-that and'you 6 can go ahead and maybe I can find it. I've seen that f 7 document.
8: MR. ROSS: Okay.
9 -SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you ever make any 10 verbal requests to, I guess it would have been to 11 Halverson for training -- !
l l 12 MR..ROSS: Yes, yes, yes.
i 13' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Give me the specifics 14 of that.
15 MR. ROSS: Well, when we had the meeting, I
?
16 told him that, you know, that I felt I could do the stuff 17 and he said, well, he couldn't sign for anything, that Hal I
., 18 would have to sign for it or Sonny would have to sign for 19 it. ,
l 20 And if we had the set up like the rest of the 21 plant with the JPM, we could have --
i 22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But'you didn't have
^
23 that.
l24~ MR. ROSS: We didn't have that. But here's
~25 the --
NEAL R. GROSS .
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 - WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 '(202) 234-4433 e i :n e w <+-:4 e-m-u
g . - .: em . -. . _ . . - - .. m . . . .. . .. . . - - .- - . . . . . . -
31 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, then'it doesn't 2, matter.
3 MR. ROSS: Well, can I throw in something?
'4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Go ahead.
~5 'MR. ROSS: It does matter because then 6' Halverson could have told Hal, "Here, train him and 7 document it -"
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But he couldn't do 9 that because that wasn't in effect then so it --
10 MR. ROSS: It should have been.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That's an opinion. I 1
12 want to deal with what was or what is. l I
13 MR. ROSS: Okay. l
'! 4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you ever given a l
15 reason for -- did they ever complain about your poor 16 attendance? l 17 MR. ROSS: They, yes, yes, I mean, they talked 18 to me about att'endance, that is correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was the reascn 20 for that, why was it brought up; why as it an issue?
21 MR. ROSS: Well, because'I had a lot of
. 22 absenteeism.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. Was that in any 24 way related to the' training ~ issue?
~ 25 MR. ROSS: That was used at a later time maybe HEAL R. GROSS
- COUFT RIIPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS r 323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W.
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32 1 somewhat in '95 but not in '94.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you attempt to get 3 into any other, apply for'or bid on any other positions at 4 the plant?
5 MR. ROSS: Well, I have bid other positions, 6 that is correct.
- 7. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: While you were in the 8 INC' calibration lab?
9 MR. ROSS: I don't recall.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What other positions l
.11 had you bid for?
1 12 MR. ROSS: Back to operations.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Something called an l
14 ANPO?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes.
i 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And that stands for 17 what?
18 MR. ROSS: Associate Nuclear Plant Operator.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you recall when you 20 bid on any of those positions?
21 MR. ROSS: Oh, a few different times,.wh'enever 22 there were classes that came up.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, were any of 24 those bids for that position made while you were in the 25 INC lab?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON OC 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l 33 1 MR. ROSS: .In the INC shop?
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Shop.
3 MR. ROSS: Well, most of them were made while
- 4 I was in the INC department, _ yes.
5 'SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Enough so that they 6 would have believed that you.were actively seeking a job 7 in another area of the plant?
8 MR. ROSS: Well, that's supposed to be 9 confidential, so I don't know that they would know. I 10 can't really tell you what somebody else would know or
,' 11 would think.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That surprises me that 13 it was confidential. I wasn't aware of that. If you make ,
t 14 a bid on an outside position, your supervisor doesn't know 15 that you had bid on that? 1 H
16 MR. ROSS: Well, I'm not saying whether they 17 know or whether they don't know, but I think it's a l 18 private matter to me.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But is it, as a a
4 20 procedural matter, is it confidential?
1 21 MR. ROSS: I can't tell you that. I don't 4
22 know of.any procedure like that or whatnot.
. 23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, tell me what you '
24: do then when you make a bid.
25 MR. ROSS: You write out a piece of paper and NEAL 'R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
. (202) 23M33 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005-3701 -(202) 23W33 :-
- . - ~ . . -. - - - -
J 34 1 write.in'your'name and you send it in either by mail or 2 give,it to Janet Baker.
- 3. SPECIAL. AGENT DOCKERY: So there is no --
4 MR.'ROSS: Whenever Janet Baker was not there
-5 and I left something,.if she would mail it back to me it 6 would-either be.in an envelope or it would be folded over 7 and stapled.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is Janet Baker?
9 MR. ROSS: 'She is'the person that, when they 10 went to the computer system- she would put bids into the 11 computer.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So your supervisor 13 didn't have any part'.of that bidding procedure?
14 MR. ROSS: No. Now, if'I was accepted for a 15 job, my supervisor.would come back and give me the sheet 16 to say, you know, "Do you want to be accepted for it," "Do 17 you accept the job?"
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you ever accepted 19 for one of those positions?
20 MR. ROSS: Yes.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When was this?
22 MR. ROSS: I believe September 12th or 23 September 14th of '95, and various other times whenever
- 24 they had classes. And I would be accepted for those 25 classes but they would never give me any credit for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C . 20005-3701 (202) 23M33
35
- 1 two years'that-I had previously.been in --
i 2- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Now, wait a minute, a
how many times were you accepted?
'3 l
l 4 MR. ROSS: Every time I bid.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Then you just stated 6 that if you were' accepted then your supervisor would be 7 told-that you had done it.
8 MR. ROSS: Yes, that's correct.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So by virtue of having J0 been accepted, your bid havirm been accepted, your 11 supervisor -- it may have be n confidential up to'that
'12 time.
13 MR. ROSS: Up to that point, yes.
7 14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So he would have been I
15 aware that you were bidding on positions outside. l l
16 MR. ROSS: Yes.
17 SPECIAL AGENT'DOCKERY: And if I'm not 18 mistaken, there was nothing sinister in that. It was just-c 19 a routine notification when your bid was accepted; is that 20 correct? ,
' )
21 MR. ROSS: Yes, or when I was accepted for the ;
1 22 bid would be'the better way of phrasing it.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you accept any of
.24 those assignments?
i 25 MR.'ROSS: 'The last two I did. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHooE ISLAND AVE., N W term tu.ms mn emmentna, n ,- w x $,n, ,9A9% Mid AA11
. . .- ... .~ - . . . _ . _ - . ~ . - . .. _ . _.
36
'l -
SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, you just
. 2 -
mentioned one in September. Was there one prior to that h-
.3 or subsequent.to that?
'4 MR. ROSS: There was one prior to that.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When was that?
6 MR. ROSS: .I want to say that that was in '95, 7
sometime early '95,
[ 8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That was the one where 9 you got, I believe the term is " rolled out of?"
10 MR. ROSS: - No , no. If you want to go through 11 all .he jobs, we could, and maybe that would make better 12 sense to do it chronologically.
1 13 I was rolled into the INC shop. I was not 14 rolled out of the INC shop.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, I guess I didn't 16 state myself well. I don't understand the procedure, but i
17 there had been a time when you were in the ANPO Program?
18 MR. ROSS: Yes. 1 19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is that the one you're i 20 referring to?
( ,
1 21 MR. ROSS: That's the one I was rolled out of, 22 yes.
- 23. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Right. Okay, and then 24 you were bidding, you bid on subsequent ANPO positions, if l 25 I understand correctly -- j i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. NW.
(202) 23M33 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005-3701 (202) 23M33
'37 1- MR, ROSS: To go back, yes.
2- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Right. And then you 3 were accepted again in September --
4 MR. ROSS: Of '95, yes.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- of '95 and you --
- 6. MR. ROSS: I think there was also an earlier
'7 one in early '95 o'r maybe it was November of '94.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The earlier bids that 9 you were accepted for, why didn't you go into the 10 training?
11 MR. ROSS: Well, there~was a contract change 12 and -- 1 13 1PECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When you say contract, 14 you're reietring to the Union?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes. And before that the contract 16 was that if you didn't do anything -- if you bid a job and 17 they offered it to you and you didn't do anything, in 18 other words, you didn't accept it, you didn't refuse it, ;
19 it meant you got the job, but you went to the ANPO pay, 20 whatever the ANPO pay was.
21 And so that's what it was previously and I 22' felt that the two years that I had previously been in ANPO 23 should have counted for --
- 24. 'SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And they were telling 25 you_that it did not?
NEAL R.' GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i'- 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
,nem m a ,,,, ........n.n.. .n ......... ... ... ...
u,. _ __ . . _ . .
. . _ .. . . __ _ . _ . . . . . _ . _ _ . . _ _ _ _ . ~ . _ .. . . _ ._. _
'38 1- MR'. ROSS: Yes, that.is correct.
2- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did that mean that you
~
3 would have to.do those two years'--
4 MR. ROSS: That means I would go back to the ,
-S bottom pay'instead of to a higher pay,.which would be a 6 significant drop for me at the time.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: From the INC --
8 MR. ROSS: Pay, yes.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: ---Specialist?
10 MR. ROSS: Yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DC KERY: Is it fair to say that
]
12 that ANPO position was somehow more desirable than an INC 13 position?
14 MR. ROSS: Yes, because it would be real hard l
15 for them to deny tcaining over there.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How about from a pay 17 standpoint?
l 18 MR. ROSS: Pay standpoint, before the contract i l
19 change it was less money, after the contract change you 20 would go at whatever pay you were at. So it would be the 21 same money. l 1
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there more earning 23 potential in an ANPO position? l 1
24 MR. ROSS: Yes, well --
25- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there -- l l
NEAL R. GROSS!
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS
.1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE..' N.W. ,
(202) 234 4433' , WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
39 1 MR. ROSS: --.the ANPO position'is the entry 2 position for a career path and that career would have 3' significantly more money.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: ' Ostensibly leading up 5' to a position as an operator, as a licensed operator?
6 MR. ROSS: As a licensed operator, yes.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You mentioned that you 8 were selected for an ANPO position around September.
O MR. ROSS: Yes.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I believe about that 11 time there were several of your co-workers also who had 12 bid for such a. position and were accepted?
13 MR. ROSS: Yes.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And did they become, i l
15 and you, subjects of a cartoon?
16 MR. ROSS: That's the one. That was on the j 17 14th of September, the day after our second grievance 18 meeting.
19' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, what I'm holding i
20 here, I'll certainly let you take a look at it is, it's !
21 titled, "Joses Parting of the Ian Sea." )
I 22 MR. ROSS: No , it's Joses, Moses --
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Oh, Jose -- who is l
- 24. Joe?
25 MR. ROSS: Joe Myszkiewicz. l i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE'*ORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
t707) tu.m1 waewuntnu n r- *nnna s ,n. mam ,,, ,,,,
- . .- =-.. . - . - - . . . . . - . .- .. -
40 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You better spell that
-2 one. Oh, wait a' minute, I've got it here, I think.
3 MR. ROSS: It's got; eleven letters in it.
- 4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I've got'it.
5 All right, as I understand it, you took i 6 exception to this cartoon.
4 t 7 MR. ROSS: What do you mean by excepti'on?
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, I believe you 9 complained to somebody about it.
i 10 MR. ROSS: Yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKER'l: We'll get into that i 1
12 later.
13 Are you, do you feel that you were depicted in 14 this cartoon?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes.
I 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who in the figures, 4
17 the characters in the cartoon, do you believe was meant to la be you?
1 4 19 MR. ROSS: The one chasing the butterfly.
20 .SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. We'11 come back 21 to that.
22 MR. ROSS: Well, we're on it. Do you want me ]
23- to'tell --
-24 SPECIAL, AGENT DOCKERY: Well, no, I've got 25 some other questions I need to lead up to it.
NEAL R. GROSS
~ COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. -
(202) 23M33 WASHINGTON O C- 20005-3701 (207) 794.4411
41 2
1- MR. ROSS: Okay.
! 2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was anybody else 3 besides you denied training in the INC group that you know <
t 4' of?
5 MR. ROSS: Do you mean in the calibration lab?
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Yes, in the 7 calibration lab, your.immediate co-workers.
l 8- MR. ROSS: No, oh, I mean, the only ones..that i
9 needed it was me and --
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And Julie?
)
11 MR. ROSS: -- and then they replaced'me by l
- 12 Julie and trained Julie. And in fact, if I would wander 13 back there while they were training Julie or Larry or 14 whatnot, I mean, Hal would tell me, "Well, go up front and 15 guard the doorbell because we don't like it when they ring 26 the doorbell."
, 17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Reading again now from 18 your Department of Labor Complaint, "During the same 19 period, I was subject to a hostile work environment. The 20 harassment was by my fellow employees and management who j
a.
21 referred to me as ' stupid',and also referred to my i
22 religion, which.is ' Jewish.*"
23 Which managers referred to you as stup.id?
24 MR. ROSS: Larry Fuhrman, Howie Crouch.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What position are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
42 1 these people in?
2 'HR. ROSS: Those were supervisors. And John 3' Halverson, he didn't call me stupid to my face or 4 anything, but, you know, when we had the meeting he told 5 me I was incapable of learning. It's a different word but 6 the same meaning.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me about him 8 telling you you were incapable of learning. To the best 9' of your recollection, what was said in that conversation? ;
10 MR. ROSS: Well, he had me come down to his :
1 11 office, and I believe it was a Friday. I can't remember ;
l 12 why I believe it was a Friday but I believe that's because 13 he said, "On Monday we're going to have to start training 14 Julie."
15 He brings me down there and, you know, I could 16 tell he was sort of uncomfortable, you know, saying this, i
17 and in fact he told me he himself didn't believe it. But 18 he said, you know -- maybe he started it out by saying, "I 19 want you to do more up front."
20 And, you know, I talked to him about training 21 and asked him about training and certification and signing 22 me off, and he told me that, you know, "Because Hal Blehm 23 and Sonny Arishiro think that you're incapable of learning 24 or not competent to do:the work," or whatnot --
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he give specifics?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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. 43 1 MR. ROSS: That was pretty specific. I mean, 2 what do you mean?
3- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he say there was !
-4 any specific procedure or job that he was told you were
~5 incapable of^1 earning? ]
1
+
6 MR. ROSS: 'Well, any of them, he just said, 7 you know, "You're incapable of learning and'we don't feel 8 you are competent and we're going to put you up front and 9' if you do a good job up there, maybe you'll gain your ,
10 confidence - " ;
t
- l 11 SPECIAL AGENT DO. AERY: Was he hostile towards 12 you?
13 MR. ROSS: Do you mean was he yelling at me?
l 14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Yes.
i 15 MR. ROSS: No. ;
.; . 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he trying to --
l 17 MR. ROSS: But, I mean, the action was l l
18 obviously not, you know, certainly a --
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, the way you 20 relate it, it appears to me at least that he.was at least 21 trying to be accommodating. ,
22 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, he wasn't yelling at
)
23 me or nothing but there wasn't really much that I can do. l 24- You know, whether you agree with something or disagree 25 with something, the way a' nuclear plant is set up, it's so NEAL R. GROSS -
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- . . . ~ . . . -. . .- - .- . . . . . . . .
44 1 similar to a military I guess, you do what you're told.
2 You know, if you know how to do something, it a 3 doesn't matter. Somebody has to sign that you know how to 4 do that.
5 If Albert Einstein hopped from the grave and 6 walked out to Turkey Point and wanted to work on a toilet,
'7 unless somebody said that he could do it --
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I understand that's 9 the way the nature of nuclear --
10 'MR. ROSS: That's correct.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But this general
}
12 blanket statement that, "Mr. Ross, you're too stupid to 13 train - "
14 MR. ROSS: No, he didn't say stupid. He 15 didn't use the word stupid.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He never used the word 17 stupid. "You're incapable of learning?"
18 MR. ROSS: Previously he may have, but in that 19 meeting, you know, he didn't, that was like a key word 20 that he wouldn't use because everybody else called me 21 stupid.
- 22. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he give you 23 exan.ples of what he had been told you were incapable of 24 learning?
25 MR. ROSS: No, no, I asked him that.
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45 4
I' 1- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But'he couldn't !
2 provide you'with any specifics?
l 3 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, it wasn't true but i
4 there.wasn't really a whole' lot that I could do about it.
5 I tried to tell.him.
, 6 I mean', I guess'I had been down from being ,
1 4
7 harassed just on the stupid stuff -- I 8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When did'that' start?
$ 9 MR. ROSS: 1991. i 10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: 1991? i l
111 MR. ROSS: Yes.
12- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Now we're into 1995.
1 13 How did this --
) 14 MR. ROSS: No, no, no , we're in 1994 when 15 we're talking about this conversation with Halverson.
- 16 This is 1994.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, right.
18 How did it start in 1991, what --
19 MR. ROSS: I was in the turbine shack and 20 there was chuck Stover and Billy Schlucher and another 21 person, I think it was Don but I don't remember -- I think
, 22 he quit and'went-to Alabama or someplace like that.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did this carry on
, ' 2 4' from 1991.till 1994?
25 MR. ROSS: Well, let me tell how it started NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1
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~
46
'1-first and --
2 SPECIAL AGENT'DOCKERY: I'm not'sure I need~to 3- know that.
4'- ' MR '. ROSS: Okay.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But?what_you're.saying 6' is-it was ongoing from 1991 till.1994?
7 1MR. ROSS: Well, and'past that, yes, until I
.8 was' fired.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. What managers, 10 if any, or even co-workers made disparaging remarks about-11 your religion?
12 MR. ROSS: That would be Joel, Joel Smith.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he a co-worker?
14 MR. ROSS: 'Yes.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was his position?
16 MR. ROSS: INC Specialist.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What --
18 MR. ROSS: Or you could say he was an INC 19 Specialist Digital.
20- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What specifically,_how 21 specifically did he' disparage your religion?
22 MR.-ROSS: I don't remember the exact, but I
~
23 know I-thought it was kind of like off color to say-stuff 24 like that-and ---
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: ~Like-what?
NEAL R.- GROSS
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- . -. - -- - - , ._. - . _ ~ - .-. --. .
47 '
1 MR. ROSS: Well, like, I don't know, " Fuck all 2 the Jews" or something --
p 3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he say that?
4 MR. ROSS: I think 'that's what he said one 5 time. And he was -- I think he was tal'.ing about Joe --
6 Joe is also Jewish, I believe, Mystkiewicz --
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is Joe depicted in 8 this cartoon?
r 9 MR.-ROSS: Yes, he's Joses, Moses.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And that would be the 11 short figure standing on a block? ,
'l 12 MR. ROSS: Yes.
- 13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Ostensibly holding 14 what appears to be --
15 MR. ROSS: The Ten Commandments.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. Was Joe a 1 */ supervisor or manager?
18 MR. ROSS: He was an INC Specialist and then a 19 Digital INC Specialist.
20' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But he was not, he did 21 not have a supervisory position?
- 22 .MR. ROSS: Well, a Digital INC Specialist is
- 23 sort of considered closer to supervisory than --
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But did he have 25 anybody working for.him?
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48 1 MR.-ROSS: 'No.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did any manager make 3 any' remarks, disparaging remarks about your religion?
4 MR. ROSS: I don't think so. There wasn't --
5 Joel and the cartoons was the big part of it.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Throughout all this, 7 did you go to any manager.and state.your concern-for --
'8 MR. ROSS: .Yes.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who?
10 MR. ROSS: -Lots of them. I talked with Dennis 11 Gardner some about --
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Dennis Gardner, who is 13 he and what is his position?
14 MR. ROSS: He was a field supervisor and now I 15 believe he is an area supervisor.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'm interested in what 17 he was then.
18 MR. ROSS: Field supervisor.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In what discipline or 20 what area?
21 MR. ROSS: INC. SPECIAL' AGENT DOCKERY: What did you say to 23 him?
24 MR. ROSS: -I don't recall exactly, but-I felt,
'25 you'know, a little more comfortable talking to him because NEAL' R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W.
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J4b.+ Ji a ,a,.a _ ,_y._rc 4 ,.] J:. m .A 3 #5,.. u_.e- .p. .e_h.-d ,,.4eG __m,c,,a_m_u.m_._J,q.m am, 4 . %,, #
49
-1 he never called me anything. I mean, he was a pretty good
. 2 guy.
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who else?
4 MR. ROSS: Steve Franzone.
. 5_ SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was his position?
5 6 MR. ROSS: He was INC Department Head, u
.7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did you tell him?
8 MR.- ROSS: Just basically, you know, it's hard
.9 to be, you know, called stupid all the time and be told 10 you're incapable of learning.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When did that 12 conversation take place? j 13 MR. ROSS: Well, that would have been in '94, 14 some in '94 and then some in '95. I would bring up that 15 during the grievance discussions.
-16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you ever make any 17 written complaint about the way you were being treated?
. 18 You had mentioned a grievance earlier. I l
19 think that might-be a slightly different -- ;
- 20 MR. ROSS: Well, if-I thought that it would 21 have helped, I certainly would have. But I felt that that 22 would hurt. I think that if I had put something in 23 writing, I mean, itowould just sound --
you know, how 24 would-you put it in writing and then if something like 25' that would be. circulated around, boy, that would be the NEAL R. GROSS
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50 .
5 1 laughing stock.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, I think it's 3 just human nature, I know it would be mine, if I had co-4' workers or supervisors making my work situation 5 intolerable, I would take it to whatever level it took to 6 get something done about that. ;
7 Did you take that action?
8 MR. ROSS: Well, I tried to. I mean, I spoke 9 with Bill Pierce who was the plant manager. I spoke to t
10 the NRC -- ,
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When did you speak to 12' him?
13 MR. ROSS: I spoke to Bill Pierce, it was on a 14 Saturday during an outage in '94 and he was a pretty good 15 guy. He was a pretty good guy. j i
16 We were really pretty busy down there and I i 17 had spoken to Hal Blehm, you know, asked him, "What do I 18 have to do to get trained or isecome qualified," and Hal 19_ Blehm told me, "It just takes a long, long time. We're l
.20 too busy." All the while they were training Julie.
g 41 So then I went and talked to. Bill Pierce. He 22 was the plant manager and talked with him quite a bit --
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did you tell him 24 specifically?
25 MR. ROSS: I just told him, you know, how NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
51
- 1- miserable it is to sit there and be called stupid all the 2 --
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you say anything i
4 to him about what you perceived to be. falsification of 5 documentation related to INC gauges?
l 6 MR. ROSS: I don't think I did at that -- I'm l
\
- 7. not positive, but I know I talked a lot about training and 8 me becoming qualified and that they said that things, you 9 know, "We're too busy," and didn't have enough help.
l 10 And he was pretty good. i 11 SPECIAL AGENT DC""ERY: Did he take any 12 action?
13 MR. ROSS: Yes, he did.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did he do?
15 MR. ROSS: He talked to Steve Franzone and we .I i
16 got four more people down there, four more temporary 17 employees.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, how did that 19 help your personal situation? l 20 MR. ROSS: Well, tne reason -- well, it 21 didn't. .But if what Hal had told me was correct, that we 22 didn't have'enough help, we didn't have enough people and 23 we're too busy and it would take a long, long time to 24- train me, well, if that was accurate, having these four 25 people certainly would have helped.
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-. . - . - ~ _ - . - - - . .. ~ . . _ . v ..
52 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And they were brought 2 --
four people were brought in?
3 MR. ROSS: Yes.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I believe you said it 5 was temporary?
l 6 MR. ROSS: Well, we have temporary people i l
7 during outages and so we got those, we got four of them.
'8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: For how long?
9 MR. ROSS: We were only going to get one but i
10 we got four -- till the end of the outage or whatnot. I 11 thi 4 we sent one of -- we actually had so much help, we i
12 sent one back, and that was Eric Jergens. l
' 1 13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me, if you will, 14 how the name calling and the anti-Semitic remarks relate 15 to your refusal to falsify the data on calibrating the 16 Heise gauge.
17 MR. ROSS: Well, I think is important to 18 understand something that I really feel has been 19 overlooked or not brought to the surface in this. I 2 20 believe in the end they actually said, " Don't call him 21 stupid," this or that, but that's, you know, that's just i i
i 22 like a smoke and mirror type thing.
23 When you take someone and humiliate them with 24 their job assignments and what you make them do and what 25 you do not let them become qualified for and' humiliate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W..
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- gr
53
- .1 .
them and allow supervisors to call someone stupid and 2 .
whatnot, then how can you expect their peers to have any 3 respect'for me.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: With this going on so !
5 long, I'm a little bit surprised that you didn't, again, 6- go to the level that it took to cause it to be stopped.
i h 7 MR. ROSS: Well, I went to Tom' Johnson.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you -- >
9 MR. ROSS: I mean, I called him.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tom Johnson, right.
- 11 Tom Johnson is the Senior Resident laspector for the NRC 12 there, but he is not a personnel specialist for Florida 13 Power & Light. l
- i l
14 MR. ROSS: And he, you know, he advised me of 15 the Speakout, you know, going to speak out and talking'to l
\
16 Steve. And I would go to Steve and he would just tell me, J
17 "Well - "
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Steve is --
4 4 19 MR. ROSS: Ste.) Franzone. I went to Steve 20 Franzone. This was maybe in May and I tried to talk to
- 21 him. l 22- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: May of --
23 - 'MR. ROSS: *94 --
and tried to talk to him 24 ~ about, you know, "I feel that it's bad that - " and we 44 25: need to understand, these are two different issues, not NEAL R. GROSS
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54 1 being trained is discriminatory and being called names is
. 2 harassment and the discriminatory, that's really a hundred 3 or a thousand times worse than-the name calling, although
, 4 the name calling is bad, too.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'm just going by what 6 was in your Complaint.
7 MR. ROSS: Okay, okay. And that's why we .
8 wanted you to come down and get~ all your questions 9 answered.
10 MR. MCKEOWN: But you're not answering the 11 questions. You are digressing again. I believe the 12 question was what did you do - "now listen to the question 13 he asked -- what did you do to complain about the 14 treatment that you were getting and did you do anything 15 beyond what you've said; did you --
16 MR. ROSS: I went to Steve Franzone. I talked 17 to --
18 MR. MCKEOWN: Did you put anything in writing?
19 MR. ROSS: Not at that time, no.
20 MR. MCKEOWN: Did you discuss with Steve 21- Franzone both aspects, the one that you were being called
- 22 stupid?
23 MR. ROSS: Yes.
24 MR MCKEOWN: Did.you talk to him about not 25 being trained?
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l 55 1 MR. ROSS: Definitely. I talked to a lot of 2 people about --
3 MR. MCKEOWN: I think that's what he wants to 1
i 4 know. So let him ask the questions but don't digress or l 5 we'll be here till a week from Monday.
6 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: Did you put that in 7 writing with Mr. Franzone? I 1
8 MR. ROSS: Not at that time.
9 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: At any time?
10 MR. ROSS: In '95 just before I was, lost my 11 acccss, 1
12 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: Just so I'm sure here, 13 Mr. Franzone's position was --
14 MR. ROSS: INC Department Head.
15 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: Did Mr. Franzone do 16 anything to try and abate all this that was going on, this 11 harassment toward you or of you?
18 MR. ROSS: I'm not really sure what he did 19 exactly.
20 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: Did anything change?
l 21 MR. ROSS: Yes, a little bit changed.
22 SPECIE AGENT DOCKERY: How?
23 MR. ROSS: Well, I went to -- we're hopping
-24 around a lot Initially at this point, when I went to 25- Steve Franzone, nothing changed. He just told me, "Well, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W.
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l 56 l
1 1 Julie's already qualified," and that was pretty much it. !
'2 So he didn't do anything as'far as training or the name F 3 calling.
4 And I went to some other people that I went )
- 5 to, I went to Tad Koshmeder, who is Steve Franzone's 1
6 assistant, and he said, "Well, you can't do anything. If j j 7 you ask them to stop, they'll just do it more."
8 I went to Tom Plunkett and --
- 9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is Tom Plunkett?
3 l 4
10 MR. ROSS: He was the vice president at that l l
2 11 time and now he is the president of the Nuclear Division.
i 12 And I talked to him. 1 1
13 And all of this stuff is not really an easy 14 thing to talk about in that it's just not really an easy 15 thing to talk about. I think that should be understood. .
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did any manager ever 1
17 order you to stop referring to yourself as stupid? l i-i 18 MR. ROSS: What?
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did any manager ever e 20 tell you to stop referring to yourself as stupid? ,
. 21. MR. ROSS: No, and I've never referred to 22 myself as stupid. In fact, when it was put on my hard 23 hat, I took it off immediately.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you know who put it 25 on your hard hat?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
tttm o u m i waewue.mu n e a,w s_staa . <*am as , , ,sa
57 1 MR. ROSS: Well, I_would think that that would
.2 have been --
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you know?
4 -MR. ROSS: Did I see it done? No.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you have any reason 6 to believe it was a supervisor or manager?
7 MR. ROSS: No.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Again, quoting from 9 your Complaint, "Then I was given the dubious job of 10 guarding the doorbell vhile everyone else was in 11 training."
12 Who gave you that assignment?
13 MR. ROSS: John Halverson.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What does " guarding 15 the doorbell" mean?
16 MR. ROSS: Well, :lal would say that he didn't 17 like it when someone_ rang the doorbell and the purpose of 18 the doorball was so people could go in the back room where 19 the calibrations were done and do calibration work. And
-20 that's why we had a doorbell installed by the issue 21 window.
22 So in order to get me to go up front and stay 23 out of the back to see what was going on or learn anything 24 or whau.st , he would say, "Go guard the doorbell," or "Go 25 stand by the window,. I don't like it when the' doorbell NEA' R. GROSS COURT REPC 'ERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
....s ... '.... ".2} P },Ejsgo AE, y
58 1 rings."
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he say why he 3 didn't like it when the doorbell rang?'
4 MR. ROSS: He just didn't like it. That's all 5 -- no.
. 6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he use the term 7 " guard the doorbell?"
j 8- MR. ROSS: That term was used sometimes, yes, 9 and also "Go up by the window."
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was it necessary for 11 someone to perform that duty --
12 MR. ROSS: Not at all.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- or to ask it .
1 14 another way, would someone else have been assigned to that 15 duty if you had not?
16 MR. ROSS: No, no. If there was someone 17 guard ng the window all the time, we wouldn't have needed 18 a doorbell. That's why we nad the doorbell put in.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And he never told you 20 why he didn't like that doorbell to ring? Was it the 21 sound that he didn't like?
22 MR. .ROSS: He just said that he didn't like it 23 and that was that.
4 24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: .But he never gave a 25- reason why?-
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59 1 MR. ROSS: No.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you given that 3 assignment on a one time basis or was that to be --
4 MR. ROSS: No, when we went down and had the 5 meeting in John Halverson's office, that's when he gave me 6 that assignment. He said he wanted me just to, you know, 7 take care of the issue and not to mess with any of the 8 uncalibrated stuff, I could only work with the calibrated 9 stuff and once it went out of cal I would put it on the 10 back shelf.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DC_r.ERY: Okay. So what were 12 your duties to have been? I 13 MR. ROSS: Issuing of the equipment.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was that very time l 15 consuming?
16 ML ROSS: Well, define that more; what do you 17 mean by how much time you're talking about?
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'll ask it in a 19 different way.
20 would there be long periods of time when you l 21- were idle --
22 MR. ROSS: Yes.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- between --
'24- MR. ROSS: Yes --
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- between-passing out l
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60 1 equipment or receiving equipment?
~2 MR. ROSS: Yes, there could be. There would 3 be times where you would be issuing equipment for 15
'4' minutes straight and there would be times where you 5 wouldn't issue or receive something for an hour.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you expected to 7 do something in the interim; did you have other duties or 8 obligations when you weren't handing something out?
9 MR. ROSS: That was pretty much it. I mean, I 10 would do stuff. I wouldn't sit around the whole time, you 11 knov' I would clean or whatnot.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you expected to -
13 -
'let me ask it this way.
14 Did Mr. Halverson give you other assignments 15 other than just waiting by that window to distribute or l 16 receive equipment?
17 MR. ROSS: No, I don't believe so. That was 18 the main, what he would say, "Take care of that stuff up 19 there."
20 But I mean, I could clean and stuff, you know, j 21 clean up stuff or whatnot. l l
22- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Quoting again from 23 your DOL Complaint, "In early 1995, I advised Mr. Tom i
1 24 Johnson, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Senior Resident
'25 Inspector, at the Florida Power & Light Plant of these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .j
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61 1 problems including the falsification of calibration 2 records concerning pressure instrumentation."
3 ' MR . ROSS: Yes, 4' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How long -- when did 5 you first become aware of the falsification of the - ,
6 calibration data?
'7 Now, are we referring to the same thing, the 8 Heise --
9 MR. ROSS: Yes, we're talking about the same 10 thing. The' point at which I felt that it was not just we 11 didn't have the proper data sheet to the point of it's 100 12 percent'sure tha't it's the wrong way of doing it, those 13 happened at different times.
14 Obviously when I talked to the people, the 15 quality control people, the dial gauge person at Heise on 16 the telephone, I mean, I was 200 percent sure at that 17 point.
18 Initially back in '94, I was not, I had my own 19 feelings but I didn't have a solid procedure or whatnot to
-20 base those on. In fact, that's one of the things that-Tom l
'21 - Johnson had checked out because I. told him that I couldn't 22 find.a Heise' procedure but he went to document control and 23 they found it right away for him when he looked for it.
SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And what did he tell 25 you'was the outcome of his inquiry-into it?
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62 1 MR. ROSS: I didn't really get a feedback 2 until a later time because.it's not really something, you l 3 know, you wouldn't want to be seen talking, you know, 4 going to his office or whatnot.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you speak to him 6 person to person or was it over the telephone?
7 MR. ROSS: Telephone -- no, I definitely 8 wouldn't like walk down the hallway and walk into his 9 office, no way. No way would I be teen doing something 10 like that.
11 SPECIAL AGENT D CKERY: Did he ever -- well, 12 what did he relate to you that he found out as a result of 13 your bringing the matter up?
14 MR. ROSS: Well, I talked to him I believe 15 initially it was '94 and that was, the emphasis on that- )
16 was the harassment of being, you know, just called stupid 17 or whatnot, how frustrating it was not getting trained.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did Mr. Johnson 19 tell you at that time he felt you should do about that?
20 MR. ROSS: Either go to Speakout or talk to 21 -- Steve Franzone.
4 22 'SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Both of which you did?
23 MR. ROSS: I didn't go to Speakout. I was
- 24 afraid to go to Speakout because, you know, Speakout is
- 25. like another~one of-those not really confidential kind of NEAL' R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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63 1~ things because they will go and, you know, managers go and 2 look at everything after you do it.
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But you did go speak 4 to Mr. Franzone?
5 MR. ROSS: Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did Mr. Johnson ever- I 7 tell you one way or another that data was being falsified j 8 in his opinion, that you were right or you were mistaken?
9 MR. ROSS: As far as being able to find the i
10 Heise procedure, he said that I was wrong because he was 11 able to find out or when he went in there they found it 12 for him. !
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did the procedure, did 14 he say that the procedure definitely called for the upward 15 and downward readings?
16 MR. ROSS: I didn't get feedback from him.
I 17 You know, I knew that he had done an inspection and I 18 figured, well, if he's in there doing an inspection, _then 19 if they're still doing it wrong he's going to make them do l 20 it right or hopefully that-they're just doing it right by-21 now anyway. ,
l 22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Falsification of 23' certain data in the nuclear-context can be a violation of I I
24 NRC regulation. l 25 -MR. ROSS: I'm sure it would be a violation of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W. '
<+n% m .assi usaemurt?nu n r- ennu.Svn. ,***,***44,*=
64 l 1 something, yes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY:' But Tom never said 3 that he found any violations?
4 MR. ROSS: I don't believe that he did.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You felt strongly 6 about this falsification issue.
7 MR. ROSS: Yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you attempt to 9 take that to higher management?
10- I mean, it appears to me that you spoke to Mr.
11 Halverson about it.
12 MR. ROSS: Yes. ,
l I
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you go above Mr.
14 Halverson?
15 MR. ROSS: No, and the only thing that I --
16 well, when we were speaking to Halverson, it was my 17 conversation with Larry Sloan and Halverson was right 18 there and that was early enough in '94 where I was still 19 at the point where it was okay to believe that well, hey, l
20 you know, Halverson wants it done this way, Hal wants it 21 done this way, Sonny wants it done this way, so it must 22 have gone to QA or QC and been approved to do this way.
23 So I felt that it was just --
well, they 24 didn't, you know, take the time to make up another data 25 sheet yet. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. -
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65 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You testified just a 2 few moments ago you were careful to contact Tom Johnson of
- 3 the NRC by telephone.
4 MR. ROSS: Very, yes, in fact, the ones in '95' 5 I would call in sick. I mean, it was eating away at me so 6 I was pretty sick, but I called him from my home.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Then I would assume 8 then that you were successful in keeping those contacts 9 from your supervision cnc management?
10 MR. ROSS: Well, I tried to the best of my 11 ability because I knew it would be scary.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did any of them ever 13 say anything to you about " Don't contact the NRC," or "We 14 know you have contacted the NRC?"
15 MR. ROSS: No, they had not. But the way that 16 the attitudes had changed it bad made me feel that somehow 17 they knew something.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, it's certain 19 that Tom Johnson didn't mention you had contacted him.
20 MR. ROSS: Okay.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And you say you didn't 22 tell management that.you had contacted the NRC.
23- MR. ROSS: Right.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: All right, reading
-25 again from the complaint, " Shortly.after discussing Eagle NEAL R. GROSS CoORT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4 33 WASHINGTON O C 20005-3701. ' r70M 714431
66 l' 21 and~Hagan training discrimination and safety concerns
.2 with Steve Franzone, INC Department Head, the harassment 3 intensified."
I4 Pinpoint for me, if you will,. exactly when you 5 spoke to Steve Franzone.
6 MR. ROSS: September 13th, 1995, was the 7 second meeting. In that he asked, he told me'that it 8 looked like it had been written by an attorney and I told 9 him that my. dad was an attorney and my uncle and my 10 brother-in-law. I think I even told him I was the only 11 man in my family that wasn't an attorney. But I told him 12 that I had written it.
13' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me interrupt you.
14 Was he being complimentary that it was well written or was 15 he saying that in a threatening manner?
16 MR. ROSS: I guess you would have to ask him, 17 whatever, I don't want to - -
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did you take it?
19 MR. ROSS: I didn't really -- I guess I sort 20 of took it good, you know.
- 21. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, it could be
~ 22 complimentary.
. 23 MR. ROSS: It could be.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: This is a well written 4
25 document.-or-letter.
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67 1 'MR. ROSS: And so we discussed'it a little bit' 2 -- this.was our.second meeting -- and we determined that 3 it was, the distribution wasn't by seniority or time in 4 the shop or whatnot and I asked him, you know, "Where are 5 the procedures; isn't there a way that you decide who gets 6 training and who does not?"
7- And I pointed out -- now, in the written form, 87 I tried.to avoid saying any kind of safety stuff because I 9 didn't want to get in trouble and --
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What written --
'll MR. ROSS: In th2 written, in the' grievance --
12 I just talked about discrimination and training and 13 selection. And I used EEO in there saying --
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me interrupt you.
15 Have you got a copy of that grievance; is that the one we i
16 were --
17 MR. MCKEOWN: That's the one we were referring 18 to. I haven't found it yet.
19 SPECIAL AGENT 1DOCKERY: Okay. Could I request 20 that you provide it?
21l MR. MCKEOWN: You've got it once I find it.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Great.
23 MR. MCKEOWN:. I've got a ton of stuff.
24' MR. ROSS: There may actually be a couple of 25 forms'because we had a couple of meetings. We could have-NEAL R.' GROSS'
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68 l' revised it or whatever, but whatever we'll get you 2 everything.
3 SFECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: Was Mr. Franzone ;
4 receptive to this, to the grievance?
5 MR. ROSS: Well, he talked to me, but, no, he And in fact he told me that he didn't'
~
6' was not recepilve.
7 know if I could file an EEOC because I was White and he
~
8 would have to check on that.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was that the basis'for .
10 the grievance?
11 MR. ROSS- The casis for the grievance was'the 12 training. I was basically trying to find out, " Hey, what 13 do I have to do to get training," you know. Tom Johnson 14 said, " Hey, talk to Steve." People said, " Talk to Steve, 15 talk to Steve."
16 All right, so I wrote it out, you know, just 17 ; talking with him wouldn't do anything. So I went to this 1B extent.
19 And I tried to leave safety kind of stuff out 20 of it because I feared how that would be accepted or 21 recepted. And I-just wanted an answer to "What do I have 22 to do to be able to get some training?"
- 23. SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: What answer did you 24 get?
25 MR. ROSS: He said he didn't know and, you NEAL R. GROSS ~
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69 t:
1 know, he' started' searching for a reason, "Well, maybe it's 2 seniority," "Maybe it's time in the shop," "Maybe it's 3 this." And verballv I discussed, you know, reliability p 4 and safety.
I 5 And this is the safety concern that I have 6 with that is that if you have say a number of people that t 7 are available to do work and you take one person and train
- 8 them on Eagle 21 and Hagan and another person and don't 9 train them on anything and both Eagle 21 and a Hagan go i 10 down at the same time, then you have to decide, do I want ,
l 11 to fix Eagle 21 or do I want to fix Hagan.
1 12 But if you go'and fix -- excuse me -- if you 13 go and train one person on Eagle 21 and one person on 14 Hagan and both of them break at the same time --
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You don't have any --
, 16 MR. ROSS: -- you can fix both of them.
i 17 And he had actually agreed that that was, that 4
18 that was a reliability issue but he did not agree that it 19 was a safety issue. And I told him, "Well, these are 20 safety systems. We're talking about the reliability of
, 21 safety equipment, of course it's a safety concern."
l' 22 But he did not agree that it was a safety 23 concern.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Off the record.
25 (Off the record.)
- NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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l 70 ,
~
1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Back on the record. !
1 2 And-I need to remind you, Mr. Ross, that you !
1 1
.3 continue to be under-cath and I would ask you to l l
4 acknowledge that --
4 5 MR. ROSS: That's fine, yes.
c 6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: As a result of this 7 discussion that we referred to here between you and Mr. ,
j 8 Franzone, and I guess it was more than just a discussion,
- 9 if you gave him a copy of the grievance you had filed --
J 10 MR. ROSS: Yes, yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: This was when you
- 12 formally provided him with the grievance?
- 13 MR. ROSS
- Yes.
]
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is that a Union 15 procedure?
?
16 MR. ROSS: Yes, I was there with Hugh Thompson 17 and the first meeting was with Steve Franzone and Dennis 18 Gardner and the second one was just with Steve Franzone.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The one we are 20 specifically referring to here, that I quoted from the --
21 MR. ROSS: September 13th, 1995.
22 SPECIAL. AGENT DOCKERY: Was it just between i
23 you and Mr. Franzone?
. 24 MR. ROSS: And Hugh Thompson.
25- -SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: 'It would appear to me NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS
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71 I
.1- that since you had this discussion with Mr. Franzone, you 2F state that afterwards the harassment intensified.
4 3 MR. ROSS: .Yes.
)
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you think that that 5 was because of something Mr. Franzone did or said to ]
^
6 somebody else?
7 MR. ROSS: I can't imagine any other reason.
i 8 Something happened.
9 SPECIPL AGENT DOCKZRY: Did anybody tell you 10 that Mr. Franzone hau said something about your meeting or 11 filing the grievance?
12 MR. ROSS: The change in the atmosphere and 13 some of the things that Joe had said -- Joe did not come
- 14 to me and say, " Steve Franzone said this," but the 15 importance of bringing up the part about written by a 16 lawyer is that the next day Joe Myszkiewicz is coming up 17 to me asking me why my father is writing letters to the
'18 Company, which is not true. He never wrote a letter to 19 the Company.
l 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you ever complain 21 to anybody higher than Mr. Franzone about Mr. Franzone?
22 MR. ROSS: I don't know. I know that I talked 23 with a lot of people, trying to get the problem solved, I 24 mean, if I could, you know, do a hundred push-ups and the 25 problem would be solved, I would do it. But the, you
[
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4 -
-:%,y
72 l
1 know', what could I do to solve the problem. l l
'2- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is'it fair to say that i
~3 the time that you were seeking this specific INC training 4 you were also trying to obtain an ANPO position? l 5 MR. ROSS: Which time period are we talking l 6 about, '95?
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well --
8 MR. ROSS: Are we talking about Cal Lab or are 9 we talking about --
10 SPECIAL AGEN'" "OCKERY: You stated earlier 11 that it was sort of an ongoing application procedure for 12 ANPO positions. From when until your termination, when ;
13 did you start applying for the ANPO positions?
14 MR. ROSS: I think I probably applied for 15 whichever ones had classes that would open.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you know roughly 17 how many that would have been?
18 MR. ROSS: Maybe three -- yeah, maybe three, I 19 don't know, maybe four.
20 But I guess the juxe (sic) of this is you're 4
22 trying to say that hey, semebody that bids out or puts a 22 bid in doesn't get training or something and, you know, if 23- they came out with a procedure that said that, okay, well, 24 I guess I would have to accept that.
1 25 But I would like to point out that'I believe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
I 73 1 Dennis. Smith was over in Hagan training and he had bid out
- 2. and in fact he's one of the people on the cartoon there.
3 . Dennis'Gardner told him, " Hey, take the job, L
, 4- we're losing people, you don't want to-lose your job,
. 5 you'll have.a better chance of_ keeping your job over 6 there."
[ .
7 So Dennis _Gardner actually told Dennis Smith 8 to go ahead and take it. And they are --
?
9- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is Dennis Gardner?
10 MR. ROSS: He's a field supervisor.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'm going to read now, i
12 also from your Complaint, and this just carries on from 13- the statement that I read before. ;
14 MR. ROSS: Okay.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: "The harassment 1
16 intensified and now included cartoons of me being placed 1
17 on bulletin boards and in every drawer of my desk and in l 18 my locker." l 1
l 19 MR. ROSS: Yes. 1 l
20 SPECIA.. AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me about'that. l 21 MR. ROSS: Okay, well, this is all a pretty 22 intense period and -- he s looking for all kinds of things 23 so there might be some stuff in there. l l
24 MR. MCKEOWN: There's nothing in there.
25 MR..ROSS: 'Nothing in there.
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74 l' 'MR-. MCKEOWN: I just looked. 'You just answer j- 21 the question.- I'll take care of finding the documents.
3 MR. ROSS: Go ahead and read that statement 4 again.
5- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: This is, it started =
6 out shcrtly after discussing Eagle'21 and Hagan training 7 with Mr. Franzone, "The-harassment intensified and now 8 included cartoons'of me being placed on bulletin boards 9 and in every drawer of my desk and in my locker."
10- -MR. ROSS: Yes, that'a absolutely correct.
11 That meeting was on the 13th in the afternoon, which was a 12 Wednesday. Then on Thursday, the.14th, this cartoon came l
13 out, published around the shop. Mike Bridgeman asked Dan 14 Coleman if he could identify everybody that was on it and l
2 15 he looked at it and said, "Sure," and he said, I think it
]
16 was Joe Myszkiewicz or M-11, or sometimes they call him 17 the doctor, I think they said M-11 -- l 1
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What is M-11? I 19 MR. ROSS.: There's 11 letters in Myszkiewicz.
20 And then there was Dennis and Godfrey, and 21 Cousino, and then he looked to the left and looked to the 22 right, and said, "And fucking stupid," and he didn't l
23~ realize I was sitting in the chair right behind and then a l 24 couple of seconds later, I heard from the next row, some, 25 you know, " fucking stupid,." and things like that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. .
(202) 714.44ti . wawwnmu n c .9, mum ,,nss su.uss l
75 l' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who said it the first 2 time?
3 MR. ROSS: That was Dan Coleman.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Dan Coleman. Who is 5 the -- you've identified all.the individuals in the 6 cartoon with the. exception of the one in the --
- 7. MR. ROSS: That's Steve Franzone. Pizza Pizza
- 8 is Steve Franzone.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. I take it 10- that's a reference to hir being Italian.
11 MR. ROSS: Italian. And that was -- I think 12 that one was started by Tad Koshmeder. I had heard from,
- 13. maybe it was Cousino, that Tad had started the Pizza Pizza
. 14 thing.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Now, the individuals 16 clustered together here, the five individuals in the 17 cartoon, had all been selected for ANPO positions.
, 18 MR. ROSS: Right.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you know when that 20 training was supposed to begin?
21 MR. ROSS: October 31st.
22 _SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Of 1995?
i 23 MR. ROSS: Yes, I believe so. Is that a 24 Monday? I
. 1 25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't know. But it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.-
,,as, ,, , , , w u,n ew.unmu n ,- w ee $,a, ,,ae, ,,,,,,,
+
_. . . . . . _..~ _ _ _ . .._. _ - _. _ _ . . . . -.
76
=1 would have'been fairly.--.if this'came out on September A
- q. '2' the 13th or:14th,:the'beginning of training must have been 13 imminent. ]
- 4'- MR. ROSS: Yes. '
5- SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: Do you find this 6 cartoon to be anti-Semitic?
'7 MR. ROSS: ves.
8 .SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: .For what reason? #
9 MR. ROSS: Well, look at it. It's something 10 that makes everybody call me stuoid. j I
11 SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: No, no,'does it ,
1 12- disparage your religion in any way?
13 MR. ROSS: I didn't like it.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But on a religious 15 basis?
16 MR. ROSS: That's part of it, sure.
17 SPECIAL' AGENT-DOCKERY: The reason I ask is I l
18 don't see any religious significance to it other than the
]
1 19 --
i
.20 MR. ROSS: It --
21- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- that directly 22, I rela ~es to you.
23 MR.'ROSS: Well, havetyou ever watched.the
> 24 movie "The Ten Commandments," and Moses and the parting.of-425l the Red Sea -- see, well,.you're cut off here'a little' bit I i
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77 1 -- parting of:the Ian Sea and the Ten Commandments and
, '2- Joses instead of Moses. I mean, I didn't like it.
3 -
-Isn't that a --
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But do you think it portrays you individually in some anti-Semitic way?
5 6 MR. ROSS: 'Well, it's got me with a Yarmulke 7 on chasing butterflies. Why couldn't I be --
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is that meant to be a 9 Yarmulke?
10 MR. ROSS: Iri my pinion, it is.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOC.sdRY: Did you wear a l
12 Yarmulke to work? i 13 MR. ROSS: No. And there's someone in the 14 Eiblical story that was a traitor, so it's showing me as a 15 traitor, too.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: A traitor, T-R-A-I-T-17 O-R, traitor?
1 18 MR. ROSS: Yes, traitor. What was the one 19 that was loyal to the Egyptians? I forget his name. .
1 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't see how this 21 shows you in that light. 1 22 MR. ROSS: Well, it shows me going the other 23 way, going back to Steve, chasing butterflies, whatever.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was your desk or 25 locker broken into?-
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78 t
1 MR. ROSS: Yes.
- 2. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Forcibly, locks broken 3 or '--
4 MR. ROSS: It's not real hard to break into a 5 desk. They're not real secure. It was probably a little 6 harder to do in the law locker.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Wait a minute, but i 8 both had been locked?
l 9 MR. ROSS: Yes, I had the keys, you know, key 10 lock.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there physical 12 damage to the desk or the locker? !
13 MR. ROSS: Maybe, you know, a little bent. I 1
14 don't know. ;
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You mentioned what
- )
16 appeers to be a great number of these cartoons being 17 placed in various places. How many are we talking about? .
18 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, every drawer, I have i
19 a center drawer, and then three or four drawers over here 20 and my locker and the bulletin board and taped to my --
21 well, I had my rain jacket hanging over my chair so they 22 took my rain jacket and then taped one to the chair and e
23 then put the rain jacket over it.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who did you go to to 25 complain about these cartoons?
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79 1 MR. ROSS: Well, initially when it first came l 2 out, okay, early on the 14th it first came out and that 3 happened and after that people were either calling me 1 1
1 4 stupid or saying, "Oh, don't worry it."
l 1
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me stop you. I l 6 want to make cure I understand the --
7 MR. ROSS: On the morning of the 14th --
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And you had spoken to 9 Mr. Franzone the day before?
10 MR. ROSS: Yes. So the morning of the 14th, i l
l 11 the cartoon is out and all over the shop and it hadn't ,
1 12 been broken into my desk yet. That's later. l l
13 I made some notes, I believe, as to who was 14 around, what Dan said, what Mike Bridgeman said, and, you l
15 know, I just sat there. But people were either telling l
16 i1e , "Oh, don't worry about," or you would hear somebody l l
17 else saying, " Stupid" when they saw the cartoon. l 18 So I went as far as, you know, reporting or 19 talking to people about this. I went over to Dan Coleman, 1
20 by his desk, and stood there trying to think of, you know, l 21 what to say because it's scary -- if you say, " Don't call 22 me stupid" to these people, it will just make them want to 23 do it that much more, and I think the important thing was, .
l 24 you know, even a bigger thing to all of this is that the 1
25 humiliation done by management was worse than the name NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
- (1nts mmt waewunmu n ,- snnna. syne , sam as u A11
80 l 1
1 calling.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: See, that's something 3 I want to ask you, How was there any manager involved in 4 the-production or distribution circumstances of this 5 cartoon; can you identify any member of management with 6 it?
7 MR. ROSS: Well, no one knew that -- at that 8 point, no one knew that I had accepted that job and in 9 fact, Steve Franzone, I believe, on the 12th -- it was 10 either the 12th or the 13th -- but he had asked me, he had
- 1. asked me if I had accepted the . job and I didn't tell him.
12 Immediately when I got it, I signed it and slipped it 13 under Hugh Johnson's door, which was the operations 14 person. But I didn't tell Steve at that time.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, are these things 16 highly confidential or something?
17 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, you know, I wouldn't 18 consider it like a top national security secret, but at 19 that point on that day, I don't think other people in the 20 shop should have known whether I had accepted the job or 21 not.
22 Steve had asked me and I didn't tell him so he 23 said he would find out anyway. So I gueso he asked Hugh 24 or whatever. And prior to that cartoon coming out, he was 25 the only one that knew. I slid it under --
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81
'l SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -Did other people know 2 that you had been accepted, not that you had accepted the 3 position, but you had been, your' bid had been accepted for E4 the position?
5 MR. ROSS: Yeah, probably, yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, who drew the 7 cartoon?
8 MR. ROSS: Are you asking me if I saw it drawn 9 or do I know who drew it?
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Either.
.11 MR. ROSS: I did not see it drawn and it's 12 pretty much accepted that Joel Smith is the artist of the 13 shop.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he --
15 MR. ROSS: But I'm -- I guess I can't raise my 16 hand and swear to that that I've seen him do it all. But, 17 you know, you work in a place of 30 to 40 people for a few 18 years, and there is an artist of that caliber that does 19 weekly publications, I mean, you kind of know who it is.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Had he done other 21 cartoons?
22 MR. ROSS: Lots, yes.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And they looked 24 generally similar in-style to this --
25 MR. ROSS: Manny Mises had a stack of, a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS
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, 82 1 collection of his art work which was about this thick 2 (indicating), and this must be like an inch and.a half.
3- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So it's fair te asy, I 4 would think then, that just the very nature of it left you
. 5 with little doubt that it'was Joel Smith?
6 MR. ROSS: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Joel i
7 Smith but that's not really --
- 8 MR. MCKEOWN: Just answer the question.
9 MR. ROSS: Yes, yes, yes, I think it's Joel i 10 Smith.
11 SPECIAL AGEFT DOCKERf: Did you ever confront 12 Joel Smith about it?
13 MR. ROSS: I tried to.
4 14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did you try to?
'15 MR. ROSS: Well, we're skipping around a 16 little. It will make --
17 MR. MCKEOWN: He's asking the questions, just 18 answer the question.
) 19 MR. ROSS: I went up to Joel Smith and I asked
. 20 him if I could talk to him and he just walked away and I 21 waited for him to come back and I asked if I could talk to 22 him again and he'just walked away.
?
23 Then I went to Larry Fuhrman, my supervisor, 24- J.D. Williams, I believe, was his supervisor and asked if 25 I could talk with him or work with him'that day so that I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234 4433 weswtNGTON nc 7nnnutni ranm osa aa ,$
- . . - . .. .. . . . ~ .. . - . - . -.
83 1 could talk with him. -
l 2
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You just identified a. l 4 different supervisor then Halverson. Had you changed'--
1
~
5 MR. RO'SS: The time frame now, we are in 1995, !
6 and I was not in the calibration lab. I was in the l l
7 regular INC shop. I was still doing calibration work but 8 I was in the general population again. i 9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And your supervisor at 10 this time is -
1 11 MR. ROSS: I believe, Larry Fuhrman, yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How was your 13 relationship with him?
1 14 MR. ROSS: As far as what?
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Work relationship, did 16 you have any problems with him, was he giving you a hard 17 time or --
18 MR. ROSS: Well, initially they kind of opened 19- the flood gates on the stupidness, on calling me stupid, 20 you know, management would --
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, now that's 22 significant.
23 MR. ROSS: -- but at this point --
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That's important and.I 1 25 can certainly understand why it was very important to you.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE !$ LAND AVE., N W
84 I 1 MR. ROSS: Okay. ,
2' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But did you have any 3 job problems with Mr. Fuhrman,-any --
4- MR. ROSS: Did I make mistakes with things or i
-5 --
- 6, SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: No, was he concerned
- 7. about any issues you were raising with regard to safety or 8 health?
9 MR. ROSS: I guess we would really have to ask 10 him. I don't know.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you recall any i
12 confrontations between you and him or did he ever say 13 anything to you that, for instance, I would tell you at 14 this point the falsification of the Heise gauge data isn't 15 really in issue.
16 MR. ROSS: Well --
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me ask you, was 18 that ever an issue between you and he?
19 MR..ROSS: No, I don't think so.
$ 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Any other health or 21 safety concern that he --
22 MR.'ROSS: Well, I mean, the stupidness, being j 23 called' stupid was not good --
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But I'm trying to 25 focus-in on something here, r
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W
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. . . . . . - - . . . .- . . . . . . . ......- ~_ - --- . . . .
85 1 MR. ROSS: Okay.
4, 2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I agree with you, it's 1
3 not good, it's not good. But it's not contrary to any 4 regulation that the NRC has to uphold.
5 Was there anything regarding any regulatory
[ 6- health and safety issue that you were at odds with Mr.
-7 Fuhrman over?
8 MR. ROSS: Well, I went to Larry and asked him, you know, to try and talk with Joel and then I asked 9
l 10 him if I could go to Speakout I didn't really want to go 11 to Speakout, but I wanted to go either somewhere where I 12 could talk with someone privately or talk with the MRO or 13 the doctor over there.
1 I
I 14 I had a lot of absenteeism, so I felt I I l
l f-15 couldn't call in sick. But the MRO or a doctor or a nurse l l
i 16 could send we home and I would just s e.y , " Hey, look what's 1 17 going on here. This is unsafe. I'm signed and sealed and 18 convicted of getting Dennis Smith in trouble. Nobody will i 1
l 19 talk to me."
20 I don't know if I told them at that point I
21 about Joe talking about the IV's and that was very 22- significant.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there ever any
- - 24 technical issue, a hands on technical irsue, that you and 25 Mr. Fuhrman were at odds over, disagreed over?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVE., N W
..,..3............
i,
, 86
. 1 MR. ROSS: I can't say that I remember
- 2 anything'like that specifically, no.
~
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did the.other 4 individuals depicted in the cartoon make any complaints i
i 5 about it?
6 MR. ROSS: I don't know.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: To the extent --
8 MR. ROSS: Not to me.
9 SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: --
did you hear them, 10 hear anybody else take exception to it?
4
- 11 MR. ROSS
- No.
- 12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- Did you ask Larry 13 Fuhrman and Dennis Gardner to assign you to work with Joel
, 14 Smith cn September 15th?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes, I tried to talk with him and ,
16 he wouldn't talk with me cc I figured if we worked i 17 together he would have to talk to me.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He being Joel Smith.
, 19 MR. ROSS: Yes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did you say to i
21 Mr. Fuhrman and Mr. Gardner?
22 MR. ROSS: I asked if I could talk to Joel or ,
l
, 1
. 23 work with Joel.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you tell them why?
25 MR. ROSS: Well, I wanted to talk to him about i l
l NEAL R. GROSS l court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS !
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. l (202) 23M33 WASHINGTON O C 20005 3701 t?o?) ?u M11
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87 1.; the cartoons - I tried not -- I tried to say-as-little i 2 'about that as possible because I was'in trouble for-3 complaining about the cartoon so I'm trying not to 4 come7.ain about it, I'm trying to -- ,
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who were you in
.6 trouble with for complaining about the cartoon?
- 7. MR. ROSS: The. people in the shop, my co-8 Workers.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, when you say
-10 " trouble," there-is trouble with a superior and problems l I
11 withlyour co-workers.
12 ,
You were not in trouble -- l 13 MR. ROSS: Okay, so I was having problems --
14 okay.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: 'Well, you tell me. I 16 don't want to put words in your mouth, but I want to 17 understand.
18 MR. ROSS: I felt that I was in trouble --
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Nobody in management -
1 i
20 -
21 MR. ROSS: I felt that I was in trouble with-l' 22 my co-workers. .
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. Did you tell 24 Larry Fuhrman that you wanted to be assigned to work with 25- Joel Smith so that you could learn how to do cartoons?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS
- 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W
- ,$ ass ,$...., . . .. c u.. .c.+m . . . n enna , ,,e. ..... an. ..*g
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88 1 MR. ROSS: I don't remember the exact words or 2 whatever, but I did want to speak with Joel. I wanted to 3 talk to him about this and I wanted to ask him for his -
4 help to try and, you know --
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you ever make the 6 statement to Gardner that you wanted to be assigned to 7 Work with Smith because, "I'm afraid if I wait, I'll lose 8 the balls to do what I intend to do?"
9 MR. ROSS: I'm not sure if I said that.
SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was it you 10
.1 intended to do; what were you going to say to him?
12 MR. ROSS: I wanted to try and, you know, 13 settle the dust or calm things down because it was just so 1
14 incredibly hostile that day.
15 I had previously been given advice from the 1
16 EAP Program to maybe have like stupid awards, become like 17 the president of the stupid club and when people did ,
18 stupid things to give out stupid awards. So maybe I would 19 talk to him about that or --
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, I don't want to 21 Work with maybes here. What was your intent?
22 MR. ROSS: I guess to get advice and to try l
23 and see if there was something I could do to get back to a 24 better working environment, to get back to, you know, 25 where 'I didn't feel threatened and wasn't-getting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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89 1 threatened any more. -
d 2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Quoting again from 3 your DOL Complaint, "The next day I requested Larry
- 4 Fuhrman, supervisor, allow me to go to Speakout and he 5 refused saying we were too busy at the time."
6 MR. ROSS: Absolutely correct.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was it you wanted
~~
8 to speak out about --
9 MR. ROSS: .Actually I felt that it was just so 10 bad in there and being threatened and with the safety i 11 concerns --
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What threat had been 1
13 made?
14 MR. ROSS: Well, that's sort of why I wanted 15 to go chronologically instead of by the numbers there.
16 When I returned to the shop on the day of 17 publication, because I left the shop, okay, when I '
i 18 returned to the shop, Joe Myszkiewicz came up to -- I came 19 back to the shop, I went in and talked to the guys in the 20 Hagan room, and I believe they were talking about me and 21 J.D. Williams told Dennis Smith that he was probably going 22 to hear more about it and then all the guys just looked at 4
23 me and left. And I asked Dennis what was going on and he
'24 said he got caught for drawing cartoons or something.
l 25 And then I went back to my desk to fill out NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(707) 7MWii WARMWMmeJ ne 9mnown s r96H W W 11
9.
90 1- time tickets and when I grabbed for, right at that time 2 Joe Myszkiewicz was coming up, and he told me, you know, 3 "What is all this shit of your father writing letters to 4'- the Company, of you going to the VP to get people fired?
5 You've got to work with these people, they're good people, '
- 6. I've broken break with them - "
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is saying this 8 now?
9 MR. ROSS: Joe Myszkiewicz.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What position did he 11 hold at the time?
12 MR. ROSS: Ten Commandment holder and INC 13 Digital Specialist.
14 SPECIAL. AGENT DOCKERY: But he is not a 25 supervisor?
16 MR. ROSS: Well, he wears a white hat because 17 he's a Digital Specialist. Management has white hats and 18 other people have yellow hats. So with that much of it, 19 he's --
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What he's telling you 21 in this conversation is in the nature of advice, not --
22 MR. ROSS: Well, I haven't finished telling
~
23 you-what he said.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay.
25' MR. ROSS: And he goes, "What if the next time NEAL R. GROSS
. COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISI AND AVE., N W
,wn m . . . ,$ i . .. e u .. . - . . ma ----,.... . . . . - . . . . . -
1 91 I 1 you screw up an IV, do you want us to go your boss or do l l
1 2 you want us to go to you?" i
\
3 Well, I've worked there several years and have !
14 not, to that point, messed up an IV and reading between !
S the-lines I'm thinking that all of the sudden I'm going to .
l 1
6 start screwing up IV's or.something and to do that l
7 somebody would have to reposition valves on me, which is 8 certainly --
1 9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What's an IV? !
10 MR. ROSS: Independent verification of a valve )
11 position or a breaker position and something that is very l
12 important and very safety related -- so'for him to, even l
\
l 13 though he didn't blatantly say, "We're going to change l l
14 stuff on you," for him to say, "What if the next time," l 15 like this is going to happen to you tomorrow, that's a 16 very, very serious issue.
17 And he told me that everybody was upset with 18 me for going to management and when I told him I didn't, 19 that I didn't go to the vice president to get people ..
20 fired, he just got more upset with me because I was lying 21 to him, because he was. thoroughly convinced that Dennis 22 Smith got in trouble because I had.went_to the vice 23 president about this cartoon coming out.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But you had not?
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92 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is Dennis Smith 2 and what trouble did he get in?
3- MR. ROSS: I don't --
well, he got caught by 4- the new vice president, which was Mr. Hobie, I guess 4
. '5 sometime while I was out of the shop that day, because I
- -6 tried to stay out of the shop, and this, the best I can 7 figure is, we're in an outage, we've got all these extra
- 8 temporary employees, we're trying to get this thing back i
i 9 on line as quick as possible and here he is, he gets 10 caught, you know,. screwing off, wasting time, drawing 11 cartoons --
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You mean he just l
. I 13 wasn't working?
14 MR. ROSS: Right, he was drawing something or 15 doodling something.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You said Dennis Smith.
17 I th,ught --
18 MR. ROSS: Right.
$ 19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- we were talking 20 about Joel Smith.
4 21 MR. ROSS: There's a Joel Smith and there's a 22 Dennis Smith and both of them are artists, but Joel Smith'
' 23 is the main artist. This is Joel's work. Dennis Smith
- 24. works in the Hagan room.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did Dennis --
NEA'L R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. . .
, e su.4,$$ ma ewur.mu n e $nnee.... ...., ,, ,,,,
s 93
.1 MR. ROSS: They are not related.
- 2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- create a cartoon?
3 MR. ROSS: He got caught doodling by the vice 4 president and wasting time so --
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did it have anything 6 to do with his doodling, having anything to do with you?
7 MR. ROSS: I don't know but I know -- well, it ,
^
i 8 got him in trouble andfNEEEN I guess. That --
9 9PECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't get the 10 connection. Dennis Smith is doodling, he gets caught --
11 MR. ROSS: I don - get the connection either 12 but Joe Myszkiewicz comes up to me and he is blaming me 13 for Dennis getting in trouble. I.was out in the plant 14 working that day. I had --
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did Joe 16 Myszkiewicz make that connection?
17 MR. ROSS: Well, because this cartoon came out 18 in the morning, everybody is calling me stupid, they know ,
1 l
19 I don't like to be called stupid, my desk is broken into.
20 I mean, when cartoons come out, they don't usually break l 21 into people's desks and lockers and put them in every 22 drawer. That's unusual to have that much of an extent. l
.23 So'you're going to have to ask Dennis Smith 24 and Joe Myszkiewicz about the connection because I feel 25 there should not be any connection, but that must have I
NEAL R. GROSS /
court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS e, 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. 7(~ ,fhy/
(202) 234 4 33 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
~ . .
94 l' came'from management.
-2 'The part about-"Why is your father writing l
3 letters'to the company," that had to have.come.from Steve l
.4 Franzone. I have worked there-six or.seven years --
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, but people are 6 allowed to talk to people. I mean, I talk to my 7 supervisors, they talk to other people about'me. That's 8 the nature of work.
9 MR. ROSS: Okay.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I-don't understand --
11 MR. ROSS: But if it caused harassment of me--
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did any manager, did 13 any supervisor or any manager to your knowledge ever call 14 these people together who were harassing and say, "Stop 15 it?" j 16 Did any manager ever try to put an end to this 17 harassment or the hostility?
18 MR. ROSS: I believe they did after this 19 point. The day that they decided to get rid of me.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What --
21 MR. ROSS: But they never, never, ever said, 22 "All right, we're going to give you the chance of 23 training." And that was even a bigger issue.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, I'm looking at 25- two separate. issues.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
.-- .. . - . . - . . - . . = . . . , - . - .-. -- - -
95 1 MR. ROSS: .Okay.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: To your knowledge, did 3 they ever, were.the individuals who were_ responsible for f4 harassing you ever instructed by management to stop?
5 MR. ROSS: Not in my presence.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you have any reason 7 to believe that outside of your presence -- did you 'ever 8 hear anything that led you to believe that management took 9 some step to abate this harassment and hostility?
10 MR. ROSS: I think Hugh Thompson told me that ,
- 11 they did something, that they told people to stop. ]
j' )
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Ari Hugh Thompson was
-13 a --
14 MR..ROSS: A Union steward.
I 15 MR. MCKEOWN: Do you have a time frame of when 16 he told you that?
17 MR. ROSS: It was probably the day that they
- 18. pulled my access or right around this time.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The timing is 20 important because if there was some conspiracy to get rid 21 of you, there is no need to call them all together and 22 - say, " Lay off this guy" because_at that point you were
- 23. already gone. i 24 MR. ROSS: Well, no, not after I was gone.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I thought I understood i.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W.
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96 l
1- that's what you just said. I l
4 2 MR. ROSS: Well, no about -- I didn't -- well,
.3- they didn't pull my badge till the end of the day. It was 4 either that day or the day before. You could ask Hugh 5 Thompson, that would be a good question for him. l 6 MR. MCKEOWN: I think you're missing 7 something, and I hate to interrupt. The question was --
U you keep going for some reason bsck to the wrong question 9 -- the. question is, prior to this time, when you were 10 working there and you reported to Franzone or whoever that j 11 you were' tired of people calling you stupid, the question
- 12 he asked you was did at any time did anybody from 13 management to your knowledge go to your co-employees and I l 14 say, "Stop calling him stupid " l l
15 MR. ROSS: Not that I'm -- no. i l
16 MR. MCKEOWN: That was the question.
17 MR. ROSS: No. j 18 MR. MCKEOWN: Okay. So the first time that !
19 you knew about it or the first time that you heard about 20 it was the day before your access was pulled?
21 MR. ROSS: Yes, it was either that day or the
- L 22 actual day of it. And I didn't hear about it until later.
23 I wasn't in any of these meetings.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did you hear?
-25 MR. ROSS: That they got the people together 1- NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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97
' 1. and said, " Don't call him stupid or you'11 get fired,".or 2 something'or whatnot. And that probably, you know, made
.3 people more upset, more so than anything else.
4 SPECIAL-AGENT DOCKERY: When you asked Fuhrman 5 to, allow you to go to-Speakout, did you think he was i
6 attempting to prevent you from going to Speakout?
7 MR. ROSS: Well, he said, " Don't go, we'.re.too 8 busy right now." l l
l 9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you busy?
i 10 MR. 'ROSS: Well, we had stuff to do. I mean, . l 11 I was still in the shop. I hadn't left the shop yet.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was this an outage?
13 MR.'ROSS: Yes, it was. l l
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Outages are 1 15 traditionally rather busy?
16 MR. ROSS: Yes.
17 -SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he in any way 18 threaten you that, "If you go to speakout, there's going
- 19 to be trouble?"
20' MR. ROSS: No, he didn't say that.
Did you make a comment
'21 SPECIAL AGENT-DOCKERY:
22 about an Uzie machine gun?
- 23. MR. ROSS: Yes.
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: To who?
l 2 5 MR..ROSS: To -- it was in between talking to- l l
- NEAL R. GROSS-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
. -(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON OC 7tXXW3701 (707) 23m33
98 l' Joe, Joe Myszkiewicz, and Leo Capera.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In between?
3 MR. ROSS: Well, Joe was walking away and Leo 4 was walking up.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did you say?
i 6 MR. ROSS: I said, "I feel like buying an 7 Uzie."
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How did they respond?
9 MR. ROSS: Well, Joe said, "No need for 10 comments like that," or something like that. And I don't
-11 think Leo said anything, he was really selling some kind 4
12 of hand gun, maybe a clog (phonetic) or something. I'm
$ 13 not really sure what he was selling. He wasn't selling an 14 --
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me as much detail
-16 about that conversation, start from the beginning. .
I 17 MR. ROSS: All right, well, this was right !
- 18 after I was coming out of the Hagan room and I was going 19 to my desk to fill out my time ticket because it was the l
20 end of the day. And Joe Myszkiewicz comes up to and, you 4
21 know, this is the same one I was talking about before, you 22 know, "Why are you trying to get people fired? The stuff 23 that happened to you had nothing to do with-them." He 1
~24 didn't mention any names. "This shit of you going-to the l 1
i VP to get people fired - "
NEAL R. GROSS '
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y 99 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was this a heated l 2 discussion? l 3 MR. ROSS: Well, he was pretty heated, yes. j 4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was it threatening to l 5 you?
6 MR. ROSS: Very much so, if somebody says, !
7 starts talking about IV's, very much so. That's bad for l 8 somebody to start saying stuff about IV's like that.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, but I want to 10 make sure I understand here.
11 MR. ROSS: Yes, I felt very threatened.
l 12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You testified earlier 13 that he was a colleague, he was not a supervisor.
14 MR. RCSS: That's correct. He was INC Digital 15 Supervisor -- I'm sorry, an INC Digital Specialist.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCF.ERY: Go on.
17 MR. ROSS: So he is telling me, "All this shit 18 of your father writing letters to the Company," which the 19 day before Steve Franzone had been commenting about, "The 20 stuff about you going to the vice president to get people 21 fired, you've got to work with these people, they're good 22 people, I've broken bread with these people, you've just 23 to laugh off the cartoons, and so what," and he started 24 talking about 25 And at this point, I'm thinking, you know.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORT 2RS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1321 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W
1 100 1 maybe he was trying to help me because I had started the 2 a 3 cartoon came out of him with an Uzie and then Leo comes up 4 with the gun sale or the gun raffle.
5 And, you know, I was just so happy that Joe 6 was leaving me alone and I'm trying to do my time ticket, 7 it was the end. I'm opening my desk, "Oh, my God," now 8 I'm realizing, I guess -- you know, it was stressful 9 because I realized at that point my career was over when 10 he was getting so angry with me and I realized that I 11 probably couldn't work with these people any more and they 12 were no longer willing to work with me.
l 13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Theoretically you I 14 weren't going to be working with them any more; isn't that 15 correct? ,
16 MR. ROSS: No, that is not. It's the same 17 plant. All these people would have bee'n going to 18 operations with me and I was still going to have to finish 19 out the outage. And I still could have changed my mind to 20 stay in INC.
21 If I would have been allowed to get training 22 and stuff, I probably would have stayed in INC. One of 23 the main things of leaving INC was that, you know, there 24 was nothing I could do to get training, to get 25 certifications, to get qualifications.
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101 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And that was because I 2 of.your insistence that the procedure regarding the 3 calibration of the Heise gauge was incorrect?
4 MR. ROSS: Yes, that was -- as far as all of 5 the stuff in the Cal Lab, yes, I feel that way, yes. l l
l 6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Tell me, the events 7 that we've been talking about and the comment about the 1
8 Uzie machine gun was on the 15th of September?
9 MR. ROSS: That was on the end of the day that j 10 this came out. So that would have been the 14th. This -i l
11 came out on the 14th. l l
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What happened next?
13 MR. ROSS: I filled out my time ticket and 14 vent home.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And the following day?
16 MR. ROSS: We start at 7:00 o' clock. We were 17 a couple of minutes early, Richard Stripling approached 18 me, INC Digital Specialist, Union steward, he said, 19 "What's all this about you going to the vice president,"
20 or "H.R. .to get people fired? Is this true?"
21 I told him that it wasn't and I.wasn't trying
-22 to get anybody fired.
23- He said we should nip this in the bud and then 24 he-walked away and then Hugh Thompson came up and 25 basically had the same questions, wanted to find out if I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 MoOE ISLAND AVE., N W. .,
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
102 1 was trying to get people fired.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In what context were 3 they asking you this, as Union stewards or as co-workers?
4 MR. ROSS: As co-workers. I mean, I don't 5 know, I guess you would have to ask them that, you know, 6 how they meant something.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: This was on the 15th.
8 MR. ROSS: This -- yes, now we're on the 15th, 9 the morning of the 15th.
10- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What else happened?
11 Takt me through that day.
12 MR. ROSS: That day? Well, pretty miserable.
13 No one would talk to me. If I would walk up 14 to someone, they would just walk away. So, you know, I ,
i 15 mean, there was no working relationship with anyone there !
16 and that was, you know, so I figured I better take Joe's i
advice, some of his advice, warnings, or whatever you want l 17 ,
18 to call it, from the day before because he said, you know, ,
I s
(
19 obviously when ;he had a lot of harassment
)
20 and when he had a problem with somebody harassing him, he !
21 went to the person and he went to his supervisor and the l l
22 .
person's supervisor.
I 23 So that's what I did. I tried to go talk to I
24 Joel and I tried a couple of times to talk to Joel. He 25 wouldn't e.ven acknowledge me. I said hello. He wouldn't ,
J NEAL R. GROSS :
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ff 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W. /jgp onn n w u wamuc. inn n c 2nnnwns / <2o2 23m33
7 .
103
-1 even say hello. I mean, other times he would say hello.
~
2 He would walk away, come back to his desk, I would say 3 hello and try to talk to him again, ask if I can talk to 4 him, ask if we could go to the lunchroom for a couple of 5 minutes, and he just walked away.
6 So then I had to go and ask Larry Fuhrman and
- 7 J.D. Williams and they said no and I went up the' chain a e
F 8 little bit, as high as Dennis, and then asked to talk to 9 Steve also. And somewhere in'there was that I wanted to 10 go to Speakout and Larry Fuhrman told me we were too busy.
11 But I hadn't been given a job yet that day.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did anything else of l
13 significance happen that_ day?
14 Again, we're referring to the 15th.
15 MR. ROSS: I believe that that's the day I was
.6 instructed to violate a foreign material exclusion 17 procedure by Sonny Arishiro and John Halverson, i 18 I was doing an oil pressure gauge on an 19 emergency' diesel air comprcasor, I believe, and you do not
.20 like to cross-contaminate equipment, and this is something 21 there will be records of and you'll be able to verify this 22 just by pulling stuff --
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But I don't think it's 24: anything that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ,
25 regulatory authority over.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W
. im m u n u.a cuis.ema, ne awe a.
. - - ~ ..J--~- - - - - , . , , , , , , . , , , ,
4, _ _
. .. _ . . . _ _ . - . ._ _ ~ __ .. ..__ _
104 1 MR. ROSS: If they're violating a procedure 2 down there?
3 SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: Well, some procedures 4 we don't enforce, we have no standing to enforce.
S' MR. ROSS: Is an emergency diesel generator a 6 piece of safety equipment?
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In certain 8 circumstances it isn't, strangely enough. I would have to 9 get a technical opinion on that. I can't say.
10 MR. ROSS: Okay, well, I can tell'you about il it, if you want to exclude i., you can exclude it, if you 12 want to --
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Go ahead, start at the 14 beginning.
15 MR. ROSS: So I had to go do this oil pressure 16 gauge on this air compressor. So I got the procedure and 17 I went to get the gauge. Now, in a period previous to 18 this, we had been instructed, given new instructions that 19 we had to use temperature compensated gauges on any tech-20 spec proceuure or reading. And I didn't really feel that 21 this was a_ tech spec type of reading, but the procedure 22- said, "This is to meet a tech spec."
23 So I.took'the' work package and the procedure 24 to the window, the INC calibration lab issue window, to 25 get a test gauge.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR18ERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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105 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me stop you here 2- for just a second. Have you ever given this as an 3 allegation to the technical side of the NRC?
4 MR. ROSS: I'm not sure if I've -- I don't 5 think I've given this one. But the way you just asked the 6 question, it reminded me about.it.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, go ahead and -- q 8 because if they have not been, if this has not been 9' brought up as an allegation, I'm going to need to refer it 10 to our technical people, so make it as detailed as. ;
-11 possible.
l 12 MR. ROSS: Okay, all right. I may have done 13 this verbally, but I'm pretty sure I have not-done this
.14 one in writing.
15 Okay, so I go to the window and I ask for a 16 gauge, a 30 pound gauge. So one of the employees brings 17 one, who.is like a temporary employee or something. And I 18 looked at it and it was not a temperature compensated 19 gauge. It was an oil gauge, but it was not a temperature 20 compensated oil gauge.
21 So I asked them about it and they went to the 22 back and they got Sonny Arishiro, who came up, and we 23 talked a little bit and I said, "Well, do you want to give !
.l 12 4 me the gauge or not?"
L25 And he said, "Okay." So he got a piece of' red NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE.. N W -
' ' ' ~ ' ' ' ' "
_ _ J.71f_7'" ~! T .
106 t
1 tape. Now, red tape is what is used to signify an oil 2 gauge, something that is okay on oil systems and he put
, 3 the tape on it and therefore made that water gauge into an 4 oil gauge, which was okay for me now to go out and use it
- 5 on an oil system.
! 6 Then at the end, I brought it back and 7 finished that job or whatever, Sonny Arishiro told me that 4
8 I should have used a drain rig on it so that I wouldn't
- 9 have had to have used an oil gauge, because it's like l 10 $1,200.00 for one of these gauges, i 11 And then John Halverson told me that I should 12 have used a drain rig and then I went back to the shop and 13 Sonny Arishiro was talking to Larry Fuhrman, telling him 14 this, and on that Larry sort of stood up for me on that 15 one because, I mean, that's ridiculous. We are told that 16 you've got oil gauges and you've got water gauges or air i
17 gauges. You won't take something where you've pumped it la up with oil and then go put it on a system that's on a l
19 very clean steam system or oil system. In fact, that a
20 could be a million dollar mistake.
. 21 There was a time when someone was checking --
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. We don't need 23 to get into that. _I've missed this here.
24 Who did the wrong thing there?
25 MR. ROSS: Sonny Arishiro and John Halvercen NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N/#.
(202) 234-4433 ' WASHINGTON O C 2000$3701 't?nSi 7 h ii
107 1 by telling-me that I should.have used a water gauge on oil !
2 application and then they checked the gauge and totk the 3 tape off and returned it to a water gauge status. And 4- there.are written requirements for material exclusion and L
5 I celieve even an order, a day order, or something, 6 specifically you don't use' cross-contamination type of 7 equipment, you don't use something on salt water or oil-or 8 whatnot and then go use it on the primary system and let
'9 all of that get into the reactor.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you raise this as 11' a concern with anybody?
12 MR. ROSS: I'm raising it now, but, no, I 13 don't think I have' previous and that day, you know, I was 14- in so much trouble nobody would talk to me. I was just 15 hoping that things would calm down eventually.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So, as I see it, the i
17 fact that they allowed you.to use it as an oil gauge --
18 MR. ROSS: Was not a problem because they put 19 the red tape on it.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But then when you
-21 brought it back, they took'the red tape off and put it. i
'22' back on the shelf as a water gauge.
-23 MR. ROSS: Right. .Once it's an oil-gauge, 24- it's an oil gauge. And when they told me that I should 25 have used a water gauge on an oil application,-that is a s I NEAL R. GROSS I
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. . ~ . .,, . . . ,
108 -
1 problem, too.
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, it's a problem 3 from my standpoint in that Sonny Arishiro was the one who 4 told you to use it; isn't that what you said?
5 MR. ROSS: Yes. Well, he complained about it I 6 initially, but then he gave it to me and told me about it, 7 like you say, and then when I brought it back he said I 8 shouldn't have done it but I asked him about it. So 9 you're absolutely correct, you know, how am I getting into 10 trouble for doing what you told me to do.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That took place on the ,
1 12 15th. Is there anything else of significance on the 15th?
l 13 MR. ROSS: Well, pretty much that nobody would !
14 talk to me. If I would walk up to somebody, they would !
15 walk away and, you know, I mean, there was cartoons all
. 16 over my desk and whatnot.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So you finished out 18 your work day and went home on the 15th?
19 MR. ROSS: Yes.
4 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The next day is
.21 September 16th. What happened on that day? ;
1 1
22 MR. ROSS: Pretty much the same thing. You ;
.23 know,. nobody would talk to me or socialize with me because L 24 they were mad because they felt that Dennis Smith got in 25 trouble because of something I did.
NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS l 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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0 109
- 1. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did somebody tell you 2 that or are you referring back to --
3 MR. ROSS: Joe Myszkiewicz did.
2 4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, that 4
5 conversation with Joe Myszkiewicz is the relationship you l 6 draw.
I. 7 MR'. ROSS: And. Dennis Smith did.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When you say Dennis 9 Smith did, do you mean Dennis Smith said something to you 10 about --
11 MR. ROSS: Yes, chat everybody felt that I was 12 responsible, that I went to the vice president to get 13 people fired.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Where did they get
- 15 that, the vice president?
4 16 MR. ROSS: You would have to ask them. They
~
17 certainly didn't get it from me. They certainly --
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was there any contact 19 you had with the vice president --
who were they referring 20 to as the vice president?
21 MR. ROSS: Well, we had two of them at the 22 time because we'were in-a transition. One would be Tom 23 Plunkett, who is now the president of the Nuclear i 24 Division, and the other one.would be Mr. Hobie, who is a
- 25 new vice' president. .
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPOR1TRS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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l 110 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: At some point in the 2 past, you had gone to Mr. Plunkett, hadn't you?
3 MR. ROSS: Yes, I had. j 4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was that general 5 knowledge?
6' MR. ROSS: I believe people knew about it, 7- yes, yes, because I went up there, I wished it had been a confidential, but I went up there and by the time I got 9 back to the shop people knew it.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: If you come to me as a 11 mana3er and say, "These people are giving me trouble," I'm 12 going to make the assumption that you would like me to do 13 something about it.
14 How can I.do anything about it without letting 15 those individuals.know what the complaint is? Do you 16 agrea with that?
17 MR. ROSS: That makes partial sense. But one 18 of the main things of the problem is that when management 19 treats you in a humiliating way, it's hard for your peers 20 to respect you.
- 21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- Who in management i
22 humiliated you?
23- MR. ROSS: John Halverson, Larry Fuhrman, and 24 Howie Crouch, but John Halverson in a big way and really 25 since John Halverson just does whatever Hal Blehm tells NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
i (202) 234 4 33- WAc:wmarny n e ,nnnwn, ,,nm sum,$
5 111
- 1 him to, Hal Blehm --
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But Hal Blehm is --
3 MR. ROSS: Right, he's not officially in 4 management. But John Halverson does whatever Hal Blehm 5 tells him to.
- 6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- The individuals that 7 you just mentioned that I believe you said humiliated you, was it because of your concerns about the way the Heise 8
9 gauges were being calibrated? l 10 MR. ROSS: That would be definitely for John .
1 i
11 Halverson and Hal Blehm and probably Sonny Arishiro, too. ;
a 12 But Hal Blehm and Sonny Arishiro are INC Specialists, l 4
13 they're not officially supervisors.
) 14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: We got to September 15 the 16th. What else happened that day?
1 16 MR. ROSS: Well, September the 16th, I came 17 in, went to work. I believe that day I worked on a pre-18 heater, a pneumatic pre-heater in t?.a control room. I l l 19 went to -- let's see -- yes, started on that, pretty.much 20 worked on that, and then I was called in. At the end of 21 the day, Howie Crouch told me to go back to the shop or l 22 back to the vice president's conference room.
23 And that's when they pulled my badge.
24 SPECIAL AGENT'DOCKERY: What was said and what 25 was done.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., kW.
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1 l
112 1 MR. ROSS: Well, I tried to put the stuff back 2 together, but Howie said just don't worry about it. ll 3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But let's get into the 4 meeting room.
5 MR. ROSS: .Oh, okay.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who was there?
7 MR. ROSS: Security, Steve Franzone --
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who from security?
9 MR. ROSS: I thought it was Mr. Quinn, but I 10 think maybe it was Mr. Fritze or something.
11 MR. MCKEONN: It was Fritze. .
12 MR. ROSS: Okay. Bob Marshall, myself, I 13 think it was Hugh Thompson and Johnny Randles.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The last two you i
15 mentioned, Randles and --
16 MR. ROSS: Thompson --
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: --
Thompson, were ,
18 Union representatives; is that correct?
l 19 MR. ROSS: That is correct. l 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Stewards? l
- 21. MR. ROSS: Stewards.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So in as much detail 23 as possible, what happened in that meeting? ,
l
- f. -24 MR. ROSS: Well, they offered me a Coke, that
'25' was-nice. We sat down. Steve Franzone said, "
Well, we'll' l l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE N W.
.. --,y w
113 1 get straight to the point," or something to that effect.
2 "We're pulling your badge."
3 And I said, "Why?" and they didn't tell me. I
'4 asked if I could call an attorney or my dad and, wanted to A
5 either call Frank rigl4 here or my dad, and they said, d
6 "No, not right now."
7 But I think Bob Marshall gave me a card, you 8 know, his card at the time.
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Bob Marshall was the 10 head of --
11 MR. ROSS: Human Resources. I i
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He gave you his card?
13 For what purpose?
14 MR. ROSS: Well, I guess if I wanted to, I 15 don't know, be able to call him or whatever because, I 16 mean, I was about to be taken off the site.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is doing the 18 talking in this meeting?
19 MR. ROSS: Well, anybody that wanted to talk.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who is leading the 21 meeting?
22 MR. ROSS: I' guess Steve Franzone.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who told you that your 24 access was being pulled?
2S MR. ROSS: Steve Franzone. And, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS j 1323 rho 0E ISLAND AVE., N W.
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114 1 immediately --
-2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: For what stated
-3 reason?-
4 4 MR. ROSS: That's my question, too.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So they said, "We're 6 taking your access,a but.gave you no reason?
7 MR. ROSS: -That'is correct.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you ask? l 9 MR. ROSS: Several times.
10 SPECIAL AGENT MOCKERY: They would not tell l
11 you why?-
12 MR. ROSS: Johnny Randles asked, Hugh Thompson -
13 asked, and they wouldn't tell me.
14 They said I needed to go to talk with Louis l
l 15 Rodriguez, who is the EAP guy.
I 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He's a doctor, I 17 believe, right?
18 MR. ROSS: Yes, he's a psychologist or .
19 something like that, EAP guy.
20 Then Mr. Fritze asked me some questions and he 21 asked me about knives or guns. He asked me about if I had 22 any knives and I said, " Yeah, lots of!them, a whole drawer 23 at home." And I think I pulled my leatherman out -- they 24 give leatherman's out as safety awards --
25 SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: Leatherman is a knife?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS
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7 l
I 115 <
I 1 MR. ROSS: Well, yes, it's a knife. The l 2 safety department gives those out.
1 1
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Why was he asking.
4 about' knives? l l
5 MR. ROSS: I didn't know at the time, but I j 6 was-just answering his questions.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Precisely what did he 8 ask you?
9 MR. ROSS: "Do you have any knives or guns?"
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he mean on you or 11 --
12 MR. ROSS: I don't know what he meant. I told 13 him I had a bunch in the kitchen at home and I've got one 14 in my pocket.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he want you to 16 give him the knife in your pocket?
17 MR. ROSS: No, no.
le SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, go on.
19 MR. ROSS: And I --
they, you know, asked
- 20. about guns and he asked questions if I threatened people 21 and.I said, "No." And Steve Franzone asked if I felt 22 threatened and I said, "Yes, definitely felt threatened."
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Physically?
24 MR. ROSS: Totally, totally threatened. I-25' mean, the way things were going --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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116 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you feel that ,
2 somebody was going to hurt you?
i
'3 MR. ROSS: (No response.)
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: That's pretty much a
]
5 yes or no.
6 MR. ROSS: Well, I know it's a yes or no 7 question, but all I.could say is maybe. I wasn't really l
2 8 sure about a lot of stuff. I wish people had explained i
j 9 stuff better to me.
10- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKFC'f: Now this is the l 11 gentleman from security who is asking you these questions?
12 MR. ROSS: Yes, well Steve Franzone asked me i
- 13 if I felt threatened and I told him yes. And that was all ,
! 14 as far as that.
i 4
15 Then, you know, I told them that I filed some j i
d 16 gricvances and then, you know, all this harassment l 17 happens, every drawer in my desk is broken into, and, you 18 know, here I'm losing my job or whatever.
t 19 I know I asked them if they would investigate l
20 the break in of my desk, if they would fingerprint and I i
21 think Bob Marshall said it wouldn't matter because they !
l 22 had been all over the shop and the security guy said, i
23 "Well, I don't know how to do that " l 24 And I said, "Well, can you call the police or j
-25' somebody off site?" And they said they couldn't do that.
l NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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117 1 At that point, I mean, I felt really terrible 2 at that point because I'm saying, you know, here is j- 3 supposed to be the head of Human Resources for a nuclear 4 plant, my department head, and somebody who is fairly 4 5 important in the security organization, you know, telling
- 6 me that we're not even going to investigate this ,
l 7 harassment. I mean, this is pretty bad. Somebody breaks 8 into your desk, shoves these cartoons-into every drawer, i
9 and they don't even want to find out who did this.
10 So I felt that this is, you know, like a cover 11 up or something and that, yea know, that was really, I 12 guess, changed my attitude anu made it even worse.
13 They totally refused to even, you know, listen
- 14 to anything that I wanted to say and then I think we broke 15 the meeting for a minute or so but I'm not sure. And then
! 16 we continued on and they asked me some more questions, u
17 basically the same questions. I think they said could 18 anyone ever have felt that something that you said might s
i 19 have been something or other or might have been 20 threatening or whatnot because I mean I didn't threaten 4
- 21 anybody.
1 22 But then it made me think they may have been 123 l talking about Joe and Leo -- I think I just said Joe --
24' and I told them that I said I felt like buying an Uzie or 25 something like that.
HNEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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d 4
118
.1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So you acknowledged 2 making some sort of a statement about an Uzie?
3 MR. ROSS: Yes, yes, something like buying an 3
- 4 Uzie or wanting to buy an U2ie or whatnot.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What happened next?
6 MR. ROSS: I'm trying to think if there were i
7 any more questions asked, if I did anything else or asked 8 if I, you know, threatened anybody and I said no --
1
- 9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- Did you get any --
10 MR. ROSS: -- I'm not sure if he asked that 11 quecion.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: As this was happening, i
13 were you receiving any advice or input from the two Union 14 representatives?
]
15 MR. ROSS: Well, I was receiving advice from
- 16 the security guy and --
l 17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What kind of advice >
4 18 was he giving?
19- MR. ROSS: Well, he said I couldn't leave 20 until I answered the questions.
21 See, if this meeting had been like in the 22 Bechtel building, outside the protected area, I could have 23 just, you know, walked up and left or whatever, but I 24 couldn't do that there because they said my access was 25 pulled so it was my. responsibility and probably even an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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, - . ~ . _ . - _ . . . - . . . . - _.
119 1 NRC requirement that I could not, no longer get up and 2 walk out. So I guess in effect I was effectively under j 3 arrest or something. So he wouldn't let me leave until I ;
~l 4 answered them.
5 And I wasn't allowed to call Mr. McKeown and I 6 wasn't allowed to call my dad.
7 SPECIAL AGENT.DOCKERY: How did it end then?
8 Did anything else of significance occur?
9 MR. ROSS: Well, everybody asked why or what 10 or, you know, who said what or why are we doing this and I ;
1 11 again said, "I filed some grievances and all this stuff i
12 goes on - " l 13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So at some point did 14 they tell you why yeer access was being pulled?
1
, 15 MR. ROSS: No, they never told me that.
1
- 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did they levy any l l
17 requirements on you to get your access back?
18 MR. ROSS: They just said go see, and I have i
, 19 to make an appointment with Louis Rodriguez.
O
! 20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did anybody use the 1
21 tena " fitness for duty?"
22 MR. ROSS: I don't think so. .See, there's, I ]
23 m e a n., I know you're involved just in this investigation 24 kind of stuff, but there is supposed to be procedures on 25 all of this stuff.-I wasn't given anything except for I
NEAL R. GROSS
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120 i Louis' phone number. I mean, I wasn't given any 2 procedure, anything.
l 1
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. So you were l
l 4 then escorted off premises?
5 MR. ROSS: Yes.
6 -SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What happened next?
7 MR. ROSS: I went home.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And then did you 9 eventually talk to Louis Rodriguez?
10 MR. ROSS: Yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What happened there?
12 MR. ROSS: He told me to go to Dr. Johnson.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And you did eventually 14 see Dr. Johnson, right?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did Dr. Rodriguez 17 offer you the opportunity to go to Employment Assisted 18 Program for counselling outside --
19 MR. ROSS: That's what he is.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Wasn't there a way to J
21 arrange. counselling by somebody outside of the plant; in 22' other words, what did they offer you in the way of 23- assisted counselling?
24 MR. ROSS: Well, he just said go to Dr.
25 Johnson.
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121 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you offered any 2 counselling outside -- Dr. Johnsen was an evaluation, he 3 was not a counsellor, as I understand it.
4 MR. ROSS: Okay, well, now I understand that, 5 too, because nobody really tells me anything.
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Dr. Johnson tested 7 you, right?
8 MR. ROSS: Right. ;
9 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And reached some i l
10 conclusions?
l 11 MR. ROSS: Yes, he gave those to FP&L.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCFERY: Did he offer you any 13 counselling?
14 MR. ROSS: No, I was not allowed to go back 15 and see him.
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did the EAP offer you 17 any counselling?
18 MR. ROSS: No, they blocked counselling.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Well, now, they claim 20 that they did, that they offered you access at company 21 expense to an outside counsellor, if you opted.
22 MR. ROSS: Who?
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I have no idea. That 24 --
is that untrue?
25 MR. ROSS: That is absolutely untrue.
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,. 122 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay.
1 2 MR.-ROSS: They sent me to another one, to 3 Salo Shapiro, and Dr. Rodriguez beeped me one day and 4 said, "Go to this guy." So I went to this guy and talked
, 5 to him, I guess about 20 minutes, fit me in in like a I
lunch break or whatever,.and that was it for that one. I
- 6 l
7 Then the next thing I know I'm called in for a 8 meeting and given a 45 day letter and a report of 9 discipline.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did anybody from the 11 Company cver say, "Michsel, if you will do this, then you 12 can regain your access?"
4 13 MR. ROSS: I think Louis said that but then he 14 would block it.
15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did he say?
l l 16 MR. ROSS: Well, he said -- that's what 17 happened at this meeting on November 3rd, something to 18 that effect was said.
19 Do we hrve the 45 day letter here?
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I've seen the 45 day 21 letter.
22 MR. .ROSS: Okay. And it'was, well, somewhere 23 along the line_they said, "Well, you just need to get your 24- access back," but they wouldn't let me go back to see Dr.
25 Johnson, I wasn't allowed to go see Dr. Shapiro because i
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i 123 1 that was a conflict of interest and I asked them to 2 explain all that to me but they wouldn't. They just said 3 it was a conflict of interest.
4 So I went, I went to the library and like 5 looked in this book of doctors and just found a 6 psychiatrist with the most lines on her,_because, I mean, 7 I didn'.t know, it seemed like a good way. So I figured 8 that I found somebody pretty good. His name was Dr.
9 Blackman, Lionel Blackman. So I went to him.
10 And I Mld 'souis Rodriguez _ that and asked him 11 to forward the stuff and he promised me that he would.
12 But I went to Dr. Blackman and he said he didn't get 13 anything. So then I go back and I tell Louis, you know, 14 "Come on, Louis, come on, Louis, you're saying you're 15 doing this," and really if they didn't want to send 16 anything to Dr. Blackman, they could have let me go back 17 to Dr. Shapiro because Dr. Shapiro told me I should come i 1
18- back. But they said I couldn't go back to shapiro and 19 they wouldn't send anything.
20 They finally sent some stuff to Blackman way 21 down the road, but it was only very limited stuff and they-22 didn't send any of the stuff that they sent to the other i 23 doctors. They wouldn't_ send my personnel file, they 24 wouldn't send any of my files, they wouldn't send any of 25 my tests, they -- , j l
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124
, ;l SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is it correct to say 1
2 that the Company never offered you-any counselling at
-3 Company expense?
4 That's kind of a yes or no, too.
5- MR. ROSS: .W ell, they never said it that way, l 1
6 okay. {
l 7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did they say it ;
a another way? l 9 MR. ROSS: I called the insurance company and l
- 10 got approved at Blackman so I aor some kind of letter or 11 something from the insurance company.
12 But ade from that, I mean, I did that on my
. 13 own, they never uaed up paying for anything, though.
i 14 And really the biggest problem is -- 1
.i 7
15 MR. MCKEONN: Michael --
16 MR. ROSS: -- yer, they said no to that, they 17 said -- or thev didn't say --
18 MR MCKEOWN: Michael, you're drifting again.
19 MR. ROSS: Okay.
20 MR. MCKEOWN: The question was did anyone from 1
21 i FP&L ever offer you counselling at Company expense. Now, 22 it's clearly a yes or no answer to that question.
23 MR. ROSS:. No , they did not.
24 MR. MCKEOWN: That was the question.
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Are you aware that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125
'l they claim that.they did offer you --
'2- MR. ROSS: I'm sure they claim everything in 3 the-world.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: During your evaluation 5- by the contract psychologist, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Dennis 6 Johnson, did.you-admit to making the comments about an 7 Uzie?
8 MR. ROSS: I think I did, I said something 9 like "Get an Uzie" or " Buy an Uzie" or something.
10 SPECIAL AGENT DC'.2ERY: And during that same 11 evaluation, did you admit to some sort of physical
- 12 confrontation with a Norm Jacque or Jacques? j 13 MR. ROSS: I believe so.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you admit, in the ;
l 15 evaluation by Dr. Johnson, to saying to Jacque -- is it 16 Jacque?
17 MR. ROSS: Jacque, Norm Jacque, l
18 'PECIAL nGENT DOCKERY: Did you admit to 19 saying to him, " Don't do it again, I'11 kill you?" j 20 MR.,ROSS: I don't remember saying that. I 21 mean, I'm.not saying that I didn't, but I don't remember. ;
- 22. SPECIAL' AGENT DOCKERY: Was there such a 23 confrontation with Jacque?
24 MR. ROSS: Yes.
[25. .SPECIAL. AGENT DOCKERY': What was part of that? I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPor4TERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE NW.
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126 1 MR. ROSS: What was the cause of that?
2 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: 'What was the cause?
3 MR. ROSS: Well, that was at a time I guess 4 shortly after being forced out.of the calibration lab and 5 at a time that would have been like late June of '94 and a 6 lot of harassment had been going on, either singing songs 7 or if a phone call would come in, it would be, you know, 8 " Hey, Stupid, it's for you," and a lot of that had been 9 going on.
10 I couldn't get any help from Steve and I-11 coulIn't get any, really, help from anybody.
12 And they were talking about overtime, how 13 Steve decided to schedule overtime for the 4th of July 14 holiday and the holiday weekend and that's kind of 15 unpopular, you know, you don't have overtime at all and 16 then here comes a holiday weekend and they decide to 17 schedule overtime.
18 And I said, I was sitting in Bill Busha's l 19 chair, and I said, "That's dumb." And I think it was Leo 20 said, " Yeah, that's dumb or stupid," and he just started 21 chanting around me, " Stupid, stupid, stupid." You know, I 22 tried to act like it didn't bother me but, you know, j
- 23 they're sitting there and people are chanting " Stupid" l 24 around you, it's not a real good feeling.
25 And then that was -- so, you know, I thought i
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127 l 1
-1 about that all night. I was. pretty frustrated that I l
2 couldn't -- I mean,-stuff like that shouldn't be going on 3 at work.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, what happened j 5 between you and Jacque?
6 'MR. ROSS: Well, then the next day I'm coming ,
t 3
7 into work and I'm pulling in and he kind of cuts me off, I k'
8 was going to pull in and he crosses over and cuts me off 4
] 9 and takes the spot and then looks at me and laughs. And I 10 decided, you'know, I parked and then went up to talk to i j 11' him inside, he walked away, and then I went up and I I 1 12 stopped'him from going by me, grabbed him, and we said i
13 something. I said,' you know, " Don't do it again," or said l
- . 14 something.
(
15 That was '94. I don't know if I can --
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you -- l l
17 MR. ROSS: If we would have talked about it 18 then, I probably could have given you some exacts. Right 19 after that, I talked to Howie Crouch, had talked to me 20 about that and --
1 21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: When in '94 did this 92 take place; do you recall?
23 MR. ROSS: This would have been the day after 24 the chanting, which.was -- 1
'25 SPECIAL AGENT'DOCKERY: When did the chanting-l
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-1 take place?
2 MR. ROSS: That was when Steve announced the 3 overtime for the holiday weekend, so it would be like the 4 last weekend in June. It probably would have been like a i 5 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or a Friday, because it had 6 to have been after another day that we would normally have 4
7 been there.
l 8 And I talked to Howie Crouch after that and in 9 fact one of the comments he made was, "I would have kicked 10 his ass" or something "if he did it to me."
11 And I think Mike Bridgeman and Dennis Smith 4
12 came up and talked to me and I think Dennis Smith had kind 13 of a funny comment, he said, " Mild mannered Mike," you 14 know, goes and does this. They asked me about it and I 15 chink I told them, well -- what did I tell them, "The best 4 16 thing I ever did" or something, I don't know.
i 17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was the best 4
1 18 thing you ever did, confront Jacque?
J9 MR. ROSS: Yes, yes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: The two Union 21 representatives that accompanied you to that meeting the 22 day you lost your unescorted access, did either of them 23 recommend that you cooperate with the EAP program in order 1
24 to get your access back?
1 25 MR. ROSS: I think so, I mean, they said, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoOE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
J 129 1 know, " Cooperate." I think they said, you know, like, 2 " Don t say anything," and then they said, "Just go and 3 cooperate and tell them about,what's been going on and 4 maybe you'll get some help." I think Hugh said that part.
5 So I was hoping that I was going to be able to 6 talk to these people and-they would take me seriously and, 7 you know, look into this stuff. But that did not happen.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You mentioned that-you 9 found your own psychiatrist. Was it a psychiatrist or a 10 psychologist?
11 MR. ROSS: Psychiatrist.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Psychiatrist. Did you 13 actually go into counselling or was it just for testing?
14 MR. ROSS: Well, I don't know, you know, what 15 word you would call it. I went and talked to him. ;
j 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: On how many occasions? l 17 MR. ROSS: Twice, but they wouldn't send him !
l 18 the stuff. They wouldn't send him anything the first time 19 and~then they sent him just a little bit of stuff the 20 second time and I was hoping that they would send the rest i
21 of the stuff, but they wouldn't. j l
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Were you hoping to use '
23 that psychiatrist to refute the findings of the 24 psychlatrist and psychologist contracted by the Company?
25 MR. ROSS: Well, I guess, yeah, I guess we NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N W..
~ l
130
~
- 1 could have done that. I.was just'trying to find out~what 2 was going on. Nobody would tell me'anything. They 3 wouldn't give me anything.
'4 ' They told me, you know, so I figured.that'that 5 was the.best thing that I could do.
6 SPEC *AL-AGENT DOCKERY: Were you ever told.
7 that you were considered a potential threat?
8 MR. ROSS: Yesterday, yes, Bob Marshall told 9 me --
10 SPECIAL AGEt~" CDCKERY: And that was the first 11 time ever?
12 MR. ROSS: I believe so, yes.
t l 13 I have been trying to find out for a couple of l 14 years now. I think he used the word " threat" and.then I L ,
15 later on he used the word "possible threat" yesterday in I 2 1 16 his deposition. Like the lawyers broke up the meeting and 17 I think they told him not to say " threat" any more, just i 18 to say "possible threat."
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: We'll take a break 20 right here. Off the record.
- 21- (Off the reenrd.)
22~ SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Back on the record and 1
.23 Mr. Ross I remind that you continue to be under oath here.
-l 2 4 MR. ROSS: 'I'm still under oath, yes, sir.
p
~25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: .We were just NEAL R. GROSS '
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131 1- mentioning Mr. Marshall, the director of Human Resources. ,
2 Prior to the day your access was-pulled, had '
3: you gone to Mr. Marshall at any time?
- 4. MR. ROSS: Yes, a few times, we had talked.
5 SPECIAL AG'NT J DOCKERY: About what?
6 MR. ROSS: Well, the harassment and training.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What did he do?
8 MR. ROSS: He would just tell me tc go to talk 9 to'Dr. Rodrigue2 and Dr. Rodriguez would tell me that he
- 10. couldn't help me, .a ccaldn't do anything about training, 11 he couldn't do anything about the harassment, he couldn't i l
12 do anything about what people were calling me.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: So you had had contact 14 with Dr. Rodriguez prior to September of '95?
15 MR. ROSS: Yes. I 16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: For what reasons? All 17 pertaining to the perceived harassment?
18 MR. ROSS: Yes.
- -19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY
- How many occasions had 20 you gone to Dr. Rodriguez?
'21 MR. ROSS: Maybe I met with him three times.
22 I can't tell you --
z23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did he ever' recommend 24' counselling on any of those occasions?
-25 MR. ROSS: I believe he did. -But what good NEAL R. GROSS 1
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132 1 would it do? He told me that he couldn't do anything 2 about the harassment, he couldn't do anything about the 3 name calling, he couldn't do anything about the training.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did you then go back 5 to the Human Resources Director and try to get this to 6 abate some other way?
7 ME. ROSS: Well, I talked to various people at 8 various times and never got any really solid kind of help.
9 I mean, to me, something that, you know, of all of the 10 therapy or whatever kind of stn## that you could do or 11 anybody could do, if you just go down to the Cal Lab and 4
12 look what it takes to calibrate a torque wrench and look 13 what it takes to do a Heise calibration on a dead weight 14 system, and then look me in the eye and tell me that I'm 15 incapable of learning that and even possibly sharing that 16 with my co-workers so they would understand that calling 17 me stupid is more than just calling me stupid.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Did your co-workers i 19 dislike you?
20 MR. ROSS: After that, after Dennis Smith got 21 in trouble, yeah.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Dennis Smith got in 23 trouble in September of --
24 MR. ROSS: Yes, the day of the cartoon, the 25 14th. Yes, after.that, nobody would talk to me.
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133 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But until then, you 2 were on good standing with ycur co-workers?
3 MR. ROSS: Yes.
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Despite the fact that 5 they called you stupid regularly?
6 MR. RCSS: Yes, well, I mean,-except for that, 7 yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And had called you 9 stupid over a four year period?
10 MR. ROSS: Yeq.
11 SPECIAL AGENT DCCFERY: To the point that you 12 felt it necessary to go to supervision, the head of Human 13 Resources --
14 MR. ROSS: Vice president --
, 15 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- and managers and t
16 the vice president to complain about their actions?
1 17 MR. ROSS: Yes.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'm going to refer now
20 Ross," and it's dated the lith day of December, 1996.
21 MR. ROSS: Okay.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I'm going to go 23 through and ask certain questions about this.
J 24 MR. ROSS: Do you want me to look at it or --
) 25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: No, I'll'tell you what
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l 134
'l 1- -- try and speed things up here. )
1 Item Number 4, you make the statement, "On the l l
3 same day, Mike Bridgeman, INC Specialist, told me, 'If I l 4 did anything, they would get rid of me.' I took this as a l
5 threat." ,
6 MR. ROSS: Yes.
I 7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Now, the date in 8 question here is Thursday, September 14th.
)
9 MR. ROSS: The day the cartoon came out, l 10 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Right.
11 MR. ROSS: That was about an hour after it !
12 came out, I guess.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who did he mean by 14 "they," or who did you think he meant?
15 MR. ROSS: Well, it wasn't me so it would have 16 to ce the other people at the plant. j 1
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He was a co-worker of i l
18 yours, right?
19 MR. ROSS: Yes.
20 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Not a supervisor?
21 MR. ROSS: Correct.
22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In your affidavit, 23 Item Number 5, you mention after seeing the cartoon you 24 went to check on your ANPO bid and found you had been 1
25 accepted for training. i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR18ERS 1 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE., N W.
135 1 MR. ROSS: That is correct. That's a 2 condensed version. I went and, after the cartoon I went 3 and stood next to Dan Coleman and tried to figure out what 4 I could say that wouldn't make things worse, that 5 hopefully would make things better.
6 He walked away so I stood there.another little 7 bit and then I walked away and decided to get out of the !
l 8 shop a while so I walked across the hallway to the 9 administration building thinking maybe I'll go talk to 10 Steve and right at that time Dan coleman was coming out 11 the corner so I figured, all right, maybe he's talked to 12 Steve, make things better or whatever, so I just took a 13 left and went up the stairs and walked around and that's 14 where, you know, like the vice president and upper 15 management stuff is, and I walked around and went to the j 16 Safety Office and wanted to talk to somebody in the Safety l I
17 office about, you know, what's going on here -- l 18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What's going on here 19 being what?
20 MR. ROSS: As far as the training and being 21 called stupid and, you know, this intensification here. I 1
l 22 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You had been accepted l 23 for that ANPO bid and --
l 24 MR. ROSS: Now, hold on. No , I had not been 1 25 accepted. We're in the morning still. We're not to the NEAL R. GROSS-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
l 136 l' afternoon. Just.let me finish and you'll understand.
2 'SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Actually, we don't 3 have time for that. Let me just ask my question.
4- Were you accepted for an ANPO position?
5 MR. ROSS: Yes, and I found that out late in 6 the day on the 14th.
7 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay. Was it your 8 intent at that time to accept that position?
9 MR. ROSS: If I wasn't able to get any 10 training at INC, yes; if I was going to be able to get 11 training in INC, I would stay in INC.
12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You state that you 13 went and checked with the service manager's office to 14 check on the status of the ANPO bid. That's when you 15 found out that you had been --
16 MR. ROSS: Right, that was late in the day on 17 the 14th and I would be talking with Janet Baker. And she 18 told me that I was the last one that was accepted so far. )
19 So Dennis Sr.th had not been accepted and Godfrey l
20 Alexander had not been accepted yet.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Item Numbe; 10 in the i 22 Affidavit, says, "On Friday, September 15th, 1995, another 23 employee, Richard Stripling, came up to me and asked if I 24 had gone to Human Resources or the vice president to get 25 people fired."
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O 137 1 -Who is Richard Stripling?
- 2. MR. ROSS: He's an INC Specialist, Digital' 3 Specialist. Richard Stripling is a Digital INC 4 Specialist.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Item Number 11, ,
c 6 "Obviously since the only one I contacted was Steve 7 Franzone, he had told my' fellow employees about the 8 written grievances that I presented to him on September 9 13th, 1995, which were supposed to be confidential."
10 Is there a Union procedure for maintaining 11 grievances as confidential?
12 MR. ROSS: Yes.
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How is that 14 accomplished?
15 Again, I come back to the fact that if you 16 want something, you want to remedy a situation through the i
17 grievance procedure that pertains to you, how can that be 18 done without it being made known that you have filed a 19 grievance?
20 MR. ROSS: Well, we weren't to that stage yet 21 because he wasn't going to do anything yet. l 22 But in general, you don't go and tell )
I 23 everybody and have cartoons and whatnot come out and you l
- 24 don't go spreading around --
25 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How does this, the l NEAL R. GROSS l
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1 138 1 cartoon, relate to that grievance?
2- MR. ROSS: That was the day before and then 3 the next day this comes out. And that day Joe is coming 4 to me, telling me, you know, why is my dad writing letters 5 to the Company and whatnot -- something that was said at I 1
6 that meeting. Why would Joe Myszkiewicz know things that 7 were said at that supposedly confidential meeting.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't see anything 9 about the cartoon itself that relates in any way to the 10- fact that the day befor ;?u had filed a grievance. ,
11 MR. ROSS: dell, when Joe Myszkiewicz came'up !
)
12 and talked to me --
13 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: He didn't draw the 14 cartoon.
15 MR. ROSS: No , no, h- didn't, but he was 16 telling me about things that were in the grievance meeting 17 about supposedly my father writing letters to the Company, i a
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But will you agree
, 19 with me that there is nothing in this cartoon that seems i 20 to pertain to your having gone to Steve Franzone with a 21 grievance?
22 MR. ROSS: Well, maybe there is. Look at me,
-23 I'm facing Steve Franzone. Here's Steve Franzone 24 ~ (indicating) and here's me (indicating). Everybody else 25 is'---
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139 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't really look at 2 it that way. You're looking off in this direction, he's 3 coming --
4 MR. ROSS: All right, well, whatever.
5 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: In Item Number 15~ the ,
. 6 so called 45 day letter which was redefined in December
- 7 29th, 1995, termination letter, going down, "I was denied 8 the opportunity to see Dr. Rodriguez or get treatment."
> 9 How was that denied?
5 10 MR. ROSS: Well, they wouldn't send anything 11 to Blackman. I wasn't allowed to go to Johnson, I wasn't 1
- 12. allowed to go to Shapiro. I wasn't allowed even to go see j 13 Dr. Rodriguez because I'm not allowed on FP&L property.
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Was he in a controlled j 15 access area?
i 16 MR. ROSS: No, he was in the general office 17 building. I went to see him November 3rd after the other
, 18 meeting and he got in trouble for me coming to see him.
19 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How do you know that?
20 MR. ROSS: Because I heard him on the phone 21 talking about he was in trouble and he told me he was in 22 trouble.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: With who? q i
3 24 MR. ROSS: With security or whoever, with 25 somebody, and.when I tried to go into the building, they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE eSLAND AVE.. N.W.
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140 1 took my ID card away. They took away my Florida Power &
'2 Light identification card.
3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: After your plant 4 access was denied, did you attempt to pursue the ANPO 5 position?
6 MR. ROSS: I attempted to pursue everything.
7 I wrote them a letter -- do you have that letter there?
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I have seen a series 9 of letters.
10 MR. ROSS: Do you La<e the one about they 11 wouldn't let me get any printouts for jobs, they wouldn't 12 let me -- can I continue my nuclear tutor job which was 13 outaide the access area, the ANPO job is in the training l
14 building outside the access area and I should have been i
15' able to go to that.
16 I wrote a written letter requestir.. that and
- 17 we can probably show you that. I don't know if you've 18 seen that or not. {
i 19 But, yeah, I tried. In fact, I copied a copy 20 of the newspaper that had like customer service jobs, you 21 know, answer the phone, and sent that in.
22 Here, let me read you --
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You don't have.to read
- 24 --
. 25 MR. ROSS: Have you seen this letter?
^
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141 1 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: I don't know. I 2 haven't seen it yet.
3 MR. ROSS: And here's a date stamp right there 4 (indicating). He wouldn't even set up --
5 'SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: No , I haven't seen 6 this before.
7 MR. ROSS: Okay.
8 SFECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Maybe I can get a copy 9 of this.
10 MR. ROSS: You c.Jtainly can. And, I mean, 11 you can't get any more, you Know, try any harder than 12 that. I had already been working as a nuclear tutor. I 13 had been accepted as an ANPO, I could have -- when I went 14 down there for the November 3rd meeting, I wore one of my 15 old uniforms, I was ready to go. And that would have 16 given me time to regain access or whatever.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: You mentioned, at the
. 18 beginning we talked about absenteeism and you acknowledged I 19 that you had had some absenteeism --
20 MR. ROSS: Yes.
21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- a considerable 22 amount. What was the cause of that?
23 MR. ROSS: Well, I guess some of the -- some 24 of it was a lot of'the stress that was going on, you know, 25 from the harassment and_the denial of training and being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS APeO'tRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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142 1 told I'm incapable of learning. That was probably the 2 biggest part and I had had some surgery, some eye surgery 3 so that was like'a week here and a couple of days there.
4- And there had been a lot of flu bugs that-had 5 gone around the --
6 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Who out of your co-7 workers were you closest to, as far as being on a friendly 8 basis with?
y 9 MR. ROSS: I didn't socialize a whole lot, but L
10 I guess I could give you a couple of favorite people. I ;
l 11 think I liked Dennis Smith a lot. l l
l 12 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Dennis Smith?
13 MR. ROSS: Yes, he's a nice guy. He never b 14 called me -- well, he never called me stupid, but, and he 15 really only had one incident but it was kind of, it was 16 kina of intense.
I 17 I had answered the phone one day and this was 18 a day they were horsing around and putting shaving cream 19 in the ear piece and they didn't really clean it out good i
20 enough so you couldn't hear real good and I didn't know 21 that at the time but I figured that out later. And I had 22 answered the phone and it was for Dennis Smith. And I 23 asked who it was and I just couldn't hear. His wife's 24 name is Sandy and-I don't hear -- she didn't speak real 25 loud and I guess there was still a little shaving cream --
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143 1 so I wasn't real sure of who called but I told Dennis 2 that, "Some' girl; called for you." And I said what I 3 thought the name was and he wasn't sure-whether it was his 4- wife or not.
5 And the.next day, the next day he comes in to 6- the shop and is telling some other guys, " Yeah, I get home 7 and I'm talking to my wife and my wife goes, 'Is that-the 8 guy that everybody calls stupid?'" And he tells that, you 9 know, story. Everybody laughs. And I had never met this 10 woman and the only thing she knew about me was that, you 11 know, "INC, Ross speaking - "
12- SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: But he was one of the 13 individuals you felt you had a cordial relation.: hip with?
14 MR. ROSS: Yes, because that was really the 15 only incident w.ith him. And he respected me pretty l
26 highly.
- 17. SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Anybody else?
18 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, I didn't have --
I 19 was 55 to 60 miles away so I didn't socialize with a lot 20' of people from work. But I liked him a lot.
21 Xavier Echanique (phonetic), he was a pretty 22 good guy.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Do you have any idea
-24 how-it's spelle'd?
25_ MR. ROSS: E-C-H-A-N-I-C-U-E, is pretty close.
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144 1 (6:00 p.m.)
2 I guess Michael Dolan was a pretty nice guy.
3 He~never --
4 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: How many people did A
5 you work with total?
6 MR. ROSS: Well, I mean, there's got to be~a 7 thousand people at the plant.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: No, I'm thinking in 9 your.immediate work group, which would include --
10 MR. ROSS: In the INC shop?
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: -- two in this period.
12 Yes, the: lab was how la/ge? You don't have to name all, 13 just give me --
14 MR. ROSS: I don't know, five, five to ten 15 depending on --
16 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: What was going on.
17 MR. ROSS: Yes.
18 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: And in the INC shop?
4 19 MR. ROSS: Maybe 20, 25. And then there's, i
20 you know, all different little groups and whatnot. I 21 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: We'll go off the 22 record.
.23 (Off the record.)
24 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: We're back on the 25 record and once again I will remind you that you continue NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANCCRIBERS
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145 1 1 to be under oath, Mr. Ross.
I
- 2. MR. ROSS: Yes.
. 3 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Basically that is 4 about the end of the questions I'had for you.
5 If you have anything you would like'to add 6 that's germane to the NRC concern here, I would ask you to .
1 7 do so at this-time. )
i l I
1 8 MR. ROSSs That's a big one. I always ask a 1
9 lot of stuff.
4 10 Can we hold off for a second?
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Okay, we'll go off the 12 record.
13 (Off the record.)
14 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Once again, we're back 15 on the record and you continue to be under oath, Mr. Ross.
16 MR. ROSS: Yes, under oath.
l l
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is there anything else l 18 you would like to say I haven't brought up that needs to 19 be brought up? j 1
20 And Mr. McKeown, I would certainly invite any 21 comment that you would have, too.
22 MR. MCKEOWN: My comment is don't leave Mr.
23 Ross open with that or we'11 be here for another week. )
24 We ant outside and we discussed this and
- 25 we've given you the information that we think -- he's NEAL R. GROSS ,
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146 1~ given you,the.information. ,
2 If'we find anything else of a documentary 3 nature, I'll send it to you and you can do.whatever you 4 want with it.
5 Does that satisfy you now because that's what 6 you were'looking'for, you wanted to keep giving him 7 documents and if we find something we think he needs to 8 have, we'll send it to him?
9 MR. ROSS: Okay, that --
10 MR. MCKEOWN !!e's asked you, is there 11 anything more you want to tell him without going into the 12 History of_the World-Part II again. i i
13 MR. ROSS: Well, I think there -- I'm not sure l 14 if I want to tell you~this or not or whether you will 15 connect it or not, but shortly afcer we sent in this 16 official thing, two things happened.
17 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Which official thing 18 are we referring to?
19 MR. ROSS: The Departn.ent of Labor thing, 20 shortly after that was sent in, up until the NRC report 21 right before that, NRC jnvestigated and found I was on 22 administrative hold.
23 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Let me interrupt you l i
24' so.you're clear on something.
l 25' The only thing that the NRC has investigated 1
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i 147 1
1- is what I'm here'about today and that is your DOL )
l 2 Complaint. The other activity by the NRC was inspection j 3 activity. _There is a distinction.
4 MR. ROSS: Okay, so the inspection showed that 5 I was on administrative hold and then after the Department 6 of Labor thing went in, they responded saying that my 7 access was revoked or it was denied or this or that or the 8 other"and then we go to a deposition yesterday and Bob 9 Marshall says that the whole time I was either 1
'10 administratively smspended or just suspended.
I 11 And then the second issue that I really 12 haven't had the power to investigate or whatever you want 13 to call it, I believe that shortly after the Department of 14 Labor went in, they removed Larry Sloan from the 15 calibration lab ans I, inside I fear that they were afraid 16 that if they came and asked him questions he would tell l l
17 the truth because he had a policy of doing what he was l 18 told and he didn't, you know, go complaining or reporting l
19 things. !
20 But if somebody comes and asks him a question, 21 he will tell them the truth. And since he was, treated me 22 well while I was in there and didn't discriminate me, you l
23 know, and felt that if I had the qual sheet he would have 1
24 signed it'and I would have been qualified, you know, I !
25 really think that that's a repeat of the same thing.
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=1l SPECIAL. AGENT DOCKERYi But~to my knowledge, 2 he's made no complaint about that so I actually don't have 3 any standing,'the NRC, on his behalf.
4 MR. ROSS: Okay, so we're done?
5' SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: Is there --
6 MR. ROSS: We're done.
7 MR. MCKEOWN: We're done.
8 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: With that, thank-you -
- 9. -
10 MR. ROSS: Thank-y... ,
11 SPECIAL AGENT DOCKERY: We'11 go off the 12 record.
13 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded at 14 6:08 o' clock, p.m.)
15 16 17- ,
18 19
' 20 22 23 24
' 25 ;
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l4]
CERTIFICATE 4
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Michael L. Ross Docket No.: (None assigned)
, Place of Proceeding: West Palm Beach, Florida were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to 1
typewriting by me, and that the transcript is a true and !
accurate record of the foregoina proceedings. I 1
i t
V
! NANCY L L w amassow,DRS cc o m.
BPOWB: ArtD,1988 amesinn me,yp en me ,
a NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
(202) 234-4433 EXHlBIT 9 6 n;,
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