ML20140E703
| ML20140E703 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Braidwood  |
| Issue date: | 03/03/1986 |
| From: | Martin R COMMONWEALTH EDISON CO. |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20140E700 | List: |
| References | |
| OL, NUDOCS 8603280138 | |
| Download: ML20140E703 (186) | |
Text
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1 RggtSh ICA- Y ~m s
Of v 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DocrETED }
3 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY & LICENSING BOAF k MAR 271986 **I O Doc:E77naa 4 g SERVICE BRAncu .
SECY-NRC 5 - - - - - - -~- - - - - - - - - - -x D g m 6 In the matter of: : Docket Nos. 50-456 7 COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY : 50-457 8 [Braidwood Nuclear Power Station, :
9 Units 1 and 2] :
10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 11 Isham,. Lincoln & Beale 12 Three First National Plaza
/ 13 Sist Floor 14 Chicago, Illinois 15 March 3, 1986 16 Deposition of: RICHARD L. MARTIN i
17 called for examination by Counsel for Licensee,-Commonwealth 18 Edison, pursuant to notice, taken before Garrett J. Walsh, 19 a Notary Public in and for the Commonwealth of Virginia, when 20 --------------------------- ---
l 21 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
22 1625 I Street, N.W. 293-3950 Washington, D.C.
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2 1 were present on behalf of the respective parties:
O2 3 APPEARANCES:
4 For the Licensee Commonwealth Edison Company:
5 DANIEL HEFTER, ESQ.
6 Isham, Lincoln & Beale-7 'Three First National Plaza 8 Chicago, Illinois 60602 9 l i
10 For the Intervenors BPI, et al.:
J 11 TIMOTHY WRIGHT, ESQ.
I 12 109 North
Dearborn,
Suite 1300 13
( f Chicago, Illinois 60602 !
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3 1 CONTENTS 2
3 Witness: Examination by: Page:
4 RICHARD L. MARTIN Mr. Hefter 4, 167 5 Mr. Wright 132, 180 6
7 ***
'8 EXHIBTS Page:
9 Exhibit No. 1: 17 l
10 A copy of a subpoena directed I
11 to Mr. Martin.
12 13 Exhibit No. 2: 23
{
14 A letter written by Mr. Martin
, 15 regarding a work-related incident 16 involving Mr. Saklak.
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18 19 20 j 21 22
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4 1 PROCEEDINGS
- 2 (2:40 p.m.]
3 MR.' HEFTER: Let the record reflect that this is the 4 deposition of Richard Martin, taken pursuant to subpoena and 5 pursuant to the applicable NRC rules.
6 Mr. Martin,.would you state your name and address 7 for the record, please?
8 THE WITNESS: My name is Richard L. Martin. 'I live 9 at 36 Hanson Drive, Bourbonnais, Illinois.
10 Whereupon, i 11 RICHARD L. MARTIN, 12 called for deposition by counsel for the Applicant, after
( ) 13 being duly sworn under oath, was examined and testified as 14 follows:
l 15 EXAMINATION 16 BY MR. HEFTER:
17 Q Mr. Martin, we met just prior to the deposition, but 18 for the record, let me again introduce myself. I'm Dan 19 Heiter. I represent the Applicant, Commonwealth Edison, in 20 the Braidwood license application proceeding, and I am going 21 to be asking you some questions today having to do with the
, 22 Braidwood plant.
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5 1 Let me ask you first if you have ever had a
() 2 deposition taken before.
3 A No.
4 Q Okay. Let me explain a little about the procedure ;
5 to you, then. You have been sworn by the court reporter-to 6 tell the truth, and this is just as if you were sitting in a 7 court or before the Licensing Board giving testimony in a 8 trial or a hearing.
9 The testimony that you are going to give today will 10 be transcribed later on by the court reporter, and at some 11 point in the proceedings may surface again and be used as 12 evidence or for some other purpose. Therefore, it is very
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13 important that you understand the questions that I ask you 14 before you answer, and if there is anything you don't 15 understand or if it's not clear, please ask me to rephrase and 16 I will be happy to do that so that we are certain the answers 17 you give are accurate to the best of your recollection. All 18 right.
19 A Yes.
20 Q The last thing I have to ask you to do is to answer 21 out loud because the court reporter won't take down a gesture 22 or a nod of the~ head or that kind of thing.
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6 1 A Yes.
2 Q Okay. It takes a little getting used to.
3 MR. ' ERIGHT: For the record, I am Timothy W. Wright, 4 III. I'm an attorney with BPI, and we represent the
- 5 Intervenors in the QA/QC proceeding before the NRC. While you l 6 do not.have an attorney present with you, I am acting as an j 7 attorney and I may make objections, I may make clarifications 8 to-the record. You are under no obligation'to followHany 9 instructions or directives that I do give, but to the extent 10 that you do need.some assistance in understanding some of 11 this, I would make myself available for you in that regard.
l 12 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
i
() 13 MR. HEFTER:
I'm glad you brought that up,
- 14 Mr. Wright, because that is'one other point of procedure that 15 I ought to explain to you, and that is that from time to time, i 16 objections may be made. Either during my questioning j
17 Mr. Wright may make an objection, or during his questioning I 18 may make an objection. If that were to happen in the hearing i
i 19 itself with the Liceneing Board present, the Licensing Board
! 20 would make a ruling as to who was correct, and depending on 21 that ruling, then you would either answer or not answer the l
22 question.
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7 1 Since we don't have the Board here with us today, 2 the procedure most of the time, except if one of the attorneys 3~ determines to proceed otherwise, is that objections are stated 4 for the record, they are taken down by the court reporter, you 5 go ahead and answer the question anyway, and then at some 4
6 future point if the deposition-is to be used, we will get a 4
7 ruling by the Board.
i 8 THE WITNESS: I understand.
9 MR. HEFTER: Could you speak up just a little bit I
10 for the court reporter.
11 THE WITNESS: I understand.
12 MR. HEFTER: Thank you.
13 BY MR. HEFTER:
14 Q Mr. Martin, by whom are you presently employed?
15 A I'm employed by BESTCO Company.
16 Q And what is your position?
17 A I am a Level II quality control inspector.
I i 18 Q At the Braidwood site?
19 A Correct.
20 Q And what are your duties as a Level II quality I 21 control inspector at Braidwood?
22 A At this moment I am functioning as a cable pulling O
8 l' inspector as my main job', while I also have certifications in O 2 the areas of concrete expansion anchors and conduit and cable 1
3 tray hanger configurations.
,' 4 Q Have you used your. certifications for concrete i
5 expansion anchors and conduit cable tray inspections at Braidwood?
6 j 7 A I have used my configuration certification but I
] 8 have not officially used my concrete expansion' anchor i 9 certification.
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10 Q When you say configuration, that's what you referred 11 to a minute ago as conduit and cable tray?
1 12 A Yes, hanger configurations.
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13 Q And what is the job of a quality control inspector?
l 14 A A quality control inspector monitors and oversees l
15 production, that they follow and adhere to the written i
16 standards and procedures that have been set down, that l
17 L.K. Comstock and Commonwealth Edison and Sargent & Lundy l
j 18 engineering have agreed to. It's our job to make sure that 19 they follow those procedures and guidelines.
j 20 Q And if the procedures and guidelines are.not l 21 followed or the specifications are not met, what then is the
{ 22 job of a quality control inspector?
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9 j 1 A Any nonconformance or lacking item,'we have an
( 2 avenue of documenting these for tracking. We have an.
I 3 inspection correction report which is in house with 4 L.K. Cow. stock, and then we have a nonconforming report which 5 goes.through S&L engineering and Ceco engineering, and then if 6 we are not satisfied with answers, we can go to a Quality
. 7 First program which CECO has or we can go to the NRC.
t 8 Q So it's your job to do whatev'er is necessary to make q 9 certain that the craft executes the plans and specifications 1
10 as they are to be done, that the job is done correctly; is i
i 11 that right?
7 12 A Yes, that's correct.
l 13 Q And is that what you have always done as a quality 14 control inspector?
i 15 A Yes.
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- 16 Q Have you ever, during the time that you were a '
17 quality control inspector at Braidwood, whether working for
- 18 BESTCO or anyone else, not performed the function that you 19 just explained to me is a quality control inspector's l 20 function, that is, to make certain to the best of your ability j 21 that the plant is built in accordance with specifications and 22 plans and done correctly?
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10 1 A No , I have not.
k 2 Q You have never not done that?
f 3 A Right.
4 Q okay, or put another way, you have always done your:
5 jeb conscientiously.
6 A Correct. Yes.
7 Can I clarify that answer?
8 Q Certainly.
j 9 A When we first entered into the quality control 10 program, I had never been exposed, really, to a quality 11 program before as far as the ANSI Standard N.45.2.6 is 12 concerned, and I can say that I have worked and performed to
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13 the capability which I was trained to, okay? And within those 14 parameters, I feel that I have fully and completely held up 15 the standards which I was trained to go by.
16 Q Just so I understand you correctly, what you are 17 telling me is that you have always done your job to the best 18 of your ability consistent with your training, but that early 19 on.in the job, when you were first learning the job, you were
! 20 not as proficient as you became later on; is that right?
21 A Basically that's true, although this carrying on of 22 gaining experience, much of it was gained after certification.
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- 1 Q Okay. Let me get a little bit of your job history. l You have been working for BESTCO since July 23rd of
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2 3 1985; is that right?
4 A Yes, that's correct.
5 Q And prior to being employed by BESTCO, by whom were i
6 you employed?
7 A L.K. Comstock Company.
8 Q And that was also in the position of quality control i
9 inspector?
10 A Yes, it was.
11 Q Did your duties change any when you became employed
, 12 by BESTCO?
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A No, not immediately.
- 14 Q How long had you been a quality control inspector i
j 15 for L.K. Comstock prior to going to work for BESTCO?
16 A Approximately 3-1/2 years.
,4 17 Q So that would be --
18 A My date of hire was the 18th of May, 1981.
i j 19 Q And you were not hired as a Level II, were you?
I 20 A No, I was not. I was hired as a Level I.
21 Q And how long did you function as a Level I?
22 A Approximately two years.
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12 1 Q What is the difference in the job of a Level I and a 2 Level II quality control-inspector?
3 A A Level I inspector, according to the ANSI 45.2.6 l r I
, 4 states that Level I can record data, while a Level II is l 5 qualified to interpret data. That's a very basic l l
6 interpretation.
7 Q Now, prior to being hired-by L.K. Comstock in May of l
8 '81, what did you do for a living?
4 9 A . Well, specifically I had a job with an electrical 10 contractor, but it was not really a full-time job. I had just 11 recently gotten laid off from a railroad manufacturing company ;
12 'in South Chicago Heights where I was an all-position welder
) 13 in manufacturing railroad cars, and I was used to inspect 14 random items.
15 Q Is that similar to a quality control type of i
16 inspection?
17 A Yes, similar to, but in the strictest sense, I could 18 not really say that I was a quality control inspector.
j 19 Q Was your function, though, to make certain that the 20 welds were done correctly and to call attention to the fact
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21 that they weren't if.they weren't?
22 A Well, I was a repair welder, and.part of being a t
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13 1 repair welder was to be able to determine which weld was good
( 2 and bad. It saved the company a step. When I would go I
3 through a car, I would repair what I determined to be faulty l
4 or whatever, and then after I went through, the QC inspector 5 would go through and we would go through it together, and 6 whatever additional welds needed to be repaired, I repaired 7 them at that time.
8 Q Was there ever a time on that job where you found a 9 weld that in your_ opinion was not good and you just let it go?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Why?
12 A The standards were, I felt -- sometimes when I would 13 go through, if it wasn't a good weld, I would ask the QC man 14 about it and we would discuss it.
15 Q So there was somebody who had the quality control 16 function on that job other than you.
17 A Right.
18 Q In your experience as a quality control inspector, 19 has there ever been an occasion on which you inspected a weld 20 or anything else, determined in your mind that it was not 21 acceptable, and yet passed it anyway?
22 A No.
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1 Q Was there ever an occasion since you became a
, 2 quality control inspector on which you observed any practice 3 adverse to quality and did not report it and follow it up 4 through channels to make certain that it was corrected?
5 A Well, there have been rumors and I have heard things 6 through the grapevine from people, but as far as --
7 Q Let me interrupt you for a second. I'm not asking 8 you about things that you have heard; I'm asking about things 9 that you have done.
10 A That I have done.
11 Q You personally.
12 A Okay. No, there is no time when I have accepted j 13 anything or had anything to do with something being accepted 14 that I knew it was not according to the procedures'and 15 drawings and specifications.
16 Q And has there ever been a time since you have become 17 a quality control inspector that you have ever failed to 18 report for any reason any condition adverse to quality that i
19 you were aware of?
20 A I would say no, there hasn't been a time.
21 Q Okay.
22 A The reason of my hesitation is because sometimes
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15 1 office practices fall into many gray areas that -- you know, I O
- 2 would accept a certain way of doing things that are not 1
! 3 specified in any procedure, just basic office practice .
! 4 People have been criticized for.certain things, some people a 5 haven't, and sometimes I would see somebody do something and i I
6 say, you know, that's wrong, where another person would say,
. 7 well, that's acceptable.
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] 8 Q But in your own judgment you have never failed to j 9 express any concern related to quality that you determined was i
10 adverse to quality;'is that a fair statement?
, 11 A -Also I might add that there are certain situations j
12 that you come into which may not necessarily be the right
() 13 14 thing to do, although as construction proceeds through its i normal steps, certain things that are wrong will be I
i 15 corrected. Off the top of my. head, I just can't think of an
- 16 example. Maybe I can think of a hypothetical situation.
17 Say I'm just walking along and I see some cable that i 18 they are storing. I look at the cable and I see that the i
! 19 cable is damaged. The cable is in storage. It has not been 20 installed or anything. I might.go to my supervisor and say, f
i 21 look, this cable is camaged. Well, at that time they might 4
22 not issue a nonconformance report on that item. They just i
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-1 might take it and put it in the hold area, and although'the 2 problem technically has not been directly addressed, yet it >
3 shall be if they decide to use the cable. It can be written 4 -up and they will disposition it. An engineer will come out
- 5 and look at the cable at that time.
6 Now, there are other situations like that, that we 7 see an item may not be correct at that time but yet we know
- 8 that through the process, that it will.be addressed.
9 Q In the hypothetical you gave me, you did report it 10 to your supervisor.
l 11 A Correct.
12 Q And that is the procedura you would have followed in 13 any case where you saw something adverse to quality?
14 A Yes.
15 Q And if there was ever anything that you didn't 16 follow up on, the reason would have been that it just wasn't 17 a problem yet and in your opinion it would have been taken l
i 18 care of prior to installation?
- 19 A Yes.
20 MR. HEFTER: Let's mark this as the first exhibit, 21 please.
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17 1 (Martin Deposition Exhibit No. 1 2 was marked for identification.]
3 BY MR. HEFTER:
4 Q Mr. Martin, I am handing you what has just been 5 marked by the court reporter as Exhibit No. 1 to your 6 deposition, and that purports to be a copy of a subpoena 7 directed to you.
8 Did you receive a copy of a subpoena similar to this 9 prior to today's deposition?
10 A Yes, I did.
11 Q If you will take a look.on the second page, there is '!
l 12 a list of documents that you are asked to produce at your
( ) 13 deposition. Did you bring any of those with you today?
14 A Yes, I brought a few.
15 Q Can you show me what you brought?
16 A My wife has them. '
, 17 MR. HEFTER: Why don't we go off the record a second 18 and let you go ahead and get those.
19 [Off the record.]
i 20 BY MR. HEFTER:
21 Q Before you show me what you have got here, let me 22 just ask you a few preliminary questions.
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18 1 When-you received the subpoena a copy of which has 2 been marked Exhibit 1 to your deposition, did you make a 3 cearch'for any documents that were responsive to the subpoena?
i l 4 A Yes.;
5 Q And you came up with some documents that you brought 6 with you today; is that correct?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Did you come up with any documents that were l
I 9 responsive to the subpoena that you did not bring with you 4
10 today?
l 11 A Yes, I left some documents at home.
12 Q Why don't you tell me what you found when you made 13 your search to comply with the subpoena that you did not bring
- 14 with you today.
I 15 A The documents I left at home mainly reflected 16 personal disagreements and personal problems between me and- ;
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17 Larry Seese.
18 Q Okay. In addition to documents that reflected l
19 personal disagreements between you and Larry Seese, are there l 20 any other documents that you found that were responsive to the l 21 subpoena but that you didn't bring with you today?
22 A' Documents where I requested a day off or something ,
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19 1 or an early leave or anything like that.
2 Q Anything else that was responsive to the subpoena 3 that you did not bring with you today?
4 A No.
5 Q I don't know whether it will be necessary or not.to 6 go into the documents that you left at home, but let me just 7 caution you that they were requested by the subpoena, and at 8 the very least -- I certainly don't want to give you legal i 9 advice -- but I would talk to an attorney before destroying i 10 any of those documents. We may at some futura point want to 11 see those.
12 A Okay.
) 13 Q Why don't you tell me what documents you brought 14 with you today.
15 A Well, my first document is a letter recording an 16 incident with Rick Saklak in which he tried to fire me for 17 alleged remiss and negligence.
18 Q I'll tell you what. Instead of us doing this, why 19 don't you show me what you have got and let me quickly look 20 through them.
21 (Counsel examining documents.]
22 Mr. Martin, have you previously shown these 1
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20 1 1 documents to Mr. Wright?
2 A No, I have not.
3 MR. HEFTER: Okay. We will get some copies made.
4 Let's go off the record for a second.
5 (Discussion off the record.)
6 BY.MR. HEFTER:
7 Q Mr. Martin, are you aware that one'of the 8 contentions raised by the Intervenors in this case is that 9 there has been harassment and intimidation of Comstock quality
- 10 control inspectors?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Have you, in your opinion, ever-been subjected to 13' .any harassment or intimidation by anyone in your work on the 14 Braidwood project?
15 A Yes.
16 Q All right. Let's break that down a little bit i 17 between harassment and intimidation. I had asked you about 18 both together.
19 Do you feel that you have been subjected to 20 harassment?
21 A Yes.
22 Q And do you feel that you have been subjected to i
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21 1 intimidation?
O 2 A As far as intimidating me to accept a nondeficient 3 item? Is that what you are saying?
4 Q Whatever your definition of intimidation is.- We 5 will get into specifics in a' minute.
! 6 A Yes, I feel I have been intimidated.
7 Q Is there one' incident that in your mind constitutes 8 both harassment and intimidation, or are you thinking of more 9 than one incident?
10 A More than one incident.
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11 Q On how many occasions, in your mind, have you been 12 subjected to harassment during your work on the Braidwood
( ) 13 project? Take your time and think for a minute.
14 A Well, maybe three or four times.
15 Q And on how many occasions have you been subjected to 16 intimidation on the Braidwood project?
17 A At a certain point in time, it was almost a daily 18 thing. I mean I can't -- you know, too many times to count.
19 Q All right. Let' sago back and talk about harassment, 20 then, since that seems a little bit more finite in your mind.
21 A Okay.
22 Q You said that you have been subjected to harassment l
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22 1 on three or four occasions on the Braidwood project. Would i'
2 you go through them one by one, please, and describe each of 3 the three or four occasions?
4 A Well, one occurrence was -- I don't know what you
- 5 could consider this. I'll save that.
6 At one time,' the memo I gave you, I was out in the 7 field doing work and I came in the office, and I think I lost 8 a flashlight or a tape measure. In my memo I said a tape 9' measure, but I'm not sure. Yes,-it was a tape measure. And 10 while I was in the office, it was just prior to lunch.
11 Everybody was getting ready to go on their lunch break.
12 Rick Saklak, the supervisor, asked me if I had a 13 tape measure, and I said no, I lost it, I needed to get 14 another one. Well, when I said that, as he turned he called 15 me a few curse words, and at the time I was speaking ts Bruce 16 Brown, and I said, excuse me, Bruce. So I went and asked Rick 17 Saklak, I said, what's the problem?
18 He said that I had been remiss in keeping control of 19 my equipment and just started criticizing me and' cursing, and 20 I mentioned to him that -- well, he said he had just recently 21 given me a ruler, and that wasn't.true becausa when I come on 22 the job I brought my own ruler and I had lost my own ruler, so !
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23 1 I was ready to get one'of the company's now.
2 So he kept cursing at me, whatever, and finally he 3 told'me to get my blankety-blank out in the field. And I 4 said: Look, you're not going to talk to me like this. And he 5 said: You're fired.
6 So he started filling out the separation papers, 7 whatever, and I told him, I said, if you think you're going to 8 get rid of me like this, you're crazy. When the manager come 9 in, it looked like I was going to be fired, but'the only thing.
10 that saved me was I wrote up that letter which you have there, 4
11 and a few inspectors signed.it as witnesses to the fact that I 12 had neither been disrespectful nor remiss ~in my actions.
() 13 MR. HEFTER: Why don't we mark the letter so that we 14 know what you are referring to.
! 15 [ Martin Deposition Exhibit No. 2 16 was marked for identification.]
17 MR. WRIGHT: Excuse me, counsel. Is th'at one of the 18 exhibits that he turned over?
19 MR. HEFTER: I'm sorry. _That's one that we have 20 just gotten copies of. I'll just give you a whole set.
i 21 MR. WRIGHT: That is Exhibit No. -- '
i 22 MR. HEFTER: Number 2.
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24 1 BY MR. HEFTER:
2 Q Mr. Martin, is Exhibit.No. 2 the letter that you 3 just referred to?
4 A Yes, it is.
5 Q So you were telling me that Mr. Saklak started 6 filling out paperwork to terminate you?
7 A Yes, he did.
8 Q And what happened with that paperwork?
9 A When he went in to the QC manager, they were behind 10 closed doors, and after maybe 15 minutes, I was brought into 11 the room also, and I can't remember the specifics of the 12 conversation, but the manager said he was going to think about 13 it before he did any action about it.
14 Q The QC manager is Irv DeWald?
15 A No. At the time the QC manager was Tom Corcoran.
16 Q C-o-r-c-o-r-a-n?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And what happened next?
19 A After they had talked to me, it was evident that 20 they were going to fire me.
- 21 Q Evident to you?
22 A Yes, in my perception, because Mr. Saklak stated O
25 1 some -- well, lies. He said I had cursed at him, I had been O 2 disrespectful to him, and he was very vehement in his way of 3 expression, as if he had been wronged terribly, and the QC 4 manager interpreted that as being of a serious level, so they 5 were, I felt, going to talk about it a little more and then 6 maybe fire me.
7 Q Let me back up just a moment. You said that 8 Mr. Saklak went in and had a private conversation with 9 Mr. Corcoran for about 15 minutes; is that correct?
10 A Yes.
11 Q And then you were called into the office also; 12 correct?
() 13 A Yes.
14 Q And just the three of you were there?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And'did Mr. Corcoran ask you for your version of the
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17 events?
18 A No, he did not.
19 Q What was said by anyone in that room while you met 20 with Mr. Saklak and Mr. Corcoran, as best you can recall?
l 21 A Well, Mr. Saklak told his story the way he made it 22 up, said that I had been negligent, remiss, ridiculed me, O
4
, 26 1 basically, and I can remember that I felt maybe if I tried to 2 at least apologize to him -- I felt that it was more a 3 personal problem if anything -- and I felt maybe if I just 4 apologized to him, even though I was not wrong, maybe to show.
5 him that, you know, I was not being a hotshot or anything, and i 6 I specific remember after I tried to apologize to him for ,
7 anything that he felt that I had done wrong, he specifically 8 said that he wanted me gone, he wanted ne smoked.
9 Q Is this all taking place in the meeting that you 10 have been describing with you and Mr. Saklak and Mr. Corcoran?
4 11 A Yes.
4 12 Q And so in front of Mr. Corcoran, Mr. Saklak said 13 that he would not accept your apology and wanted you gone?
14 A Yes.
15 Q What else was said during that meeting?
16 A That concluded the discussion between the three of 17 Tus.
18 Q And at that point, then, Mr. Corcoran said he would i
19 consider it, and you left?
20 A I am not sure specifically what was said. I just 21 know that.it was not over yet. I-knew that I was either being 22 written up or fired when I left the office. I wasn't sure what l
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1 was going to happen.
2 Q Were you. told that a decision had been made or had 3 not been made, or you just didn't know?
4 A I didn't know.
5 Q After that meeting, what was the next thing that 6 happened?
7 A I went and wrote up this letter.
1 8 Q- Exhibit 2?
9 A Yes, Exhibit 2. And I passed it around to all the 10 witnesses that were there. Only two people would sign it.
11 Q Who else witnessed the incident besides the people 12 who signed the letter for you.
) 13 A The only person I -- well, I specifically remember 14 asking Tanya Rolan to sign it -- she was there -- arid she i
15 would not.
16 Q Did you have any discussion with her about why she 17 wouldn't sign it? !
1 18- A No, I did not. !
I 19 Q You just asked her to sign it and she said no and 20 that was the end of the discussion? l i 21 A She stated that she really didn't hear everything l
22 that went on and she just didn't want to basically get O
i 1
28 1 involved. That's the impression I got.
O
\s / 2 Q But she said she hadn't heard everything that went 3 on.
4 A Right.
5 Q Was there anyone else who you asked to sign the 6 letter who would not?
7 A Nobody that I can remember.
8 Q Was there anyone else that observed the incident who 9 you did not ask to sign the letter?
10 A Certain people witnessed portions of it. We were 11 standing one side of the office, and after Rick Saklak made.
12 'the remarks, I walked over across, say, half the office, maybe 13 15, 20 feet, to ask him what the problem was, why he was so
( )
14 upset and why he was going to call me these names. And at the 15 time when I walked up to him, he was standing outside one 16 office where there was a group of inspectors talking, and they 17 witnessed tha part where Rick Saklak told me I was negligent.
18 and this and that and told me to get out in the field.
- 19 They saw me basically tell.him that he couldn't talk i 20 to me that way, and after that, he went to get a. termination 21 slip, so it was kind of shifted to another part of the office.
22 Q Why didn't you ask the other people who witnessed O
29 1 the incident to sign the letter?
l 2 A I felt that th'ay were basically friends of Rick 3 Saklak, and I felt that -- I'm not sure. I can't really 4~ answer that. I just-went to basically those three people.
5 Q Who were the people who witnessed the incident who 6 you did.not-ask to sign the-letter. You already mentioned 7 that Tanya Rolan is the only one who you asked to sign and 8 would not sign. Who were the people who you did not ask at 3
9 all to sign?
10 A Okay. Kenneth Bushue. B-u-s-h-u-a. Dave 1
11 Soberski. S-o-b-e-r-s-k-i.
12 Q Anyone else?
l
/} 13 A I know there were three or four other people. Dave 14 Parks.
I 15 Q Anyone else?
16 A No. I can't specifically identify anyone else.
i 1
17 Q You said that there were three people that you. asked
- 18 to sign the letter, but one of.the signatures is your own, is 19 that right, the first?
4
) 20 A well, the three people I' asked was Tanya Rolan, 21 Bruce Brown, Brian Baranowski, and two people signed the 22 letter --
O O
- -,e.. -- . - - -y -,m,- - - ,
30 1 Q Plus yourself.-
2 A Plus me, yes.
3 Q Did the incident with Rick Saklak that you have just 4 described influence in any way the way that you did your job 5 thereafter?
6 A Yes, it did.
7 Q How?
8 A Well, I felt I was being watched. I felt that if I 9 made any mistake, I knew that he was going to be there waiting
~
10 for me. And not only that. He began a campaign to just 11 blackball me in the office. He badmouthed me any time and any 12 way he could, and it caused a great majority of the inspectors
() 13 in the office to turn against me.
~ 14 Q Now, the first part of your answer there was that 15 you knew he would be watching you very closely in the future; 16 is that right?
17 A Yes.
18 Q So did it make you be super conscientious on your 19 job to make sure you didn't give him any reason at all to ever 20 call you on anything again?
21 A Well, work related, yes. It really didn't affect my 22 specific work-because he was a supervisor over the electrical, O
. - - . - - , -_ ,_ , . , , . - . . . ._ . ~ - . .
31 1 and at the time, I was a welding and configuration inspector; 2 therefore, he had no jurisdiction over what I did. . It just )
l 3 made me aware that if he could find a mistake -- he was very 4 contentious, and if he found something where my supervisor 5 allowed me to do or gave me a privilege, he would let that j 6 other supervisor know it, and basically, anytime he could say 7 anything bad about me, he would do it.
. i 8 Q So did that make you then want to do your job in 9 such a manner that there was no way he could ever find any 10 fault?
11 A I felt -- that's the way-I feel anyway, so it really 12 didn't change my determination to assure that what I was 13 inspecting as'up to the standards that I have been trained by.
14 Q So really the effect of this' incident was to make 15 the working atmosphere for you a little uncomfortable; is that 16 correct?
17 A Yes. I would.like to mention that whenever I was 18 confronted with Mr. Saklak, he had a very unique way of 19 putting people down. He is very large in stature and he is 4 20 also very large with words, and he really is a master at it.
l 21 And it seemed that he had the ability esp'ecially to corner me
~
l 22 where many times he would ask me questions and I just couldn't i
!()
-- - , _,_.-._,--_,...._--...u-,_._
32 1 answer them, or get me into things. And it seemed like every 2 time I had to talk with him or deal with him, there was a very 3 wide. communication gap there that I feel he created but yet he 4 would make sure that other people understood that it was my 5 inability to communicate; with other people it was my problem, 6 see.
7 Q Is it fair to say that it was your feeling that 8 Saklak had it in for you?
9 A Yes. At particular time, yes.
10 Q Do you have any knowledge as to why he had it in for 11 you?
12 A No , I really can't say why.
13 Q I'm not asking.you to look in his mind.
( } All I want 14 to know from you is if you know of any. communications between-15 you, any other incidents within your knowledge that would be a 16 basis for his having it in for you.
17 A When he first came into the office, he was a little 18 bit pushy with everybody, and since he was not over me, he was 19 not responsible for what I did, a-couple of times he kind of 20 tried to jump me and I just kind of tried to let him know 21 that, hey, don't worry about me, I've got my own supervisor.
22 I don't think I was disrespectful in any way, but yet I did J
O 1
- ~ . -_..-...,y . . . . , _ _ , . , , .
,y- _.- . _ . . _ r
33 1 let him know about it.
2 Q Okay, but I don't think you quite answered the 3 ' question. Let me see if I understand it.
4 Is it your testimony that Saklak had it in for you 5 and you know of no reason why he had it in for you?
6 A No, I know no reason, no specific one incident why 7 he would ever have it in for me the way he did.
8 Q All right. Is there a series.of incidents? You 9 limited your answer there to not knowing of any single 10 incident.
11 A Nor a series.of incidents.
12 Q Okay. You know of no reason why he had it in for
() 13 you.
14 A No, none whatsoever.
15 Q That whole discussion was in response to my question 16 about the incidents of harassment that you had mentioned-17 earlier, and that incident with Saklak was the first; correct?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Why don't you give me the second?
20 A Yes, that was the first.
21 Q Okay. . Why don't you give me the second, if there 22 was a second?
O
34 1 A I'm not sure these are going to be in the proper 2 order, but, you know, whatever.
3 Q Just do the_best you can.
4 A I had been -- I'm sure you have in your recordE 5 there that I was decertified. During this period of time, I 6 had no real direct responsibilities as far as the quality
.7 aspect of the program was concerned. I was used to initiate 8 tracking programs in the vault, I was used to initiate a
- 9 computer program to get our inspections loaded into the 10 computer and various other means, but I was also used to I
11 assist some new inspectors out in the field, as part of my 12 training.
13 It was kind of a handwashing situation. I knew the 14 plant, I knew the drawings, I knew the details. The new 15 inspector was certified, whatever, and I would supposedly get 16 training -- and I want to stress the " supposedly" -- and the 17 other person would get assistance in his weld inspections, 1
18 .whatever.
19 We had a question in one specific situation. I was-20 with Tom Dunbar inspecting, and we had a question as to an i
21 interpretation of a weld detail, and we couldn't get an 22 answer, so at particular times inspectors had been going over-O 1
1
35
-1 to Sargent & Lundy directly to get answers to simple questions C) 2 that could be answered. I felt it would be acceptable to go 3 over there and get an answer to our question since it had to 4 do with the S&L standard itself. It wasn't really involved 5 with our drawings and specifications where we had our own 6 engineers to interpret them; it was a situation where we had 7 one of the higher standards of question.
8 So we went over to S&L,' and when our superiors found 9 out, they were very upset, and basically I got cussed out, I 10 guess you could say. I just was told never to go over 11 there. Basically that's it.
12 Q You said your supervisors were upset ~about it. Who
( }
13 were your supervisors who were upset about it?
14 A Rick Saklak and Irv DeWald.
15 Q How did they find out that you had gone over to talk 16 to Sargent & Lundy?
17 A. I'm not sure, but I~believe S&L called with a 18 complaint.
19 Q You didn't tell them?
20 A No.
21 Q Who suggested going to Sargent & Lundy? Was it you 22 or Mr. Dunbar?
O
36 1 A It was me. ;
2 Q I believe you said other inspectors had done that' 3 before; is that correct?
1 4 A Yes.
-5 Q Who had done that before?
6 A I believe I had been over there a couple times l
7 mysw?f. Chuck Tyler. I really can't pin down anybody else.
8 Q Are trwra other incidents you know of with 9 inspectors whose names yuc just can't recall, or are --
10 A I'm sure there are cases where there are other 11 inspectors that I just can't recall, yes.
12 Q Are you thinking of specific incidents but just
() 13 can't recall the names, or are you speculating that there may 14 have been other incidents?
15 A Well, I know that Chuck Tyler went over there.
16 Q Okay. I'm asking you about any that you haven't 17 already testified about.
18 A It's just a -- what did you call it?
19 Q Speculation?
20 A Speculation.
21 Q So the only incidents you know of of-QC inspectors 22 going directly to Sargent &' Lundy are yourself doing it a O
37 1 couple of times and Chuck Tyler doing it~once; is that
- 2 correct?
3 A Yes.
? . .
4 Q When you had gone to Sargent & Lundy prior to the 5 incident you.have just been describing, did your superiors 6 find out about it subsequently?
7 A Yes.
8 Q And what was their reaction?
l i'
9 A No reaction.
i j 10 Q And was that when Mr. Corcoran was the QC manager?
)
L 11 A Yes,.I believe so. Yes.
j 12 Q And so to Mr. Corcoran,-it was all right for you to 13 go over to Sargent & Lundy, or that was your understanding?
( }
14 A Yes.
15 Q Do you know if the QC manager or any of the QC 16 management found out about Mr. Tyler having gone to Sargent &
j 17 Lundy?
18 A That would have been during the period also'that i 19 Mr. Corcoran was the manager. I'm not sure if anybody had
- . 20 . gone over there while Irv Dewald was. manager.
21 ~Q So the first time you know of of any QC inspector 22 going to Sargent & Lundy while Irv DeWald was QC manager at l
l O
38 1 .Comstock was the incident that you have just been-describing O
-# 2 involving yourself and Mr. Dunbar; is that right?
3 A .Yes.
4 Q And when Mr. DeWald found out about it, he was !
5 upset? i 1
6 A. Yes.
7 Q And what did he say to you?
- 8 A He just -- all he really said was that we were not 9 to go over there.
10 Q Did he tell you why?
11 A Yes. He said we have people you can go to to get-12 answers.
() 13 Q People within the Comstock organization?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Did he tell you who those people were?
16 A- No.
17 Q Did you know who those people were?
18 A I took it for granted, yes, that they were my 19 supervisors, channels.
20 Q So in other words, he told you you should have taken 21 your problem up the Comstock chain of command.
22 A Yes.
l l
l O
39 s 1 Q Did you know that it was the proper procedure?
2 A Well, it's the proper procedure at any 3 organization. You know, you have your rank and file, 4 whatever. But it had been my experience and the experience of 5 other inspectors that they could over to S&L and just get a 6 quick answer if they needed it, and nobody had really 7 complained about it or said it was wrong.
8 In fact, at a certain period of time it was kind of 9 a thing where we would have questions and stuff and nobody 10 could answer them, and they were saying, hey, just go to S&L, 11 they're the ones that designed it, and let them answer our t
12 questions, because we were kind of getting the hem-haw. At
, ) 13 one time I could possibly say it was the more preferred thing
~
14 to do, go over to S&L instead of just running through the
- 15 whole Comstock chain.
I 16 Q That was when Mr. Corcoran was in charge?
17 A Yes, and maybe even when Irv was there.
18 Q How do you know that that was the preferred thing to 19 do?
20 A It got the best results.
21 Q It got the best results in terms of getting your 22 question answered quickly.
O
40 1 A Yes.
2 Q But as far as Comstock procedure, is it your 3 understanding that the proper procedure for a QC inspector is j 1
4 to have problems resolved by his superiors at Comstock? !
5 A Yes. I'm not going to answer that "no," but there !
I 6 were times when we couldn't get answers, there were times when 7 our supervisors were not around or-they just didn't know, and 8 it's just many times we were beating our heads against the 9 wall.
10 Q So while it was proper procedure to go up the chain 11 of command, it was often more expedient to go to Sargent &
12 Lundy; is that right?
() 13 A Yes. And I also would say that our immediate 14 supervisors were aware and that they felt it was accepted 15 practice.
16 Q Juld it was accepted practice under Mr. Corcoran; is 17 that right?
18 A Yes. ,
19 Q Okay. And it was not accepted by Mr. DeWald, as you 20 found out after you did it.
21 A Yes.
22 Q Okay. Fair enough.
(
. = _ .. -_= . - . _.
41 1 That was incident number two of. harassment; is that 2 right?
3 A Yes. l 4 Q Have we got a third?
5 'A Yes. l 6 Q Would you tell me about it, please?
7 A We got audited by CECO, and they found that our i 8 drawings, something like 75 percent of our drawings were void, 9 void revisions in the drawings, which is a very serious 10 problem. On a Saturday, Comstock and S&L joined forces and 11 formed like a task force to go out into the field, check all 12 the drawings out in the field, and record the drawings and the 13 revs, and any void drawings would be marked and whatever.
( )
14 Well, before we went out, we had a little meeting, l
15 and at the time it was said that we were going to use a 16 procedure to follow. We have what we call -- I don't know the 17 exact procedure number. It's our document control inspection 18 procedure, and I had been working with that procedure. In 19 fact, the procedure had just recently come out, and I was 20 working very closely with that procedure at the time.
21 Rick Saklak, who was in charge of this mission, i 22 whatever you want to call it, decided.to take the checklist of f
1 i O
,l
- . - , . .. . ,,, - .. . . - . . . . - . - - . . . . - - , . - . , . . ~ . - . - ~ _ _ - - - - - - , .
42 1 this document review inspection and just custom use it for 2 this one little incident that they were going.to use it for.
3 Well, I immediately had some questions because they
~
4 were going to be working around the procedure. They weren't 5 going to go to the procedure, but yet they were going to use 6 the form for the procedure, and they were going to N/A almost 7 the whole form except for a couple items, and they were going
~
8 to bypass a lot of the inspection requirements that that 9 procedure entailed.
10 Well, I attempted to bring this to his attention. I Il felt that we should be documenting our adverse use of this l 12 procedure to assure that we cover ourselves. He immediately l() 13 started drilling me with questions and stuff -- you know, 14 what's a hanger, stuff like that -- in front of, you know, the 15 whole S&L group, and everybody was in there, and it really 16 made me look like a fool. So I backed down and I didn't say 17 anything else.
- 18 So I went out in the field with~my particular S&L i
19 engineer, and we were to fill out a report along with the i
20 checklist, and we were to list all the drawings that we 1 21 reviewed. Well, I was writing all the information down, and j 22 the S&L engineer wanted to do the documentation because he was O
43 1 using shortcuts. 'He wasn't writing everything out. He was 2 just' dittoing stuff, which is not really good practice in QC 3 documentation.
l
, 4 And I told.htm, first of all, that I wasn't-going to 5 document it the way he wanted me to, and_second of all, he j 6 wanted to do some of the documentation, and I told him that he 7 would not do any of the documentation because he was not 8 certified, he was not performing any inspection act,1vity :
9 except to be here to help me evaluate the drawings.
10 He got pretty upset about that, and when we went in 11 for lunch, I was told that I would not be on the project, and I 12 I was taken-off.
( }
13 We'll, I was at my desk in another room of the office 14 area after lunch doing some work, and all of a sudden -- well, i
15 excuse me. Earlier I had mentioned to another supervisor, 16 Larry Seese, that I felt sidestepping our procedure was going 17 to be a problem and it would be a good idea to document our 4
i 18 actions to cover ourselves so that down the road we would know 19 why we did the things that we did not according to the
{
20 procedure, to at least have an explanation for it, and he had l 21 complimented me on the observation, said it was a very good
)
22 idea,. and he himself wrote up a letter stating tha't we were 1
!O
44 1 going to be using our procedure for this, this and this, and 2 the circumstances around it.
3 Well, after he got it written up, he showed this 4 letter to Rick Saklak, and he just went bananas. He. started 3 5 screaming, and he knew I was in the other room, and'he said 6 that I was nothing but the idiot, I'm the problem of this 7 whole QC office, he said that the only thing that should be 8 done with me is to terminate me immediately. When Mr. Saklak 9 said that-I was the problem of the office, Mr. Seese told 10 Mr. Saklak that he was the problem of this office.
11 So there was a little more yelling, whatever, and
- 12. then it was over with. But I consider'that e.n act of 13 harassment because he knew I was in the other office, and he 14 had really given me a hard time about it directly after 15- lunch. He told me I wasn't worth nothing and this and that.
16 Q So this was another incident of Mr. Saklak 17 belittling you.
18 A Yes.
19 Q What are void provisions on drawings?
20 A Well, like a physical drawing where positions of 21 hangers are shown in a certain area in the plant, and you have 22 detailed drawings which indicate what type of supports you O
l l
45 1 have, how long it is, what type of material you use. Well, 2 these drawings are constantly being revised. These drawings 3 are controlled. And when a revision comes out,'they have a 4 very strict procedure they go through when they void out the 5 old drawings and bring.in the new drawings. The controlled 6 copies are brought out into the field, the old are taken away 7 and brought in from the field. So if you are working to a 8 void drawing out in the field, it could be very critical to an 9 aspect of the plant.
10 Q So the problem that this task force was addressing 11 on a Saturday was that drawings that were old and had been 12 superceded by new drawings were still in the field, hadn't 13 been pulled back out of the field.
( )
14 A Yes.
15 Q So your task, then, was to take the drawings, 16 compare them to the field and determine which ones were void 17 and which ones were still valid, is that right?
18 A Yes. It seems like a simple procedure, but we were 19 checking other items, also, engineering change notices, field 20 change requests and stuff like that.
l 21 Q Okay. But the checklist that you were describing 22 earlier that had been taken from a document review procedure,
. O i
2
- ~,.-.,.,--e .,e , , , . , . - . . . - . , . , , . , , ,
46 1 or a document --
2 A Document control' inspection.
3 Q -- document control inspection procedure, was being 4 used on this saturday for the purpose of describing which 5 -drawings were void and which were valid; is that correct?
i 6 Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not understanding you 7 correctly.
8 A Okay. There is a checklist on the form on which 9 there are accept / reject items, and we were told to ignore all 10 the accept / reject items except for maybe one or two, in which 11 case, if we had a reject item of which attribute we were going 12 to have nonapplicable, it would go against the procedure.
13 So your concern was that someone later on in seeing
( ) Q 14 these checklists would think that they had been used for the 15 purpose for which_they were originally drawn up for that 16 particular procedure, and that anything that was not checked 17 as nonacceptable:had been, by implication, passed. Is that i 18 right?
19 A Right.
4 i
20 Q Okay. And you wanted to make certain~by writing 21 some sort of a document at the time that anyone who later saw 22 those documents would understand the purpose for which they O
47 1 had been used and would not think that they had been used to O 2 inspect items that they weren't being used for on that 3 Saturday.
4 A That's good, yes. That's correct.
5 Q That's correct. Okay.
6 So you made your suggestion to Mr. Saklak in the 7 morning that document be generated, and he ridiculed your 8 suggestion and ridiculed you.
9 A Yes, that's correct.
10 Q During the morning, then, I guess you had also 11 talked to Mr. Seese about it.
12 A Yes, I had.
( ) 13 Q Mr. Seese was Saklak's superior?
14 A No, I don't think Rick Saklak was directly under 15 Larry Seese at.this time. I think they were more -- Mr. Seese 16 was the assistant manager, but his responsibilities on a daily 17 basis were not within the scope of the areas that Mr. Saklak 18 was under; therafore, on a rank scale, yes, Mr. Seese was over 19 Rick Saklak, but in a. job sense, he was not really related in
~
20 his direct area. So therefore, Saklak reported directly to 21 the manager, but like if the manager was gone, then Mr. Saklak 22 would report to Larry Seese in that kind of respect.
O
- - - - .i,.. - - + - - . . - . , ~ . . ,
48 1 Q Okay. On this particular Saturday, though, the lines !
2 of the organization chart will a little bit blurred, and ,
3 . people who normally didn't work directly for one another were 4 kind of put together and were working for one another; is that 5 right?
6 A Yes, that's right.
7 Q So on this particular Saturday, everybody there was 8 engaged in the same task; is that right?
9 A Yes, that's correct.
1
- 10 Q And Mr. Seese was the senior person there; is that 11 correct?
12 A He was in charge of the project.
13 So on this particular Saturday, Mr. Saklak reported
( ) Q 14 to Mr..Seese; io that right?
i 15 A Well, Irv DeWald was there also, so I think he 16 reported directly to Mr. DeWald unless Irv left'.
17 Q Maybe you should describe to me the function that i
18 Seese performed and the function that Saklak performed on this 19 particular Saturday.
1
- 20 A I think Larry Seese on that Saturday.was merely i
21 reviewing ICRs and NCRs, which is the time that he had picked, t
22 usually, to do that because it's usually peaceful. During the .
. O
a 49 1 week he is usually just putting-out fires and stuff and 2 chasing after all kinds of stuff, but on the weekends he would 3 usually sit down and sign off ICRs and NCRs, review and stuff 4 l'ike that at his' desk.
5 Q You went to Mr. Seese with your suggestion about 6 creating a document to show what you had used the forms 7 for because Mr. Saklak had turned it down;.is that right?
8 A Well, there's a little more to it than that. Larry 9 had expressed his faith in me, and at this particular point in 10 time I trusted him, you could say. I was directly under him 11 at the time. At the time, I was very frustrated and I just 1
12 wanted to air my view out with somebody that.was not so '
13 biased. So that's why I. mentioned it to him.
[ }
14 Q So in other words, you both went to.him to complain 15 about Mr. Saklak's behavior when you made your suggestion and 16 to press your suggestion; is that right?
17 A No.
18 Q Okay. Which part of that is wrong?
19 A I didn't make any complaint. I just mentioned to 20 Larry that it would-be good to do this. Well, maybe it was a-21 complaint, but it was just to Larry and I left it at that.
i 22 Q The major reason, then, that you went to Mr. Seese a
- O i
, . _ - - .. -= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ '
50 1- was to press your suggestion that had been turned down by 2 Mr. Saklak.
3 A Yes.
4 Q So in other words, although you felt that 5 Mr. Saklak's outburst when you made your suggestion 6 constituted harassment, you weren't dissuaded by that 7 harassment from continuing to do you job to the-best of your-8 ability; is that right?
9 A That's true.
10 Q Now, you testified-that Mr. Seese brought your 11- suggestion back to Mr. Saklak with his own endorsement of it
'12 as a good idea; is that right?
l
() 13 A Yes.
14 Q And that he had, in fact, even created the document 15 that you had suggested be created; right?
i 16 A Yes.
j 17 Q And that Saklak then had another minor outburst, or 1
l 18 major outburst --
19 A Major.
20 Q -- in which he told seese that you ought to be 21 fired, and seese told Saklak that Saklak ought to be fired; is
, 22 that about right?
l 0
l l
51 l l
1 A Well, the exact words were that Rick Saklak' stated {
2 that I was the major problem in the office, and that if they
- 3. -got rid of me, and Larry said, he goes: I think you're the 4 problem in the office. l 5 Q "You" meaning Saklak.
6 A Yes. He told Saklak that.
7 Q Was your suggestion ultimately adopted?
8 A Yes, it was. But also let me mention, too, that it 9 was found that the revision list that the QA inspector had was 10 a month ahead of time, so they found out there wasn't rea31y-11 any problem in the field. So really the whole problem was not 12 a problem.
13 Q. The whole exercise that everybody went in on a 14 Saturday for was not a problem?
15 A Right. And_I'm not sure exactly what came of 1<6 that. They might have just blanked the whole thing. I'm not 17 sure.
18 Q Okay. But on that Saturday, anyway, before you knew 19 that the whole exercise was unnecessary, your suggestion was 20 adopted.
21 A Yes, it was.
L
~22 Q Now, you also said that when you came back for 1 0
52-1 lunch, you were told you were rus longer to work on that
() 2 project on that Sr.curday; is that correct?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Who told you that?
5 A Mr. Saklak.
6 Q Did he tell.you why?
7 A Yes. He mentioned that I was causing problems.
8 Q Did he tell you what the problems were specifically?
9 A Not specifically. . I 'just heard him mention that --
4 10 'I forget the exact circumstances, but he did mention that he
] 11 was tired of me, I couldn't take simple orders, that's 12 basically why.
> 13 Q Do you know what he was referring to when he said 14 you couldn't take simple orders? '
15 A obviously because I had questions, I guess. He 16 expected me to just do what he said and don't, you know, 4 17 bother with anything else. '
18 Q Just so I have the sequence correct, you made your j 19 suggestion to Mr. Saklak in the morning, he rejected it, then 20' you went out into the field --
21 h No, I talked to Larry first.
1 22 Q Let me back up. Then you talked to Larry seese, I l l
l lO l
53 1 then you went to the field, came back for lunch, and at that l 4
(N l
\/ 2 point Saklak told you not to work on the project anymore; is j 3 that right?
-i 4 A Yes.
5 Q Then you overheard the argument between Saklak and 4 1 6 Seese-regarding your suggestion; is that right?
7 A
~
Well, it was maybe a half-hour to an hour later in 8 the afternoon. .
9 Q Did Mr. Seese know that Mr. Saklak had. pulled you 10- off the project?
11 A No, he was not aware of that. In fact, he was not 12 aware that I was in the office, if I can say that. I don't
() 13 14 think it matters.
Q Everyone else was out in the field again by that 15 point?
16 A Yes. The only people that were in the whole office 17 area were Irv DeWald, Larry Seese, Rick Saklak and myself. I i 18 was in the other room.
19 Q What did you do that-afternoon in your office after 20 you came back for lunch?
21 A I began statusing items for computer loading.
22 Q Is that a quality-related function?
O
54 1 A NJ, it is not.
2 Q .This Saturday task that you have been describing, i
3 did this take placs during.the time you had been decertified 4 or were you already racertified.at that point?
5 A In a technical sense, I was in sort of a limbo.
6 CECO said they. wanted.to pull my certs. Now, before I go any 7 further, this is hearsay. I'm not sure what exactly 8 happened. I have my doubts to this day. 'You know, I go to
, 9 CECO and they say, well, we have no problem certifying you. I 10 go to Comstock, and they say, well, we don't have any problem 11 certifying you. So I'm not sure, but my own faelings, I think 12 that I was certified. I was not decertified.
13 l ( ) I don't know how to explain it. I had lost my 14 certification until an investigation was done and they found
'l 15 that there was nothing as far as quality was concerned that 16 was lacking, and I was reinstated, which simply says that I 17 didn't need to be retrained, I didn't need to racertify. I was 18 just -- okay, you're reinstated. And I'm not sure what my l 19' status was at that time, to be honest with you.
1 1 20 I was not performing any quality inspections. I was 21 not allowed to. I can say that much.
22 Q On this Saturday, though, how was it that you went
1 55 1
1 out to do quality inspections if during this period you were l 2 not supposed to be doing that, if you know?
3- A~ I was still carrying on functions as a Level II 4 inspector although I was not certified in any' specific area.
- 5. I was performing inspections with the document review, 6 document control inspection, and I also did hold tag audits, 7 and in those capacities I served as an inspector, but actually 8 not being certified.
9 Q Were you asked to participate in this task on this 10 Saturday or did you volunteer for it?
, 11 A I was asked.
12 Q Who asked you to do it?
13 A 1 think Mr. Seese informed me that I would be 14 working under Mr. Saklak that day.
15 Q Did you have any discussion with Mr. Seese wnen he 16 asked you to do this with regard to your certification status 17 and whether you should be performing this task?
18 A Not on that particular occasion, although that 19 question did arise and they felt that it was acceptable, and 20 personally I was eager to do any type of quality work that I
, 21 was able to do because I felt I was fully competent and I felt 22 that as far as people trying to push me out the door, it was O
i
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, - - - - , - - s-- , ,
r-n~-r - . , - , , -- .,
56 1 one step in my direction that would better establish my
/~T k-J 2 position in the office. So I took on these functions any time 3 I could.
4 Q I think the first part of your answer there was tha 5 while you didn't discuss whether you should be doing this task 6 with Mr. Seese, that you did discuss it'at some point with 7 somebody; is that right?
8 A Yes.
9 Q When was that discussion and with whom?
10 A I can't give you an exact day or anything. I'just' 11 know that I had brought it up to him before, that, hey, you 12 know -- in fact, it was in a complaint. I said, hey, you 13 know, you guys decertified me, what's the idea of giving me
( }
14 this stuff? They said, well, look, maybe it's in your best 15 interest that you d'o it, and they expressed -- I think it was 16 Larry I talked to that said -- he expressed confidence that I 17 could perform the job, and after I thought about it, I felt 18 that it's something that it would be good for me to do and it 19 wouldn't cause a_ quality problem.
20 Q And that discussion with Mr. Seese was before this 21 Saturday work?
22 A Yes.
l u ()
1
57' 4
1 Q Did you discuss it with Mr. Saklah before that 2 Saturday?
3 A No.
1 4 Q Did you ever discuss it with Mr. Saklak?
1 5 A No. I knew waat the answer was.
} 6 Q Did he ever discuss it with you?
7 -A No, not'really, as far as discussion goes. I heard 8 many remarks that he would make as far as my capabilities were 9 concerned.
10 Q I'm specifically interested now in any remarks he
, 11 may have made regarding whether you should have.been 12 performing this task on this particu'lar Saturday. Is there 4
13 anything?
( }
i 14 A No.
15 Q Do you have any' knowledge as to why Mr. Saklak
- 16 allowed you to go out into the field in the morning on
- 17 Saturday after having turned down your suggestion, and then 18 refused to let you go out again after lunch?
4 19 A Well, I think when I gave that S&L guy a'hard time, 20 I think that kind of brought about his decision.
21 Q Okay. Why don't you describe for me the incident i
22 with the S&L guy? !
O
58 1 A Well, he wan'ed t to do the documentation, and I told i
() 2 'him that he couldn't, that I was going to do it, and he wanted
- 3 me to do it shorthand, and I told him that I wouldn't do it 4 shorthand, that I was going to write it all out, which maybe 5 took twice as long, I don't know,'but I told him that I was 6 going to sign the documents and he was just here for the 7 ride. I didn't say that. I just told him that I was going to 8 do the documentation -- and in a respectful way, I felt.
9 Q Would you explain to me what you mean by doing it in 10 shorthand?
11 A Well, the drawings are a series of numbers, like 12 1-3511, and then 1-3511A, then 1-3511 Col.
13 Q "CO" means what?
14 A It's a conduit hanger tabulation sheet.
15 Q Okay.
J 16 A And on down the line. Well, he just wanted to put, 17 like 1-3511, and then put ACol, CO2, CO3, and just ditto it l 18 all the way down. That's improper for quality documentation i
19 and it lands itself to mistakes.
20 Q He wanted to do this all on the same sheet of paper, i
21 use ditto marks?
! 22 A Yes.
O
59 1 Q And you wanted to write everything out longhand.
2 A Yes.
3 Q Now, you said that's improper, is that right, to do 4 it in the manner that the S&L engineer had suggested?
5 A. I feel it is, yes.
6 Q Okay. Does doing it that way violate a procedure 7 that you are aware of?
8 A No, it does not.
9 Q Why did you say, then, that doing it that way is 10 improper?
11 A Well,.although there is nothing in our specific 12 procedure that would address that, I think as far as the
( ) 13 attitude of the ANSI standards and recording stuff legibly and 14 interpretable, I felt that it was incorrect practice.. It was 15 maybe not against any written procedure, but yet it was an ill 16 practice, something that a certified inspector would not do.
17 Q You mentioned the ANSI standard. Is there something 18 in particular in the ANSI standard that would have been 19 violated by making the notations the way the S&L engineer had 20 suggested?
21 .A No.
22 Q And you mentioned something about making sure that
.l l
, 60 1 the things were legible. Is there anything inherent about 1
/ 2 using ditto marks that would make the page illegible?
3' A Yes, I feel there would be a possibility. You could i
4 forget to write down a drawing number and have dittoes all the 5' way down or something, leave a gap there and you were going to 6 write something there and you miss it, and you just have 7 dittoes all the way down. If you had to. copy the document any 8 number of times, sometimes a copier can have a bad day and it 9 will come out and there won't be any ditto marks there, or 10 what you might think might be some writing, and you won't be t
- 11 able to interpret it.
4 12 Q So you were trying to head off potential problems 13 l ( ) that could arise by the use of ditto marks but that would not
- 14 necessarily arise.
15 A Yes.
16 Q Had you been given any instructions before you went j 17 out into the field on this Saturday regarding whether it was 18 acceptable to make the notations in shorthand?
- 19 A No.
20 Q Had you been given any instructions as to who on the
, 21 teams -- let me.back up a minute.
- 22 Did each quality control inspector go out in a team i
J r
61 1 with a S&L engineer?
2 .A Yes.
3 Q Were you given any instructions before you went out 4 into the field as to who on that team, whether it was the 5 quality control inspector or the S&L_ engineer, would be 6 responsible for determining how to make notations and what 7 should be noted?
l 8 A No.
9 Q What was your understanding of it?
10 A It was left to each individual to do as they saw 11 best. Iftheywantedtodocumentitacertainhay,gofor 12 it. I have my own standards that I work by and every other ,
13 'inspector does, and some inspectors did let the S&L people 14 fill out the paperwork, but that.was their responsibility, 15 they were signing the paperwork, and when I sign the 16 paperwork, it would be filled out by me.
17 Q So you insisted that you. signed the paperwork and l 18 that the S&L engineer did not, and you also insisted that when 19 you signed the paperwork, that it be done not in shorthand; is i
t 20 that right?
I 21 A Yea.
I 22 Q What was the resolution of that as between you and '
i l i O
62 1 the S&L engineer that you were working with?
() 2 A Well, I filled it all out.
3 Q And you did it in longhand.
4 A Yes, up until. lunch, till I was taken off.
5 Q And it is your understanding that when you returned 6 from the field for lunch, the S&L engineer reported to 7 Mr. Saklak that you had insisted on doing all the documents i
8 yourself and that you had insisted on doing it your way; is 9
that right?
10 A Yes.
11 Q And it was due to that that you were taken off the 12 project?
13 A Yes.
14 Q I believe you testified that on some of the other 15 teams, the S&L engineer did do the notations; is that right?
16 A I have that understanding.
17 Q Do you'know if that is the case?
18 A I never factually saw it, but I think I heard 19 somebody mention that their S&L guy filled it out.
20 Q Now, this task that you were performing is not a 21 normal quality control function, was it?
22- A That's true.
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, , - , - - - - - - - - r - - , - - - - -- - , - - w ~ , -r
63 1 Q So there is no procedure governing this task that
( 2 you performed on this Saturday as there is governing the 3 normal work of a quality control inspector; is that right?
4 A Yes, that's correct.
5 Q So the determination that it was not proper for a 6 Sargent & Lundy engineer to make notations as to what was 7 observed on this Saturday is your personal opinion; is that 8 right?
- - 9 A Yes.
10 Q Are you aware of any standard or any procedure that 11 would have been violated by Sargent-& Lundy engineers making 12 the notations during this task on this Saturday?
13 A Yes, I believe that as far as the procedure is.
14 concerned, that it states that a certified inspector will 15 perform the work.
16 Q Which procedure is the procedure concerned?
17 A It has been such a long time, I don't remember. I 18 couldn't tell you. I'm sorry.
19 Q I don't expect you to necessarily know the number, 20 but what I'm asking is: You have already testified that the
- 21 job that was being performed on this Saturday was not a normal i
22 quality control job that is governed by a quality control p
64.
1 procedure like all of the normal quality control jobs are, so
'2 my question is: What procedure are you referring to that 3 controlled this task that was being performed on this 4 Saturday?
5 A .I felt it was the doc control inspection that they 6 were using the form for, and in order to perform a quality i
7 inspection, you have got to be certified. That's the way I saw
- 8 it and that's the way I felt at that time.
i i
9 Q The suggestion that you had raised in the morning 10 about documenting what it was that you were using the forms-11 for was raised precisely because you were nottdoing a document 1'
12 control inspection; is that right?
13 A Yes, but it was a quality inspection.
{ }
I 14 Q But it was not governed by the document control 15 inspection procedure because it was not a document control 16 inspection; is that right?
5 17 A But they were using the form.
i 18 Q That's correct. Please ansvar my question. You i
1 19 will have a chance to get your licks in, too, but I would like I
! 20 'to get my question answered.
I 21 You were not doing a document control inspection; 3
22 right?-
i
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65 1 A A portion of it, yes, but not an inspection 2 according to the procedure.
3 Q 'Right. You were using the form for doing a task for 4 which there was no procedure; is that right?
~
5 A Yes, that's right.
6 Q And when Comstock performs a task for which there is i no written procedure, who is it that determines how the job 8 will be done?
9 A If we are not instructed, we have to determine I
10 ourselves the way it should be done. In that particular. case, 11 we were instructed what we were going to record on the forms 12 and basically what we were looking for, and that was it. We
( ) 13 were not given any instruction as far as filling out the
- 14 reports and anything, who can fill them out, or anything.
I 15 Once you got out there, it was cold turkey, and at the time, I 16 was not willing to let an S&L person fill out the paperwork.
17 Now, if my supervisor was there and said do it, I 18 would have done it. It's no problem there. But in my 19 judgment, I felt I used the best judgment that was applicable 20 at the time.
21 Q Fair enough. So your supervisor, in your opinion, 22 had the right to tell you to let the S&L engineer do the work i
66 and it wouldn't have violated a procedure had he done that,
~
1 .
2 but he wasn't there; right? l l
3 A That's correct.
4 Q And you felt that you should not let the Sargent &
4; 5 Lundy person take the role of your. supervisor and tell you how I
6 that job should be done; is that right?
7 A That's right.
8 Q That whole incident we have just'been discussing is 9 the third of the incidents that you have described as j 10 incidents of harassment; ' correct?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Okay. . Is there another?
b' 13 A Yes.
14 Q Would you describe that one, please?
15 A one day Mr. Saklak requested my assistance in a
] .
16 cable tray surveillance inspection, and for the most part it 17 involved a cleanliness inspection. Now, the complete 18 parameters of this inspection I really can't explain to you 19 because I was really not familiar with the way'it was run all
- 20 together, but he came in and very arrogantly explained my 21 mission. He took a piece of paper, crumpled it up and threw 22 it on my. desk. He goes: You see that? He goes: That's a
\
l 2
i O i
67 l
1 piece of paper. He goes: I want you to go out and look at any
() 2 tray, and if you see any paper like that in the tray, I want 3 you to write it down and I want you to fill out a form per 4 procedure, and get back with me and let me know the results.
5 He goes: By the way, when you find the paper, this 6 is what you do with it. And he took the piece of paper and 7 threw it in the trash can. He said: Make sure you do that.
8 So I told him that I wanted to review the procedure 9 before I went out because I was not familiar with the 10 procedure nor the checklist, and in reading the procedure, 11 there was a very detailed inspection described in the 12 procedure. I was instructed to check pan releases of cable, I 13 was instructed to check damaged tray, make sure the tray 14 was marked properly, make sure that the cables were hung in a 15 correct manner, and there was quite a few other attributes 16 that this procedure was requiring me to check.
17 Upon reading that, I had some questions as far as 18 Rick Saklak had instructed me to specifically just go out and 19 record any debris in the tray. Well, I asked him, and he 20 said, well, N/A the rest of the check sheet and don't worry 21 about the rest of it. I felt that this was improper. I felt 22 that I wanted more clarification on it before I could do this O
68 1 procedure. So I went in and I talked to my supervisor, Larry 2 Seese, and I asked him about it.
3 I really can't remember exactly what happened. I'm 4 not sure exactly what happened as far as what Larry told me, 5 but.it just ended up that Rick Saklak got frustrated with me 6 and said, well, I don't want you doing it anyway, and he just.
7 pulled me off of it and had a full choice words. He didn't 8 want to be bothered with explaining tome why we weren't going 9 to procedures. So I was taken off that.
10 Q I think you said earlier that Saklak was not a 11 supervisor of your group; is that right?
12 A Right. He had gone in, which I stated, had gone in 13 to Seese and asked for an extra man.
14 Q Okay. So you were assigned by Seese to'Saklak for-15 this job.
16 A Right.
17 Q And when Saklak tried to assign you to the job, did 1
18 he tell you that you were going to be doing a cable tray 19 inspection pursuant to the cable tray inspection procedure?.
20 A No.
f 21 Q It sounds to me like another incident similar to the 22 Saturday incident where you were using a part of a form that e
O l
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69
, 1 Las a part of a procedure but not for that procedure; is that 2 right?
3 A Right. Very similar.
4 .Q And what he had instructed you to do on the parts of 5 the form that were not applicable to what you were doing was
- 6 to put down "N/A," or "not applicable"?
7 A Yes.
8 Q If you 5ete to have done it the way Mr. Saklak 9 instructed you to and used'the part of the form that dealt 10 with cleanliness and'not used the rest and wrote "not 11 applicable" in those portions that you were not using, would 12 that have caused someone looking at those forms later to
( ) 13 mistakenly believe that the items which were listed as not 14 applicable had, in fact, been inspected and approved?
15' A It could have. I was just seeking clarification. I I
16 hadn't told him, no, I'm not going out there. I think I had 17 requested a memo on my desk to say, hey, take the checklist, 18 N/A it and then check this one attribute. I think I asked for 19 a memo on that, but I didn't get a memo on it.
20 Q Was that because you were concerned that someone 21 would later think that you had not done a proper job of i
22 inspection because you had used a checklist from a procedure i
i 1
70 1 but hadn't followed the procedure?
's / 2 A Yes, that's correct.
3 Q So the problem, then, with doing it the way 4 Mr. Saklak wanted you to do was not that for tuditing purposes 5 or for purposes of going back and looking at the 6 documentation, someone would mistakenly believe that items 7 listed as not applicable were inspected and approved; but the 8 problem was that you might have been thought to have not 9 properly followed the procedure of which the form was a part.
10 A Yes, that's correct.
1 11 Q So you wanted something to cover yourself on that, 12 something in writing.
13 A Yes.
( )
14 Q Can I make a statement here?
15 MR. HEFTER: Let's go-off the record a second.
16
[ Discussion off the record.]
17 BY MR. HEFTER:
18 Q So the concern that you expressed didn't really have 19 anything to do with quality or the auditability of quality but
'20 had to do with your own job situation; is that right?
21 A I wouldn't go that far. I feel that quality was 22 involved. I mean if you are going to use a procedure, you are l
I e ,
i i
71 1 going to use a checklist, you'are supposed to go to it. There s 2 is no provision in any procedure saying, okay, just do this 3 part of the procedure and leave the rest out, unless you have i
4 good cause to do so, and I just didn't feel that that was a 5 good quality action.
6 Q Again, you weren't told that you were to-do the 7 cable tray inspection procedure; right?
8 A Or the other things that were involied,-no. I was 9 'just told to check for debris.
j 10 Q That was incident number four of harassment; 11 correct?
12 A Yes.
i 13 Okay.
( ) Q Is there another?
14 A No. Not flagrant harassment, no.
15 Q Sorry, but I have to find out anything that you j 16 think is harassment, flagrant or not. Why don't you tell me 17 about anything else that you consider to be harassment.
18 A I-guess one other case, I don't know if you would 19 consider it harassment or intimidation or whatever. Me and.
i 20 Larry Seese, like I say, were pretty close until at a.certain 21 point in time he discovered I was in favor of unionizing.
22 That is a speculation. I'm not sure why he decided he was 1
1
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}
. _ _ _ . - _ - - _ - . - - . - - - . .--.a,.-.-__- - - - - = - . . - - - . - - . -
72 1 going to have it in for me, but all of a sudden his attitude 2 changed very drastically towards me. I could only speculate 3 that it was because of my feelings about the union.
4 But all of a sudden, I was a bad guy, and it seemed 5 like there was nothing I could do that was right in his eyes.
6 His way of doing this, any mistake I made, he would document 7 it and give me a copy, saying you missed this, you missed 8 that. This turning point occurred about November of '84, and 9 I'm not sure this is in my paperwork here.
10 (Pause.]
11 Okay. I wrote up a letter on this to myself of an 12 incident that occurred the 30th of November, in which I was 13 asked to work on a particular item.
( } I believe it had to do 14 with a report on rework inspections. We initiated a rework
-15 program not too long before this incident, I believe in June 16 of '84, and I had control of the reworks as far as logging 17 them in, tracking them, and I took it upon myself to do some 18 research and see how many inspections were past the 30-day due 19 limit, which is -- it's not a nonconformance, but it is a 20 negligent item.
21 Anyway, I did my research, and I found we had 22 something like 500 inspections that were past the 30 days, and l
i
73 1 this was very upsetting. It caused some problems.
2 Well, Larry had to answer for this, and I didn't 3 really realize it at the time, that I was really kind of 4 skinning him, but I was just trying to say, hey, we got a 5 problem here.
6 Well, I was asked to break down the list of all 7 inspections, the types of inspections -- you know, cable tray, 8 hangers, welding, CEAs -- and categorize them and then count
) 9 them. So I had to review every rework. I worked overtime on 10 it. I didn't finish it. When I got back the next day, 11 Mr. Seese asked me if I had the project completed, and 1 said, 12 no, not yet, I'm working on it. He said, well, that's not 13 good enough.
! 14 So I decided I would try to explain I wasn't being 15 negligent. I went in there and I said, look, you know,.I 16 worked overtime on this. He said, well, I wanted it done. .I 17 .stid, well, you know -- I had come in late that day, as a 18 matter cf fact. I had to take my wife to the hospital. She 19 had a problem. And he just was upset that I hadn't had it t 20 done, and he started talking about how good comstock has made 21 it for me and how much they have done for me, and I told him I 22 didn't want to hear that garbage.
O
74 1 So he said, okay, we can make it hard'on you, and he 2 used some pretty rough words there. He said, we'll make it 3 hard on you, then. And he did make it hard on me for quite a 4 while. He wrote memos on me. But the most distressing thing, 5 and I think it may not be a quality problem but was a direct 6 act of discrimination, as far as I'm concerned, is when my 7 . yearly evaluation came up, I was all but firad. I was at the 8 end of my road, I was completely incompetent, I was derelict 9 par excellence, and I felt that was part cf just an ongoing 10 thing. Every day it was something. Tney were trying to get 11 me for anything they.could, and of course, I was.trying to get 12 them for anything. I~ don't have to mention that. But it was 13 kind of like war.
}
14 During that time I think that -- well, for example, 15 I was required to fill out the daily, hourly statuses. I was 16 the only one in the office required to do that, to record all 17 4
that I accomplished in a day's tine. When on one occasion I 18 was reviewing documents down in the vault, I was looking at J
19 one document in particular -- it was one of mine that I had 20 filled out a couple of years earlier, and I was looking at it.
21 and I forget what'the particular question I had in my mind 22 was, but I was kind of studying it, and Larry walked up and he i
O
75 1 says, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm just kind of 2 looking over this, and he said, well, I want you to watch i l
3 that. I don't want you to do that. '
4 So.at the time, I thought that that was harassment l 5 or intimidation. And this carried on for quite some time. ;
I 6 Q Why did you decide on your own to go and look into l 7 how many reworks had not been done within 30 days?
8 A Because I knew that it was a potential problem. I 9 knew that Larry had such a handful to do on his own that some i
10 things were looked unlooked at, and I just felt that this was 11 something I needed to bring to his attention, to know that.
12 thsre is a potential problem there. I just mentioned it to
() 13 14 him. In fact, well, I believe I did write it down for him.
Q You wrote him a memo about it?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Why is it a problem if reworks are not completed in 17 30 days?
18 A I'm not sure exactly where it is, but I know that 19 CECO and Comstock have an understanding that items installed 20 will be inspected after 30 days, and I believe Comstock was 21 having a contract problem with Ceco at the time anyway, so I'm 22 sure that they would not want to jeopardize anything as far as O
76 1 their work getting done in a timely manner. !
O\ 2 Q So you were concerned that Comstock may have been l i
3 falling behind and Ceco may have been concerned and not happy ;
4 with Comstock for it?
5 A Right.
6 Q It's a production matter, right? It's how fast you 7 are going to get the plant completed; right?
8- A Yes, that's true for the most part, but also there 9 are quality concerns within_a time lapse of inspection after 10 an installation is performed.
11 Q And why is that?
12 A Well, anything can happen to an item in that span of 13 time. Also, you run into a problem where you cen install
(
14 something in a' procedure during certain guidelines, and if 15 those guidelines become revised, it can cause a definite 16 problem because then you inspect to the new revision, and if 17 you have any discrepancies which were okay per the former 18 revision which are rejectable at the new revision, then you 19 are just causing yourself problems.
20 Q But in other words, what would happen at that point, 21 then, is that the item would have to meet the new standard --
22 A Yes.
l l
s _ _ _ , , ___
i 77 1 Q -- in order to be acceptable.
, 2 A That's not necessarily.true. It's case by case.
3 Some items are accepted, some aren't.
4 Q How would it adversely affect the quality of the 5 plant, though, to allow more than 30 days to elapse between 6 .the rework and in the reinspection?
7 A There would be no' quality breakdown.
1 8 Q Okay. Just so I understand your position, you were 9 concerned that Comstock may not have been getting its job done 10 in a timely'enough manner and that CECO would not be happy 11 with Comstock about that; is that right?
12 A Yes, that was the main concern.
It was not really a 13 quality concern.
l 14 Q When you found that there were 500~or more of these 15 reworks that had not been inspected for a period of 30 days or 16 more, you wrote a letter-to whom?
i 17 A Larry Seese.
1 18 Q Did you copy anybody on it?
19 A Myself.
20 Q Was it a letter, a memo, or what type of document '
l 21 was it? !
l 22 A I think it was just a sheet of paper, and I just O
i
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78 1 1
i 1 wrote on there, you know, we've got so many inspections that 2 have been due to inspect for 30 days.
3 Q And you did not send a copy of that to anyone else 4 other than Larry; is that right?
5 A Yes, that's correct.
6 Q Did you put a copy in any file anywhere, or did one 7 find its way into a file?
8 ~A I may have had a copy, but I could have thrown it t
9 out. I'm not a copy keeper. I have very few of memos or 10 anything. I don't keep any of that stuff.
11 Q Do you know if anyone else saw the memo that you 12 wrote to Larry?
f 13 A Yes.
'[
14 Q Who else?
I 15 A Larry Bossong.
16 Q And how did that come about?
I l 17 A Well, I just. mentioned to him that I had seen a I
f 18 problem, and like I say, it was war. I mean we were trying to 19 keep anything that we could do that we felt would protect us 20 or solidify the fact that Comstock was'not able to handle the 21 job on site.
22 Q So you wanted it known that Comstock wasn't doing O .
l .
_________.-_____-_a
79 1 its job; is that right?
2 A .Yes.
3 Q- And when I say wasn't doing its job, I'm referring 4 fto getting these reworks completed within 30 days; is that 5 right?
6 A Yes, that's correct.
I 7 Q And the reason that you wanted that known was 8 because you had hard feelings toward Comstock as a result of 9 the Union negotiations?
10 MR. WRIGHT: Objection.
11 MR. HEFTER: That's a question.
1 12 MR. WRIGHT: It's still objectionable.
13 THE WITNESS: No.
14 BY MR. HEFTER:
15 Q Okay.- What was your reason?
16 A I was merely trying to -- well, first of all, my 17 intention of bringing it up was to protect Larry Seese, 18 actually, because I did notify him of it, and I think telling 19 Larry Bossong about it was merely something more or less in 20 passing. As far as'the Union goes -- okay, there was no 21 malice intent. We kind of had, you could call it, a gossip 22 ring, and it was just sharing crazy st -> ries, and believe me,
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l
80 1 in the life of Comstock, you can't top one story. I mean 2 every day there is something new that you never realizcd 3 would happen, and it would, and some of the crazy things that 4 went on. Basically, it was just gossip.
5 Q Do you know if informing Bossong or informing anyone 6 other than Seese about the backlog of reworks that hadn't been 7 inspected for 30 days caused Seese a problem, caused him some 8 embarrassment?
9 A I don't know that directly. I believe it did, yes.
10 MR. HEFTER: Before we take a break, we are getting 11 close to 5:00 and I'm really nowhere near done here. I'm 12 willing to stay as long as anybody else is willing to stay or
( ) 13 to continue at another time, whatever is the most convenient 14 for the two of you, the three of you.
15 MR. WRIGHT: What kind of estimate do you have 16 before you reach completion?
17 MR. HEFTER: A lot of that depends upon what else 18 there is here. Let's go off the record for just a minute.
19
[ Discussion off the record.)
20 MR. HEFTER: While we were off the record, we 21 decided to go a bit longer this evening.
22 BY MR. HEFTER:
l l
81 1 Q Mr. Martin, you have given us five incidents up till 2 now of what you said you considered to be harassment, and' 3 while we were off the record, we had a little discussion and I
'4 believe you said that those incidents that you have already l l
5 testified to also, in your mind, constituted incidents of l 1
6 intimidation; is that right?'
7~ A Yes. The first four were actual points of 8 harassment. The last one, I am just describing a chain of 9 events, intimidation, small occurrences. There are no other l 10 cases of out-and-out harassment to where I was verbally abused 11 or slandered or whatever.
12 Q Just to recap, there are four incidents of
( ) 13 harassment and one of' intimidation you have testified to so 14 far.
15 A Yes.
16 Q The four harassment are the Saklak incident with the 17 tape measure, the incident of going to S&L, the Saturday work 18 where you were checking for voided drawings, and the incident 19 .with checking the cable pans for cleanliness; is that right?
20- A Right. That's correct.
21 Q And the one incident of intimidation is the incident 22 where you reported the 500 oi so reworks that hadn't been i
i
1 82 1 inspected for a period of 30 days; is that right?
2 A That precluded a series of intimidations by Larry 3 Seese, among which a few I have described there. 1 I
4 Q When you say precluded, what do you mean? '
5 A Well, that action was the beginning of a falling i 6 apart between me and Larry Seese, and then it was more or less 7 of a daily thing where if he could hammer me on something, he 8 would pretty well do it, and there were points which I felt 9 that I was trying to defend myself.
10 It seemed like he was giving certain people certain
, 11 privileges and I wasn't getting those privileges. He allowed 12 one of his secretaries to work, come in an' hour earlier and 13 leave an hour earlier, and he wouldn't allow me to do that. I
[ }
14 felt that was kind of discrimination or intimidation or 15 whatever.
16 If I made a mistake, he would write a memo on it, 17 stuff like that, trying to build up a file on me, so to 18 speak. Then also,~my yearly review, which he praised me the 19 first ten months, and then all of a sudden I'm nothing but 20 trash, then that goes on my yearly evaluation. I felt all 21 .that was just act after act, a vontinuation.
22 Q Your problems with Seese began when you wrote him O
83 1 the memo about the 500 reworks that hadn't been inspected for 2 30 days and continued after that with him making your life a 3 little bit miserable; is that right?
4 A Yes.
5 MR. WRIGHT: Excuse me, counsel. I have just one 6 observation for the record.
7 Initially when Mr. Martin testified to this, I think 8 he said that it was in November of 1984 that Mr. Seese had 9 actually turned on him. Is that the same time that this memo 10 on the 500 inspections was written, or was that before or 11 after that time?
12 THE WITNESS: That was the day after because they
/N 13 requested for me to make a follow-up report, which was quite V
14 urgent, and I did not meet the deadline for that report to be
- 15 done, and he was upset about'it and we had a little 16 confrontation about it, and at that time he told me he was.
17 going to make it hard for me.
18 MR. WRIGHT: Thank you.
19 BY MR. HEFTER:
20 Q Let me ask you a general question. Did any of the 21 incidents that you have testified to today in any way cause 22 you to perform your job in any less conscientious a manner O
84 1 than you had prior to the incidents?
2 A Well, yes, I believe that at this particular time I 3 was really experiencing a lot of mental anguish, and it was 4 affecting my work.
5 Q At which particular time?
6 A I know what you're going to get at, so I'll just 7 answer it right off. .I was not performing quality functions
. 1
.8 at that time, so it did not affect quality functions.'I was 9 performing statusing and stuff like that, which is not 10 directly related to quality problems.
11 Q Just so the record is clear, your testimony is that 12 none of the incidents you have testified today in any way
[}
13 affected quality-related work that you did; is that right?
14 A That's right, quality work that I was directly j 15 related to, yes.
16 Q Are there any incidents that you have not testified 1
17 to thus far today that in any way adversely affected yoJr job j
18 performance on quality-related work?
19 A Well, I had a quality concern which has been
, 20 expressed to the NRC and to Quality First, which does not have 21 to do with harassment or intimidation; it is a quality concern 22 about the way I was trained and about when they pulled my l
O
, ,-.- _- - - - _ , _ ___,._____,..__,.r.__ . _ _ _ _ . , . - _ . , ._ . _ _ _ . . . . . - .
. 85 1 carts and what they did, how they did it, I guess you could l 2 say. When I got in trouble, specifically -- I don't know how 3 much you have been into this, but -- I precopied some 4 checklists. If I had 30 inspections in a certain area, the 5 inspections that I performed, I recorded in the notebook
)
j 6 paper.~ IJwould transfer my information on to the 7 documentation, and if I had 30 hangers that were completely 8 acceptable,'I would fill out as much as-I could my checklist, 9 Xerox a copy, 30 copies, and fill'in the particulars.
10 Well, on a few of those, I had precopied the 11 checkmarks, and CECO interpreted this to be flagrant violation 4 .12 of quality control, whatever. But if this was such a flagrant 13 -- I can't think of the word. If it was such'a -- I can't 14 think of that word I want to use. If it was such a 15 contradiction of quality, it was a common practice and I was 16 merely a scapegoat for this.
17 My concern is that if it was such a flagrant 18 violation -- that's the word I wanted -- then the whole 19 program at the time was in complete-violation. So that's my 20 testimony there.
21 ~Q I do want to get to your quality concern regarding 22 training in a moment. Let me go back before we do that,
,, -- ,, ,, . , . . , _ , , ,n _
- , , - , - . - , 7 -. , 4m.~ c..
86 1 though, and ask you, of all the things you have described 2 today, is there any action that resulted in your doing your 3 job less conscientiously than you otherwise.would have 4 regarding quality?
5 A Well, there was one point in time when I was the 6 only welding inspector on the job and they were going full 7 force out in the field, and in order to keep up, it put an 8 extreme amount of pressure on me and I did make some 9 mictakes. It wasn't anything where I saw something was wrong 10 and said, well, I'll pass it. I just blew it,~ you know, and 11 that reflected on some reports, some follow-up inspections 12 that PTL performed.
13 Q And to what do you attribute your making those
/}
14 mistakes?
15 A Production pressure, I guess you'would say.
16 Q How was the production pressure manifested to you?
17 A It was no direct act by my management at the time.
18 My work history, I've always been an above-average worker and 19 I like to work hard, and I think that I was self-motivating 20 myself. It sounds like I'm condemning myself, but much of the 21 pressure was put on myself. I felt there was a job to do and 22 I felt I was the man.to do it and I felt I could do it and I l
O
.------\
87 1 was going to do it.
2 Q So the production pressure was self-imposed and not 3 something that was imposed upon you from above; is that right?
j- 4 A Not in the strictest sense. Of course, we were sat 5 down, a couple of times I can recall, where Bob Brown, our *
- 6. manager at that time, said, okay, look, we've got an area.here 7 where we need to get on the stick, we need to do the job, and 8 I just felt that, you know, I was going to do it. 'I was very j 9 ambitious, and that's who I got into the precopying checkmark 10 because I felt any shortcut I could get in my inspections that didn't affect the quality, you know, I was going to take 11 12 advantage of. I didn't feel that there was a quality problem
~
13 in just precopying checkmarks. I had inspected them, they 14 were all acceptable, but yet some other people didn't see it 15 that way.
16 Q So that was one of the mistakes you made because of 17 the pressure you imposed on yourself to keep up or to --
i 18 MR. WRIGHT: Objection.
19 MR. HEFTER: Let me finish the question first.
20 .BY MR. HEFTER:~
21 Q -- to keep up the pace of your work; is that i
22 correct?
I
- O l , _ _. . . . -
- -- - -- - - - - ' " ~ " ~ ~ ~
88 1 MR. WRIGHT: Objection. I think the pressure that 2 he put on himself was just explained as not being pressure l 3 that he placed on himself but pressures that were placed by 4 supervisors to get the job done.
5 BY MR. HEFTER:
6 Q The objection is just for the record. 'You can-7 answer _the question.
8 A I forgot the question.
9 Q Let me ask it again, with the understanding you have 10 got the objection again.
11 MR. HEFTER: I believe I've forgotten it. Why don't 4
12 we have the question read back.
I 13 (The reporter read the record as requested.]
(
14 THE WITNESS: The precopying of the checkmarks was d
15 my own, I guess, idea, and I felt that doing this would be~ '
- 16 expediting the job and increasing work production, and which 17 would get the job done which we needed to do.
i 18 BY MR. HEFTER:
19 -Q So the answer to the question is yes?
20 A Yes.
21 Q other than what you have already testified to, has 1
22 anything ever been done to you as a result of your raising any l
O
89 1 quality concern?
2 MR. WRIGHT: I will object as to the vagueness of 3 the question.
4 MR. HEFTER: I'll be happy to cure it if you can 5 tell me --
6 MR. WRIGHT: Has anything been done to you.
7 MR. HEFTER: "Done to you" is what you object to?
8 MR. WRIGHT: Yes.
9 MR. HEFTER: Okay.
10 BY MR. HEFTER:
11 Q I will change it to have you suffered any adverse 12 consequences as a result of the expression of any quality 13 concerns?
14 MR. HEFTER: Is that better?
15 MR. WRIGHT: Yes.
16 THE WITNESS: I would say, you know, there have 17 been, although I wouldn't put it in the category of 18 harassment, intimidation or anything. I just know there have 19 been conflicts, but right now I just can't think of a time ;
20 where I was discriminated against or whatever, had any 21 retaliation taken because I reported something that was l
' ~
l 22 nonconforming, although I feel as if there is something right
90 1 at the end of my tongue. If it comes up, I'll express it to i 2 you, but I'm'just thinking in my mind that something did 3 happen but I can't recall it. That sounds dumb, don't it.
4 BY MR. HEFTER:
5 Q Well, you have testified about a few incidents 6 already today. Is it fair to say that you have remembered the 7 major ones?
8 A Yes.
9 Q If there is anything.else that comes up between now 10 and the end'of this deposition, please bring it out. '
! 11 A Okay. Thank you.
12 Q But for now, I have exhausted your recollection, is 13 that right? '
i 14 A Yes. As far as quality is concerned, I have no i 15 other points of harassment or whatever.
i 16 Q Or discrimination?
j 17 A Quality-related, no.
18 So what you.are implying is that you feel you have Q
, 19 been discriminated against for reasons that don't have anything to do with' quality;-is that right?
~
20 21 A Yes, that's correct.
22 Q Personality problems and that kind of thing?
O l
l l
91 i 1 A .Yes. Well, not personality, but just as far as my 2 certifications go, I'm still having~ problems up to this day, 3 but they're not really quality related. I l
4 Q On March 29th of last year, you went with a group of l
)
5 inspectors to the NRC trailer at the site; right? i 6 A Yes. i l
7 Q How did that come about?
8 A Well, I had hear'd that Rick Saklak had threatened 9 one of our~ inspectors and the inspector had gone to the NRC 10 about it, and the NRC had gave an open invitation for anybody 11 who wanted to support or concur with the accusations that the 12 one particular inspector had, so we all went over there at 13 noontime.
14 Q Did you say anything during that meeting?
15 A Yes, I did.
i 11 6 Q Okay. Tell ne about what you said.
I i 17 A As far as I can remember -- and I haven't read that
- 18 for a while. I do have a copy of it.
19 Q When you say "that," are you referring to the NRC's 4
20 report of that meeting?
21 A Yes. I mentioned that quality had been lacking in 22 the early days and that production had been impressed upon us f
I
(
92 1 and that overall I felt that quality was lacking. I also
(./ 2 stated that Rick Saklak had lied once to try to get me fired.
3 I think that was the basic content of my statements.
4 Q What was the basis for your statement that quality 5 was lacking in the early days?
6 A Training. Training was lacking.
7 Q And was that what you were referring to a few 8 minutes ago when you said you had a quality concern about 9 t'ra'ining?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Why don't you tell me about your concern.
12 A When we were hired in, we just read a few procedures i 13 and we were taken out by another Level II inspector, and my V(
14 certification program, I feel, was just completely lacking as 15 far as the kind of training I was given. I will be more 16 specific. Our training consisted of going with another 17 inspector, and I'm not even sure we had to document the number 18 of hours. We were just trained until the. person training us 19 decided that we were ready for the test. l 20 When we went out for training, we didn't carry any 21 drawings with us. We referred to drawings. We didn't carry 22 procedures with us. We referred to procedures. We doedmented O
~
93 1 our findings on notebook paper, and at whatever time we had to
) 2 do our paperwork, we did our paperwork. I was never really --
3 I feel that I was not instructed well in my procedures. I feel 4 I was definitely lacking, as being a Level I inspector not 5 instructed in the ways of quality documenting, and at the time 6 that I made the mistake of precopying checkmarks, I was a 7
Level I at the time, which a Level I is not even really 8 responsible for documenting.
9 I just think that, like when we were brought out 10 into the field, our instructor would say, namely Irv DeWald, 11 there is a hanger, and he would say, what connection type is 12 that? I don't know what it was. I would simply
, 13 guess: DV-1. He would~say, no, you're wrong. So we would say, 14 ch, DV-2. No, it's not a DV-2. So you would say it's a 15 DV-3. Oh, that's a DV-3. Then we would maybe refer to the 16 drawings.
17 One particular person, Steve Lobue, would take 18 inspectors into an area, give them a drawing for a 19 configuration inspection, and say, okay, here you go, I'll see 20 you at lunch. He would just leave them there by themselves 1
21 the whole day. It wasn't until after we were trained that we 22 really began to scrutinize our drawings. We discovered that
- O 1
94 l 1 we were making mistakes in our inspections. We weren't
() 2 inspecting aux steels, auxiliary steel-for support hangers. l 3 Q Were reinspections subsequently-done on those, do 4 you know?
5 'A Yes. And we were allowed to take'open-book tests.
6 It just seemed like -- well, it didn't seem like -- I believe i
7 it was a situation where if the manager wanted a person 8 certified, he would just certify him, and if he didn't want 9 you certified, you weren't getting certified. I had done 10 training in certain areas and I was allowed to certify, and 11 other people they just automatically get certified.
j 12 Q So it would appear to you certificatien was somewhat
> 13 arbitrary?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Do you have any knowledge of whether the people who 4 16 were doing the certification had any fixed standards or not, 17 or is that just your guess, that it was arbitrary?
l 18 A Yes. I don't there were any fixed standards.
l 19 Q My question is do you know whether or not the people 20 doing the certification had any. fixed standards?
21 A No, they'did not.
22 Q You'know that they did not?
O
)
95 l l
1 A Yes. l 2 Q How do you know that?
3 A We did not have a procedure to go by, we didn't --
4 the only thing that was concrete was the fact that it required 5 a written test, certification at that time.
6 Q So what you are telling me, then, is that there were 7 no standards other than take and pass a written test that were 8 published to the inspectors; is'that right?
9 .A Yes, that's correct.
10 Q But you don't know, do you, whether the person who 11 decided on granting or denying certification had any fixed 12 standards that that person used that he just didn't tell the
() 13 14 inspectors about, do you?
A They never told us. If they got them, they never 15 told us. I wasn't aware.
, 16 Q You have already said that you weren't aware of any 17 fixed standards other than taking and passing a test. My 18 question now is do ycu know whether or not there were any 19 fixed standards used by the person deciding on certificetion 20 that were just not published to the inspectors?
21 A I would say no.
22 Q I'm not asking for your opinion or your guess. I am
96 1 asking- whether you know.
2 A .I know they didn't.
3 Q How do you know that?
4 A Because they didn't go by anything.
5' Q Did you ever have a discussion with -- well, let's 4
6 go back. Who decided on certification?
, 7 A The manager, the QC manager.
i 8 Q The QC manager? And that was first Mr. --
9 A Bob Brown.-
10 Q That was Bob Brown?
11 A Bob Brown, yes.
12 Q And did you ever talk to Mr. Brown about what his
() 13 14 standards were for deciding on certification?
A No.
15 Q Did you ever talk to anyone else who said they had 16 talked to Mr. Brown about what his standards were for 17 certification?
18 A No.
19 Q So you have no way of knowing how Mr. Brown.made his 20 decision, do you?
21 A I know there was not a procedure for training.
22 Q Well, you have already said that. I'm asking you t
i
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. . - . _ , _ . . _ - . _ - . . , . . - . . . . _ . . . , . _.._ ,... _ . - m. . _ _ . - _ . _ , - . . - . . . . - _ ~ . _ _ . - _ _ _ . . _ . , - . _ .
97 1 now if you have'any knowledge at all'as to how Mr. Brown went
() 2 about making his decision. You have already said you haven't 3 talked to him and you haven't talked to anybody who said they 4 talked to him about it. So I an asking you whether from any 5 other source you have any knowledge about how he in his mind 6 went about making decisions on certification.
> 7 A I guess I don't unless I'm a mind reader.
8 Q At what point in time are we talking about your 9 concern that quality, that training was not up to. par?
10 A. During the time when Bob Brown and Tom Corcoran were 11 QC managers.
12 Q Can you put months or years on that? ,
l 13 A Sure. From the point in time which I was hired in
! 14 1981 up to, I would say, the end of 1983.
15 Q And you. mentioned that as a concern to the NRC in 16 March of 1985; is that right?
17 A In a very general sense..
18 Q Prior to talking to the NRC on March 29, 1985, had 19 you mentioned your concern with the quality of training by 20 Comstock to anyone?
21 A I did go to Quality First about it.
22 Q And that would have been in January or February of O
98 1 1985?
( 2 A I'm getting my dates screwed up.
3 Q Let me ask you this. Did you have more than one 4 interview with Quality First?
5 A Yes, I have.
, 6 Q How many times have you talked to Quality First?
7 A .I believe three times.
8 Q All about this same subject?
9 A No.
10- .
Q Okay. Let'n take them one at a time. You had one 11 conversation with. Quality ~First about the training problem, or 12 more than one?
13 A Just one.
14 Q Was that at the initial interview that Quality First 15 did with all QC inspectors?
i 16 A Yes.
17 Q Will you accept my representation that that was in 18 the early part of '85, January and February of '85 when they 19 did those?
20 A Yes.
21 Q That sounds about right?
22 A Yes.
O
.a 99 1 Q And did you tell Quality First just what you just 2 . told me?
3 A Yes, I did.
4 Q Did they subsequently investigate that concern?
J 5 A No, they did not.
6 Q They did not as of tha time you went to the NRC; is 7 that correct?
8 A They informed me that these were already under 9 investigation and that they were being worked on already.
10 Q Did Quality First ever report back to you as to what 11 its investigation of training concerns at Comstock-had 12 revealed?
() 13 A No, they did not.
14 Q Did you ever.go back and ask about it?
j 15 A No.
16 Q Do you know'what the results of the Quality First 17 investigation of Comstock training concerns are?
18 A I do know that Comstock has initiated a program 19 where all installations inspected by a Level'I inspector are 20 being reinspected.
21 Q Now, at the time that you went to Quality First, the 22 training problem, as you saw it, had been over for about a
()
1
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100 1 year; is that right?
2 A Yes.
3 Q Okay. What were the other two quality problems that 4 you discussed with Quality First? Or you said there were two 5 other visits. Were there two other problems?
6 A Yes.
7 Q Okay. What were they?
8 A I'm trying to think of the second time. I believe I I
9 had a complaint that I was being mistreated and discriminated
-10 against.
11 Q Ard what was the basis of that complaint?
12 A I don't remember. That was during Larry Seese -- I
}
13 'think it was dealing with when he told me he was going to make 14 it hard on me.
1 i 15 Q And we have already talked about that and you have 16 said that he was not threatening to make it hard on you due to 17 your expression of a quality concern; is that'right?
18 A Well, I guess you could say that.
19 Q And there was one more issue that you discussed with 20 Quality First; is that correct?
21 A Yes. There arose a situation where a potential 22 quality problem had arisen where we would -- at a certain O
101 1 point in time when we were closing out inspection corrections
) 2 -reports that had to do with welding, if the particular item 3 that was written up as~a discrepancy was the fact that the 4 welder did not stamp the weld, we would just get any welder _
5 and have him come over and stamp it, and that would close that
- 6 discrepant item.
7 Well, that really is a very bad practice. At the 8 time a lot of the inspectors were doing it, and a problem 9 arose where I had done this, I recalled that I had'done this, t
10 and it just created a problem as far as the proper 11 documentation. I felt that this could have some damaging 12 effects on me -- I'll put it that way -- so I went to Quality 4
13 First and I told them, you know, that I think I made a mistake
, 14 in doing this, but yet it was an acceptable practice, and I' 15 told them that basically I'm letting you know about it because i
16 .I wanted to identify it and I wanted to make sure-Comstock j 17 didn't use it against me to try and fire me or something.
18 You know, they can paint a pretty picture if they 19 wanted to, and I felt that if I could just report it before l 20' they made a big issue of it, I would be saving my neck. _
21 Q When you talk about stamping the welds, you are 22 talking about stamping a welder I.D. number on them?
i O
102 1 A The welder I.D., yes.
() 2 Q Okay. That's supposed to identify the welder that 3 created the weld?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Why had you engaged in the practice on this one 6 occasion of having just any welder stanp the weld?
7 MR. WRIGHT: Objection. Unless you era talking 8 about this specific occasion, I thought his testimony was to 9 the effect that this was something thtJ. was commonly done at 10 that time.
i Well,' I just asked him about this 11 MR. HEFTER:
i 12 specification occasion.
13 MR. WRIGHT: Okay.
O 14 BY MR. HEFTER:
15 Q Let me rephrase the question to clear it up.
16 A Okay.
I 17 Q My question is, on this occasion that you are 18 talking about, why had you engaged in the practice of just l 19 asking some welder that you found to come over and stamp the 4
20 weld?
21 A Well, in this particular case, the person that did j 22 make these welds was not in that day, and so I had his partner 1
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103 l
1 repair the welds and I had him stamp them.
O 2
( ,/ Q And it was your decision to do that? ,
3 A Based on common practice, yes.
4 Q Nobody instructed you to do that; is that correct?
5 A Yes.
6 Q Yes, that's correct?
7 A Yes, I had been instructed that that was an 8 acceptable practice.
9 Q Who instructed you to do that? Well, let me strike 10 that.
11- You say you had been instructed that that was an 12 acceptable practice. How did you come about that knowledge?
13 A The other inspectors were doing it.
14 -Q Okay. Nobody in management told you to do tha't; is 15 that right?
16 A I can't think of a direct case, no.
17 Q You just knew that other inspectors had done that on 18 occasion and therefore you thought it was acceptable?
19 A Well, my supervisor told me it was acceptable.
20 Nobody in management, really, but my direct lead had given me 21 the authority to do this.
22 Q Did you resist doing it?
O
104 1 A No.
2 Q -!h) you did it and later had a change of heart and 3 went to Quality First?
4 A Yes. l 5 Q When you spoke to the NRC on March 29th, did you 6 express dissatisfaction with the fact that you thought you 7 were being watched too closely by your supervision at 8 Comstock?
9 A Oh, yes, I did.
10 Q Can you tell me what the basis for.that was?
11 A Well, it was just an~ incident where one of the NRC 12 ~
people was in the vault area, and at the time we had an outer 13 vault area and we had an inner vault area, and people would 14 pass by-the outer vault area, people would take documentations 15 out and look at them in the vault area, and my desk was in the 16 outer vault area. ,
17 One morning I had talked to one of the NRC 18 inspectors and he was asking me.some questions about.something
~19 and I was giving him information, and that afternoon they 20 moved me inside the inner vault area where.I wouldn't be able 21 to talk to anybody, I guess. They had a place for me.
22 MR. HEFTER: I'm sorry. Can you back it up and read ~
3 E
._-.m. . , _ , - . ,. . , , _ _ , _ _ . . . . . . ,_.-m. _, . _ _ . . -
105 i
1 the entire answer to me?
2 [The reporter read the record as requested.]
3 BY MR. HEFTER:
4 Q Who was the NRC person that you spoke to?
5 A Bob Schultz.
- 6. Q And where did the conversation take place?
i 7 A. -In the outside vault area.
8 Q What were you talking about?
9 A He was asking some questions about some welding 10 forms that he had in his possession.
i
- 11. Q Do ycu know what he was asking? Do you remember?
12 .A I don't remember.
13 Q Did he come up to you and start asking you 14 questions, or did you go to him to start the conversation?
15 A I believe he came to me. I say I believe because we 16 had talked on other occasions and it was -- you know, we had 17 talked before.
18 Q Did anyone else have a desk ilt the outside vault 2
19 area besides you?
20 A Yes. There were a lot of changes taking place, and 21 at this particular time I cannot really' affirm that-I was the
- 22 only designated person sitting in the outer vault' area.
i t
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106 1 Q Okay. Let me ask you this.
() 2 Was anyone else around when you talked with Bob
'3 Schultz in the outer vault area or was it just the two of you?
4 .A Well, there were~ plenty of people around us. I mean 5 the vault area is the most crowded place in the building, and 6 there are many people walking back and forth.
7 Q Do you know if any of them overheard your 8 conversation?
9 A I would not think so, no. I don't think anybody got 10 that directly close up to us to overhear exactly what we were 11 discussing.
12 Q And you don't recall the substance of the discussion 13 other than it was some questions that Mr.' Schultz had about 14 some welding forms?
15 A Yes, that's to the best of my recollection all I can 16 remember.
17 Q Was the job that you were doing when you were 18 located in the outside-vault the same job you did when you-19 were moved to the inside vault, or did your responsibilities 20 change?.
21 A No, they did not change.
22 Q Was the outer vault area a more desirable area to O
107 1 have your desk in than the inner vault area?
() 2 A Yes, very much so.
3 Q Why is that?
4 A Where they were going to have me sit inside the 5 vault area, the desk-area come up to about the middle of my 6 knees, so I had to scrunch over to sit down.
7 Q The desk only came up to your knees?
8 Well, if I put my~1egs straight, yes, to the top of
~
A 9 my knee. I had to band my knees down in order to get under 10 it, and I had to. bend over to work, and it caused me to have a 11 back ache and a neck ache.
12 Q Did you complain to anybody about the size of your m 13 desk?
14 A Yes.
-15 Q Who did you talk to about it?
16 A Larry Seese.
17 Q What did you say to him?
18 A I told him I couldn't sit there, that it was giving 19 me a neck ache, and he said, well, you'll get used to it.
20 Q Was this after the time in November of '84, I' i
21 believe it was, when you said that Mr. Seese determined that 22 he also had it in for you?
I e O l
l l
I I i l
108 1 A Yes, it was after.
() 2 Q Did you ever get the situation rectified?
3 A Yes.
4 Q How?
5 A Well, it just got to the point, I just went up and l
6 told him and I said, "I'm not sitting there. I don't care, 7 you know, you can write me up, you can fire me. I just-can't 8 sit there."
t 9 Q You said that to Seese?
10 A Yes.
11 Q And did he get you a new desk?
12 A Well, it's not a desk per se, but I got my area,
! 13 yes.
14 Q You got something to work at that was more 15 comfortable?
16 A Yeah. I went back to my area.
17 Q To the outside vault area?
18 A Yes.
19 Q How long were you in the inside vault area?
20 A Just a few days.
21 Q Did Larry Seese ever tell you that he had moved you ,
'l 22 to the inside vault area because he was aware that you had i O
109 1 spoken to Bob Schultz?
2 A No.
3 Q Did anyone ever tell you that they had spoken to 4 Larry seese and that Seese had told them that you were moved 5 to the inside vault area because you had-spoken to Bob 6 Schultz?
7 A No.
8 Q Okay. Do you have any knowledge at all that 9 ' connects the incidents of speaking to Bob Schultz and being 10 moved to the inside vault area, other than that one followed 11 the other?
12 A No.
13 Q Okay. Was the inside vault area an undesirable 14 place to work, other than the fact that the desk was too 15 small?
16- A The room was confined. No, basically that was it.
17 Q Did anyone else work in there?
18 A Yes.
i 19 Q Who else worked'in there while you were working in 20 the outside vault area before you got moved inside?
- 21 A Okay, let me make sure I understand you.
l 22 Q Let me rephrase it.
l l
O
i 110-1- A Okay.
O2 .Q _ Before you spoke to Bob Schultz, you were working in .
j i
3 the outside vault area,~ right? )
4 A Right.
5 Q At that time, who was working in the'inside vault 6 area?
7 A The vault supervisor and the vault clerks..
8 Q How many-people all together during one shift?
9 A Five or six. It was a very confined area. It was 10 very crowded.
4 11 Q Did anybody work at_the desk that later became yours l 12 for a few days?
l ( ) 13 A No. That area was vacant.
14 Q Were there other desks in the inside vault that'were 15 not occupied, other than the small one that you were. assigned?
16 A No, all the other areas were full.
, 17 Q What was done with your desk in the outside vault
- 18 area when you were moved to the inside vault area?
19 A Well, it's just a -- what it is, it's not:a de.
20 It's just a portion of a table area. They mount tables up 21 against the wall, and we just line up to them, you know, and I
{ 22 had a certain area of this table,_and after I went into the :
i i
O 1,
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111 1 vault, it was-just left open. Nobody was put in there.
() .2 Q Did you ever ask Larry Seese why he moved you to the 3 inner vault? '
4 A Well, he just came out and told me.
5 Q What did he tell you?
6 A He said it was because I was handling documentation l 7- that was touchy, I guess, and he didn't want it lost or 8 somebody to accidentally pick up a portion of it. He wanted 9 to make sure that it was well protected inside the vault area.
10 Q What kind of documents?
11 A Just inspection reports, weld inspection and' 12 configuration reports.
13 Q Was that true, that you were handling those 14 documents?
. 15 A Yes.
16- Q And was it true that those were sensitive documents?
17 (Pause.)
18 A Sensitive is, say -- we could save valuable; yes, 19 they're valuable.
20 Q I thought that was your word, wasn't it?
21 A Ch, okay. Excuse me.
22 Q Well, maybe I'm wrong. How did you refer to them?
O
l l
1 112 7-.
1 A' I'm not sure.
2 MR. WRIGHT: If I can be of any help, I think he 3 said that Larry Seese said that those were sensitive 4 documents. '
5 MR. HEFTER: Okay'. I see. j
.6 BY MR. HEFTER:
7 Q Did you agree with that?
8 A No.
9 Q Okay. Were they documents that other people 10 routinely took out of the vault?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Did you tell him that?
() '13 A I'm sure he was well aware of that.
14 Q Did you argue with him about it at all?
15 A A little. I didn't really press it until I had sat 16 there a few days and just decided I could not sit there. And 17 I just -- I don't remember if I gave him an ultimatum or not, 18 but I know that I ended up not very shortly after that outside 19 the vault.
- 20. Q At the time, did you consider the move into the 21 inner vault to be just a part of Larry Seese's ongoing 22 campaign against you?
O
113 1 A Oh, yeah. Most definitely.
O 2 Q And that had begun when.you wrote the memo regarding 3 the 500 weld inspections --'I'm sorry -- the 500 reworks that 4 had not been inspected over 30 days, right?
5 A Yes.
6 Q -Okay. The move to the inner vault -- strike that.
7' By moving to the inner vault, you weren't taken off 8 of any duties that involved quality that you had been on prior 9 to moving into the inner vault.
10- A That is correct.
l 11 Q Okay. And the move'to the inner-vault was not, as 12 far as you know, related in any way to your expression of any 1
13 quality. concern, was it?
14 A No, it was not.
15 Q Okay. Now you also told the NRC that you were being
} 16 watched carefully by your supervision; is that right?
17 A Yes, that's.right.. While I was doing my_ work, I s
le noticed that I was being watched or something like that. Any 19 chance they would -- whenever Larry would come down, he'd take i
20 a different route every time to sneak up on me [ laughing].
21 ' .Q And that was also, in your mind, part of his ongoing 22 campaign against you, stemming from the~ memo you wrote about O
4
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114
'l the 500 weld reworks?
2 A Well, by that time, it had just, you know, covered a i
- 3 gamut of items, you know. The union was going in strong,-and i 4 4e was just an item of friction, and training wasn't going 5 good, and just a lot of things.. My certifications were being 6 messed with, and there was^just a lot of things.
7 Q So if I understand it correctly, in your mind, being i
8 ' watched carefully by Seese and having him sn6ak up on you, as 9 you put it, was a result of what had by then escalated into a 10 battle between the two of you having nothing to do with 11 quality; is that right?
12 [ Pause.]
) ( ) 13' A Yeah.
14 Q okay. I have previously asked you about whether you 15 -- whether your work with regard to quality ever suffered due 16 to anything that you felt was being done to you.in the way of 17 harassment or intimidation, and I believe your answer was that 18 your work never suffered; is that right? ,
i !
19 A Yes, that's right.
l- 20 -Q Okay. Did your work ever suffer due to reports you- l 21 heard about anyone else suffering any harassment or 22 intimidation?
4 1
O l
115 1 (Pause.]
2 A No.
i 3 Q Okay. Are you aware of any incidents -- well, let 4 me back up just to make sure that I've got this straight.
5 'It is my understanding that there are no incidents 6 involving yourself in which you expressed a safety or quality 7 concern and, as a result, suffered any harassment, j 8 intimidation, retaliation, or discrimination; is that right?
9 A- That's correct.
10 .Q Are you aware of any incident. involving anyone else 11 who expressed a safety or quality concern and, as a result, 12 suffered harassment, intimidation, retaliation or i
13 discrimination?
14 (Pause.]
15 A Well, with the particular case where Rich Snyder 16 went to the NRC, that's, you know, of course that's been 17 addressed. .
18 Q You are referring to Snyder's confrontation with 19 Saklak?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Okay.
22 A Other than that, there's only one -- I guess one I
O
116
, , 1 thing that has just recently come up. I really don't know all i
2 the particulars about the situation, se I really haven't said 3 much about it. But we have one inspector, whose name is Jeff 4 Dominique~, and he is a very-ambitious inspector, and he, in 4
5 his-spare time on second~ shift, would do surveillances and 6 write up any -- particularly broken flexes. Flexible conduit 7 oftentimes gets broken. And he would write maybe ten ICRs a 8 night on his surveillances, and it really.-- I believe it got '
9 .some people upset, and that's about all I know about it. If
- 10 you want to know any more, you'll have to ask him.
- 11 Q How do you know that he. wrote that many ICRs a I 12 night?
( ) 13 A We were working in the same office together, so --
l 14 on nights, and sines then, they have moved him to days and 15 switched around his responsibilities. Before they did that, 16 though, they took away almost all his responsibility on 17 nights, gave him very strict guidelines to work by, and they l
18 didn't want him deviating from those guidelines.
19 Q How do you know that his generating ten ICRs a night j 20 got some people upset?
21 A Well, that's, you know, giving him definitive s
22 guidelines to go by is, I feel, a type of retaliation. I i
! O
117 1 mean, telling him -- because for the most part, most of 2 the inspectors are kind of given a free rein. You know, if 3 you_ walk by something, you know, that's deficient, you know, )
4 they say you can write it up. But if things get a little 5 obnoxious, they'll sit you down and say, " Hey, you know, 6 you've got a specific job. Let's not deviate from that job." l 7 Q Okay. I'd like to separate what you know from your' 8 speculations.
9 A Okay.
10 Q So let's start with what you know. You know that 11 Jeff Dominique was writing about ten ICRs a night because you i
12 worked in the same office with him; is that right?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Okay. Did he tell you that he was doing that, or 15 did you see him writing that many, or how do you know?
16 A I observed him writing them, and I also heard him, 17 you know, tell me how many ICRs he's written in a week.
18 Q Okay. And you also know that at some point he was
- 19 given strict guidelines as to how to do his work?
r 20 A Yes.
21 Q Do you know any information about how the decision 22 to give him strict guidelines was made?
O
l 4 .l 118 l 1 [ Pause.] q
- 2 A It came by verbal -- verbally from his supervisor.' T 3 Q Well, that's how it was conveyed to him. But my 4 question went to how the decision was made. You weren't privy 5 to any of the discussion, if there were any discussions, --
)
6 A No.
].
7' Q -- regarding making that decision,Lright?
8 A No.
1 9 Q No,' you were not?
10 A Right.. Yes (laughing).
4 11 Q I'm just trying to get it straight on the record.
12 It is correct that you were not a part of any such discussions 13
( ) if there were any; is that correct?
14 A Yes, that is correct.
15 Q okay. So really.all that you know is that Dominique
- 11 6 wrote ten ICRs a night for some period of time and that he, at-17 some point, was given strict guidelines by which to work; is
- 18 that right?
d
- 19 A Yes.
i 20 MR. WRIGHT: Not an objection, but a clarification 21 for the record. I think he also testified that he was later 22 shifted to day shift, later rotated to day shift.
4
~.-....,._,._._....'
119 4
1 BY MR. HEFTER:
- 2 Q Okay. With that addition, you know those facts, i
- 3 right? I l
4 A Yes.
5 Q Are there any other facts regarding the Dominique 6 situation that you know that you haven't already testified l 7 about?
1 8 A Except that he had expressed the dissatisfaction of 1
9 the management above him, that, you know, they didn't care for
! 10 him writing all'these ICRs. Other than that, that's all I c
, -11 know.
1 4
12 Q So what you're saying is, Dominique told you that i
13 someone in the management was upset with him for writing these
)
l 14 ICRa?
i y
! 15 A Yes.
16 Q Did he tell you who?
i 17 A Tony Simile.
18 Q When did he tell you that?
19 A At least three weeks'before he was moved to' day
- 20 shift.
21 Q Have you had any other conversations with Dominique 4
22 since he told you that simile was upset, any other
!O l
I l
120 1
1 conversations regarding this situation?
2 A Yes. He just, you know -- he would mention he's 3' always writing something up. He enjoyed it. So he just~
l 4 would, you know, say that he had so many ICRs that he's 5 written up, and, you know --
6 Q He enjoys tweaking Simile a little bit?
7 A Well, no, you can't -- regardless of what it might 8 look like, you know, a broken flex, you know, is a definite --
9 Q Yes. I'm just asking you what you meant by "he 10 enjoyed it."
11 A Okay. Yes, I would say he enjoyed the fact that he 12 was getting'somebody upset.
13 All right.
i
( ) Q Are there any other facts you know about j
J 14 the Dominique situation that you havan't already testified to?
4 15 A No.
16 Q Okay. And other than-that situation and the one 17 involving Snyder and Saklak, are you aware of any'other i
18 Comstock employees who expressed safety or quality concerns 19 and who, as a result, suffered any harassment, intimidation, 20 retaliation, or discrimination?
21 A I'mnotawarryofanyotherincidents.
22 Q Okay. And other than anything you may have l
i O
}
. _ _ . - _ . . _ , . - _ . _ . ~ _ _ _ ~- . _ _ _ _ -
m 121 fs 1 testified to earlier today, are you aware of any pressure by 2 Comstock to approve deficient work?
l
- 3. [ Pause.]
4 A No, I am not.
5 Q All right. And other than anything you may have 6 already testified to today, are you aware of any pressure by 7 Comstock to sacrifice quality for production or cost 8 considerations or to knowingly violate any established quality 9 procedures?
10 A I don't know of any.
11 Q okay. And other than anything you may'have already 12 testified to today, are you aware of any harassment or
() 13 retaliatory treatment by Comstock that consisted of threats of 14 violence?
15 A No.
16 Q And other than anything that you may have testified 17 to earlier today, are you aware of any harassment or la retaliatory treatment by Comstock that consisted of verbal i
19 abuse?
20 [ Pause.)
21 A Towards me specifically or --
4 22 Q Anyone.
)
i O
4 122 1 A Well, yeah. Saklak would spout of to anybody about
() 2 it, you know. It was'his bread and. butter.
3 Q He generally used~ foul language when he was unhappy; 4 is that right?
5 A Well, foul language, I'm talking about just 6 badmouthing inspectors and cutting them down, you know.
7 Q Belittling people?
8 A Yes.
F 9 Q Was that in any way related to anybody's expression 10 of a quality or safety concern?
l1' A I can't answer that.
\
12 Q When you say you can't answer that, does that mean
, 13 you don't know? You don't know of any such incidents?
14 (Pause.)
15 A No, I don't know of -- no, no specific incident.
! 16 Q okay, other than anything that you may have i
17 testified to earlier today, are you aware of any harassment or 18 retaliatory treatment by Comstock that consisted of 19 termination of employment?
l 20 [ Pause.)
21 A No, i
22 Q other than anything you may have testified to O
t 1
. - _ , .- , - . . , _ . . ~ . . . ~ . . , _ _ . . , . , _ . , . _ . . . . , , . _.m._....-_ - - , . _ . . . - - . . _ _ _ . . . _ . . . _ , . . , _ . , _ _ . _ _ , . . . . . . _ . . . .
123 1 earlier.today, are you aware of any harassment or retaliatory 2
( treatment by comstock that consisted of the transfer of anyone 3 to an undesirable job or work area or to a work area where 4 quality deficiencies could not be noted?
5 A I would say that, yeah, that has occurred. They 6 would. transfer people out of an area. I think Larry Bossong 7 in particular, I believe, he expressed quite a few different 8 concerns in an area, and then they'd move him to another area, 9 and they just -- every, you know -- I think for awhile there, 10 every three. months they had him in a different area. And I'm 11 sure there were quite a few other people who got moved around.
12 Q Do you know of any others besides Bossong
- 13 specifically?
O 14 A I think maybe Larry Perryman got moved around. I 15 believe' Dean Peterson and Dan Asmussen.
16 Q How do you spell that?
17 A A-S-M-U-S-S-E-N.
18 Q Any others?
19 A No.
i
- 20 Q All right. And what you know about these people is 21 that they expressed quality concerns and that they were 22 subsequently moved to another area; is that correct?
I l
l l l
- .1
, 124 i l 1 .A .Yes.
2 'Q -Do you know anything about how the decision was made h
j 3 on any of them to transfer.them to another area?
l 4 A No, I do not.
5 Q All right. And what you know about these. incidents, 6 you know from talking to the individuals involved; is that i
j 7 correct?
- 8. A Yes.
9 Q- . Do you know them from.any other source?
10 A No.
11 Q So the facts that you know, as opposed to your
- 12 speculation as to reasoning, the facts that you know are (a) l
)
13 that they expressed concerns and'(b) that they were 14 transferred to new areas; is that right?
15 A That's correct.
16 Q Do you know any other. facts?
17 A No, I do not.
18 Q Okay. Do you know if.the new areas to which each of l
19 these four gentleman were transferred were areas in which I
20 quality concerns could not be noted?
21 A They were q'lality function jobs; therefore, quality 22 attributes could be identified, although they were areas that
~
4 0
O i
, _ . . _ , .._.__,-.m._. ,._._-.x.-,...,_~-,-.-m -_. - - . _ . . _ . - _ , . . - - , _ . . . . . . _ , , _ . _ _ - . . - - . _ . . - . _ , , _ . . , , , - . _ - , - - - _ -
f 125 1 they were basically not real familiar with, so to speak.
O 2 Q Okay. Other than anything you-may have testified to 3 already today, are you aware of any harassment or retaliatory 4 treatment by Comstock that consisted of assignment of anyone 5 to perform a burdensome or menial project?
I A
6 That's right down my alley.
7 [ Laughter.]
8 Q Other-than the fact that many of us consider our 9 jobs burdensome and menial at times, are you aware of anything 10 like that?
11 A When I' lost my certification, of course, I was given
! 12 a lot of things to do that were menial, I guess you can-say.
( ) 13 Q Okay. What I'm asking about is, as a result --
- 14 anything that was harassment or retaliation as a result of 15 expression of a quality concern, and I think you already said 16 that that wasn't the case with your decertification, right?
i 17 A Oh, I'm sorry. Right, yes.
'l 18 Q Okay. So other than that --
19 A- I can't think, no, of any specific cases. No, I 20 can't.
21 Q okay. Are you aware of an allegation by Mr. Seeders j 22 that h was retaliated against as a result of expression of l
O
)
, ,...,_.,,._.m ,m, ,. ....,...e_.....,.r,, --%,..,m.,.,... . . - - _ _ . _ , _ , , . -
l i
I
-126 1
1 quality concerns?
O 2 A Yeah, I was kind of aware of it. I'm not sure of 3 all the circumstances. To be honest with you, I didn't 4 realize it was a direct quality concern. I thought it was 5 just harassment.
6 Q Okay. Are you aware -- strike that.
7 Have you ever spoken to anyone in'Comstock 8 management regarding any involuntary transfer of Mr. Seeders 9 for whatever reason?
10 [ Pause.]
11 A I'm not sure I understand.that question. .I'm sorry.
12 Q Okay,-sure. Let me rephrase it.
() 13 You said you were aware that seeders claimed that.he 14 was transferred involuntarily, right?
15 A Yes, I'm aware of that.
16 Q And that in his mind, at least, that was an instance 17 of retaliation or an instance of harassnent for whatever 18 reason; is that right?
19 A In his mind? Yeah, I believe it was.
4 20 Q Okay. Have you ever talked to anyone in Comstock i
1 21 management about that transfer?
22 A No.
O
127 1 Q Okay. So you don't know anything about the reasons
() 2 for that transfer. You just know that it occurred, right?
3 A Yes, I just know that it occurred.
4 Q Are you aware of any instance in which harassment by
, 5 anyone in comstock management has impugned the integrity or 6 effectiveness of an ongoing corrective action program?
7 [ Pause.)
8 A No.
1 9 Q Okay. Are you aware that Worley Puckett was J
10 discharged?
11 A Yes, I'm aware that he was discharged; yes.
12 Q Are you aware that he claims that he was discharged
~
13 as a result of harassment, discrimination,'and/or retaliation?
14 A I talked to him the Saturday before he was fired, 15 which was maybe four days before he was fired, and he stated 16 that he had identified some quality. problems, and he was 17 speculating that his job was on the line because of-it. And 18 so, I really didn't believe him (laughing).
19 Q Why didn't you believe him?
20 A I just didn't believe that somebody would do 21 something as openly flagrant as fire a person for identifying 22 nonconforming items.
I O
i l
128 1 Q Did Mr. Puckett tell you that he had any' basis for 2 believing that he was going to be fired because of his 3 expression of quality concerns, or did he just tell you that 4 that was his speculation?
. 5 A That was his speculation.
6 Q And you k'ow n that he subsequently was fired; is that 7 right?
8 A Yes, I do.
9 Q Do you know anything about the reasons for his 10 firing?
11 A No, I do not.
12 Q Okay. When you left the employ of'Comstock in July '
13 of '85 and transferred your employment to BESTCO, you did not
( )
14 at that time have any quality concerns to express; is that
. 15 right?
$ 16 A Yes, that's correct.
, 17 Q Okay. Mr. Martin, you testified earlier that you
! 18 had some documents at home that you found that were responsive 19 to the subpoena for today's deposition, but that you didn't 20 bring with you, that related to Mr. Seese's problems with you 21 and some other areas; is that right?
22 A. Yes. My office is a little disorganized. -I O
129 1 couldn't locate them. They might have been thrown out.
() 2 Q All right. I would like to ask you, please, to take 3 a look for those. They are still under subpoena.
4 A Yes, sir, I will.
5 Q And if.you find them, I'd like you to please send me 6 photocopies. I'll be happy to reimburse you for the photocopy 7 cost.
8 A I will be glad to do that.
9 Q As a matter of fact, let me give you a card, so you 10 .can do that.
11 A They'll be no charge for the' copying [ laughing].
12 Q Thank you.
! 13
[ Discussion off the record.]
! 14 [Brief recess.]
15 BY MR. HEFTER:
16 Q Mr. Martin, prior to today's deposition, have you 17 had any conversations with Mr. Wright or with anyone else 18 representing BPI or the Intervenors in this case?
19 A No , I have not.
20 Q Have you had any correspondence?
21 A Yes.
]
) 22 Q 'Can you tell me what that correspondence consisted l
O py .----
- e , - - - - - - - - - - - ----
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9 -+---------gw--9--, g g
130 1 of?
) 2 A They supplied us with information concerning the 3 legal proceedings which were taking place between the NRC and 4 CECO and Comstock and BPI.
5 Q When you say "us," who are you referring to? You 6 said "they informed us."
7 A The people that had the quality concerns in the 8 letter from the NRC.
9 Q The people who went to the NRC on March 29th?
i i 10 A Yes.
- 11. Q And you just got a packet of information from BPI?
1 1 12 A Yes. Well, from the NRC also,. yeah.
13 Q Do you remember what was in the packet from BPI?
14 A Yes. There was information in there stating that we 15 had the right to confidentiality in these matters and that --
16 it asked'us.if we wanted to seek confidentiality, we could-do 17 so. It was our-right. And I sought to have confidentiality 18 in this matter, and they followed up on it until, I guess, j 19 what, some of the findings were unfounded, and then I guess
) 20 our confidentiality was waived, I guess, as far as I could 4
21 understand that letter.
22 Q Did you ever talk to anybody from the Wage and Hour 4
O 4
,. , . . . , _ . . _. - - , , , _ , .._ , ,c , , ~ _ _ _ . , ,, ... _ - .. . - - .., , ,m y ~.._-_m,n.,_.--_,_...,_
131 1 Division of the U.S. Labor Department regarding a claim of (G) 2 discrimination against comstock?
3 A No.
4 Q Were you contacted by the Department of Labor after 4
5 going to the NRC on March 29th?
6 A- No.
7 Q On any of the concerns that you discussed with 8 Quality First, did Quality First ever get back to you and tell 9 you what their investigation had shown and what their 10 resolution was?
11 A No.
12 Q Have you ever asked?
13 A' No.
14 MR. HEFTER: That's all I have.
15 MR. WRIGHT: Okay. Why don't we take a five minute l 16 break to stretch, and then I'll try to get and finish up my 17 questions in the twenty minutes that I'll have remaining.
18 MR. HEFTER: Great.
19 -(Brief recess.)
20 21 22 O
132 1 EXAMINATION 2 BY MR. WRIGHT:
3 Q Mr. Martin, again my name is Tim Wright, and I 4 represent BPI on these Contentions'before the NRC. I have a 5 number of questions to ask you, some of which are follow-up 6 and some are independent from the questions just asked by the-7 attorney for Commonwealth Edison.
8 Now in response to a question, you stated that you 9 had been harassed maybe three or four times; is that correct?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Who did the harassing?
12 A Well, Rick Saklak mainly, I mean, three times and 13 one case where DeWald, I guess, had, let's say, wrote me the
( )
14 riot act, I guess, for going to S&L when I should not-have. I 15 thought that was completely uncalled for.
16 Q Is there anyone else? You also mentioned Larry 17 Seese.
18 A Yes. Larry Seese, we had our differences at one 19 point in time. We just -- yeah, there was trouble there.
20 Q Is there anyone else that you felt you were harassed i 21 or intimidated by, with the exception of Mr. Saklak and 22 Mr. Seese?'
l
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- r. __. , , _ , , . _ ,_ ..., , . . _ _ _ - _ . , , - - , , .
133 i
1 A No, I don't feel I've been harassed by anybody else.
I 2 Q A few moments ago and also in response to a question.
3 by Mr. Hefter, you stated that Mr. Saklak told you never to go i 4 over to Sargent & Lundy; is that correct? l l
5 A Yes.
6 Q Was Mr. Irv DeWald also involved in that?
7 A Yes.
8 12 They.both told you never to go to Sargent & Lundy?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Did you determine that that was harassment by 11 Mr. DeWald?
12 A Yes, I did. I felt that was -- it was a kangaroo 13 I
O 14 court, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, they could have just told us,.you know, " Don't go over there anymore," but I guess I 15 for some reason they were really upset about it. I don't know 16 why. And I guess they decided to let us know about it in no l
17 uncertain terms, make a show of it.
I 4
18 Q And when did this occur? What period of time?
s 19 A This was sometime in -- sometime in '83. I would i
) 20 think maybe August or September of '83.
! 21 Q Now you also stated that this was a common practice 22 among QC inspectors at one time?
l r
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T 134
=
1 'A Yes. Previously, there were -- had been inspectors O
I ! 2 that have gone over to S&L to get clarification on drawings 4
3- and things of that nature.
i 4 MR. HEFTER: Excuse me.- I'm going to object to 3
5 characterizirg as- " common practice." I think there were two 6 incidents that the witness described. '
I'll object to that l
7 characterization.
L 8 MR. WRIGHT: Well, I think he also testified that it
- 9 was common practice, but I think the record will reflect 1 10 exactly what that testimony was.
4
- 11 BY MR. WRIGHT
l 12 Q Did Mr. DeWald train you on weld inspections?
I
( ) 13 A Yes, he did.
14 Q Do you know whether or not Mr. DeWald would go over
- 15 to Sargent & Lundy in order to get questions answered?
4 16 A Well, yeah, I believe he would.
17 Q Do you know whether or not he did?
3 18 A NO, I do not.
l 19 Q So during your training period, you never actually
- 20 observed him or he never told you that he was going to get i
21 some questions answered by Sargent & Lundy?
I t 22 A Yeah, that's true. Yeah, at that point in time.
I
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135 1 Q Now so you were told not to talk to Sargent & Lundy
(_j 2 or go over to Sargent & Lundy and talk to them; is that 3 correct?
4 A Yes, after the fact.
- 5 Q Okay. Were you ever told-not to talk to the NRC?
6 [ Pause.]
I 7 A No, I was not ever told not to go to the NRC.
8 Q Was there any implication that you should not go to 9 the NRC?
10 A They did make requests that, you know, that it 11 should go through channels, if you have a problem, and that 12 was expressly stressed by Bob Marino himself, that any problem 13 with quality should be taken through the proper channels, and, 14 in fact, there was -- it was almost close to the point of 15 being, you know, if you just went to the NRC, it wasn't right 16 in his eyes.
17 Q Did he say that?
18 A No.
't 19 Q But you implied that from what he said?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Were you ever told not to go see CECO with a problem 22 or a question?
O n ..---,--e . - -- . - - . - - , - < - - - - - - - . - - , - - - - - .
I i
136 s 1 A Yes. Before the Quality First program, we weren't
~
- 2 allowed over there.
3 Q Now in response to a question regarding one of the 4' episodes or harassment that you've depicted, this one was
- 5 specifically regarding 75 percent of the drawings that were 6 void in the special project that was done in response to that 7 concern; do you remember that testimony?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Now you stated that you were taken off the project 10 because of your concern for the use or, in your words, a 11 violation of procedures; is that correct?
12 A Well, I specifically stated that, okay, I did have
( ) 13 the concern. I expressed it in the morning, although he put 14 me on the project. But evidently since I gave the S&L man a 15 hard time - -I told him he couldn't fill his paperwork out; I 16 was taken off, no -- you know, he didn't take me off at the 17 time I expressed the concern that we were' violating a 18 procedure.
19 But after lunch, he took me off, stating -- he just 20 said I was -- when he took me off the project, he just said I 21 was being a problem, and it was kind of generalized. There 22 was no specific statement.
+ - . - - - - - - - - w e - - - - - - ~ , - + - - - - - - ---,---,y.w+-+-- -_-- - .--. --y - - - - ---w - - . - - - , --
137 1 Q Now the concern that you had with respect to those
() 2 procedures, was that, in fact, you might have been violating 3 some QA procedure?
l 4 A Yes. I felt that it would be misrepresenting the i 5 whole procedure and the form. If they weren't going to -- I 6 couldn't understand the reasoning, if they aren't going to 7 follow the procedure, why in the world are they using the 8 form. And all the accept / reject items, they were going to 9 N/A, so I just, you know --
10 Q So that was a concern over the quality of the 11 inspection that you had; is that correct?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And in response to that, you were removed by 14 Mr. Saklak; is that correct?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Did you view that removal as punishment?.
17 A No necessarily punishment. The verbal abuse was 18 enough punishment. But merely being taken off the project was 19 just an action taken by Rick Saklak to expedite his project to 20 where there would not be any problems. I didn't take that 21 portion of it personal.
22 Q Do you feel that that was a sacrifice of quality 4
- - -. _ . , .- , - , . , --.-.,. - . . - - ,._..--.-..e- .
138 1 over production in that particular situation?
.2 MR. HEFTER: ~ Objection. Calls for speculation.
3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
l 4 BY MR. WRIGHT:
5 Q Now with respect to the fourth incident of 6 harassment that you testified to, particularly the cable tray 7 surveillance inspection that Mr. Saklak had requested that you e
8 do, do you remember that conversation?
I 9 A Yes.
10 Q Now you stated that he simply wanted.you to look for 11 trash; is that correct?
l 12 A Yes.
13 Q And he presented you with procedures for the 14 inspection?
15 A No. He presented me with some forms, I believe, but 16 I had to go -- I had to request to review the procedures, so I 17 would be informed enough to do a quality inspection.
18 Q Now at the time that he requested that you do this 19 . inspection, did he tell you that this was a'special inspection 20 solely for the purpose of finding trash?
l 21 A I don't think he specifically said that. I think i 22 that -- he implied it, yes.
1 1
- - - - _ _ _ _ _ - _ ,m- . - _ - - - _ _ , _ . _ . - - , ,
.r, ,.._m_,. , - - g. . . - - . . . - - , - - - - - - , -, --.--.r--,- -
139 1 Q Now normally when you are asked to do an inspection
.2 procedure and you're given forms, do you normally go back and 3 read over the procedure?
4 A Well, at that time, I would -- I think it would --
~
5 this particular incident, I was not allowed to review the 6
~
procedures, except upon request. There's not many cases where 7 we run into this, that type. Most of the time, a person has 8 to be certified to work to a procedure, so there's only a few 9 cases where you can perform an inspection where you're not 10 certified, and the cable tray was one of them.
11 And I believe now, I think I remember, I did express
- 12 a definite concern, a question that I might have to be 13 certified in order to perform that particular inspection.
14 But the only other one is like the document control 15 inspection. So for the most part, inspectors are informed of 16 their procedures before they do an inspection.
17 Q And the concern that you had with the procedure and 18 the form was that you were told to N/A out all items with the 19 exception of the cleanliness portion; is that correct?
20 A Yes, that was my main concern. I just mentioned 21 that another concern I had was the fact that I was not '
22 certified to do certain attributes of the inspection itself.
O
- . . _ - -= . . -. . - .
140 1- Q So your concern, then, was that you may not have
) 2 been qualified to perform the inspection and that there are
- 3 certain aspects that you weren't looking at in the inspection; 4 is that correct?
5 A Yes, that's correct.
6 Q So therefore would you characterize that as being 4
7 concerned about quality of inspection?
8 A No. I would think that it would be bypassing i
9 quality.
10 Q So you had a quality concern, then, with respect to' 11 that inspection?
l 12 A Yes.
13 Q And in response to that, Mr. Saklak pulled you off i
14 that project; is that correct?
15 A Yes, that's correct.
i 16 Q Okay. Now I'm a bit confused about the fifth series 17 of harassment and intimidation that you talked about, and I 18 just want to get the timing straight. And this is in regard 19 to Mr. Seese.
I' 20 You stated in response to a question from Mr. Hefter 21 that Mr. Seese turned on you after your research found and you 22 wrote up the 500 rework inspections had not been done within
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- l. . - . . .. . . - . . _ . - - . - . _ _ . _ _ - - - - - . . _ . - - . .- -
I i 141 1 the 30 days; is that correct?
i() 2 A Yeah. I felt that there -- the next day, I didn't 3 have his report done, that he wanted me to categorize each
.l 4 inspection, and when I didn't have his report done, it was 1
5 like the end of the world, and it just caused a confrontation i
i 6 there that kept growing.
I
! 7 Q Now you also said that you felt -- earlier on, you 8 testified that you felt that Mr. Seese turned on you because 9 of the union; is that correct?
10 A I felt that was a factor. I don't think that was --
l i 11 well, I believe that was a factor.
I
) 12 Q Now when did he find out about your involvement in j 13 the union, relative to the day that you wrote this report? ,
i 14 A The dates were very close together.
15 Q So all that happened during one period of time.
) 16 A Yes.
17 Q Now you also stated in response to a question by 18 Mr. Hefter that at one point in time you were the only weld 19 inspector on site, and that Comstock was behind on j
20 inspections, and that production -- and that there was j 21 production pressure to catch up those inspections, which led i 22 to mistakes being committed in the field by you; is that
.i f
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_._ _m. ~ . _ . - - _ , . _ _ _ _ _ - - _ , _ , , _ , _ . _ _ , . _ _ _ _ . - _ . _ _ _ _ - , _ _ _ _ _ , , _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . . _ _ _ .
142 1 correct?
'- 2 A Yes.
3 Q So is it fair to say that you felt that the quality 4 of your inspections was being compromised by the production
-5 rate that you had to meet?
6 A Yes.
7 MR. WRIGHT: Could we go off the record for a 8 moment.
9 (Discussion off the record.)
10 BY MR. WRIGHT:
11 Q Again, Mr. Martin, Mr. Hefter asked you a question 12 as to whether or not any adverse things that occurred to you
() 13 because of your expression of quality and safety concerns; do 14 you remember that question?
15 A Yes. There was a few questions, quite a few i
16 questions, but --
17 Q I don't know if I really said it the way it was 18 initially stated, but that was the basic import of the 19 question.
20 A Okay.
21 Q And at that time, you said you couldn't think of 22 anything.
O
, . _ , . . - - - . . - - . -_. . . . _ . _ . _ . . - . . . - _ . . , - . - . - - - . - . - . - . ~ . . - --.-.--. --
143 1 A Yes.
() 2 Q I've taken you through a couple of situations where, 3 in fact, you did say, "Well, there were quality problems, and 4 I was taken off."
5 If I were to ask you that question again, would you 6 answer it differently?
7 A Well, I was under the impression that the question i
i 8 was -- involved just anything that I had not previously 9 remarked on.
10 Q Okay. There was a question regarding one of the 11 concerns that you took to the NRC by Mr. Hefter, and that was 12 dealing with the training issue, and the specific question was 13 whether or not you knew if there were any fixed standards for 14 certification.
15 A Okay.
l-
! 16 Q And you stated that you didn't think there were any 17 standards; is that correct?
18 A Yes, I did.
4 19 Q Now if there were standards or procedures, would you 20 have known?
, 21 A Yes.
i 22 Q Would a procedure for certification be written up as I
i O
l
f 144 1 one of Coustock's procedures?
]
2 A Yes.
i
! 3 Q And you had access to Coastock's procedures; is that .
4 4 correct?
4 5 A Yes.
6 Q And you didn't find such a procedure for 3
j 7 certification did you?
- 8 A There was none in existence at that time.
I l 9 Q Okay. You also stated that you had more than one i
10 interview with Quality First; is that correct?
!, 11 A Yes.
I 12 Q Did Quality First ever state to you that they would
( }
13 respond to you regarding your concerns?
14 A Yes.
1 15 Q Did they ever do so?
- 16 A Yes, they did?
j 17 Q What did they say?
i i
18 A Well, the concern which I had about -- well, let me j 19 back up a little, okay.
i 20 The question I had about training, they gave me the 1
- 21 answer right then. They said that it had already been
! 22 addressed.
1 I
1 j
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1 l
- - , . . - _ . - , . . . - . .,_-_.,. ., - . ...~ . - . . . . . . . - _ . . - _ - - - . . . - - - - . . . . . . - - . - - _ ~ . . .
l 145 i
1 I had another question about something else the 2 second time. I don't know if I pinned that down exactly what 3 the subject was, but I believe they felt that was being taken 4 care of, too, the harassment and stuff. They did not get back 5 to me on that.
6 But the third time I went about the welder's stamp, 7 ~they requested a follow-up meeting, and in that meeting I 8 waived my confidentiality, which they guarantee for you, and 9 CECO came in and performed an investigation of the problem in 10 a semi-confidential manner, and there was a meeting that was 11 called which CECO Quality Assurance was there, along with 12 Comstock management, and I was brought in and asked the exact
() 13 circumstances of all the parameters of why the welds weren't i
14 stamped and the whole thing.
15 And past that point, I have not received any input.
16 Q Now with respect to the welder's stamp concern that 17 you brought to Quality First, you said that you knew that it 18 was an acceptable QA practice at the time; is that correct?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And that your direct Lead told you that that was 21 acceptable; is that correct?
22 A Yes.
- O
146 1 Q Who was that direct Lead?
} 2 A Mike Kast.
3 Q Now you were trained in weld inspections by
, 4 Mr. DeWald, correct?
5 A Not solely by Irv DeWald. I was also trained by 6 John -- or excuse me -- Dave Thomas and Steve Lobue.
I 7 Q Now during the portion of your training that was 8 conducted by Mr. DeWald, did you ever see him engage in this l 9 practice of requesting any welder to stamp a weld?
10 A No , I did not.
11 Q Do you know whether or not he did?
12 A I don't think he did..
/ 13 Q But you know that there were other inspectors that i
14 did?
4 15 A Yes.
16 Q Can you give me the names of some of the inspectors?
17 A Bruce Brown.
18 Q Okay.
19 A Hark Klachko.
20 Q Okay.
21 A Briin Baranowski. I'm not sure if he was there.
22 Q Do you know whether or not this practice has I
I
"" l v
l 1
147 1 stopped?
2 A Yes, it has stopped. ,
3 Q As of when?
4 A I-think when -- I cannot give a definite time 5 because it was still in practice at the point in time that I 6 was decertified, and therefore I really can't give you an 7 exact --
8 Q You said your decertification occurred when?
1 9 A I'm not sure. I should know, but I don't. I 10 forget.
11 Q Okay. We can find that.
12 A Yes.
l
() 13 Q You also stated that at one point you were talking 14 to an NRC inspector in the outer area c* the vault, and that 15 the next day --
16 A That afternoon.
i 17 Q That afternoon you were moved inside. Did you know 18 why?
19 A I was told that it was to protect documentatior, from 20 -- I was going to be sarcastic; I won't do that.
i 21 Q Were there other inspectors outside that were
, 22 dealing with documents from the vault of the same type that O
l l
l
148 l 1 you were?
() 2 A Yes, but not on a permanent basis. They were coming 3 in and out, researching, you know, an item here and there, 4 whatever they had to assist them with their jobs out in the a 5 field, whereas I was there, and I was working with the 6 documentation eight hours a day.
l 7 Q Isn't it pretty common practice that documents flow 8 in and out of the vault -- I mean, that documents are taken 9 out of the vault for use and then brought back?
t 10 MR. HEFTER: I object, unless you describe what you l
11 mean by " common practice" 12 BY MR. WRIGHT:.
13 Q Isn't it done on a daily basis, where someone would 14 take documents from the vault out and bring them back?
15 (Pause.)
16 A I'm missing a word here. The practices of the vault 17 area changed quite a bit. There are times that people have
! 18 been allowed to take documents. At this particular time, only 19 certain individuals were allowed to take items out of the i
20 vault, although any person could come, and as long as they 21 stayed in the corral area, could come and get documentation 22 and take it without any signature or anything.- It was just, I
l i
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149 1 you know, common practice for anyone to come, get 1
2 documentation, sit down and research it, if they wanted to sit l
i 3 down and look at it, and then hand it back.
i 4 Q Now you also testified that Larry Seese had assigned
)
5 you a small desk; is that correct?
]~
i l 6 A Yes.
I
- 7 Q Do you.think he did that as punishment?.
l
- 8 MR. HEFTER: Object to asking the witness to
)
{ 9 speculate about what's in somebody else's mind.
J 10 MR. WRIGHT: You may answer.
l 11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I felt it was.
f I 12 JY MR. WRIGHT:
( 13 Q Why did you feel it was-punishment?
14 A Well,'at the tir.e, we were kind of at each other's 15 throats, and I think this was just kind of one thing that, you j 16 know, he did.
17 Q You also stated that an instance of recent
! 18 harassment -- strike that.
19 An instance of moving an inspector out of an area 20 because he was writing too many ICRs or NCRs was one with l 21 respect to Jeff Dominique; is that correct?
22 A Yes.
l l
i l
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l I
150 1 Q And you stated that he was writing ten ICRs a night 2 or so with respect to broken conduit.
3 A Yes, broken flex conduit.
4 Q Did you know whether or not his findings were 5 actually legitimate findings?
6 A Oh, yes, they were legitimate findings.
7 Q Now you also stated in response to a question by 2
, 8 Mr. Hefter that you didn't know of anything ongoing -- I mean, 9 you didn't know of anything presently that would impact on the 10 ongoing reinspection effort; do you remember that question by 11 Mr. Hefter?
12 (Pause.)
13 A
( ) No, I'm not sure I do. I'm sorry.
14 Q Well, let me ask you this question, so I won't have 15 to attempt to reconstruct.
{
i 16 Do you know whether or not there are any faulty QA 17 practices that are currently going on that would affect in an 18 adverse way the ongoing reinspection effort?
19 (Pause.]
20 A Okay. The word " reinspection" is throwing me.
1 Are 21 you specifically pertaining to -- you see, we have -- we're 22 having an extensive reinspection program right now, and they s
l 1
151 I l
are reinspection, for example, everything a Level 1 inspector 1
i
() 2 every inspected.
3 Now that, you know, I have no -- I'm not close to 4 that at all. I don't know how they're doing any of it. And 5 they also -- they've got a reinspection program as far as the 6 cable tray hangers go. That's another doing a walkdo'wn, and i 7 they're as-building every hanger.
8 But as far as inspection, as far as the inspection 9 concern, as far as QA programs, I feel there is room for i 10 improvement,'but I also can say there is really no flagrant, 4
i 11 negligent items.
i 12 Q Now are you familiar with the document reinspections 1
13 that are currently taking place?
{ 14 (Pause.] /
)
15 A Well, dccumsnt'reinspections?
j 16 Q Or document inspections that are taking place in the i
i 17 vault.
3 18 A Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. . Yeah, I'm basically fami!.iar l 19 with that program.
i 20 Q Are there any QA practices that you know of that may 21 warp the integrity of the reinspection effort being made?
j 22 A I'm not sure I understand the gist of that question, l
i O
l 1
I
0 152
. 1 but I can't --
!O j
l 2 Q Well, go ahead, please.
3 A I have observed quality deficiencies in that area.
4 I have observed individuals -- the individuals that are in the 5 documentation review program, they are not certified. They 6 are qualified in the technical sense, whatever. And they 7 review documentation.as to its accurateness, and I've found 5
4
- 8 where they have -- they have touched up documentation in order 9 to make it acceptable.
10 Q By " touched up," do you mean there is falsification 11 of documents?
12 A Nc0.
j
( ) 13 Q What do you mean by " touched up?"
14 A If there is a wrong date or something -- I forget i
1 15 the case; what was the case?
1 f 16 (Pause.)
i 17 one of them had --okay, there was a wrong rev on a l
18 report, and the person that was doing the reviewing went ahead i
19 and put the correct rev in. I found out about it through the l
20 grapevine, and I told his supervisor, and he was reprimanded
! 21 and research was done to determ'ine the effect of quality on J i 22 the document. It was determined that the quality of the i
!O i
153 s
1 document was not affected.
() 2 Q Now, isn't it true that there are a great many of 3 those documents that are being changed in'that fashion? l 4 A I cannot say that.
5 Q Now, that change, the change in the. revision, you i 6 classify that as a touchup?
7 A Yes.
i 8 Q Now, under proper QC procedures, shouldn't that 9 change have been initialed and dated and the person who made 10 the change should have been qualified to do so?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Is that not, changing the contents of an inspection 13 report, is that not the falsification of a document?
14 A Yes.
. 15 Q And when did this transaction or situation take 16 place?
17 A Four months ago.
18 Q Four months ago.
19 Is the supervisor that you talked to Dick Bowers?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Did you know whether or not Terry Gorman had been 22 doing work in that area?
O l
l
J
- 154 1 A He was not at the time.
() 2 Q He was transferred out; is that correct?
3 A Yes.
L 4 Q Do you know why he was transferred out?
5 A No, I do not. Oh, excuse me. I heard him say that i
6' it was to his request. He resigned the position.
i 7 Q Do you know why?
4 8 A I believe him and Irv got into a disagreement, and
)
[
, 9 the specifics I don't know about.
10 Q Do you know what the disagreement was generally l
i 11 about?
l 12 A I just thought Terry Gorman thought Irv was a jerk,
- 13 so he didn't want to work for him.
! 14 Q Did you hear -- and I will make the representation 4
15 that a QA inspector by the name of R.D. Hunter was working in i
j 16 the vault and testified in his last deposition that Terry 17 Gorman refused to change a revision when requested to do so by 18 Mr. Dick Bowers without doing the proper research. 'Did you 4
i 19 ever hear of that as being the reason why Terry Gorman left?
) 20 A No.
4 21 Q Had you heard of any other information or rumors l 22 that the document reviewers were being told to change the l
4 i
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m_ m . .-E. - - + - . # _ - - - - - - . ~ - . -
155 1 revisions on inspection reports?
2 A No, never.
3 Q Other than the situation that you brought to the 4 attention of Mr. Bowers.
5 A Well, okay. The doc reviewers have never been told 6 to sidestep their procedure. At the time when I 15und out the 7 certain individual had changed a revision on a form, it was 8 not by any instruction, you know. But other than that, I have 9 never seen any action done by the doc reviewers that was not 10 per the procedure.
11 Q Now, just a few more questions.
12 With respect to Mr. Saklak, have you ever heard of
() 13 the Pearl Harbor file?
14 A Oh, yes. Yes.
15 Q What is that Pearl Harbor file?
16 A Well, the specific one I always heard.him refer to 17 was the one that he was building up against construction.
18 That we were going to lay the bomb on him someday. But I'm 19 sure that he had Pearl Harbor files for other things.
20 Q Did you ever see any of the Pearl Harbor files?c 21 A No.
22 Q Now, you stated that at one time because of the
, O
156 1 pressure of production that the quality of your work was
() 2 diminishing; was that correct?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Well, specifically you stated that you had made some 5 mistakes because.of that.
6 A Yes.
.7 Q Was there an explicit production quota that they set 8 up for you?
9 A No.
10 Q Was there an implied quota that they set up for you?
11 A No.
12 Q Have you ever heard the term "statusing"?
13 A Yes.
14 Q What did that mean?
15 A The inspectors were required to document their 16 inspections for statusing purposes, and then they were turned 17 around and used against them for poor production, of which I 18 was not involved because I was not certified in performing 19 inspections at the time that these were in action.
l 20 Q Even so --
21 A I had a daily status report that I filled out, and 22 it was hourly.
i 157 i
1 Q And even so, in your opinion would that be an 2 implied quota, implied production quota?
3 A Yes, I feel that is.
4 Q Now, after you went to the NRC, did the NRC get back 5 to you? -Were there any follow-up interviews?
1 6 A I have only had one follow-up meeting with the NRC, l
- 7. and that was concerning harassment by the craft. It was not 8 anything concerning what we are going over here.
9 Q But in regards to the March 29th meeting, there has 10 been no follow-up by the NRC with respect to you. ,
11 A Okay. I did request -- when I got my first report l
- 12 from the NRC, I saw some mistakes they made and I went
-13 directly over there to request that changes be made on the 14 report because it was done via a conference call and things
- 15 were kind of messed up, and I made that request and they 16 responded by sending me another transcript of the 17 conversation, whatever. But other than that, with me 18 personally there was no getting back with me or follow-up.
19 Q So you never talked to an NRC inspector by the name 20 of Nicely or Mendez?
21 A I'm sorry, yes, Mendez. I talked with him 22 extensively. Excuse me.
O
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158 l Q And what was the conversation in regards to? u
() 2 A All the. allegations that was made, particularly 3 concerning harassment by Rick Saklak.
4 4 Q Okay.
5 A And also he was concerned about inspections done by 6 Irv DeWald, in which I assisted him in looking for reports of 7- . alleged inspections where Irv had done like a thousand hangers 8 in one day. He wanted me to help him find it.
9 Q Did they exist, to your knowledge?
10 A Well, we found a pretty good one. It wasn't Irv, t
! 11' but we found one by another inspector. I believe it was like 12 240 hangers consisting of 1042 welds.-
13 Q Who was the inspector?
i 14 A Dave Thomas.
15 Q Do you know whether or not Mr. DeWald had inspected 16 1000 welds during a day?
17 A I can answer very confidently that no, he~has not 18 ever done that.
19 Q Have you ever inspected 1000 welds in one day?
20 A . Pretty close.
21 Q How many?
~
22 A I think I have inspected close to 500 welds in one !
([S) ,
I
. . . , , _. -- - ,- . . , , , --. . - . , - , - - - - + - - . . . , , _ ,
159 1 day.
O 2 Q And you say it was Mr. Irv DeWald that taught you 3 how to inspect welds?
4 A Yes, for the most part, yes.
5 Q Do you know of any other inspectors that have 6 inspected that many welds in a day?
7 A No, but let me say that the practice then was, since 8 we recorded inspections on our notebook, at times we would 9 hold over our inspections. If I was to inspect maybe 50 10 hangers in an area, it was the practice to maybe inspect ten 11 hangers a day and record the ten hangers on your notebook, and 12 then at the end of the week turn them all in the same day, 50
() 13 hangers.
14 Q But you said that you had actually inspected 500 in 15 one day.
16 A Yes, I have inspected 500.
17 Q Do you feel you compromised any quality in 18 inspecting that amount of welds?
19 A No, because I was inspecting one hanger. It was a 20 very big hanger and it was completely fabbed out in the field, 21 and therefore, every weld on the hanger was a field weld.
22 Many hangers have vendor welds, which are not within the scope O
160
- 1 of our inspection procedure, so I felt that I was confident O 2 that the inspections were. good.
3 Q Do you feel that the Quality First program has done 4 an adequate job? l 5 A Ho.
6 Q Do you feel it's a whitewash?
7 MR. HEFTER: I object to asking the witness for his 8 conclusions.
9 10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I feel it's a whitewash.
11 BY MR. WRIGHT:
12 Q Why?
( ) 13 A Well, they just seem to be really concerned about 14 getting the water on the fire. If we come in there with what 15 we feel is a' fire, they seemed to be ready to put the fire 16 out. I just felt that when I went over there, I think the 17 second time, with the concern about, you know, I felt I was 18 being intimidated, it was like it was out of their hands and 19 they weren't really willing to even do'anything about it 20 whatsonver.
21 Q Do you think that they maintained your 22 _ confidentiality or do you think they may have leaked it to O
l
W 161 1 Comstock?
() '2 MR. HEFTER: I object to asking for speculation.
3 Why don't you ask him if he knows?
4 MR. WRIGHT: Thank you, counsel.
5 THE WITNESS: I know of no incidents.
6 BY MR.-WRIGHT:
7 Q You don't know?
8 A No.
) 9 Q Do you'have.any opinion as to whether they might or 10 might not have?
11 MR. HEFTER: Same objection.
j 12 THE WITNESS: I basically feel they have upheld our 13 confidentiality. It's the feeling I have.
14 BY MR. WRIGHT:
15 Q One other question. In regards to your discussions 16 with Mr. Mendez, you said you did find an inspection sheet 17 that had over 1000 welds on it.
18 A Yes.
t- 19 Q Did he make a copy of that?
20 A Yes, he did.
21 Q Mr. tiartin, do you agree with the concerns made by 22 the NRC inspe. tors as summarized by the NRC?
t i
i O
~162 1 MR. HEFTER:- Counsel, could you clarify what you re-() 2 referring to? Are you talking about the concerns expressed in 3 the March 29 meeting?
4 BY MR. WRIGHT:
5 Q Right, by the QC inspectors.- I'm trying to find the 6 specific quote. I believe one of them was that they were 7 sacrificing the quality of inspections because of the quantity 8 that they requested.
9 A Sometimes it takes a considerable amount of research i
10 to perform a quality inspection. You wouldn't believe it 11 unless you saw it. Many times it would take a couple days of 12 research to do one hanger. Now, that obviously is not the i
13 norm, but yet it does happen, and I think there were some 14 times where Comstock expressed its apprehension of these 4
- 15 practices, and they were questioning.the ability of the 16 inspectors to perform an inspection because of their-inability 17 to perform what they felt wasla timely inspection.
l 18 Q Okay. Do you think that the situation-at the site 19 with respect to harassment and intimidation has cooled off any 4 20 since your meeting of the 29th with the'NRC?
21 A Yes, I think there has been.
- The fact of Rick 22 Saklak alone leaving has made a very big change in the office, O
l 1
163 1 especially for me.
() 2 Q And what about Larry Seese?
3 A At this point in time? You want to know how it is 4 now?
5 Q Yes, whether there has been that change, and that 6 includes Larry Seese. You say since Saklak has left, that was 7 a big burden, especially with respect to you.
8 A Yes.
9 Q How about Mr. Seese?
10 A There was s turning point there where it was either 11 I was going to go to the NLRB and.we're going to get 12 everything straightened out, and I decided before I finally 13 went to the NLRB that I was going to sit down and just try and 14 talk with him, which I felt was a very. futile exercise, but 15 strictly upon advisement from friends, I decided to try to 16 communicate with my upper management.
17 I told them that I wasn't trying to cause trouble.
18 I told them that I know that we had our differences but I
! 19- didn't want to put more salt in the wound, and I told them 20 that -- in fact, they.had written me up for leaving early.
21 They had called me in the office to write me up because I left 22 early, and other QC inspectors had left early but I was the-i
164 1 only one noticed leaving early. But I had already determined
) 2 I was going to try and talk to them, and they seemed to be 3 very responsive.
4 I expressed to them, after I told them I wanted to 5 do my best, I'm willing to meet anything just to make sure 6 we get the job done, and they seemed to sit up and take 7 notice. I expressed my concern that I was the only one in the 8 QC office out of maybe 100 people that was not getting any 9 overtime. I said it wasn't fair. They said, well, it just 10 worked out that way. I said, well, yes, you can say that, but 11 you don't know if that will stand up.
12 But after talking with them, they evaluated my job, 13- and that day they decided they could give me the overtime 14 because they managed to get some IBM printouts, and ever since 15 that day, there has been absolutely no harassment, no bad 16 feelings on both parties' side. I consider it completely 17 reconciled and we have no differences.
18 Q Now, you read the.NRC inspection report 85-21/22 19 that they sent to you?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Did you agree with the way the NRC handled the 22 allegations?
I
- O l
165 1 A Well, since they are really not as. familiar with our 2 program as I am, I guess I could have probably done a better 3 job of researching, but it was adequate. I feel that it was 4 adequate. It'was a fair representation of what was actually 5 going on.
6 Q For example, with respect to the allegations of 1000 7 more welds being' inspected in one day, Mr. Mendez stated that 8 they found no documentation to verify that. Do you remember 9 that portion of the report?
10 A Yes.
11' Q But you stated that in' fact you and Mr. Mendez found l 12 an inspection report that had in excess of 1000 welds on it;
() 13 is that correct?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Do you know why he didn't mention that, the 16 inspection report that you found for him?
17 A Okay. I'm not understanding what you're trying to 18 get at, I guess. I'm sorry.
19 Q Let me see if I can clear it up. In the resolution i 20 of the allegations contained in the inspection report, 21 Mr. Mendez stated that he could not substantiate the i
22 allegation because they could not find an inspection report
- O
. , . . ._ - . . _ _ . . ,-___..__-,..--.-~_,_.w..-, . . . . . , __4_ ,..~ey__m.,.,,,,
166 1 that showed in excess of 1000 welds.
?
2 A -Okay. I might have been mistaken about that 3 report. Are.you trying to tell me that the number I stated on 4
4 the inspection report is wrong?
5 Q No. What I am trying to say is that you have 6 indicated to me that you did find an' inspection sheet that 7 had over 1000 welds on it and that Mr. Mendez made a copy of
- 8 that.
9 A Yes.
- 10. Q But in his report, he stated that he could find no 11 evidence of an inspection report that showed over 1000 weld 12 . inspections on it.
13 A Okay. This concern was directly pointed at Irv
)
14 DeWald, and we could not substantiate the direct allegation 15 against Irv. I think that might be the discrepancy there.
i j 16 MR. WRIGHT: .Okay. I don't have any further i
17 questions. Thanks very much.
- 18 MR. HEFTER
- I have a few redirect questions. I l
19 promise I will be real brief. I know it's late.
l i 20 l 21
- 22
()
167 '
1 EXAMINATION
() 2 BY MR. HEFTER:
3 Q Mr. Martin, you stated in response to a question by 4 Mr. Wright that you got the feeling from Mr. Marino that he
.5 did'not want you to go to the NRC with quality problems; is 6 that right?
7 A Directly. He felt that it was an act of 8 insubordination to go directly to the NRC without conferring 9 with your supervisor or manager.
10 Q Now, I also thought you told Mr. Wright that Marino 4
11 never directly said that; is that correct?
12 A Well, in his wording of questions, maybe it didn't 13 come out that way, but the attitude that I got of what he said 14 and the connotation of his speech, that it was being negligent 15 to just go directly to.the NRC for any problem. He felt that 16 it should stay in house, and if you don't get the solution to 17 your problem, then you can go to the NRC.
18 Q Did he tell you that you were not permitted to go to 19 the NRC?
20 A No, he did not.
21 Q How did he phrase it? Did he tell you that it was 22 preferred that you go in-house first?
. . ~ . - - . - . . - . - -
1
, 168 l l
1 A Yes, preferred. l
! 2- Q Okay. Now, you also. testified in response to 3 questions by Mr. Wright about, I believe, not being allowed to 4 go over to CECO before the QF program was initiated. Is that 5 an accurate capsulation of what you said? Correct me.if I'm
- 6 wrong.
7 A Yes, we were basically -- we were not allowed in 8 that building whatsoever.
9 Q How was it conveyed to you that you were not allowed J. 10 in the CECO building?
11 A Well, one friend of mine, Chuck Tyler, would go over 12 there and talk to a friend, and he was told that'he was not to
() 13 14 be over.there even to talk to his friend.- Any other problems that we had, we were supposed to go to our management before i
j 15 we even thought of. going over to Ceco. That was just l 16 something that we should do. You know, they said we should do 17 this. If you did go against these guidelines, then you are 18 automatically under scrutiny: you know, why did you do that?-
f 19 Q Is there anything other than this one incident with i
20 the person that went over to talk to his friend that you are i
21 basing this testimony on?
22 A I cannot state any other particular cases, i l i
l
()
T
169 1 Q Who was the person who went over to talk to his 2 friend at CECO?
3 A It was Doug Brown.
4 Q 'And who from the management found out that he had 5 done that?
6 A I'm not sure.
7 Q Who balled him out?
8 A Oh, I don't think he was balled out.
9 Q I thought you said that he was told that he was not r 10 to do that.
11 A Well, I'm sure they just told him not to go over i
12 there any more.
() 13 14 Q
A Okay. Do you know who told him that?
No , I do not.
15 Q How do you have this knowledge? Did you talk to --
16 Mr. Brown, did you say?
17 A Chuck Tyler. He's a good friend of mine, and he was 18 an inspector there with me, and he used to go over to CECO a 19 lot, and I just know he told me that he was not allowed to go 20 over there anymore, and I don't remember exactly who told hin.
l 21 Q Let's back up just a second.
22 A Okay.
O h
170 1 Q You are telling me now that Tyler was the one who 2 went over to CECO and then was told not to do that again; 3 right?
4 A Yes.
.5 Q I thought a minute ago you gave me another name that 6 I neglected to write down, unfortunately.
I 7 MR. WRIGHT: Chuck Brown.
8 BY MR. HEFTER:
9 Q WAs it Chuck Brown?
10 A Oh, Doug Brown. He was the person that Chuck Tyler 11 would go to see over at CECO.
12 Q Okay. So Tyler was the QC inspector.
13 A Yes.
)
! 14 Q And he told you that after he had done that, someone 15 from management told him not to do that again; is that right?
1 j 16 A Well, he would go over there maybe once or twice a 17 week, and after a certain period of time he was told not to go 18 over there any more.
19 Q And he told you that someone from management told 20 him that --
l 21 A- Yes.
t 22 Q -- but you don't know who that was from management.
lO
171 1 A I don't remember. I'm sure he probably told me who
} 2 it was, but I don't remember exactly who it was.
3 Q Did Mr. Tyler tell you what, if anything, the. person 4 from management had said about why he was not to go over to 5 CECO anymore?
6 A No , I don't believe he said anything about that. He 7 just stated that he wasn't allowed to go over there anymore.
8 Q Do you know if he had gone over there to talk to his 9 friend during hours that he was supposed to have been working 10 for Comstock?
11 A Yes, I'm sure he had been over there during working 12 hours.
( 13 Q Other than that incident, there is nothing on which 14 you base your testimony about not being allowed to go to CECO; 15 is that right?
16 A Yes, that's right.
17 Q I believe you spoke in response to some questions by 18 Mr. Wright about your feeling that quality was compromised to 19 some extent by pressure to meet production rates; is that 20 right?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Now, I think you said that there were no production O
i 172 1 ~ quotas;' correct?
2 A Yes.
)
1 3 Q How was the pressure to meet production. rates 4 manifested?
5 A Well, I stated before that it was mainly just a 6 personal sense of responsibility to keep ahead of the work and 7 keep things current, but I just feel that the inability of 8 Comstock to assess the workload plays a big factor in this 9 also. I just feel that if they really knew what.they were 10 doing, CECO along with them, they should have known what the 11 workload was, how many people they need to man the job, and it 12 would have colved maybe a lot of problems that happened, i
! 13 whatever.
14 Q So is it fair to say that what you are talking about 15 when you talk about pressure to meet production rates is your 16 own conclusion that Comstock should have had more people doing 17 that job?
18 MR. WRIGHT: Objection. I think the prior testimony 19 showed that in addition to that, there was also pressure from 4
20 the QC inspectors, and there was also a system called 21 statusing by which they would measure the work that was 22 supposed to be done against the work that was done, and all 3
4
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173
)
1 that had led to the production pressure.
2 THE WITNESS: Okay. I need to clarify that because 3 at the timeframe which I am referring to, we did not have any 4 statuses that we took care of and we had no production quotas 5 on us whatsoever. I can only express the -- the only 6 production quota we had was our manager's frustration and 7 inability to meet the demands of the job that was required.
8 It was futile, a my words.
9 BY MR. HEFTER:
10 Q Is what you are telling us that it was your 11 impression that the job was undermanned? Or if that is not 12 it, tell me what you are saying because I'm not sure that I gs 13 understand you.
14 A Yes, I definitely felt the job-was undermanned, but 15 yet I felt that I -- let me put.it this way. I placed a blind 16 faith in the system, and I felt that at the time, they'all 17 well knew what they were doing and I just tried to do what I 18 felt my supervisor and manager required of me, and I felt 19 that, as being the only weld inspector on the job, that I was 20 responsible for all the welding on the job, whether it can be 21 interpreted self-inflicted or whatever, you know.
22 You know, I admit I was gullible, but on the other O
174 1 hand, you know, I don't think that's all there is to it,
() 2 either.
3 I mean, it's not my fault that I was the only weld 4 inspector. It is my fault that I maybe took a lot of 5 production upon my shoulders when I should not have. But the 6 fact remains, that the job was . undermanned.
7 Q With respect to your testimony in response to 8 Mr. Wright's questions regarding somebody who changed a
)
9 revision on a document, do you recall that testimony?
. 10 A Yes.
11 Q Was that the only incident you know of of.that 12 nature?
13 A Yes, that's the only incident that I know of.
14 Q okay. You also spoke about a follow-up meeting 15 regarding harassment by the craft. What did you mean by that?
16 A Well, a particular case was where we were requested 17 to update our inspections in.a certain area in which we had 18 done no inspections for the last year and a half. When we 19 went in there, many of the welds had already been 20 fireproofed. They were rusty. - And among other things, we 21 went in there, and we just wrote up everything. And the weld 22 inspector was very upset about it, and he wrote a note, two !
- w . .g--
175 l
1 different notes to me, telling me, first of all, to get out of l
) 2 the area [ laughing].
3 And another one, I went up in the area where they 4 had just completed a hanger, and they said if I wanted to stay 5 alive, I'd better, you know, beat it and get a white man's job 6 (laughing].
7 Q You're saying that with a little smile on your 8 face. You didn't take that seriously?
9 A Not to the point of where my life was in danger.
10 Q You didn't think it was a real threat. You thought 11 it was people angry that you were rejecting their work.
12 A Yes.
13 Q Okay. And the people who were angry at you for 14 rejecting their work had no control over your activities, did 15 they?
16 A No.
17 Q Okay. You also said in response to some questions 18 by Mr. Wright that you made some changes to the NRC's first 19 draft of its memo regarding the March 29th meeting; is that 20 right?
21 A Yes.
22 Q What were the changes you made?
O
176 1 A Well, I wanted them to change the part where they 2 moved me, they said they moved me from field inspections, and 3 I wanted to make sure that they knew that I wasn't doing any 4 quality inspections, okay. I didn't want to misrepresent 5 that.
6 Q Okay.
7 A And there was something to do with the number of 8 .something. I forget exactly. There were several, I had them 9 put two or three or something. I forget what it was.
10 Q You also said in response to a question by 11 Mr. Wright that you felt that QF was something of a whitewash; 12 is that accurate?
13 A Yes.
14 Q What do you base that on?
15 A Just their attitude. When I went in there, it was 16 just like, you know, they wanted to say hi, give you a cup of 17 coffee, and scoot you out the door. And I raised some things
! 18 that I felt were maybe legitimate, and they just really didn't i 19 care to hear about them.
20 Q Well, with respect to the training concerns, you
! 21 said that they had already had that under investigation.
I 22 A Yes.
O
-. - . . ~ _ = _ - -. - -
177 1 Q Okay. And with respect to the --
I) 2 A Harassment the second time.
3 Q -- the harassment, that was also under investigation 4 already?
j 5 A No. They just were not really concerned about it.
t 6 Q Now which harassment was that? That was being 7 discriminated against with respect to what?
8 A Well, at the time, it was the point in time ~when me 9 and Larry were going at it, and I really can't give you a 10 specific thing. I just know that I went over th'ere, and I 11 tried to convey to them that I was being discriminated and i
12 lied to and harassed, and, you know, they were sitting on me, i
13 i
O 14 and I just didn't think that was right.
But when they found out that I was not really 15 involved in quality inspections, they really could care less.
16 Q Okay. You've already testified, though, that your 17 problems with Seese weren't quality-related, right?
18 A I don't know if I expresEed that directly. Some of 19 our arguments were over quality, as far as the rework 20 program. Yo'u know, I found those 500 inspections, of course.
21- I guess we figured that was production. And there were items 22 brought up in the rework program where Mr. Seese -- I'found O
178 1 that he'd signed off a couple of reworks when we still had
() 2 inspections pending on them.
3 Q Was something that you'd mentioned to Quality First i
4 during this interview where you went and complained about your 5 problems with Seese?
6 A No.
l 7 Q Okay. And then finally the'last one with Quality
- 8 First was the closeout of the welding ICRs by just having any 9 welder that was available put his stamp on the weld, right?
10 A Yeah.
11 Q And that one was one that you had done, and that was 12 followed up on and cleared up,-~right?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Okay. Do you have any other knowledge about Quality i 15 First's activities?
j 16 A No.
! 17 MR. HEFTER: Thank you. That's all the questions 18 that I have for. And unless Mr. Wright has more, you're free 4
) 19 to go.
20 MR. WRIGHT: I have a couple more.
21 THE WITNESS: Okay.
22 MR. WRIGHT: Out of sympathy for the court reporter, i
f 4
i O
i
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179 1 I will try to speed them up.
O2 3
4 5
6 7-8 9
10 11 12 13 O 14 15 16 ,
17 18 19 20 21 I
22 -
O -
180 1- EXAMINATION O 2 BY MR. WRIGHT:
3 Q You stated in response to a question regarding 4 whether or not you were allowed to go to the NRC with a 5 complaint, you stated that if you did not get a resolution, 6 then you could go to the NRC; is that correct?
7 A 'No. Those weren't -- I don't know if I used those 8 exact words. But that is basically kind of the thing that 9 they wanted us to do. They wanted us to try and get a 10 resolution in-house.
11 Q Did Mr. Marino tell you that you could then go to 12 the NRC?
13 A No. ,
14 Q okay. And in response to questions asked by 15 Mr. Hefter, you stated that you knew of only that one instance 16 of Chuck Weil --
17 A Chuck Tyler.
18 Q -- Chuck Tyler going over to the CECO building; is 19 that correct? l 20 A Yes.
)
21 Q Now isn't it also true that at your QC meetings 22 where the QC supervisors would talk, that they warned you not l
l l
1
181 1 to go into the CECO building?
() 2 A I'm sure -- I know they were pretty strict on that.
3 I'm sure~there was something like that said.
4 Q With respect to the 500 inspections and the i
5 backlogs, you just answered a question in regards to that, and 6 you said that we had agreed that it was -- or that you two had
. 7 agreed, meaning you and Mr. Hefter had agreed that it was 8 production and not quality.
9 A I didn't mean-to put it that way. I just meant that
! 10 it was brought up that that was possibly a production problem s ~.
11 only and not a quality problem.
- 12 Q Wasn't it also a quality problem?
! 13 A- Yes, I feel that there is quality-involved in that.
i 14 Q Now you also said in passing, and the first time you s e 15 ' mentioned-it was that you had a quality problem with Mr. Seese 16 and that he had signed off on a rework while there were 5 17 inspections that were still pending; is that correct?
l 18 A Yes. ,
^
.\ .
I 19 Q And that was of a quality. nature?
i i 20 A Yes.
- l 21 , Q, Were the inspections ever,done, if you know?
22 (Pause.]
- a w
() '
!:1 - -
182 1 A I found that some -- okay -- reworks were written a
( 2 lot of times to remove hangers out in the field. When they 3 remove a hanger, it was required that a base metal reduction 4 inspecticn be performed to assure that the base metal, 5 whatever it was attached to, an I-beam, imbed or whatever, was 6 not just torn apart, whatever, that it was still -- that the 7 integrity of that base metal was okay.
8 And there were some signed off without this base 9 metal inspection performed, although at the time I hadn't 10 realized that there was a point in time where these base metal 11 inspections were not required. And I felt that that was a 12 concern.
13 Q Did you mention that to Mr. Seese?
14 A No, I did not.
15 MR. WRIGHT: I don't have any further questions.
16 MR. HEFTER: That's it.
17 Oh, one other thing before we go off the record, you 18 have a right, if you'd like, to review this transcript for any 19 errors and sign it, or you can avoid the whole thing and waive l 20 that right.
21 Seriously, that is your right, if you'd like to do !
I 1 22 that, and we'd be happy to arrange for the. court reporter to 4
183 l' have you review the transcript.
() 2 Would you like to do that?
3 THE WITNESS: Could I.just get a copy of it without 4 being -- with signing the waiver?
5 MR.' HEFTER: Well, if you just get a copy of it, 6 he's going to charge you.
7 THE WITNESS: Oh.
8 MR. WRIGHT: If I may, at this point, just for ,
9 clarification, it has been the practice of Ms. Kezelis 10 throughout these depositions to allow the deposes, if that's 11 the proper terminology, to review it, make any changes, and 12 send it back to CECO. I just thought I'd add that bit of 13 information.
14 MR. HEFTER: Yes. I mean, you're free -- you have 15 an absolute right to review the transcript and make any 16 changes that you' feel are necessary. Beyond that, if you 17 don't want to do that, but you just vant to have a copy for 18 your own records, the court reporter will charge you for that.
- 19. If you just want to look at a copy and send it back, 20 I'll be happy.to send you one just to read at your leisure and 21 send it back. So those are all your options.
22 THE WITNESS: Okay. What happens if I don't. send it O
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i 184 1 back? He'll charge me for it?
() 2 MR. HEFTER: Why don't we go off the record for just 3 a second here, and we can straighten it out.
4
[ Discussion off the record.]
5 MR. HEFTER: Let's ask it again. Would you like to 6 review the transcript, sign it, and make any changes that you 7 feel are necessary?
8 THE WITNESS: No, this time.
9 MR. HEFTER: Okay. Thank you.
10 [Whereupon, at 8:06 o' clock, p.m., the taking of the 11 deposition was concluded.]
12 13 0 14 [ Signature waived.]
1 15
. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 O
\ .
i 185 1 CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC 2
3 I, GARRETT J. WALSH, the officer before whom the 4 foregoing deposition was taken do hereby certify that the 5 witness whose testimony appears in the foregoing deposition ,
)
6 .was duly sworn by me; that the testimony of said witness was 7 taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or 8 under my direction; that said deposition is a true record of 9 the testimony given by the witness; that I am neither counsel 10 for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the 11 action in which this deposition was taken; and further, that I 12 am not a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel
(
13 employed by the parties hereto, nor financially or otherwise 14 interested in the outcone of the action.
15 16 -
17 GARRE . WALSH 18 Notary Public in and for the 19 Commonwealth of Virginia 20 21 My Commission expires January 9, 1989.
22 O
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