ISO rating doesn't tell company's whole story
ISO rating doesn't tellcompany's whole story
EDITOR:
It is important for your readers to understand that a company's ISO rating is not a guarantee of a company's compliance with environmental laws, nor its commitment to open communication.
On June 22, your business page included a "Limelight" item about VonRoll WTI. The item reported that VonRoll WTI had achieved "ISO 9001 International Quality Service Standard."
I ask how any reasonable group can endorse a company that retaliates against those who speak against it. I refer to the Department of Labor's findings that VonRoll fired Donna Trueblood "for her whistle-blowing activities." The full text of this finding is available at the Web page for Trueblood's lawyer, www.taterenner.com. Any company that fires employees for blowing the whistle cannot be trusted to be open about problems that must be addressed. For a company that incinerates hazardous waste, the results can be tragic.
The Department of Labor also found that VonRoll WTI maintains an illegal policy of telling its employees that they must report compliance issues to management before they report it to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Department of Labor ordered VonRoll to "immediately reinstate" Trueblood to her job, but VonRoll has refused to obey this order.
Does the International Standards Organization (ISO) endorse companies that have illegal policies, refuse to obey a legal order, and that retaliate against employees who talk to the EPA? Did VonRoll fully and accurately report these issues to ISO? Did ISO investigate them?
Perhaps the next time a company sends in a notice to pat itself on the back, The Vindicator might look into these questions. In the meantime, as one of VonRoll's neighbors, I am not yet ready to breathe free.
ALONZO SPENCER, president
Save Our County Inc.
With this Supreme Court, culture trumps Constitution
EDITOR:
What does the 14th Amendment say? Find a copy of the Constitution and read it. Then send it to the Supreme Court, because the justices obviously cannot find any copies of the Constitution. I am sure they have looked far and wide for one, but there aren't any to be read. This must be true, or else they are guilty of the most atrocious failure of duty. They are to make rulings by the Constitution, and to preserve it. Not overrule the Constitution and pervert it.
The Supreme Court made two rulings in one week. Two rulings which are so divergent that the only thing they have in common is that they are wrong
The first involved the concept that a college could give preferential treatment to certain minority groups for admission. In spite of the fact that the 14th Amendment plainly states that all races must receive equal treatment under the law, they said that such preferential treatment was acceptable. Diversity was of more importance than the Constitution.
In the second case they overturned a Texas law banning sodomy. Their reasoning was that it violated the 14th Amendment. Only a few days before they had ruled that the 14th Amendment that dealt with equal treatment under the law of different races could not force a college to stop discriminating by race. Now the 14th Amendment was used to overturn a state law. State rights have been violated and the Constitution ignored in a flagrant example of judicial activism. As Justice Scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion, this was not a ruling based on constitutional law, but on cultural beliefs.
GREG HARMON
Bessemer, Pa