“Simmering Ball Of Negativity” Dismissed After Threatening
Statements   An arbitrator has upheld the dismissal of a city
“traffic operations” employee for threatening statements, a
racist comment and one incident of dangerous and aggressive
driving.  The city relied on four incidents in firing the
employee.  In the first incident, after being asked how his
weekend was, the employee said that he had cleaned his gun and
polished it up, and that there were “a few flunkies in the
lunchroom that I would like to take hunting”.  “Flunky” was a
derogatory term that he routinely used to describe co-workers. 
The arbitrator found the employee’s statement to be threatening.
In the second incident,  while a passenger in a City vehicle, he
rolled down the window and yelled at group of protesters words
to the effect of: “Go out there and get a f——- job. Go get a
job.”  In the third incident, he made a racist statement, about
Italians, “the only good —– is a dead —–”.  In the fourth and
final incident,  he drove a city veh