Airport Worker Fired For Refusing to Load Abused Dog
These days we hear a lot of bad things that happen at airports, the long lines, the extra baggage charges and all the security changes, but this is a story about a conscientious hard working baggage handler.
Lynn Jones was a baggage handler at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. She saw a dog in a crate that she was suppose to load on a plane. She could see that the dog was very ill and looked like it had been abused, so she refused to load the dog on the plane. Well, she got fired.
"It was so thin, it made me cry," she said.
If that dog gets on that plane, she remembered thinking, it would certainly die. And when she refused a supervisor's orders to load it onto the Texas-bound flight, she was fired.
Now, a month after the incident at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, the dog has recovered. And Jones, while her former employer and airport officials have praised her for her actions, remains without her old job.
Yes, isn't that funny? She is now praised for what did, but still fired.
Jones said the dog was deathly thin and had sores all over it's body and his paws were raw. Even with the obvious she still had a difficult time getting her supervisor to listen to her.
When she told her supervisor about it, she said, he insisted she load the pointer bound for Corpus Christi, Texas, because its paperwork was in order and its condition was none of her concern.
"I was hysterical and crying and yelling because the plane was going to leave and I was afraid the dog was going to be on it. I kept saying, 'Please, please, the dog is going to die,'" Jones said.
Airport police phoned the animal welfare agency, which took custody of the dog.
The good news? The dog was held until it was healthy enough to travel. The bad news? It's was returned to it's owner and Lynn Jones still doesn't have her job back.
Do you think this woman should have lost her job for this? What about the dog owner? Can you believe he actually is now in possession of the dog again?
UPDATE 12/07/2011
The baggage handling contractor that fired a Reno airport worker in a dispute over transporting an unhealthy dog has offered the woman her job back with back pay, and the company's president praised her courage to stand up for the animal.
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