I’ve been working at a small manufacturing plant that’s part of a larger chain of plants across several states for the last two years. When I first got hired things weren’t looking good for the plant and the owner personally came in to fix the issues. I was just a temp in an entry level position and he liked my work ethic so he offered me a shift supervisor position. I took the offer and have been steadily getting raises from him directly for over a year now.
Out of the blue about a week ago the plant manager (which I’ve had no issues with until now) started handing out write ups to my whole shift for bad quality product. I thought this was strange but just thought he was making a point about checking for imperfections. I stayed on top of my checks but two days later he writes me up again claiming I put out bad product. He tells me I’m being suspended for 3 days without pay and when I come back from the suspension he tells me I’m being demoted and moved from $23 an hour to $16.
After hearing this I immediately go to the lot where all rejected products are kept and find that the other two shifts have had the same amount of bad product as me but haven’t even received a write up, let alone a suspension.
I contact the owner to fill him in on the problem and he doesn’t even question me. He agreed fully that the plant manager has some personal vendetta against me and told me I wouldn’t be docked pay at all. He then tells me that it sounds as though I won’t be able to effectively work with this plant manager. So he tells me he wants me to start next month as an assistant plant manager at a separate plant and that I’ll be getting a $7 raise to $30 an hour to take the position.
I can only imagine how stupid my plant manager will feel when he finds out his plan completely backfired.