Congressmen jump into Allstate fight

Eight members of Congress have jumped into the fight between Allstate and a former manager who is suing the insurance giant for allegedly firing him because he wrote an anti-homosexual column on his own time.

As WorldNetDaily reported, J. Matt Barber was a manager in Allstate's Corporate Security Division, its investigative arm, at the Fortune 100 company's headquarters in Northbrook, Ill. Besides working for the insurance provider, Barber was and is a professional heavyweight boxer, a jazz drummer and a Web commentator. His columns have appeared on TheConservativeVoice.com, MensNewsDaily.com and others.

The column in question was written and posted in December. After being called into a meeting with two human resources officials who confronted Barber about the column, he was fired effective Feb. 3.

Though the original column's bio line did not indicate Barber worked for Allstate, editors at one of the sites where it was posted added that information, and a complaint about the piece made its way to Allstate management.

With the help of the Christian Law Association and David Gibbs III, who represented Terri Schiavo's family in the final weeks of her life, Barber is challenging Allstate in federal court. The suit was filed in May, but Barber's attorneys don't expect it to come to trial until next year.

Despite the matter being a legal dispute between two parties, eight members of Congress led by Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., signed a letter July 15 addressed to Allstate Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy asking the executive for answers to specific questions about the Barber case.

"As members of Congress who are committed to protecting constitutional freedom of speech," the lawmakers wrote, "we are surprised by Mr. Barber's allegation. Many Americans support traditional marriage and the innumerable benefits therein. …"

"We respectfully ask that you investigate the veracity of Mr. Barber's claim and respond to the following questions:

"Did Allstate receive complaints regarding Mr. Barber's article? If so, who submitted those complaints?

"Does Allstate have a policy regarding expression of personal views by employees?

"In the past ten years, how many employees have been dismissed for expressing personal views."

The members of Congress noted it was "especially troubling" to hear of the allegations considering the "legacy of men and women who have given their lives to protect our freedoms, including the freedom of speech."

Steve Taylor, communications chief for Akin, says the congressman has received nothing from Allstate indicating it is reconsidering its firing of Barber.

Since WorldNetDaily first broke the story in June, Christian lobbying groups, including the American Family Association, have urged their supporters to contact Allstate – both the headquarters and local agents – about the matter. As a result of thousands of e-mails about the incident, Allstate has posted a response to the allegations on its website.

The webpage quotes part of Allstate's filing in court: "Plaintiff, James Matthew Barber, was not discharged from his employment with Allstate Insurance Company because of his religious beliefs or practices, but because he used the company's information technology systems and other resources for his personal journalism activities, many of which took place on company time, and which identified Plaintiff as an employee of the Allstate Insurance Company."

The company says it "would not terminate an employee for expressing personal religious or lifestyle views on his or her own time."

but because he used the company's information technology systems and other resources for his personal journalism activities, many of which took place on company time,

Typical big corporation HR Department BS! This is how it works:

Corporations have policies about not using your company email address "excessively" for personal stuff. Sometimes they restrict it completely, though that rule is generally ignored by 98% of the company, including those who made the rule.
A GLBT who is a co-worker of a soon-to-be victim finds out that the latter has written an op-ed critical of the GLBT political agenda.
They secretly turn the victim's name into the HR dept.
Since most HR departments are firmly in the control of people who buy the entire GLBT agenda, and in many cases include GLBT individuals among their number, the results are predictable
The offending employee's email is secretly monitored, and all mailbox backups going back as many months as possible are obtained and scrutinized. A list of all Personal Emails is compiled.
A sub-list of these emails that contain anything of a political nature or religious nature or even "humor with sexual content" (billions of these were floating around in the Clinton/Lewinsky days) is singled out. Even if these are emails sent into the mailbox from people on the outside and have never even been opened by the employee, they make the list of "unacceptable use of mailbox". The fact that these kinds of emails can be found in the mailboxes of 99% of the other employees in the corporation is considered irrelevant.
Postings to internal company forums are scrutinized - especially those to internal newsgroups not dedicated to business topics.
A secret meeting is called with the employee's boss (or boss's boss if they guess the boss might be unsympathetic and if the rules allow for that). This is followed by a meeting between the employee, their boss, and several HR members. These are the really crucial meetings. Everything depends on how much the boss is willing to stick up for the employee, how valuable that employee is to them, etc.
If the boss sticks his neck out and stands up for the employee, he is likely safe. Otherwise he's toast.

I have SEEN the above happen up close and personal.

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