•February 20, 2019•

Editor’s Note: Bill Zoetvelt retired in Sullivan but several decades ago was put in a position where people of power in a large corporation punished him for doing the right thing. Over the years he has suffered financial and personal loss over the events that led up to his early retirement from Ameritech’s Illinois Bell. The justice system has failed him, but his story holds lessons of life and the consequences of a well meaning act that threatens the balance of power in the corporate world.

Dear Editor,

Using hindsight and getting through unacceptable thoughts, I was working as an outside systems technician with a special truck and tools out of Chicago’s South Suburban Area.
What I did at the age of 49 was to threaten to report habitual alcoholism in the ranks of Ameritech’s Illinois Bell Telephone Co. management. After going through a second strike, some how, some way. Some union officials were promoted to management through cronyism for better benefits but mostly for better pay whose name’s are in my documents.
The Chief Steward whose now a level 1 supervisor will collect two checks when he retires, a strong motive to protect his illegal status. His best friend, a Level 2 supervisor, both being the masterminds in a designed dismissal plan focused on anyone who posed a threat to their criminal activity, where these people worked in tandem with their former official IBEW local 336 brothers, who will and did calculate personal attacks on chosen union dues paying brothers. They literally were the police, judge, jury and executioners in the personal lives of loyal blue collar workers without a care to man-made damage to the employee’s personal life. And it didn’t cost them a dime.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.