Court sides with Destin postal worker in white powder case

It started with white powder in a letter tray at Destin post office and wound up in federal court.

Earlier this month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the United States Postal Service broke the law when a Destin postal supervisor threatened an employee for filing a labor complaint.

USPS spokesman Bill Tyler said the post office will not appeal the ruling.

“We have put a posting up in the Destin post office which says no supervisor will threaten to retaliate against the employee for the right to file a (National Labor Relations Board) complaint,” Tyler told The Log.

The source of the suit, NBC News has said, is a 2004 incident when Destin postal worker Ellen Wittic found white powder in a letter tray at the post office. Supervisor Bobby Powers had a maintenance worker put the letters in a clean tray and told Wittic, coworker Bobby Cline and union shop steward Marcus Jackson to sort them. When they objected that the powder might be dangerous, Powers told them to do it anyway and told Jackson to “shut up.”

Cline filed a complaint with the NLRB, charging the postal service with unfair labor practices. Powers then threatened to sue, telling Cline he’d be sorry he filed the complaint. Cline then filed another charge with the NLRB, saying that Powers was retaliating for the first complaint.

The USPS argued that Powers was acting as a private citizen exercising free speech when he spoke of suing Cline. The NLRB disagreed, and so did the federal courts.

Tyler said everyone involved is still working at the Destin Post Office. He told The Log there was nothing more in the record that indicated what the white powder had been.