Easter 2021 felt like stepping into a war zone. The Darlington plant was crawling back from a freak electrical fault that killed production for days. Managers were on edge. They leaned on us to work through the entire bank‑holiday weekend. Plenty of people told them to go fuck themselves. I didn’t. I showed up.
On Good Friday I got a puncture halfway to the site. I didn’t want to be late, so I abandoned the car illegally on a verge and rang a mate who I knew was working for a lift. I still punched in. By mid‑shift I had to leg it back to move my car before it got towed. I couldn’t sort the tyre, it was Good Friday. The rest of the weekend came and went as I wrestled with tyre fitters on bank‑holiday hours. I finally made it back for the Tuesday afternoon shift, when normal non-overtime production resumed.
Four hours into that shift I was called to one side by Team Leader Dave Pailor. He handed me a pre‑printed “Record of Conversation” – an informal warning for missing overtime. Odd that the conversation we’d yet to have was neatly typed up. Mandatory shifts? Fuck no. Voluntary bank‑holiday slog? Yes. And here was a clip‑board ready to lecture me before I’d even said a word.
I refused to sign. I knew the drill – this was a power play, a petty humiliation tactic. Other staff had skipped the holiday without making any kind of effort or consequence. I got the form.
I returned to my station and got on with the job. No safety warnings. No performance concerns. Thirty minutes later I was hauled into the office. Dave Pailor was there. So was Shift Manager Neil McCaughtrie. He told me I was being drug and alcohol tested. No reason. Not a hint of suspicion beyond my refusal to sign.
An obvious attempt to assert authority over me because he couldn’t get a signature, he thought he could humiliate me into giving my urine. I refused. He said I’d be sent home. Fine. I’d email HR from a safe distance.
Here’s the filthy truth. Under Cummins policy you only get a for‑cause test if someone genuinely seems under the influence. If they suspected that, they had a duty to stop me driving. Instead they let me stroll off site with my keys in hand. No police. No security. Just negligence in a uniform.
I took it to HR. Crickets. McCaughtrie still strutted around the plant like nothing happened.
So which is it? A manager abusing his power because I wouldn’t back down? Or a manager so clueless he risked my life – and that of every driver and pedestrian I passed – by letting me drive under a cloud of implied suspicion?
Either option is appalling. And yet here we are. Tellingly, no action was taken against me – they knew it was a fuck up.
This is Cummins’ idea of accountability – optional, invisible, swept under the carpet.
Lee Thompson
Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project