By Doug Cunningham

When United Steelworkers member, Eric Powell decided to run for Mississippi State Senate, he thought he could keep his main job with Packaging Corporation of America. But after he was sworn in, the company fired him. Without a union, that would have been the end of the story, but USW District 9 Director, Stan Johnson says the union just got State Senator Eric Powell his job back.

[Johnson]: "Without representational rights and intervention on behalf of the union, the Senator would have clearly been terminated. That’s what we do, that’s how we do business. And we’re proud of the fact that he was elected to the Mississippi Statehouse as a Senator. We encourage our members to get involved politically and we support our members who do. And we were certainly going to support him and his efforts to do so. We did that in the election and we certainly did so in the resulting termination."

Johnson says he doesn’t believe the firing was political retribution by the company. He called it a miscommunication about details of a leave of absence necessary for Senator Powell to serve in the Mississippi legislature.