What will change now that Dana has voted for a union? 

As a employee what would you like to see included in the Unions contract?

Elliot

By Julia Hunter, New Era Staff Writer

A Hopkinsville woman who pleaded “guilty but mentally ill” to an amended charge of second-degree manslaughter in the neglect death of her mother will not serve any time in prison.

John Atkins sentenced Penny Jo Smith Elliot, 43, to 12 months of home incarceration Tuesday in Christian Circuit Court. She is not to have any contact with anyone except family and will be monitored electronically. Atkins said it was the strictest condition of probation he has ever issued as a judge.

Elliot’s mother, Betty Jane Simpson, 76, of Bark Ridge Court in the Great Oaks subdivision, died on June 16, 2005, after a nine-day stay at Jennie Stuart Medical Center. When she arrived, she was suffering from dehydration, malnutrition and bed sores. Emergency room employees believed she was dead when she arrived because she was so unresponsive.

Elliot, who had been her mother’s primary caretaker, was accused of leaving her mother locked in a bedroom for long periods of time and treating her mother’s bed sores by scraping the scabs and then using a cigarette lighter to cauterize the wounds. She also tried to cash a forged check for $1,555 on her mother’s bank account, according to police.

As part of her plea agreement, Elliot also pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal abuse and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.

After the sentence was read, Elliot’s brother, Mark Simpson, jumped from his seat and left the courtroom as he yelled, “this is not just,” slamming the courtroom door. He had submitted a written statement requesting that Elliot be sent to prison. Elliot’s other brother also thought it was appropriate for her to serve prison time, said Commonwealth’s Attorney Lynn Pryor. Because of his health, he was not present at the sentencing.

Sitting on the opposite side of the courtroom, other member’s of Elliot’s family, including her husband, her daughter and her sister, cried out of joy. Her daughter said, “Thank you, thank you.” Susie Hurst, Elliot’s attorney, told Atkins that Elliot’s father had said he didn’t think Simpson would have wanted her daughter to serve time in prison.

Before her sentencing, Elliot gave a tearful statement to the court.

“My mother was my best friend,” she said, crying. “I find myself going to call her. I keep forgetting she’s dead. She was my best friend.”

Although Pryor said she was opposed to probation because of the seriousness of the crime, Atkins said he had given the sentence a lot of thought.

“The law requires the judge to consider the defendants mental, physical and emotional state,” Atkins said. “(Elliot) has components of all of those, more so than anyone else I’ve ever dealt with in a similar situation.”

In Elliot’s plea agreement, Pryor had recommended that Elliot receive an 18-year sentence — 10 years for the manslaughter charge and four each for the criminal mischief and forgery charges. By signing the plea, she was not ineligible for probation; although Pryor said she opposed it.

During Elliot’s trial, two psychiatrists testified that she suffered from bipolar disorder, but could not be sure of Elliot’s mental state when her mother suffered the injuries and neglect that led to her death.

Elliot served more than 14 months in jail after her arrest in 2005. She has been out on bail more than a year ago. She was married to George Elton Elliot on April 21, 2006, while she was in jail.

JULIA HUNTER can be reached at 887-3262 or by e-mail at jhunter@kentuckynewera.com.

By Blair Dedrick, New Era Staff Writer

Recruiters from United Auto Workers are in Hopkinsville this week encouraging workers at Dana Corp. to join the union, officials with both the Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation and the Pennyrile Central Labor Union said today.

Following a commitment of neutrality toward unions from Dana management as part of the company’s recovery from bankruptcy, UAW is apparently attempting to unionize Dana’s non-union plants.

“At one time, the (Hopkinsville) plant was the number one plant in the world for Dana,” said John Crenshaw, president of the board of the Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation. “We really weren’t aware until it got to disaster point. Now, we’re trying to get the message out telling people to think about it before they sign a card.”

The foundation has placed two large advertisements in the Kentucky New Era, both labeled “Open Letter to Dana Employees,” that encourage employees to research the benefits and disadvantages to unionizing. The second letter, published Tuesday, told employees to think about the bigger picture of Hopkinsville and the community’s ability to recruit other industry.

“It really is big, and that’s the part we’re asking people to understand,” Crenshaw said. “We’re going to have people come in and say, ‘Oh, you have a UAW plant with 600 people, well, see you.’”

Crenshaw told the story of Logan Aluminum, located in Logan County. The same day company officials were in town to look at a site, the Phelps Dodge plant, which has since closed, was on strike, he said.

“They never came back,” he said. “Now it’s Logan Aluminum, not Christian.”

The Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation and the city-county Economic Development Council have been successful recruiting industry to the community, Crenshaw said.

“What if we hadn’t been successful?” he asked. “All the industry that has come since (the 1980s) has come with this philosophy. I feel sorry for these people, but getting UAW on your side is not going to help you, not in Hopkinsville.”

Dana’s pledge of neutrality to the UAW meant that the union promised no strikes for three years and locked in the company’s labor costs.

“We didn’t need UAW to say that here in Hopkinsville, we just need the workers saying it,” Crenshaw said. “I want this community to discuss this very intelligently and to think about the community as a whole not just one job.”

He said if an employee is unhappy at work today, he or she can “decide with their feet” and find another job.

“If they go union, they may not have that opportunity,” he said. “If UAW comes to town, it’s going to take Hopkinsville off the list for a lot of companies.”

Betty Robertson, board member of the Pennyrile Central Labor Council, said the argument that industry will be harder to recruit is invalid, adding that the hundreds of manufacturing jobs lost this year were not union jobs.

Robertson, who has been a member of the AFL-CIO since 1966, said that employees at Dana need to sign the cards.

“Unions are to protect the workers,” she said. “I’ve never understood officials not wanting unions because higher wages mean more payroll taxes and that would help everyone.”

As for strikes, Robertson said the last one she remembers was in the 1980s.

“We just do our jobs and leave everyone alone,” she said.

Crenshaw said that the Dana plant located in Hopkinsville in the first place because of the non-union atmosphere.

Only two manufacturing plants are unionized locally, Ebonite and Emhart Fastening, but other groups, such as letter carriers, are, Robertson said. About 3,000 residents of the city are unionized at their place of work, which could be outside of the city, she said.

Crenshaw said he doesn’t want the issue to become a battle.

“It’s not just your job, it’s everybody’s job,” he said. “The UAW is not worried about Hoptown, it’s a national issue for them.”

Joe Artiles from the Nashville regional office for the National Board of Labor Relations said the union has to get a majority of the workers in a plant to sign the union cards, proclaiming publicly that they want to unionize. If the employer recognizes the union based on the card check, it notifies the NBLR and posts the recognition at the plant.

At that point, employees who do not want a union have 45 days to get 30 percent of their co-workers to sign a petition that would force a secret ballot election to take place.

Blair Dedrick can be reached at 887-3240 or bdedrick@kentuckynewera.com.