Ash Grove Cement's plant near Durkee is one of Baker County's biggest employers.

A former employee at the Ash Grove Cement plant near Durkee has filed a lawsuit against the company claiming he was fired in April 2024 as retaliation for his reporting of potential safety issues at the plant.

Steven Gentry, 59, of Baker City who started work at the Durkee plant in January 2017, is seeking economic damages of $16,776 in lost wages and benefits, and noneconomic damages. The total damages would not exceed $1 million, according to the lawsuit. Gentry is also seeking attorney fees.

Gentry, who is represented by Beth Creighton and Kristin Bell of Creighton & Rose in Portland, is requesting a jury trial. His attorneys filed the suit on Wednesday, Dec. 18, in Baker County Circuit Court.

Phillip Teintze, manager of the Durkee plant, in response to an email from the Herald on Thursday morning, wrote: “We have no comment at this time.”

In an email response to the Herald, Gentry wrote: “I am bringing this lawsuit so everyone out there at Ash Grove will be safe and not afraid to speak up. Now, everyone is afraid to speak because of what happened to me.”

“I planned on retiring from Ash Grove,” Gentry wrote. “Now I have to spend my time working away from my family instead of getting to come home at the end of the day and be with them.”

Ash Grove’s attorneys filed a motion moving the case to U.S. District Court in Pendleton on Jan. 22. On Feb. 3, Gentry’s attorneys filed a motion seeking to move the case back to Baker County Circuit Court, claiming Ash Grove lacked a legal reason to shift the suit to federal court.

Gentry contends Ash Grove violated his rights under an Oregon law designed to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.

ORS 659A.199 states that it is illegal to fire an employee “for the reason that the employee has in good faith reported information that the employee believes is evidence of a violation of a state or federal law, rule or regulation.”

According to the lawsuit, Ash Grove hired Gentry as a laborer and later promoted him to powder foreman, “entrusting him with significant safety responsibilities including leading the blasting crew, supervising drilling operations, loading explosives, and maintaining critical records of all explosives used on site.”

According to the lawsuit, Ash Grove officials, including the company’s head of safety, visited the Durkee plant in the fall of 2023 to emphasize the importance of safety practices, citing an accident at a different plant the company owns.

The lawsuit states that in November 2023, while using drilling equipment, Gentry “survived a sudden explosion that could have proved fatal.”

On Jan. 10, 2024, Gentry was overseeing a blasting operation when a large rock hit a contractor’s truck, destroying the toolbox, according to the lawsuit. The contractor wasn’t in the truck and wasn’t hurt.

Gentry claims in the lawsuit that his supervisor failed to tell the contractor about the blast, or tell Gentry that the contractor was in the area.

According to the lawsuit, the supervisor tried to blame Gentry for the incident “by falsely claiming in the official report that Gentry had unilaterally changed the blast timing without consultation.”

Gentry refused to sign the report, according to the lawsuit.

Following the November 2023 and January 2024 incidents, Gentry sent an email to a company vice president, and in February or March 2024, a vice president visited the Durkee plant “and explicitly solicited candid feedback about safety concerns from employees.”

According to the lawsuit, Gentry “reported multiple serious safety violations” to the vice president.

On April 2, 2024, Gentry “was involved in a minor workplace incident while taking his lunch break in a skid steer cab, resulting in damage to a skid steer cab door,” according to the lawsuit. “This type of incident was not unprecedented at the facility and had previously been treated as a routine operational issue rather than a disciplinary matter.”

Gentry was fired two days later, according to the lawsuit, “despite (his) clean disciplinary record, seven years of dedicated service (and) negative post-incident drug test.”

According to the lawsuit, “in a further attempt to justify its retaliatory termination, Ash Grove retroactively claimed Gentry had violated a supposed requirement that workers take breaks only in the break room.”

Gentry contends in the lawsuit that this “alleged policy” was never given to him, or enforced.