MACON, Ga. — Earlier this week, a man claimed on a Facebook post that he was fired from a car dealership because he’s a volunteer firefighter. The post went viral with nearly 200,000 shares, 35,000 comments and 82,000 “likes.”
A portion of firefighter James Tyler Williams’ Facebook post reads:
“I was fired this morning from my full-time job as a Service Advisor at Five Star Automotive for being a part-time/volunteer firefighter. This was brought on by this picture that my dad posted saying he was proud of me and one of the owners saw it. I was told that if I did not want to fully devote myself to the company that they didn’t want to employ me anymore.”
The car dealership, Five Star Automotive, said they didn’t fire Williams.
Five Star General Manager Jeremy Shaughnessy said Williams may have been disgruntled, because he was in training for a service training position, but the department felt the position was not for him and wanted him back in sales where he had worked previously, according to 13wmaz.com.
Shaughnessy said Williams’ pay would have remained the same after the transfer. He said he was shocked by Williams’ Facebook post stressing that the dealership would not fire someone on the basis of them being a volunteer firefighter, according to the report.
Shaughnessy said Five Star has reached out to Williams several times and they haven’t heard from him.
Williams claims he hasn’t heard from Five Star and made the Facebook post to get another job.
I normally never go to Facebook with my problems but this really upset me. If everyone could share this for me I would...
Posted by James Tyler Williams on Monday, July 13, 2015