According to findings by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Constellis, LLC (operating a weapons training center) unlawfully retaliated against firearms instructor Michael Macri after he repeatedly raised serious safety and public health concerns on behalf of himself, his coworkers, and trainees.
These concerns included a prohibition on personal protective equipment at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and a “serious life hazard” from bullet ricochets at the gun firing ranges which had already injured people. No cap!
What follows explains how this kind of corporate misconduct undermines corporate social responsibility, endangers public health, and reinforces the broader patterns of neoliberal capitalism, corporate greed, and weakened corporate accountability.
Readers who want the essential facts can stop here; those who continue will see how this case fits into a wider system that normalizes risk for workers while protecting management and profit.
Table of Contents
- Corporate Misconduct at Constellis
- Workplace Safety Failures and Public Health Impact
- Corporate Social Responsibility vs. Corporate Greed
- Economic Fallout, Wealth Disparity, and Chilled Worker Voice
- Corporate Accountability in a Neoliberal Capitalist System
Corporate Misconduct at Constellis
Constellis, LLC operates in the lucrative security industry, employing security officers and training them in firearms handling for deployment to federal government sites.In this case, the company’s firearms and tactics instructor, Michael Macri, and his colleagues raised repeated alarms about dangerous working and training conditions – and Macri was ultimately suspended and fired after pressing these concerns.
Macri’s role was tightly controlled. Management dictated the curriculum and the “range cards” that specified each firing drill; instructors were not allowed to alter these materials without supervisory approval.
Instructors had limited discretion only to remove a student temporarily from live fire for immediate safety violations or file “spot reports” on misconduct, but they could not independently discipline or expel students from the program.
Workplace Safety Complaints and Retaliation
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Constellis prohibited instructors and students from wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), even as the virus spread globally. Macri challenged this policy in a staff meeting, framing it as a matter of workplace safety and public health.
Soon after, management documented a prior alleged infraction unrelated to the safety complaint. Which is quite obviously a classic pattern where employers retroactively build a paper trail to justify punishment.
Several months later, Macri and fellow instructors sent a written letter to management describing a ricochet problem at the firing ranges as “a serious but correctable life hazard to both students and instructors” that could lead to “injury or death.”
This wasn’t hypothetical neither: several shooters had already been hit by bullet fragments.
Constellis temporarily closed the worst range and claimed the problem was fixed, but the ricochets continued. When Macri confronted supervisors again about the uncorrected hazard, raising his voice in frustration, the company suspended and then terminated him, officially for “insubordination.”
The NLRB and Fourth Circuit concluded that Macri’s protected, concerted workplace safety advocacy was a substantial motivating factor in his suspension and discharge – an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Timeline of Key Workplace Safety Allegations
Under neoliberal capitalism, time is often weaponized: delays in addressing hazards coincide neatly with the time needed to suppress those who speak up. Based solely on the court’s description, the sequence of “what went wrong” at Constellis looks like this:
| Sequence in Record | Event at Constellis |
|---|---|
| At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic | Macri questions a company rule forbidding instructors and students from wearing personal protective equipment during training. |
| Shortly thereafter | A supervisor formally documents an unrelated alleged infraction by Macri from months earlier. |
| Several months later | Macri and several instructors jointly send a letter to management describing a ricochet issue at firing ranges as a “serious … life hazard” that could cause “injury or death,” and asking for immediate correction. |
| After the letter | Constellis temporarily closes the most dangerous range and later claims to have fixed the ricochet problem. |
| After the claimed “fix” | The ricochet hazard persists; several shooters have already been struck by bullet fragments. |
| Subsequent meeting | Macri confronts supervisors about the continuing hazard, raises his voice, and is soon suspended and then terminated for alleged “insubordination.” |
By focusing on “insubordination” instead of fixing the structural hazards, Constellis redefined the problem: not bullets hitting people, but a worker speaking too loudly about it.
Workplace Safety Failures and Public Health Impact
Corporate Pollution of the Workplace Environment
Corporate pollution is not only smokestacks and chemical spills; it is also the contamination of the workplace environment with avoidable hazards. In this case, the “pollution” took the form of:
- A prohibition on PPE use during a global pandemic, increasing risk to workers and trainees in enclosed training settings.
- A known ricochet hazard that had already produced injuries, with management’s response limited and ultimately ineffective.
These policies and failures are a direct affront to corporate social responsibility. A company whose business model is training people in the safe use of firearms allowed conditions where bullets bounced back toward shooters and instructors. A company entrusted with security work for federal properties refused basic public health precautions at the height of COVID-19.
Public Health and the Human Cost
Public health here is both immediate and long term:
- Immediate physical harm: Workers and trainees were exposed to a known risk of bullet fragment injuries.
- Occupational stress and trauma: Repeated exposure to potentially lethal hazards, combined with the knowledge that management resists protective measures, creates deep psychological strain for those on the range.
- Spread of disease: Blocking PPE at the start of the pandemic not only endangered employees but potentially their families and communities once they left the facility.
The point here is that the harm occurred in service of an institutional logic that treats people as expendable inputs in a security-services supply chain.
Corporate Social Responsibility vs. Corporate Greed
Constellis’s conduct illustrates a stark gap between corporate ethics in theory and corporate greed in practice. There is no evidence in the record of a serious, sustained corporate social responsibility program counterbalancing these decisions. Instead, the documented actions show:
- Tight control over curricula and instructor discretion,
- Minimal tolerance for worker autonomy, and
- Retaliation when instructors collectively pressed for safer conditions.
The instructors had no authority to redesign drills, permanently remove unsafe trainees, or fix the range infrastructure. Their only power was to speak up to management, which ironically was the very conduct that triggered Macri’s suspension and termination
This is corporate ethics inverted: instead of rewarding those who act to prevent “injury or death,” the company removed one of the loudest voices calling for safety.
Economic Fallout, Wealth Disparity, and Chilled Worker Voice
Who Bears the Economic Fallout?
When a worker like Macri is dismissed for insisting on safe conditions, the economic fallout is immediate and asymmetric:
- For the worker: Loss of wages, benefits, and career stability; the burden of finding new employment under the shadow of being labeled “insubordinate.”
- For the company: At most, backpay and reinstatement ordered later – a modest cost relative to revenue streams from government contracts and training operations.
This asymmetry reinforces wealth disparity. The cost of unsafe practices and corporate corruption of workplace norms is socialized onto workers and their families, while gains from cutting corners are privatized at the top.
Chilling Effect Under Neoliberal Capitalism
Under neoliberal capitalism, where labor protections are already under pressure, firing a safety advocate sends a message more powerful than any policy memo:
- Do not question management’s risk calculations.
- Do not prioritize public health over production quotas or training throughput.
- Do not expect corporate accountability when you expose hazardous conditions.
The NLRA exists precisely to shield “concerted activities” …like Macri and his colleagues’ joint safety letter from retaliation.
When employers violate that protection, they end up chilling the collective capacity of workers everywhere to defend their own lives.
Corporate Accountability in a Neoliberal Capitalist System
The Fourth Circuit emphasized that the managerial exception to NLRA protections must be construed narrowly so that workers like Macri are not stripped of basic rights.
Constellis argued that he was a “managerial employee,” but the court pointed out that he had no power to formulate or implement management policies – he was simply carrying out a tightly scripted role.
This matters because the corporate world routinely inflates the authority of workers when it wants to deny them protections, and diminishes that authority when responsibility for harmful decisions comes due. Here, Constellis tried to claim Macri was “management” for the purpose of stripping him of NLRA rights, even as the record showed he had no real power over policy!
Some manager lmao
Corporate accountability, in this context, means:
- Recognizing that workers who lack power over policy must still have the right – and protection – to challenge unsafe practices.
- Rejecting legal theories that turn every mid-level or skilled worker into “management” as a pretext to weaken labor law.
- Insisting that companies providing high-risk services, especially to the public sector, meet higher standards of safety and corporate social responsibility.
💡 Explore Corporate Misconduct by Category
Corporations harm people every day — from wage theft to pollution. Learn more by exploring key areas of injustice.
- 💀 Product Safety Violations — When companies risk lives for profit.
- 🌿 Environmental Violations — Pollution, ecological collapse, and unchecked greed.
- 💼 Labor Exploitation — Wage theft, worker abuse, and unsafe conditions.
- 🛡️ Data Breaches & Privacy Abuses — Misuse and mishandling of personal information.
- 💵 Financial Fraud & Corruption — Lies, scams, and executive impunity.
