Metro-east IDOT supervisor back at work, despite scathing report on bad behavior
A toxic work environment. Bullying and verbal abuse. Favoritism. Unsafe working conditions. Retaliation. Punitive job assignments. Sexual harassment. Profanity and lewd insults. Misuse of employee labor. A climate of fear.
Reports from two Illinois Department of Transportation investigations paint a disturbing picture of leadership problems at its District 8 Wood River operations yard in East Alton.
Yet the yard supervisor, Joe Hamm, a non-management union member whose formal title is “lead worker,” returned to the job last fall after being on administrative leave for 10 months with full pay during the investigations, according to employees.
“It was a paid vacation,” said Highway Maintainer Mike Turner, 32, of Godfrey, one of seven employees who complained about Hamm’s behavior in 2023, prompting the investigations.
Investigators interviewed more than 25 other employees, past and present, before concluding that “sufficient evidence” existed to back up most of the allegations and that Hamm’s superiors had failed to intervene or take corrective action.
Turner, who serves as Teamsters shop steward, was only recently able to get the final IDOT investigative reports, which the BND reviewed, through Freedom of Information Act requests.
After reading the scathing reports, Turner said he couldn’t believe officials would give Hamm his job back. He pointed to the extensive training that state employees must undergo each year related to sexual harassment, ethics and civil rights.
“He was found guilty of all the things that we were told we were supposed to report, and he gets to be in the same supervisory role in charge of the same people,” Turner said. “I just can’t make sense of it.”
Some employees, including three who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, blame politics. Joe Hamm is the son of John Hamm, longtime Madison mayor, who has ties to the Democratic Party.
Joe Hamm didn’t respond to requests for comment.
This week, IDOT spokesman Paul Wappel verified that Hamm was on administrative leave from November 2023 to September 2024 due to the “serious nature of the allegations” and that he was paid while under investigation, as required by the union’s collective-bargaining agreement. His salary is $9,200 a month ($110,400 annually).
As a result of the investigations, Hamm was disciplined with an unpaid 20-day suspension, Wappel said.
IDOT provided the following statement: “The employee’s conduct was completely unacceptable, and the department imposed the maximum penalty short of dismissal, based on the recommendation of IDOT’s Bureau of Labor Relations and district management, as well as in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement.
“The Illinois Department of Transportation holds its employees to high professional standards, which are clearly stated in policy and reinforced in multiple trainings throughout the year.”
Turner said working conditions at the Wood River yard improved after the employees filed formal complaints, but IDOT officials didn’t keep them informed on the investigations or explain their decision to reinstate Hamm, who just showed up one day unannounced.
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Most complainants have moved on
Turner is a former Madison County Board member, college student studying organizational leadership, and the only one of the seven complainants still working at the Wood River yard.
Others have quit or transferred to other yards, and one is on leave with workers’ compensation, he said.
Complainant Mike Campbell, 48, of Carlinville, worked five years as an IDOT highway maintainer and served as Teamsters shop steward before leaving in 2024 due to the Wood River yard’s “atmosphere.” Now he’s a mechanic for a trucking company.
“I saw the way it was going,” Campbell said. “I had a pretty good idea they weren’t going to do anything about (leadership problems), so I just left. I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
Campbell was particularly disturbed that other employees were completing Hamm’s state training modules. IDOT investigators later confirmed in a report that this happened.
Campbell said he also didn’t like Hamm and other supervisors not following established disciplinary procedures and giving preferential treatment to employees they liked and retaliating against those they didn’t like by assigning them difficult or menial tasks.
“It’s not technically a punishment to hand-shovel dirt off the side of the road, but when you have machinery, and you always use machinery to do it, then why are you making guys hand-shovel?” Campbell asked.
“Nobody wrote anybody up. That’s how they stayed under the radar. One day, they had me and some other guys cleaning out bird (droppings) underneath a bridge. Nobody had been under that bridge before. It’s just something they knew they could do and get away with it.”
IDOT highway maintainers are responsible for mowing grass, plowing snow and otherwise maintaining state roads and right-of-ways. Hamm has been working for the agency 18 years, according to Wappel.
As lead worker, Hamm supervises about 25 employees at the Wood River and Highland yards. A state online salary database shows that he earned $89,000 in 2023 and $108,000 in 2024.
Three years ago, IDOT posted Hamm’s profile on Instagram as part of a promotional campaign called “I Am IDOT.” He wrote that he enjoyed identifying and resolving community issues.
In January of this year, Fox2 News featured Hamm in a story about a snowstorm. After ending his overnight shift plowing roads, he was using a mini-bulldozer to clear his neighbor’s driveway.
“I still enjoy it,” Hamm was quoted as saying. “I’ve done it since I was a little kid, working for my dad in construction, then I went to IDOT. So I just keep going, helping people.”
Sexual harassment and name-calling
The seven employees filed complaints against Hamm with the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General in March and July 2023. That office forwarded them to IDOT’s Bureau of Investigations and Compliance, according to the bureau’s final report, dated March 1, 2024.
Investigators concluded that Hamm “sexually harassed employees under his supervision and created a hostile work environment by being discourteous, using profanity, being unprofessional, embarrassing employees, and calling (them) discriminatory, derogatory, and disparaging names,” the report stated.
Employees told investigators that Hamm called them names such as “lazy c--- sucker,” “dumb ass,” “fat bastard,” “no good mother f-----” and “dips---” and insulted them by making lewd comments about homosexuality, masturbation and pedophilia.
Investigators also concluded that Hamm:
- Required employees who raised safety concerns or disagreed with management to do degrading or difficult tasks and gave preferential treatment to others.
- Brought his hunting stand and personal vehicle parts to the Wood River yard and asked employees to repair them on state time.
- Sent out a TikTok video that featured a motivational speaker calling women “whores,” “sluts” and “c----,” which some employees found offensive.
- Directed another employee to complete his required annual online state training modules.
- Instructed Wood River highway maintainers not to speak to their Highland counterparts due to complaints filed by the latter.
- Told employees that one highway maintainer had “mental issues” and called him a “psychopathic narcissist.”
- Intimidated employees and/or coached them on what to say to IDOT investigators, warning that they could be kicked out of the Teamsters if they “talked against a union brother.” The report continued: “Mr. Hamm was asked why he would make the comment ... when it was not true? Mr. Hamm did not know why.”
The vast majority of highway maintainers in District 8, including Hamm, are members of Teamsters Local 525, based in Alton, according to President and Business Representative Laren Zeller.
Zeller declined further comment on the Hamm case, but emailed the following Local 525 statement:
“(The investigation was) conducted by the employer, and the Union represented any member who requested representation under their Weingarten rights. We are aware of allegations that a member may have threatened coworkers with expulsion for cooperating with that investigation. The Union does not condone intimidation, retaliation, or misuse of union affiliation to suppress truthful testimony.
“Union membership is not a tool for coercion, and such behavior if substantiated would contradict our core values. All members have the right to participate in lawful investigations without fear of reprisal, and they retain access to the grievance and arbitration process outlined in the collective bargaining agreement. Our role remains to protect all members, uphold fair representation, and foster a culture of integrity and solidarity.”
Investigators didn’t find sufficient evidence for claims that Hamm allowed employees to fill personal tanks with IDOT diesel fuel, hid state-owned scaffolding for personal use or got information on anonymous complaints filed against him from a Springfield contact.
The report stated that Hamm acknowledged he required employees to do manual labor, such as hand-shoveling or weed-eating, instead of issuing formal reprimands for policy violations; sometimes called them “lazy” and used profanity; and sent the TikTok video to their personal cellphones as part of “funny” group text thread.
“Mr. Hamm acknowledged the video was inappropriate and should not have been sent by him,” the report stated.
Hamm reportedly told investigators that another employee had completed his state training in 2023 without his knowledge after helping him in 2022 with questions he had trouble understanding. Others maintained it wasn’t an isolated incident.
Hamm’s 20-day unpaid suspension resulted from the Bureau of Investigations and Compliance report, Wappel said.
Second complaint focused on civil rights
The seven employees filed a second complaint with IDOT’s Bureau of Civil Rights in November 2023. That was after a bureau representative came to the Wood River yard to lead a class and heard their concerns, Campbell said.
In that complaint, the employees named Hamm and his District 8 superiors, Operations Supervisor Jason Bollman and Operations Engineer Joe Monroe, as well as Highway Maintainer Brad Busch, a temporary lead worker at the Wood River yard.
The Bureau of Civil Rights launched its own investigation and came to many of the same conclusions as the Bureau of Investigations and Compliance while also dealing with broader leadership issues.
“Jason Bollman, in particular, was noted for his failure to intervene in retaliatory behaviors and for neglecting to support employees,” the report stated.
The report addressed concerns about unsafe working conditions, stating that employees reported being assigned to physically demanding and dangerous tasks without proper safety precautions.
Finally, the report determined that Hamm had allegedly attempted to manipulate the investigative process by instructing employees to provide vague answers to questions during interviews.
“Ultimately, the investigation confirmed the persistence of a toxic workplace culture, driven by ineffective leadership, retaliation, unsafe working conditions, favoritism, and a lack of accountability,” stated the final report, dated Jan. 24, 2025.
That report was sent to IDOT’s Bureau of Labor Relations for consideration, resulting in a 10-day unpaid suspension that was later dismissed by an independent arbiter after Hamm filed a grievance through his collective-bargaining unit, according to Wappel.
Busch and Bollman received warnings and guidance on proper workplace conduct to avoid repeat occurrences, Wappel said. Allegations against Monroe were determined to be “unfounded.”
This week, Bollman reserved comment, pending IDOT permission. Busch and Monroe didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Turner said he knows that reporting his concerns to state officials and speaking out publicly about Wood River yard problems will not endear him to some supervisors and co-workers and may complicate his job, but he’s willing to take the risk.
“I think it needs to be done, and I might as well be the one to do it,” Turner said. “I’m young enough that I can restart if I quit or get fired.
“(The problems need) to stop. The state of Illinois is supposed to pride itself on being a great place to work, but I have not found that to be the case. If people knew how we were really being treated, then maybe someone would actually care.”
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
