Who is Jody Simmons from Johnny Got His Gun and what is their importance?

The night foreman at the Lost Angeles bakery where Joe Bonham works before the war, Simmons lets him go home early when his father Bill dies. As Easter approaches, Simmons hires Jose, an exceptional Puerto Rican temporary worker down on his luck. Jose is too honorable to quit when he gets a better job in Hollywood, but gets so worn out working both that he accepts coworker Pinky Carson's suggestion how to get fired: drop pies. Simmons forgives Jose the first time when he drops six to eight pies, apologizes, and offers to pay for them, but lashes out with racial epithets when he pushes over a full cart of 180 pies the next night.