Age Discrimination & ROF

C Wilson

Beginning in mid January or early February we will be reducing our work force due to a large renovation project that is scheduled to last 13 months. About two weeks ago I was in my supervisors' office and we were discussing when the employees should be informed of the ROF. The General Manager came in and he was adamant that no one should be informed until January. We were looking at a projected schedule that the GM & one of the department heads had made out and I questioned the critera on which the selections were made and he got very defensive and said he used a combination of performance and financial. We can keep younger more entergetic employees and pay them less. I said; " I hope you haven't said this to any one else. That is age discrimination." If looks could kill I would be dead right now. I don't think he has any intentions of changing his mind on who will be let go & if anyone sues I don't think we will have a leg to stand on.

We are a small country club so the WARN act does not apply. However, I feel that being empathic toward employees and keeping them informed of decisions that affect their lively hood is good for the morale of the employees who will be staying as well as the ones who will not.

I would like your comments.

Thanks,

Cherrye

LarryC

First of all, I take great exception to your GM's assumption that "younger" equals "more energetic". He is flat out wrong. I will leave it at that for now, before I REALLY lose my temper and type something that I'll be sorry for.

Now, as to how to convince this Mr. Shirley that you should have more say into who goes, you can begin by telling him that age discrimination lawsuits end up being the most expensive ones and that you will be an excellent target for one if he proceeds on his present course. Continue by explaining to him that, during the discovery process, he will be "smoked out" as the principle decision maker here. There is no hiding from that.
Conclude by explaining that a cooperative decision making process is vital to the best interests of the business.

If this doesn't work, send cousin Eddy out to kidnap him and bring him to you with a big red bow on his head.

Whirlwind

You now know (if you didn't already) that you're working for a person who is ignorant at best and dangerous at worst. If he cannot be deterred from this course of action, I'd be looking to jump off that sinking ship ASAP if I were you. It won't feel like a country club much longer.

Crout

How small is your workforce? If you have less than 20 EE's ADEA also does not apply. However, if you have 20 or more the GM's criteria may be a problem. The best you can do is alert the folks in your chain-of-command to the potential liabilities, and try as best you can to educate the idiot GM. For starters, you can pull all kinds of free information off the EEOC website. What your GM is proposing appears to be illegal discrimination, which is spelled out plainly by the EEOC.

jimbomt

We are currently completing a RIF, consloidating services. To be safe we ranked affected employees on objective criteria and arrived at a numerical score for each employee which became the sole criteria for continued employment. Used seniority, written reprimands, and deductions and additions based on their most recent eval. Found a helpful resource on this site written by one of the attorneys which guided my efforts. Pretty thorough document. Good luck.