A management level employee's evaluations are spotless until the new supervisor comes into place six months ago. The employee has worked for the California medical company for 20-25 years. The supervisor begins reprimanding employee for insignificant errors ... She is the only one reprimanded. Example 1: The employee and another employee with the same position leave a meeting after their parts are completed (they have never been required to stay), the one employee is reprimanded while the other is not. Example 2: Employee looks away from someone talking to them, while taking notes on what that person is saying; she is reprimanded for it, other employees are not. The employee calls the employee help line. The employee help line is reassuring, until they find out who the supervisor is, and then they don't want to pursue the issue. The employee fears termination which would result in the loss of a sizeable retirement. She goes to work in tears and goes home in tears, not understanding how someone could go from perfect evaluations to being fired when no changes have been made in procedure. Another meeting the supervisor informs the employee that no one wants to talk to her and that no one likes her (out of 20+ co-workers). She prepares a resignation and retirement letter and turns it in the next time she is called in to be reprimanded. She's been with the company long enough, that when she was hired she only needed an A.A., when the position now requires a B.A. They are not permitted to fire her for that. The company she is working for is aiming for high rankings in its industry and one of the details it is evaluated on is the education level of its managers. Is there enough to pursue a lawsuit, or is she out of luck?

Crappy, but legal. Employers and managers have no legal bases for treating everyone the same, dishing out reprimands to one, some, or all evenly or appropriately. That's a case of bad management, but in itself doesn't give rise to a suit for damages.

That's a little extreme...psychotic even....boss sounds like a complete control freak....but legal.

Sounds like this boss has a reputation as a world class red ant....but it's an internal issue, and if the company wants to continue to employ such managers as bosses and drive away their employees, they have that right I'm afraid.


But a change in management can turn the whole world upside down.

So was she actually fired, or did she quit?


There's actually some grey area there - they can REASSIGN employees if requirements for positions change and current employees no longer meet the higher standard. Of course that assumes there are OTHER open positions for which they ARE qualified and, if they provided the ABILITY for someone to GET that additional training or education, but the employee failed to do so, their arguement would be much stronger. (For example, working in law enforcement, you're required to be certified before you get access to certain databases, but it requires some training first, so you'll typically see phrases like "must obtain XYZ certification within 6 months of hire" or similar language).


Knowing that this was a goal for the company, was she actively working toward increasing her own education level in the interest of job preservation and upward mobility?

Is there enough to pursue a lawsuit, or is she out of luck? [/quote]


She's pretty much out of luck. Employers have no binding requirement to treat everyone the same. They're only bound to not discriminate or fire based on a legally protected status (age, race, gender, etc.).

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Thanks for replying, I appreciate this. I was afraid she'd be out of luck, I just wanted to know if i should encourage her to cut her losses or fight back, especially since she's so distraught that I don't know if at this point it would emotionally worth it for her to even try for a lawsuit, but there isn't any discrimination based on a legally protected status anyway. So it's unfair but not illegal it seems. Thanks again for taking the time to reply to my post.

DO make sure that she files for unemployment....ASAP.

__________________
While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

She put in her resignation and retirement papers though... I didn't think California gave out unemployment to people who resign?

Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.