Since her date of hire is Oct 6, 2006. Might there be a case or issue with her termination or position elimination, based on the close proximity to ten years and the plans eligibility for early retirement therein ? She should be 8 years vested as I write.
My wife has had mistakes in her pension statements going back 3 years. She has received token acknowlement of the errors but has been unable to for the last 2 years get a correct ledger or statement from the pension dept or agency. She again requested that 10 days ago and nothing has arrived.
My wife also inquired about the early retirement since she would have to wait 6 years for a penny and they are letting her go. Nobody responds to her request and that was 5 days ago.
Human resources seems to be a joke and really only looks after the companies interest, not the employee.
That you will have to ask a qualified attorney. I am not an attorney so I cannot not nor do you want me to give you legal advice.
But in my HR experience, what I think may hurt your wife’s chances of proving age discrimination is that the position has been eliminated rather than she was let go without cause and replaced by a younger person. It would help if there was any mention of her age as a reason for her dismissal in any verbal conversations, although that can be disputed if there were no witnesses, or any mention of her age (or an inference such as “you seem not to be able to keep up anymore”, “you seem to tire out more easily than you did a few years ago”, “you more ‘seasoned’ gals don’t take to change or learn new skills very well”) either verbally or in a written performance review, but few (although not all) employers are stupid enough to put something like that in writing.
Also if the dioceses is having budgetary problems even by their own stupidity, that won’t help her case either. If she was 2 years away from the 10-year eligibility for taking early retirement (I presume from the pension plan), I don’t know that that is close enough to infer that this was the reason her position was eliminated but an attorney would be better to answer that. If there is a pattern of letting people go who are over 40 and or forcing them out and letting them go just prior to them reaching pension vesting or eligible for early retirement and replacing them with younger workers (not in a protected group BTW), that would help but doesn’t on the surface seem to be the case here.
If her position was eliminated but then after a few months they hire someone, someone under 40 and who is doing basically the same job as your wife, even if they change the job title or make a few minor changes/tweaks to the job description, that could go to proving age discrimination but can still difficult to prove.
FWIW, at a previous employer I saw this happen. Older people who had been with the company for a long time were let go because the company eliminated their position under the guise of needing to reorganize or downsize, only to a few months later hire someone, someone younger and with less experience and for less pay under a new job title with a slightly different job description but in many ways were performing the or very close to the same job. I expressed my concerns over what I saw and soon I was told that I needed to cross train and off load many integral parts of my job to others to the point I had very little left to do anymore. Seeing the writing on the wall, I found another job before they let me go.
I am not suggesting that your wife shouldn’t pursue an age discrimination case but just be aware of where the bar is set for proving such.
https://www.workplacefairness.org/proving-employment-discrimination
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/jobs-careers/age-discrimination-tough-prove-2.aspx
Also as I mentioned in my prior post, if you do hire an attorney make sure you understand the fees involved and whether or not you will be on the hook for a big legal bill should you lose or what % of the settlement goes to the attorney should you win. And also find an attorney who specializes in employment law/discrimination (you don’t want the guy or gal who handles mostly bankruptcy cases or auto accidents to handle this.)
My wife has had mistakes in her pension statements going back 3 years. She has received token acknowlement of the errors but has been unable to for the last 2 years get a correct ledger or statement from the pension dept or agency. She again requested that 10 days ago and nothing has arrived. My wife also inquired about the early retirement since she would have to wait 6 years for a penny and they are letting her go. Nobody responds to her request and that was 5 days ago.
My advice is to keep following up if she doesn’t get a response and follow up in writing preferably by certified mail – return receipt. Send to the pension administrator and with a cc to the HR or Benefits Manager of the diocese and whomever is next higher up the food chain as appropriate. Keep the letter factual and to the point however and don’t bring into it any accusations of discrimination or any threats of such. Simply request an updated and corrected statement and if there were previous requests in writing, include a copy.
Human resources seems to be a joke and really only looks after the companies interest, not the employee.
Of course they look do - that’s their (my) job - to look after the company’s best interests. HR and Payroll is not there to be an advocate for the employee over the company’s best interests. Nor is HR there to be employees’ personal counselors or therapists or their personal career counselors or give employees’ legal advice (or as a payroll manager – personal tax advice).
I have over 30 years in payroll management and HR and benefits. I’ve always seen my job as being to protect the company’s best interests. That’s not to say my job was to do a number on or cheat or treat employees unfairly either.
Over the years I had to sometimes point out to the employer and take a very firm stand where what they were doing was illegal or discriminatory (from an HR, EEOC, DOL, FSLA, FMLA, or an IRS or benefits law standpoint).
One example was when a manufacturing company I was working for had to shut down for two days because of flooding from a tropical storm. The production manager wanted to allow workers to make up their missed time in the following work week in lieu of taking PTO to cover their missed time (i.e. paid for 24 hours at straight time week one and 56 hours at straight time week two so they would have their full 80 hours for the pay period), be paid for those additional 16 work hours the 2nd week at straight time. The production manager told me that the workers had supposedly verbally told him that they were fine with working over 40 hours the following week and forgoing the OT premium. The production manager tried to go over my head when I told him no.
But I put my foot down as this would be illegal under DOL rules regarding OT. I pointed out that even if the employees’ agreed to it, even in writing, it would still be a violation of FSLA, that employees cannot waive their rights to OT even voluntarily and doing so could open the company up to future lawsuits and a very painful and potentially expensive DOL investigation. Even though this would have saved the company money, I was looking out for the best interests of company and of the employees.
I’ve also had run ins with managers who wanted to hire or re-hire someone as an independent 1099 contractor when it didn’t meet the classification; classify a job as a salaried - non-OT eligible when it didn’t meet the criteria for being salaried non-exempt; and even last year had an HR director ask if we could hire the CEO’s wife to help out in inside sales for a couple of months but not pay her anything, treat her like an un-paid intern/volunteer.
I always looked at it as 1 - is it fair - are we treating one group of similarly situated employees differently from another such that it could be considered discriminatory; 2 - is it legal or could it expose the company to liabilities and legal claims down the road; and 3 - would it be a moral buster for very little return. #3 is actually a valid concern for a good HR team. But that’s not to say all HR folks or teams are created equal ; )
Best of luck in this difficult situation and keep us posted on how it goes.