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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    3

    Default Age Discrimination

    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Tennessee

    Two weeks ago I was fired from my job of 4 years for unsatisfactory job performance. I worked at a large manufacturing corporation as a production supervisor with 70 people reporting to me. There was no actual misconduct and I have been approved to receive unemployment benefits.

    About a year ago, I had one of my employees report to HR that I had discriminated against him about his job placement on the production line. HR investigated and found no merit to his claim. This happens from time to time and usually there is no disciplinary action taken against the supervisors for employee's complaints if there is no fault found with the supervisor. However, after this my manager started in on me about every one of my employee's complaints whether it was related to me or not. He said that it did not matter whether I was at fault or not; I just gave the perception of intimidation.

    I am blind in one eye and my bad eye will wander, especially when I am tired. I told my manager that maybe the "perception of intimidation" was due to my bad eye - I do feel that sometimes people look at me differently because of it.

    I will be 50 years old next month and I have 25 years of production supervisory experience. I have never been fired from a job before and I am very upset and embarrassed over this. All my performance evaluations have been good except for my last mid-year review which had a "needs to improve" in employee relations. I have had several emails from the plant manager over the past 4 years about what a good job I was doing. I have felt for the last six months that my job was in jeopardy; I have worked very hard to maintain good supervisor/employee relations lately and as a result, I have had no employee complaints in this time period.

    The day that I was fired my manager and the HR guy that was in the room with us told me that they knew that I was a hard worker and that there was was no poor performance - no real details were given for my termination, just the "intimidation perception" and they also told me I just did not fit into their future plans.

    My job was posted the same day I was fired. So I have two questions - is there any discrimination due to my eye? My second question is if they hire someone for my job that already works there that is much younger than me is this age discrimination?

    Thanks in advance for your time.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    24,521

    Default Re: Discrimination

    1.) In what you have posted, there is no evidence to support it, no.

    2.) Only if you have valid and supportable evidence to suppose that you were terminated BECAUSE you are 50.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    3

    Default Re: Discrimination

    Thanks so much for the quick response.

    So what would be considered to be "valid and supportable evidence"? They already told me my termination was not due to poor performance (even though this is what is written on my exit letter) and if they hire someone who is not in a "protected class" (much younger than me) what other evidence do I need?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2,357

    Default Re: Discrimination

    Everybody is in several protected classes. Everyone has a gender, a race, a religion (even if it's no religion at all), an ethnic or national origion (depending on how far back you want to go).

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    24,521

    Default Re: Discrimination

    Simply hiring someone that is younger than you is not evidence of age discrimination. Are there other people working there who are your age or older?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Posts
    3

    Default Re: Discrimination

    To answer your question: Yes, there are others that are my age or older that work there (this is a very large company). And I understand the point made about protected classes - if someone was hired in my place that was a different religion, I wouldn't think anything about it. However, there have been others in my area that have been "pressured" by my manager and have eventually left due to this (these were older guys too). I had decided six months ago that I was not leaving unless they fired me - even with the pressure I still enjoyed my job and looked forward to going every day.

    Honestly, after reading alot of the posts on this forum and others, I figured I did not have much of a case. However, I still don't understand what evidence would be needed - unless you mean that when we were sitting in that room that day, the manager and HR guy had told me that I was too old for the job, they wanted someone younger for the job, and also they didn't like the way I looked because my eye is discolored and wanders and they think it makes the employees uncomfortable. And, of course, these guys are too smart to actually say and document anything like that.

    Just a side note: I had called the HR guy the day after I was fired and almost begged him to change my exit paper to say anything other than I was terminated for poor performance. He refused. I just feel my reputation has been damaged for no reason - I seriously am worried that I will not be able to get another job based upon what these guys wrote on my exit paper - and they have no evidence or documentation to prove this either.

    Thanks so much for your help - I really do appreciate it.

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