Do I have an age discrimination case?

The Company and our Union agreed to dissolve our department (seniority unit). I was in a department that provides utilities to four larger units. What they did was divide the department into 4 separate units and incorporate them into the larger ones without our consent. I was the senior man in the department and could bid anywhere in the department among 6 different job tiles. Now I only have a choice of two of those jobs and if I want to go to a better job in my new larger department I have to follow a line of progression starting at the lowest job. So in other words since I am 59 I will never even have time left in my carer to move to a another job.

However in a unionized environment, especially a large one constructive dismissal is difficult to prove, since it usually has to be targeted maliciously at an individual with the intent of running them out of the company.

Constructive dismissal is a rapid and dramatic change in your job. If one day you report to a vice president, and the next you report to the building maintainence man you are being encouraged to quit.

If this is you and 50 of your closest friends, unless you are all senior and senior (sorry) and can make the case that you were marked for this treatmentment because of age it is pretty difficult.

take 36 years seniority off of me as far as my right to move to another job that I have been eligible to move to for the last 36 years. The reason this was done is so the company can get a younger employee to fill the job vacancies. The jobs I was able to move to 3 months ago are now unavailable to me and now they can put up a bid and an employee with 7 years service will get it. There have been vacancies in the department for months and some for years and now that they changed the seniority units they are posting bids.

On edit: I am wondering if the EEOC would recognize this since my Union is a corrupt as the Bush Administration and won't do anything.

When dramatic changes are made to your working conditions - one tailored to making your position undesirable it can be seen to have the same effect as an offical firing. Your employer is making your job so undesirable that they are considered to be coercing you to resign.

years ago if I wouldn't have lost 3 pensions so far. What they are doing is taking our seniority away from us so we are locked into a job with no way to get out. Believe me I would be glad to resign if they offered me a buy-out.
On edit: Would you resign from a $60000 a year job at 59 without being eligible for a meaningful pension for 6 years and not being able to get SS for 3 years and no jobs in the area that pay a living wage?

constructive dismissal, constructive discharge and coerced resignation are just words that describe a dramatic change in ones working conditions that might make continued employment absolutely undesirable. Losing 36 years of seniority and being installed in a dead-end position can be considered the above.

In those cases the employee on the receiving end of the mistreatment can make claims similar to those made in a wrongful termination case.

It is often applied in sexual harrasment cases where a victim might be required to continue working with the accused individual. The person might rather quit than be forced to work with that person, but isn't the same as though they quit because a better job came along.

how your specific situation fits in with your contract, etc.
You should FIRST file a grievance, if its applicable, before filing any other sort of suit. Your union should help you with that.

Chairman and President all signed the F---ing thing. The whole thing is the union collaborating with the Company to get their friends and relatives on jobs they couldn't touch otherwise. What good will it do me to file a Grievance when it will sit in a file for months and probably get bargained away to get a Union official his job back when he gets caught stealing from the Company again.

They over see both employers and unions. A quick phone to your regional office will start the process.

it's incumbent upon the membership to do something about it. if you have 36 years seniority then your position should be fairly secure and you oughta have some contacts in the international?

someone appoints them to a job in the International, the only honest local President we ever had is the only one that didn't move up in the Union. I have worked there for 36 years and have never had a disciplinary action against me and another asshole that golfs with the President can get all his relatives hired and I couldn't even get my brother on. My brother was the only one that passed an electricians test he took with 16 other people and guess what they took 2 guys that failed and hired them on as laborers.

I"m not clear though whether this was an interim agreement or a new contract?
If a new contract, doesn't the rank and file get to ratify?
IF not, then you should STILL talk to the board, right before you go to the NLRB (I"m guessing, I don't have all the particulars of your case)

and the Company and Union made this agreement without any of us being aware of it. They have been after us for a couple years to agree to the thing and we turned it down twice, then one day the boss posts the signed agreement out of the blue.

head of the union. I am pretty sure they'd not want the local doing that after the rank and file voted it down.

sound like from your description it may be a corruption issue.

grasp what the problem is. Say for instance they would make an agreement like this covering 50 employees and you had 40 employees with 5 or less years service and the other 10 have 30 plus years service how could the majority vote to take your seniority away. But we actually voted to leave our seniority unit intact and they do it anyway. The preservation of the Seniority system should be the number 1 priority of any Union that is the foundation of the whole labor movement that is what is supposed to prevent these kind of practices. Wouldn't the EEOC be the place you would file such a charge,from what I have read they are the ones that handle age discrimination charges. I think for one or a handful of people to go to the NLRB would be useless and would probably open us up for reprisals. I am afraid I won't even be able to find one person willing to put his neck on the line with me on this and will just have to accept it.

is no easy way to resolve this. I will try to see if anyone else at work is willing to stick out their neck to fight this. Really personally it doesn't effect me as mush as others so if nobody else is willing to fight for their rights I just as well drop it. I have tried confronting these people on other occasions and all it does is cause a lot of stress on me and in the end you just make an ass out of yourself.