My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: MARYLAND
Hello All,
I am hoping someone can give me some feedback about this situation. It looks to me from things I have read, that I can make a valid official complaint. I would rather not have to file a complaint, but the management is being unreasonable with what now appears to be a pattern. I let it go last time, but I can't keep losing my work hours and income to teenagers.
I am 55 years old. I have worked at this job for 5 years, 3 days a week (now reduced to only 2). It is a part-time job at a government-owned recreational sports facility. Only one other person in my specific position has been there longer than I have, and he is also the only other person in the position who is over the age of 20 yo. In all positions combined for the entire facility, only 2 of them are older than I am, and they are retirees have been there for decades, one in a position that can't be done by teenagers, and the other in a position that doesn't involve physical activity. Sometime about a year or so ago, there was a woman in my age group and position who suddenly disappeared (rumor says was fired), who had been there longer than I, and the year before that, a woman in my age group was suddenly gone (rumored to be fired) who had been there for many years (she was in a different position, but still one dominated by young people). I am making a point of them, because management only rarely fires anyone, because having the kids there means bad employees will usually just leave on their own for school or other activities without any fuss (which is a point to the management's benefit of having only teenagers, which I had not considered until right now). The number of people in my position averages about 10, but it fluctuates a lot (between 5 and 15) with an exceedingly high turnover rate and kids who are on college breaks who only work twice a year. All of my reviews have been excellent, full of nothing but praise. I have never been written up for anything. I have qualifications to do certain tasks that none of the others currently employed in my position have the experience or formal training qualifications to do. Part of the job involves supervising customers during recreational sports sessions, so it is a very physical job. Part of the time the job entails helping customers with equipment, there is also cleanup to do at the end of the day, and then there are two assignments that no one currently in my position is qualified to do except for me (one of them the teenagers could learn but there is no time for them to train or practice, and the other one requires experience and investment into formal training).
This week, for the second time in 6 months, I discovered that one of my shifts is being given to a teenager. This time it is a teenager who has only been there a few months, who is so inexperienced that she has had to use rental equipment to do her job because she was hired to do a sport activity she had no experience doing. She has not had the training or experience to do the task for which she could be trained in-house but has not been, and she absolutely is completely unqualified to do the assignment I have been doing which is the provision of a government-mandated service (there was a big lawsuit). The last time my hours were cut, they were divided between two teenagers, one who was only on a break from college, and the other who did not even want the hours (she and I both, at the direction of the manager, signed a letter to get him to change the schedule, but then he still refused to change the schedule). When the college kid left, I got back half of the hours, but was never given back the hours the girl had, and those went to a different newly hired teenager instead of back to me.
The managers claimed both the last time and this time, that the schedule was changed due to budget issues. But they did not reduce hours on the shifts, just replaced me so that teenagers could have those hours. Both times, they had just added to the schedule college kids who were just on breaks, which meant less hours for me. In spite of the present claim of budget issues, over the last two months, several teenagers were hired for the position, and there are job openings advertisements for the position on both the facility website and the over-seeing government agency headquarters main website, with a closing date for February of 2018. The managers claim that the teenagers' hours were reduced, and yet the majority of them have more hours than I do. The managers do not even care that, by removing me from the shift they just gave to an unqualified teenager, they are denying mandated services to an individual who had to go through official channels to get those services.
The last time this happened, I could not do anything about it. There was no previous incident to establish a pattern (as there is now), and I did not know about age discrimination laws (which I spent the last couple of days researching). I have already lost income because of the hours being taken from me the last time in favor of teenagers, and now I will lose even more income to a recently hired inexperienced teenager. I asked management to re-consider, and explained why I believe it would benefit them more to have me filling those hours, but they still refuse to put me back in those hours.
I imagine that some of the regular customers and some of the coaches will be unhappy about the change as well, because they often complain when I am not the one doing the part of the job which involves supervising the sports activity (it is a dangerous sport even when properly supervised). I think when they learn that I will no longer be working those hours, they may complain to management even if I don't tell them anything. One of them is actually a lawyer who management sometimes makes changes for to avoid having him complain above their heads (which he has done multiple times over decades of using the facility). One of the coaches is always getting age-related comments made about her by the teenagers who work there; she often asks me if I am working and tells me she is glad when it is me instead of the kids (she complains about them a lot for not adequately enforcing safety rules, since most of them ignore a lot of unsafe situations). I think there is some support for me from these people even if I don't personally mention my problem to them.
I really love working at this place, and I have good relationships with co-workers, customers, and the coaches. I enjoy working with the teenagers because they have so much energy; it is not their fault that management makes changes to the schedules in their favor (my FT career and education have included working with adolescents in the mental health field). I have no intention of leaving the job regardless of getting the hours back. However, if I am still going to be replaced by an inexperienced teenager who is unqualified for all of my duties, then it needs to be for a "reasonable factor other than age" that is fair and logical enough to cause me to lose income without causing me to believe that the cut was an act of discrimination.
I'm trying really hard to not make any further comment to management. The last thing I said, in an e-mail, was that I was missing needed to do research of the entire over-seeing organization before drawing any conclusions about the practice of favoring of inexperienced teenagers over mature, experienced staff. I did not use the term discrimination, or mention anything legal or threaten to make complaints or to go over anyone's head.
Please provide constructive comments, feedback, or information about this situation. Let me know if I am missing something, play devil's advocate if you feel like it will help me think things through in a more objective way.
Thank you.
Hello All,
I am hoping someone can give me some feedback about this situation. It looks to me from things I have read, that I can make a valid official complaint. I would rather not have to file a complaint, but the management is being unreasonable with what now appears to be a pattern. I let it go last time, but I can't keep losing my work hours and income to teenagers.
I am 55 years old. I have worked at this job for 5 years, 3 days a week (now reduced to only 2). It is a part-time job at a government-owned recreational sports facility. Only one other person in my specific position has been there longer than I have, and he is also the only other person in the position who is over the age of 20 yo. In all positions combined for the entire facility, only 2 of them are older than I am, and they are retirees have been there for decades, one in a position that can't be done by teenagers, and the other in a position that doesn't involve physical activity. Sometime about a year or so ago, there was a woman in my age group and position who suddenly disappeared (rumor says was fired), who had been there longer than I, and the year before that, a woman in my age group was suddenly gone (rumored to be fired) who had been there for many years (she was in a different position, but still one dominated by young people). I am making a point of them, because management only rarely fires anyone, because having the kids there means bad employees will usually just leave on their own for school or other activities without any fuss (which is a point to the management's benefit of having only teenagers, which I had not considered until right now). The number of people in my position averages about 10, but it fluctuates a lot (between 5 and 15) with an exceedingly high turnover rate and kids who are on college breaks who only work twice a year. All of my reviews have been excellent, full of nothing but praise. I have never been written up for anything. I have qualifications to do certain tasks that none of the others currently employed in my position have the experience or formal training qualifications to do. Part of the job involves supervising customers during recreational sports sessions, so it is a very physical job. Part of the time the job entails helping customers with equipment, there is also cleanup to do at the end of the day, and then there are two assignments that no one currently in my position is qualified to do except for me (one of them the teenagers could learn but there is no time for them to train or practice, and the other one requires experience and investment into formal training).
This week, for the second time in 6 months, I discovered that one of my shifts is being given to a teenager. This time it is a teenager who has only been there a few months, who is so inexperienced that she has had to use rental equipment to do her job because she was hired to do a sport activity she had no experience doing. She has not had the training or experience to do the task for which she could be trained in-house but has not been, and she absolutely is completely unqualified to do the assignment I have been doing which is the provision of a government-mandated service (there was a big lawsuit). The last time my hours were cut, they were divided between two teenagers, one who was only on a break from college, and the other who did not even want the hours (she and I both, at the direction of the manager, signed a letter to get him to change the schedule, but then he still refused to change the schedule). When the college kid left, I got back half of the hours, but was never given back the hours the girl had, and those went to a different newly hired teenager instead of back to me.
The managers claimed both the last time and this time, that the schedule was changed due to budget issues. But they did not reduce hours on the shifts, just replaced me so that teenagers could have those hours. Both times, they had just added to the schedule college kids who were just on breaks, which meant less hours for me. In spite of the present claim of budget issues, over the last two months, several teenagers were hired for the position, and there are job openings advertisements for the position on both the facility website and the over-seeing government agency headquarters main website, with a closing date for February of 2018. The managers claim that the teenagers' hours were reduced, and yet the majority of them have more hours than I do. The managers do not even care that, by removing me from the shift they just gave to an unqualified teenager, they are denying mandated services to an individual who had to go through official channels to get those services.
The last time this happened, I could not do anything about it. There was no previous incident to establish a pattern (as there is now), and I did not know about age discrimination laws (which I spent the last couple of days researching). I have already lost income because of the hours being taken from me the last time in favor of teenagers, and now I will lose even more income to a recently hired inexperienced teenager. I asked management to re-consider, and explained why I believe it would benefit them more to have me filling those hours, but they still refuse to put me back in those hours.
I imagine that some of the regular customers and some of the coaches will be unhappy about the change as well, because they often complain when I am not the one doing the part of the job which involves supervising the sports activity (it is a dangerous sport even when properly supervised). I think when they learn that I will no longer be working those hours, they may complain to management even if I don't tell them anything. One of them is actually a lawyer who management sometimes makes changes for to avoid having him complain above their heads (which he has done multiple times over decades of using the facility). One of the coaches is always getting age-related comments made about her by the teenagers who work there; she often asks me if I am working and tells me she is glad when it is me instead of the kids (she complains about them a lot for not adequately enforcing safety rules, since most of them ignore a lot of unsafe situations). I think there is some support for me from these people even if I don't personally mention my problem to them.
I really love working at this place, and I have good relationships with co-workers, customers, and the coaches. I enjoy working with the teenagers because they have so much energy; it is not their fault that management makes changes to the schedules in their favor (my FT career and education have included working with adolescents in the mental health field). I have no intention of leaving the job regardless of getting the hours back. However, if I am still going to be replaced by an inexperienced teenager who is unqualified for all of my duties, then it needs to be for a "reasonable factor other than age" that is fair and logical enough to cause me to lose income without causing me to believe that the cut was an act of discrimination.
I'm trying really hard to not make any further comment to management. The last thing I said, in an e-mail, was that I was missing needed to do research of the entire over-seeing organization before drawing any conclusions about the practice of favoring of inexperienced teenagers over mature, experienced staff. I did not use the term discrimination, or mention anything legal or threaten to make complaints or to go over anyone's head.
Please provide constructive comments, feedback, or information about this situation. Let me know if I am missing something, play devil's advocate if you feel like it will help me think things through in a more objective way.
Thank you.
Discrimination: Lost Hours to Teenagers
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