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Providence
Alaska Medical Center has agreed to pay $220,000 and other relief to
settle an age discrimination lawsuit on behalf of five workers laid off
and denied rehire because of their age, the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced.
The EEOC charged that
in February 2005, Providence laid off and refused to rehire longtime
employees Gola Anderson, Lawrence Harris, Milagros Lopez, Rebecca
Petrie and Canijie Sadiku, following a restructuring of the hospital's
operating room. The five employees had devoted between 11 and 24 years
of their careers as surgery aides and anesthesia technicians to
Providence and all had hoped to retire from Providence one day. The
EEOC said that the five employees, ages between 46 and 56, lost their
jobs due to their age, and were replaced by new hires in their twenties
and thirties.
Such alleged conduct violates the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The EEOC filed suit after
first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement.
Under the
three-year consent decree resolving the case (EEOC v. Providence Alaska
Medical Center, Civ. No. 3:06-cv-00146 RBB), approved by U.S. District
Court Ralph B. Beistline, Providence Alaska Medical Center denied
liability, but agreed to pay $220,000 to compensate the employees for
wages lost as a result of losing their jobs. The medical center will
also revise its policies, provide training on discrimination and
retaliation for operating room employees, and file regular reports with
the EEOC for monitoring in addition to other injunctive relief.
"Employers
have a duty to ensure that they do not run afoul of the law when they
restructure their workforce," said EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney
William R. Tamayo. "We commend Providence for working cooperatively to
resolve this lawsuit and believe that the relief provided in the
consent decree will prevent something like this from happening in the
future."
The EEOC brought the lawsuit against Providence after a
neutral investigation conducted by EEOC investigator Mercedes Casasola,
and after the agency first attempting to a reach voluntary settlement
out of court.
EEOC San Francisco District Director Michael
Baldonado noted, "Unfortunately, age bias continues to be a persistent
problem in the 21st century workplace – four decades after passage of
the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The EEOC will continue to
fight for the rights of older workers."
During Fiscal Year 2008,
the EEOC received a record 24,582 age discrimination charge filings, a
29 percent increase from the prior year and a 65 percent jump from the
number of filings in FY 2005 (14,893).
According to its web site,
www.providence.org/alaska, the Providence Health Care System is
Alaska's largest private employer, with over 4,000 employees serving
the Alaska communities of Anchorage, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Kodiak
Island, Seward and Valdez. Providence Alaska Medical Center is located
in Anchorage and is Alaska's largest hospital.
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