Demotion
I was recently informed by my manager that I am being demoted from my management position to that of staff. He emphasized that the action is not performance related, nor due to budget pressures, and my current salary remains the same. He said that if he were in my shoes he would start looking for a new job. Over the past 2 years he repeatedly acted demonstrably unfairly. Do I have any recourse? Thank you.
1 answer | asked Nov 27, 2005 5:24 PM [EST] | applies to Illinois
Answers (1)
Without intending to be cold....
....I must first tell you that private employers in Illinois really don't have any legal obligation to avoid acting "unfairly". There is no real concept of "fairness" or "equity" in the our state's workplace law, only minimum compliance with statutory standards.
Worse, the general rule in Illinois is that there is no action for "wrongful demotion."
Finally, I peeked at your email address and it looks like a work email. You should understand that your employer probably has and probably uses a monitoring system (incoming and outgoing)and that is perfectly lawful. You have no expectation of privacy in a proprietary employer email system, even if it is connected to the internet, as opposed to an intranet.
Under the Illinois Human Rights Act and the various U.S. Civil Rights titles you might still have an action depending upon your age, sex, religion, marital status, military discharge and handicap. You may also have preserved an action if you have opposed discrimination in the workplace and maybe if you have engaged in certain kinds of whistleblowing (although, again, retaliatory demotion is disfavored under state law, so the reported misconduct would almost have to violation of a Federal Statute.)
It is impossible to tell your age from your answer but what has occurred in your situation is a pattern we sometimes see with workers over 40 (especially in certain pension schemes)to "run them off."
If you want to place a more detailed answer, I'll check back for it later. In the meantime, if you do nothing else, keep a daily journal of your experiences and conversation in the work place. Record things that happen as comtemporaneously as you can. At a minimum write them the same day they happen. That way, you will at least have an accurate record of how things unfolded over time. Clients, for reasons I've never understood, resist or simply stop keeping these journals and almost always regret that inattention. I can't tell you how many people come in terminated a couple of years after first consulting me and say "Well I stopped keeping my journal because things were going better."
Two other issues come to mind. Who replaced you? Younger, different gender, non-handicap? Is there a separate (better) bonus pool for management than for rank and file?
I'm sorry this has darkened your holidays. I can't be much more help to you without more specifics.
Anthony B. Cameron
Quincy
posted by Anthony Cameron | Nov 27, 2005 6:44 PM [EST]
....I must first tell you that private employers in Illinois really don't have any legal obligation to avoid acting "unfairly". There is no real concept of "fairness" or "equity" in the our state's workplace law, only minimum compliance with statutory standards.
Worse, the general rule in Illinois is that there is no action for "wrongful demotion."
Finally, I peeked at your email address and it looks like a work email. You should understand that your employer probably has and probably uses a monitoring system (incoming and outgoing)and that is perfectly lawful. You have no expectation of privacy in a proprietary employer email system, even if it is connected to the internet, as opposed to an intranet.
Under the Illinois Human Rights Act and the various U.S. Civil Rights titles you might still have an action depending upon your age, sex, religion, marital status, military discharge and handicap. You may also have preserved an action if you have opposed discrimination in the workplace and maybe if you have engaged in certain kinds of whistleblowing (although, again, retaliatory demotion is disfavored under state law, so the reported misconduct would almost have to violation of a Federal Statute.)
It is impossible to tell your age from your answer but what has occurred in your situation is a pattern we sometimes see with workers over 40 (especially in certain pension schemes)to "run them off."
If you want to place a more detailed answer, I'll check back for it later. In the meantime, if you do nothing else, keep a daily journal of your experiences and conversation in the work place. Record things that happen as comtemporaneously as you can. At a minimum write them the same day they happen. That way, you will at least have an accurate record of how things unfolded over time. Clients, for reasons I've never understood, resist or simply stop keeping these journals and almost always regret that inattention. I can't tell you how many people come in terminated a couple of years after first consulting me and say "Well I stopped keeping my journal because things were going better."
Two other issues come to mind. Who replaced you? Younger, different gender, non-handicap? Is there a separate (better) bonus pool for management than for rank and file?
I'm sorry this has darkened your holidays. I can't be much more help to you without more specifics.
Anthony B. Cameron
Quincy
posted by Anthony Cameron | Nov 27, 2005 6:44 PM [EST]
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