Opinion ID: 2814165
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Global Jobs Evaluation

Text: In 2004, Deere implemented a company-wide personnel reorganization, the GJE. The GJE consolidated Deere’s employment positions by “mapping” each position into “benchmark jobs” with specific job descriptions and pay grades. See also Rebouche v. Deere & Co., ___ F.3d ___, ___, No. 14-2815, 2015 WL 3372251, at  (8th Cir. May 26, 2015) (describing the GJE). Sellers claims he was “effectively demote[d]” under the GJE because, although he had been employed as a Process Pro for two years, he was mapped as a Supply Management Specialist III. Sellers alleges as a Process Pro he had “multiple promotional opportunities,” but Supply Management Specialist III was a “dead end job” from which he could only be promoted one additional level. This court must first determine whether Sellers has properly preserved this allegation. Defendants contend Sellers cannot now claim the GJE was an adverse employment action because Sellers did not mention the GJE in his complaint to the EEOC. The federal and state anti-discrimination statutes governing this case require plaintiffs to file complaints with the EEOC or the ICRC before commencing a suit in federal court. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12117(a), 2000e-5(e)(1); 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1); Iowa Code § 216.15(13). “‘Each incident of discrimination and each retaliatory adverse employment decision constitutes a separate actionable unlawful employment practice’” that must be individually addressed before the EEOC. Richter v. Advance Auto Parts, Inc., 686 F.3d 847, 851 (8th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (quoting Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 114 (2002)). “Although we have often stated that we will liberally construe an administrative charge for exhaustion of manifest injustice would otherwise result. Neither exception applies here.” Orion Fin. Corp. of S.D. v. Am. Foods Grp., Inc., 281 F.3d 733, 740 (8th Cir. 2002) (internal citation omitted). -6- remedies purposes, we also recognize that ‘there is a difference between liberally reading a claim which lacks specificity, and inventing, ex nihilo, a claim which simply was not made.’” Parisi v. Boeing Co., 400 F.3d 583, 585-86 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Shannon v. Ford Motor Co., 72 F.3d 678, 685 (8th Cir. 1996)) (dismissing ADEA refusal to rehire claims not listed in the plaintiff’s EEOC complaint “[b]ecause [each] refusal to . . . rehire is a discrete employment action [that the plaintiff] could have identified, either in his original administrative charge or by amendment”). As in Parisi, each of Sellers’s alleged adverse employment actions are discrete acts that should have been separately presented to the EEOC. See id. Sellers’s charge of discrimination describes in detail his increased workload and perceived mistreatment by Deere employees, but it does not mention the GJE or make any claim that Sellers was demoted. Sellers is therefore prohibited from alleging the GJE effectively demoted him. See id.; see also Cottrill v. MFA, Inc., 443 F.3d 629, 63435 (8th Cir. 2006). Even if properly presented before the EEOC, Sellers’s contention that the implementation of the GJE was an adverse employment action is meritless. Assuming Sellers’s position changed after the GJE, the change in title had no corresponding change in Sellers’s employment or working conditions. See Fisher v. Pharmacia & Upjohn, 225 F.3d 915, 919 (8th Cir. 2000) (“A transfer constitutes an adverse employment action when the transfer results in a significant change in working conditions or a diminution in the transferred employee’s title, salary, or benefits.”). Although Sellers contends he had fewer opportunities for advancement after the GJE, Sellers provides no record support for such an assertion. “Simply providing a massive record does not satisfy [Sellers’s] burden, and we will not sort through a voluminous record in an effort to find support for [Sellers’s] allegations.” Howard v. Columbia Pub. Sch. Dist., 363 F.3d 797, 800 (8th Cir. 2004). -7-