Opinion ID: 2772155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Mae Lee Walker

Text: Walker was sixty years old at the time of the transition and worked as an Electronics Technician I in the Cable Fab Shop. Walker applied to continue her position as Electronics Technician I, and Jim Thomas was the Lockheed supervisor in charge of hiring decisions in that area. Thomas did not select Walker for an interview because of her low skills assessment score relative to the other DS2 employees who applied. Lockheed also noted that many of the individuals it hired to fill this position had special training, military backgrounds, or were simply good at their jobs. Moreover, approximately sixty people worked for DS2 as Electronic Technician I’s in the Cable Fab Shop, but Lockheed hired only thirty-two – a reduction of nearly half. Of the thirty-two people Thomas hired as Electronic Technician I’s for the Cable Fab Shop, five were older than Walker and eleven were less than six years younger than she. Throughout the process, Walker never heard or saw anything that made her think Lockheed was biased against older workers, and no one at Lockheed mentioned age as a factor in hiring decisions. Like Prather, Walker expressed her belief that the hiring decisions should have been -6- based on seniority, and thought some individuals were only hired because they had friends at Lockheed.