Opinion ID: 171316
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Voluntary Demotion of an Area Manager

Text: Ms. Sanders also takes issue with the voluntary demotion of Rick Griffith from an Area Manager to a Manager-Engineer. We do not consider this to be evidence of pretext. The Area Managers, including Mr. Griffith, knew that SWBT would be retaining only thirteen of the seventeen Band C Managers-Engineering in the Oklahoma City/Stillwater area. At the Area Managers' ranking meeting in September, the managers unanimously ranked Ms. Sanders thirteenth. Thus, at that time, she was considered safe from the RIF. After the ranking meeting, SWBT enacted a policy whereby an Area Manager who is subject to a RIF may take a voluntary demotion to an engineer position rather than risk being laid off. Also at this time, the Area Managers who had ranked the engineers knew that one of them (the Area Managers) would be laid off pursuant to the fall 2002 RIF. As the most junior Area Manager, Mr. Griffith considered himself to be the most likely candidate to lose his job, so he volunteered to be demoted to a Manager-Engineering. This demotion necessitated the surplus of an additional engineer from the group. Ms. Sanders, as the next-lowest ranked engineer, was selected to be surplussed. Although Ms. Sanders contends that Mr. Griffith basically was able to pick who was going to be surplussed as a result of his stepping down, we find nothing about his decision or the enactment of the policy itself that is indicative of pretext. Because the voluntary-demotion policy was not enacted until after the ranking meeting, at the time Mr. Griffith ranked Ms. Sanders he thought she would be retained. Further, there is no evidence that suggests Mr. Griffith took a demotion because he wanted Ms. Sanders, as a woman, to be surplussed. Therefore, his transfer into Ms. Sanders's engineering group does not call into question the nondiscriminatory purpose of the RIF as asserted by SWBT.