Opinion ID: 2508006
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Similarly Situated Employees

Text: The dispositive issue raised by the appellants is that DOH's failure to provide them with the wage increase given to District 5 workers constituted unlawful discrimination within the meaning of W.Va.Code § 6C-2-2(d) (2008). [8] For the purposes of W.Va.Code § 6C-2-2(d), discrimination means any differences in the treatment of similarly situated employees, unless the differences are related to the actual job responsibilities of the employees or are agreed to in writing by the employees. The appellants contend that the lower tribunals erred in finding that they were not similarly situated as District 5 workers for purposes of receiving a raise in wages. The trial court and the Board found that the appellants were not similarly situated to District 5 workers because (1) appellants work in different geographic areas, and (2) that to the extent DOH received any complaints regarding the inability to attract employees in District 1, such complaints did not rise to the level of those received by DOH for District 5. The first argument that the appellants make is that the lower tribunals should not have considered the problem of retention and recruitment for a specific geographical area, in determining whether they were similarly situated to District 5 workers. The appellants contend that all that should have been considered is whether they were doing the same basic work as those employees to which they are comparing themselves. We reject this contention. It is provided under 143 C.S.R. 1 § 5.4.f.4 that DOP may approve the establishment of pay differentials to address circumstances such as class-wide recruitment and retention problems, regionally specific geographic pay disparities, shift differentials for specified work periods, and temporary upgrade programs. In all cases, pay differentials shall address circumstances which apply to reasonably defined groups of employees (i.e. by job class, by participation in a specific program, by regional work location, etc.), not individual employees. In addition to the pay differential recognized by the latter regulation, we addressed the issue of pay differences in Largent v. West Virginia Div. of Health, 192 W.Va. 239, 452 S.E.2d 42 (1994). In Largent this Court recognized that, although State employees doing same work had to be placed in same classification, there could be pay differences within that classification. The Code establishes a multi-step pay plan and the implementing regulations set forth procedures to assist in determining where on that pay plan an individual employee can be placed. This system allows some flexibility in the hiring process and aids the state in attracting quality people to public service. Moreover, this flexibility allows for fluctuations in market conditions allowing the State to take into consideration other factors when hiring new employees such as the applicant's education and work experience. In short, employees who are doing the same work must be placed within the same classification, but within that classification there may be pay differences if those differences are based on market forces, education, experience, recommendations, qualifications, meritorious service, length of service, availability of funds, or other specifically identifiable criteria that are reasonable and that advance the interests of the employer. Largent, 192 W.Va. at 246, 452 S.E.2d at 49. The appellants contend that Largent's recognition of using different factors to justify paying employees differently for doing the same work, was overruled in part by the decision in Board of Educ. of The County of Tyler v. White, 216 W.Va. 242, 605 S.E.2d 814 (2004). We disagree. In White the grievant was an executive secretary for the Tyler County Board of Education (the County). Unlike other executive secretaries with the County who had 261-day contracts, the grievant in White was given a 240-day contract, which had fewer benefits. The grievant filed a grievance alleging that she was similarly situated with the other executive secretaries, and therefore the County could not discriminate against her by only offering her a 240-day contract. [9] The administrative grievance Board found that the County had unlawfully discriminated against the grievant. However, on appeal to the circuit court, the decision of the Board was reversed. The circuit court found that the County had articulated a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for treating the grievant differently. This Court reversed the trial court's decision and reinstated the Board's decision. In doing so, we overruled prior cases that had authorized government employee discrimination grievances, under W.Va.Code § 6C-2-2(d), [10] be analyzed under the tests used for discrimination claims brought under the West Virginia Human Rights Act. In the instant proceeding, the appellants argue that White implicitly overruled Largent and therefore prohibited government employers from using retention and recruitment for a specific geographical area as a factor in pay differentials. The appellants misinterpret White. All that White changed in our law was the use of Human Rights Act discrimination tests in government employee discrimination grievances under W.Va.Code § 6C-2-2(d). We made clear in White that the policy underlying uniformity and discrimination claims under the [public employee] statutes is to prevent discrimination against similarly situated [public] employees regardless of the basis for discrimination. The crux of such claims is that the complainant was treated differently than similarly situated employees, not that the discrimination was motivated by an impermissible factor. White, 216 W.Va. at 246, 605 S.E.2d at 818. Thus we find that retention and recruitment for a specific geographical area remain a valid pay differential factor that survived White. The appellants have also argued in the alternative that, if this Court finds that retention and recruitment are valid factors, then they presented sufficient evidence to establish that District 1 had similar retention and recruitment problems. It must be noted that this Court has observed that [a] similarly situated determination is necessarily factual in nature. Pritt v. West Virginia Div. of Corrections, 218 W.Va. 739, 744, 630 S.E.2d 49, 54 (2006). The relevant evidence submitted by the appellants on the issues of similar retention and recruitment problems came from Dennis King, a former DOH employee, Gary Stoors, an expert witness, and a report issued by the Rahall Transportation Institute. This evidence was deemed insufficient by the Board and the circuit court. The Board's order succinctly addressed each matter as follows: Contrary to Grievants' assertions, a similar situation did not exist in District One. Virtually every DOP certification sought for vacancies in District One contained multiple pages of available applicants, and in most cases dozens and dozens more were available. Despite the testimony of Dennis King, a retired Maintenance Engineer for District One, that there was high turnover within the TW classifications in 2004 and 2005, the evidence in this case does not prove that insufficient applicants were available or that positions went unfilled due to a lack of interested applicants, as occurred in the panhandle counties.    Grievants ... presented the testimony of an author of a 2007 report from the Rahall Transportation Institute, which had been requested by DOH's commissioner to study the issue of the aging DOH workforce. The report contained statistics regarding the number of DOH employees who would be eligible to retire in upcoming years, along with information and proposals regarding the replacement of these workers. In the instant case, Grievants contend that the information in the report which discusses the low salaries of DOH workers compared to people employed in the private sector, along with recruitment and retention issues, supports their argument that all DOH districts, specifically District One, have suffered from the same problems as District Five. However, ... the charts in the report which supposedly depict recruitment and retention information for particular areas are unreadable, and the time frame of the report occurred after the 2005 pay differential was implemented. Accordingly, this report and testimony regarding it do not prove Grievants' case of discrimination. Similarly, Grievants presented extensive testimony from Gary Stoors, a labor economist employed by AFSCME. Much of Mr. Stoors' testimony focused on the significant number of vacancies which occurred in District One in 2004, as compared to vacancies in District Five.... As the evidence in this case clearly established, conditions vary in the various districts and counties. Moreover, Grievants submitted no conclusive evidence regarding the lack of available applicants for District One positions in 2004, nor evidence that positions remained unfilled due to lack of interest by qualified candidates.... Moreover, while Grievants concentrated much of their focus upon the number of vacancies which occurred in their district in 2004, which was undisputedly more than those occurring in the three counties at issue, they have ignored the fact that District One employed many more people in the relevant classifications than District Five. In addition, the number of vacancies in and of itself does not establish a recruitment and retention problem, but perhaps only a retention issue, which is simply insufficient to prove that Grievants are similarly situated to the employees who received the increase. Mr. Stoors also provided extensive testimony regarding the low salaries of DOH workers in District One as compared to the private sector.... While it is obvious that DOH employees, as with so many state workers, are paid lower wages than the private sector offers, this was only one piece of the problems which culminated in the pay differential approved for the Eastern Panhandle. Competing jobs from the private sector was isolated as a cause of the problem that had been identified  an alarmingly low number of applicants interested in DOH employment in that area.... Grievants simply have not proven that a similar situation existed in District One. In this appeal, the appellants have not offered any evidence to show that the circuit court erred in giving deference to the above administrative findings by the board. All that the appellants have done is asked this Court to disregard the well reasoned findings of the Board, and to arbitrarily substitute those findings with the appellants' unsupported contrary assertions. In other words, we simply have not been provided with a basis on which to find that the Board's findings arbitrary or capricious so as to represent an abuse of discretion. Blethen v. West Virginia Dept. Of Revenue/State Tax Dept., 219 W.Va. 402, 407, 633 S.E.2d 531, 536 (2006). [11]