An employee of the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor believes he has lost out on tens of thousands of dollars in salary by being wrongfully demoted in favor of younger, less-experienced employees.
In a lawsuit filed on Oct. 21 in U.S. District Court, Jeffery Risher, 59, alleged he and several other workers were subjected to age discrimination as Savannah River Remediation (SRR) looks to usher in a younger workforce. U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis is hearing the case.
Risher has worked at the Savannah River Site since 1993 and for Savannah River Remediation since 2009, the lawsuit says. Issues began while he was working as a shift technical engineer (STE). The lawsuit does not provide specifics on what his job entailed. But in general, a shift technical engineer oversees a facility and resolves issues, such as maintenance breakdowns.
The complaint states that on Feb. 13, 2017, Risher and his “fellow older STEs” received an email from their supervisor asking if they consider being removed from their roles to make room for “several young engineers in the pipeline to become STEs.”
Risher refused, but told the contractor he was willing to work out a way to usher in new workers without compromising his job. However, SRR ignored his willingness to compromise, Risher alleged. His complaint states that, on April 16, 2018, he was removed from his role as an STE and was “replaced by a younger engineer with less experience and with the same or lesser qualifications than he had.” Risher is currently a plant engineer in SRR’s Rapid Response Engineering Group.
The move happened despite his adequate scores on recent evaluations, according to Risher. Several other STEs of roughly his age also lost their positions to younger workers, according to the complaint. The lawsuit does not state that any of them were terminated.
Risher said these actions fall in line with concerns he overheard from management about the average age of SRR employees being over the age of 50. Savannah River Remediation said recently in its fiscal 2019 annual report the average age of its workforce is down to 48 and should continue decreasing. The contractor did not say it had intentions of demoting older workers to make way for younger ones.
It is unclear how much Risher compensation is seeking in the lawsuit. However, his attorney wrote that his client has lost more than $32,000 as a result of his demotion. Risher is seeking a trial by jury, recovery of back pay with interest, and front pay if he isn’t able to get his old position back.
Savannah River Remediation denied most of the allegations in an Oct. 29 response, stating that Risher did not suffer a loss in pay. The contractor added other engineers were hired for STE positions, but did not draw a correlation between that fact and removing older employees from those roles.
Lewis released a scheduling order in the case on Oct. 30. By Feb. 26, 2020, Risher’s legal team should provide contact information for witnesses they plan to call at trial. Savannah River Remediation must do the same by March 27. Discovery, or the fact-finding phase, must be completed by May 26. Mediation to try and reach a compromise ahead of trial is slated for Aug. 10. A trial date has not been issued.
