Forklifts and Drills Llc

Forklifts and Drills LLC is a major supplier of equipment for the oil field industry headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and doing business in Oklahoma, Texas, Alaska, the Middle East and Russia. Following a decline in sales and market share, the company hired a new CEO, a 42-year-old male. He planned to turn the company around in 16 months. He immediately hired a VP for Marketing (male and age 41) to investigate the reason for the decline in sales. The CEO suggested to him that he might want to look at the gender and age mix of the sales force of the company because he suspected that might be the problem. After all, everybody knows that women don’t belong anywhere near an oil field, especially in the Middle East, and younger employees work harder because they have more energy and are more motivated. The results of the investigation revealed that the decrease in sales was due to other reasons not directly related to the team. The average age of the sales force was 52 and 20% were female. The new CEO instructed the VP for marketing to replace the older members of the sales force with younger hires, and to get rid of those women while he was at it.

Over the next 12 months, 75 employees lost their jobs. Most of these individuals were over age 40 and had received excellent performance reviews in the past. All of the women were replaced. The “official” reason given for the terminations was “inability to adapt to change.” Most of the new employees who were hired to replace them were in their 20s, and all were male. The company directed the employment agency used to find these replacements to look for qualified individuals under the age of 34.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Visit the EEOC Web site (www.eeoc.gov) and read what it says about age and gender discrimination. 2. What would the company have to do to prove that their decisions were not discriminatory? Will it be easier to provide that defense on the basis of gender, age, or neither? Justify your...