Fired With Enthusiasm on Gray Day?

From the Contra Costa Times: The public-private partnership that runs Lawrence Livermore Laboratory must pay five former employees $2.7 million for wrongfully terminating them during a 430-employee reduction in May 2009, an Alameda County jury decided. Ending a trial that lasted more than two months, a jury found that Lawrence Livermore National Security wrongfully discriminated against the five employees because of their age and terminated their employment without good cause. In making the finding, the jury decided that the company, a public-private partnership between the University of California and Bechtel Corp., must pay the plaintiffs a total of $2.7 million for lost wages… While laboratory executives argued the layoffs were done to position the organization for the future, a lawsuit filed against the company claimed that many of the people picked for layoffs were higher-paid senior employees. In fact, during the trial, one witness who kept her job said employees began calling the layoff day “Gray Day” because all the people who lost jobs had gray hair. Evidence also showed the average age of those who lost their job was 54…

Full story at www.contracostatimes.com/tri-valley-times/ci_23219268/lawrence-livermore-lab-must-pay-five-former-employees