BENNINGTON — A woman who was fired in 2016 from her job at Mack Molding is suing the Arlington-based manufacturer for what she says were violations of the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act and Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act.
In the suit, which was filed in the Bennington County Superior Court Civil Division, former longtime Mack Molding employee Angela Gates, of Mount Holly, accused the company, which employs 2,000 in six locations along the East Coast, of a “pattern of discrimination and retaliation” spanning a number of years, against her and other employees.
White River Junction attorney Siobhan McCloskey, representing Gates, said this week that details in the 23-page complaint will show such workplace violations “are a systemic part of their organization, seemingly” and that based on conversations with Gates and other employees, current and former, “I think we will see others come out” with additional allegations.
McCloskey said she will be amending the complaint to include what she called retaliatory treatment the company took against Gates’s husband, Donald Gates, after the suit was first filed in November. Donald Gates is still a Mack employee.
In its response submitted in early January Mack Molding denied the allegations and sought to have the suit dismissed.
The 22-page response questioned the complaint narrative as related by Gates, and also said the suit had been filed too late.
Gates “did not suffer any adverse employment actions as a result of the alleged actions by Mack Molding,” and “to the extent plaintiff asserts a claim for punitive damages, the actions alleged in the complaint do not warrant such relief.”
In the suit, Gates says she was “willfully and maliciously subjected” by the company to wrongful actions, including “interference with medical leave rights;” “retaliation for exercising medical leave rights;” “disability discrimination;” as well as retaliation for filing a workers compensation claim; age discrimination, gender discrimination and equal pay violations; “breach of an implied employment contract and covenant of good faith and fair dealing;” and non-payment of certain wages.
Gates seeks compensation for alleged emotional stress; damage to her personal relationships; “damages to her reputation, finances and business;” lost back pay and other wages; lost benefits, and “costs; interest; and reasonable attorney’s fees.”
In each instance, Mack Molding denies the suit’s allegations and/or the details as presented by the plaintiff.
Brattleboro attorney Timothy Copeland Jr., representing Mack Molding, said Wednesday the company would not comment further on the pending legal matter.
Gates worked for nearly 20 years as a molder and then as a finisher at Mack Molding, according to the complaint. Mack Molding specializes in the manufacture of machinery and parts for a range of industries.
The suit centers on a two-week leave of absence in 2013, which Gates says she took without being informed by the company that she qualified for family medical leave benefits; and a knee injury Gates said she sustained outside of work in 2015, resulting in a lingering injury.
She alleges that upon her return to work in 2015, she asked for an accommodation on her job, primarily concerning lifting requirements. Gates says that in spite of this request she was assigned to work on a job “which was known to be a difficult job and on which she was not working on before her leave.”
The suit also describes similar incidents involving former employees of the company.
Gates said that after three days in the more strenuous job, she was in pain and was sent home by another worker.
In October 2015, according to the suit, she was cleared by a doctor to work four hours per day as a molder but when she returned to work she was told the position had been filled, which Gates disputes. She said she was forced to work as a finisher at a pay cut and lost her seniority in the molding department.
By May 2016, after several months of working full-time in the finishing department, she was treated for pain and requested lighter duty employment with Mack.
The suit contends the company has “a deliberate and continuous pattern” of placing employees in more strenuous jobs as a act of discrimination or as retaliation for asserting such workers’ rights as filing a workers compensation complaint, requesting an accommodation on the job, or for taking medical leave.
The suit also accuses the manufacturer of gender discrimination, filling its lower-paying jobs with women, and offering its higher-paying and/or supervisory jobs to men.
And it claims the company has a pattern of wrongfully firing older workers and replacing them with younger workers. Gates contends she was fired seven months prior to becoming eligible for a full pension and that others have been fired close to the date they would have been eligible for full retirement benefits.
The company has denied all of the allegations in its response.
