You have worked as a supervisor in a moderately large manufacturing firm for almost ten years. You supervise a staff of about ten technicians including Jay Armand. Armand does adequate work but is certainly not exceptional or as good as one or two others in the Department. It is not that you dislike Armand, but you just never warmed up to him/her. And certainly s/he never went out of his/her way to be friendly to you. There are definite cliques in the Department. Armand is not part of the in crowd but s/he is not particularly unpopular either. You try to have a friendly professional relationship with all your techs, though inevitably one likes some people more than others. And certainly as a supervisor, you treat people nicely who do good work or who treat you nicely at least with small things like more flexibility in scheduling.

On the major things like promotions and pay increases, you go strictly on merit. The fact that you didnt promote Armand or that you gave him/her only a 2% merit increase is no proof of discrimination because you made the same decisions about whites with the same performance levels. There are several factors that go into your evaluations and personnel decisions. The main ones are production level and consistency. You have given Armand average evaluations; if you were prejudiced against Mexicans, you could have given much worse evaluations. Recently you did promote another tech, Paula Walker (who is White), and gave her a 5% increase, but you have records that show that she does a good job. She has consistently produced at least 500 units per month. Armand averages about 400 per month and the level fluctuates a lot. (Employees receive some information about their own performance but, as a matter of privacy, they do not generally receive information about other employees performance.) Walkers work is also better quality than Armands and she certainly has a better attitude than Armand, which is one reason you like her better. In your mind, you are clear that the fact that you happen to like Walker and that she is not Mexican had absolutely nothing to do with these decisions.

You have prepared the attached table, which provides some comparative information about the employees in your department. You do not plan to volunteer to give a copy to the mediator (as you dont want to give them too much control over your business) but will do so if it seems helpful and appropriate. Part of your reluctance is that this table does not reflect some subjective factors like attitude, quality, and reliability and you do not want to get boxed into some formula based just on objective factors like the ones on the table. In any case, you certainly arent going to provide the table to Jay Armand because it involves private information about the other employees. However, you are willing to characterize the overall concerns and criteria you use in evaluating employees.

The Department is fairly diverse with several women as well as some techs from Cuba, Mexico, and Taiwan. Armand is one of two techs of Mexican heritage. You are outraged that Armand accused you of discrimination. You dont believe that saying the truth is being prejudiced. You have had a lot of Mexicans and other immigrants work for you and most of the Mexicans seemed uneducated and lazy, unlike the Asians, for example. The day that Armand apparently got so upset, you had been frustrated by a stupid mistake that the other Mexican in your Department had just made. You mentioned how angry you were about that employee and how typical this was for Mexicans, but you certainly didnt say that all Mexicans are lazy and you didnt say anything about this to Armand, who must have overheard you say this to someone else.

You have known the mediator, who works in Human Resources, for about five years. You have had a good, though not particularly close, working relationship with the mediator. You feel that people in HR dont support supervisors as much as they should. You believe that HR should always back up supervisors unless there is clear evidence that the supervisor made a major mistake. Instead, you believe that HR often takes a touchy-feely approach to employee problems, which you are convinced only encourages employees to make complaints. You want the mediator to tell Armand that s/he has nothing to complain about. If s/he wants a promotion and a bigger raise, s/he should improve his/her production and attitude. You believe that if Armand were to file a complaint, it would be rejected by the EEOC and the courts. So you see no reason to give Armand what s/he is demanding.

Employee

Nationality

Avg. Month Production

Tardies

Absences

Pay Raise %

Armand

Mexico

400

2

2

2

Muller		USA White		415			1		0		2
Chan		Taiwan		450			0		0		4

Jackson		Mexico		350			1		0		1
Morgan		USA White		430			2		0		2
Williams		USA White		425			0		1		2
Hernandez		Cuba		390			0		0		1
Lee		Taiwan		460			1		0		4
Howard		USA White		410			2		1		2

Thomas		USA White		425			2		1		2
Walker		USA White		500			1		0		5

Description of the undisputed facts and disputed facts.

Description of any previous attempts to resolve the dispute and the outcome. The history of any settlement offers.

Description of the disputed legal issues and the undisputed legal issues.

Whether a lawsuit has been filed and, if so, the procedural status of that lawsuit.

Description of any significant issues of a nonlegal nature that may have a very on resolution of the dispute.

Description of any non-monetary considerations that may assist in the resolution of the dispute..

Description of any relationship issues between the parties which have a bearing on the resolution of the dispute.

Any other facts or issues you think it is important for the mediator to know.