Question

Following a change in the composition of the school board, the finance coordinator for a school district was reassigned to the (newly created) position of food services assistant. As a finance coordinator, she was a member of the management team that was in charge of finances for the entire school district and she supervised personnel in the finance department. She reported directly to the school superintendent. In her new capacity, she would serve as an assistant in the food services department and report to the food services coordinator. She was told to remove all of her personal items from her office and return her keys. However, her pay and benefits remained the same. The woman went on sick leave after the reassignment and never actually worked as a food services assistant. While on leave, she made repeated requests to the board for a job description for the new position. She never received a job description. At one point the board voted to eliminate the foodservice assistant position that they had just created and to which she had been reassigned, but then rescinded the vote. After exhausting her available paid sick leave and vacation, the woman submitted a letter of resignation. Was this a voluntary quit or a constructive discharge? Why?

Answer 1

The circumstances described in the scenario point towards a constructive discharge scenario. The significant demotion and the sequence of events including the rescinding of the job's elimination and failure to provide a job description support the employee's claim of intolerable working conditions, leading to her resignation.

Step-by-step explanation:

The circumstances described point towards a constructive discharge rather than a voluntary quit. A constructive discharge occurs when an employee resigns because their employer has made working conditions intolerable. In this scenario, the significant demotion from a management position to an assistant role, the lack of a job description, the rescinded decision to eliminate the position, and the unchanged salary and benefits suggest that the reassignment was not a bona fide employment opportunity but potentially an attempt to push the employee to resign.

The employee's efforts to obtain a job description and the subsequent resignation after exhausting paid leave further support the claim of constructive discharge as opposed to a clear, voluntary resignation.