By: Gretchen Teske
Source: Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa (TNS)
A Geneseo [Illinois] man has filed a federal lawsuit against Deere, alleging he was wrongfully terminated.
Terence P. Murphy filed an age, race and gender discrimination suit against John Deere, where he was employed until July 2024 when his position was cut due to a reduction in workforce. However, the lawsuit alleges, his position was later filled by a 33-year-old woman.
He is represented by Dorothy A. O’Brien of O’Brien and Marquard, PLC.
Deere has not yet filed a response to the complaint in court.
At the time of his termination, Murphy had been with the company for 26 years and was one of more than 300 people terminated from their positions. According to previous reporting, Deere laid off a total of 480 factory and salaried workers that month across facilities in Waterloo, Johnston, Dubuque, East Moline and Moline, including company headquarters.
In the suit Murphy is described as a "straight white male who was 61 years old at the time of his termination" who served as a technology auditor from 2015 until his termination in July 2024. Among his job duties were auditing Deere processes to ensure data was secure and to minimize the chances of data and security breaches.
The suit says Murphy was notified July 24, 2024, that the reason for his termination was a reduction in force. That termination was to take effect a week later on July 31.
"(The) statement that Mr. Murphy’s job had been eliminated was false; Deere replaced him with a substantially younger female employee within days of terminating his employment," the suit reads.
The suit alleges a 33-year-old woman was then transferred from a marketing position to a technology auditor position within Murphy's former unit and that a management employee said the new technology auditor would assist with Murphy’s duties in his absence.
The suit alleges the woman had no experience working as a technology auditor and lacked certifications in the field.
The suit goes on to say Murphy was told the company appreciated his service and his performance had nothing to do with his selection for termination. His work unit was part of Deere’s accounting and finance “decisional unit” which had 596 employees prior to the July 2024 reduction in force.
The lawsuit continues, alleging Deere then transferred, "a portion of the accounting and finance department’s work to its operation in Mexico, where labor costs are lower." It also alleges a "significant number of IT jobs are being transferred and planned to be transferred to Mexico."
Murphy was the oldest employee in his unit at the time and the only person in his unit to lose their job as a result of the cuts, according to the lawsuit. The complaint also alleges Deere eliminated the position of a 46-year-old technology audit manager, but offered them another position at Deere.
The lawsuit, however, says an investigation shows this statement is false and the technology audit manager remains in their original position as they have been featured in Deere publications.
The investigation cited in the suit further alleges that for employees in the accounting and finance decision unit that were 50 years old and older, 22 of them lost their jobs while 101 remained working. This accounts for a termination rate of 17.8% for those 50 or older — more than 4 times the termination rate of employees under age 40.
Of the employees 60 years old or older working in the accounting and finance decisional unit, nine people lost their jobs while 21 remained working. This amounts to a termination rate of 30% for those 60 and older—7.5 times the termination rate for employees under the age of 40.
For younger Deere employees in the finance and accounting unit, the suit alleges, the termination rate was substantially lower at 4% for employees aged 24-39. Breaking that down further, the suit alleges the accounting and finance department at Deere retained 70% of its employees ages 60 and up compared to retaining 96% of its employees 40 and younger.
Reports named in the lawsuit allege Deere offered to transfer eight people who positions were eliminated, but the average age of those people was 37.
The reason for terminating the jobs of employees 50 and older, the suit alleges, is they tend to have higher salaries, salary grades and higher benefit costs than shorter term, younger employees.
The lawsuit states Deere assigned to select employees and positions for job elimination were instructed from the highest levels of the company to “avoid” selecting female employees and people of color for job elimination. The suit alleges Deere maintained other policies that motivated decision makers to choose older white men for termination.
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