Laura Valenziano has been an employee of United Health Care for 18 years, and a manager for 15 of them. But in the last year, that status has steadily changed, and has lead to her filing a lawsuit against the company through the Illinois Department of Human Rights. With the assistance of her lawyer, Betty Tsamis, she hopes to prove that what her company has done is in basic violation of Illinois laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Valenziano said that the problems began in March 2008, when there was a re-organization within the company and she got a new manager. Because she is largely a telecommuter, it seemed everything was going well.
"He called me constantly for information and thoughts, because I was well-versed," Valenziano said.
In May 2008, she finally had the opportunity to meet him in Orlando, where other meetings were supposed to follow. After the initial meeting with the manager, the other meetings never materialized. She was in Orlando for no more than three hours.
"After that, it seemed as though the relationship prior to the meeting began to deteriorate. We had a good report, but all of a sudden, nothing I was doing was correct," said Valenziano.
In this time, Valenziano mentioned that the manager began to poke around and ask her team about her partner of 19 years, who answered the telephone one day while Valenziano was out. Valenziano is one of the few people who is out in the department, and was surprised that the manager was asking who her partner was.
"Around the end of August, I was going to lose my team, and my responsibilities shifted," said Valenziano. "This was different because I was going to have someone reporting to me with their team, and now it was something completely different. In mid-September, I called HR, and they seemed sympathetic at first. I set up a meeting with them and the manager, and it seemed as though they were on his side. They wanted me to craft a new position for myself. A younger man was the new leader of my team, and he was supposed to be under me, but then my team was shifted under him. I thought it might be a coincidence, but they were doing the same job they were doing with me. It got to the point where I was totally fed up. Everything I had afforded my employees up to that point had not been afforded to me, and everything I had been taught to do was not being done for me."
At this point Valenziano contacted Tsamis, who did not initially want to bring the matter to a lawsuit.
"We took a conciliatory position," Tsamis said. "We wanted to settle without legal action, and we followed that intent until Laura was backed against a wall and had to file charges."
After filing the claim, Valenziano and Tsamis have been waiting for the company to respond to the charges, which they have yet to do. The communication between Valenziano and her manager stopped. Instant messaging, a vital part of her company, ceased when they most likely realized she was printing them off. Calls were never returned. There was almost no contact with the manager of her manager. And then her performance evaluation came in this past March.
"It was one of the worst performance evaluations I've ever had. Along with that I received the largest bonus I've ever received," said Valenziano. "The evaluation mentioned my devotion to the job."
Within two weeks of the performance review, Valenziano was put on corrective action, which meant that she had 30 days to improve whatever had been listed on her evaluation as poor or she faced termination. The mention of a demotion was removed from the copy of the evaluation she received after protesting the corrective action.
"We rebutted the evaluation with documentation, and when I got the coy it was the same issues I had rebutted still on there. At the end of the 30 days, the manager indicated that she had to go to HR and decide what to do, but I knew that at the end of 30 days, it was either firing, 30 more days, or getting off of corrective action," said Valenziano. On the day of the interview, Valenziano also said that her manager had said she hadn't successfully completed the 30 days, which she has rebutted.
Both Tsamis and Valenziano mentioned that it seems ridiculous that someone at the company for less than five years is suddenly Valenziano's boss.
"The 30-day charge came immediately after we filed the case. It indicates that management is angry with the employee for whatever reason. Why, after 18 years, is Laura suddenly a bad employee?" said Tsamis.
One of the problems Valenziano thinks is occurring is that no one is talking to each other. She sent an email to her colleagues, some of whom were working with the company's diversity inclusion council to get an LGBT group charter, and let them know the situation, because she and Tsamis fear that her involvement in this case could be detrimental to the group.
Ultimately, Tsamis and Valenziano hope to resolve this without having a long and protracted court battle.
"We hope that they do the right thing and make this win-win for everyone, with respect to Laura," said Tsamis.
Jeff Smith, of United Health Care's communications department, e-mailed Windy City Times that " [ w ] hile we cannot comment on the specifics of this case, we can confirm our strong policy against discrimination and retaliation in the workplace. It is significant that the Human Rights Campaign ( HRC ) , a nonprofit that works to achieve equality for LGBT people, has awarded UnitedHealth Group ( our corporate parent ) a score of 95 percent on its Corporate Equality Index, which rates companies on how they treat LGBT employees, consumers and investors. Our company also takes a strong stand on its employment practices for diverse age groups and is a key partner with AARP in its efforts to ensure access to affordable and quality health care for seniors."
