Laurie Kay Howard worked as a secretary and then a human resources coordinator for United Technologies Automotive (“UTA”) in its Fort Wayne, Indiana, plant until it closed in 1997. 1 She contends that UTA violated the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to promote her to the position of human resources manager. Arguing that the small Fort Wayne plant did not have nor need a manager of human resources, UTA filed for summary judgment. The district court granted UTA’s motion on both counts, finding that Howard failed to establish that her work responsibilities were substantially similar to the work per *1004 formed by human resources managers at other UTA plants and that she failed to allege a prima facie Title VII case of sex discrimination. Howard appeals the ruling on both claims.
The Fort Wayne plant was one of UTA’s smaller facilities, employing only 53 workers in 1996. The plant was not unionized. It was primarily a nonproduction research and development center employing only salaried workers. Another UTA facility was located 30 miles away in Huntington, Indiana. Because of its size and proximity to the Huntington plant, the Fort Wayne facility did not have separate human resources, plant, quality, or materials managers. Jim Price served as the human resources manager for both the Huntington and Fort Wayne plants.
Howard began working in the Fort Wayne facility in December 1992 as a secretary with an annual salary of $19,776. The bulk of her responsibilities included purchasing, petty cash disbursements, and clerical responsibilities for employee health and safety issues. By 1993 her responsibilities had increased. At the time, the head of the Fort Wayne plant, Gene Daley, referred to her as the “lead person” for environmental health and safety issues. She was briefed on OSHA matters and was listed as the “Health & Safety Professional” in a company phone directory. Of the 53 workers in the plant, Howard provided administrative support for roughly 40 employees. The remaining employees reported employment concerns to UTA’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
In March 1994 Price recommended that Howard be promoted to human resources coordinator. The promotion went into effect in July 1994, increasing her salary to $22,728. In 1995 Roger Holtzinger replaced Daley as the head of the plant. 2 In August 1996 Holtzinger wrote to UTA officials recommending Howard for a promotion to human resource manager. 3 UTA decided not to promote Howard, noting that Mr. Price served as the HR manager for both the Huntington and Fort Wayne plants. UTA never created a separate managerial position at Fort Wayne, nor did it seek applicants for such a position. In March 1997 UTA permanently shut down the Fort Wayne facility.
We review a grant of summary judgment
de novo,
construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.
Wollenburg v. Comtech Mfg.,
The Equal Pay Act, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, forbids paying workers of one sex less than workers of the opposite sex for equal work that requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, unless the pay differential is justified by factors other than sex, such as seniority, merit, experience, or education.
See Wollenburg,
UTA contends that Howard failed to satisfy the second element by proving that her male counterparts, employed as HR managers at larger plants, performed equal work. To establish the equal work element, Howard must show that her job and the male employee’s job involved a “common core of tasks” or that “a significant portion of the two jobs is identical.”
Fallon v. State of Illinois,
In making her case, Howard contends that although she lacked the title of HR manager, she performed all the functions of the position. Moreover, she argues that Holtzinger, who was in charge of the Fort Wayne plant, recognized that she was the de facto HR manager in his letter recommending her for promotion.
Even assuming that Howard performed the same “common core of tasks” as HR managers in other plants, her male counterparts were responsible for additional duties, requiring greater skill and effort.
4
Howard compared her job to the positions held by male HR managers at UTA’s Traverse City, Michigan, and Peru, Indiana, production plants. In 1996 these plants employed 127 and 268 workers, respectively. These were production facilities which employed both salaried and hourly workers, and the Peru facility was unionized. The HR managers in these two plants were required to shoulder greater responsibilities. They had more employees to train, union grievances to resolve, hourly wages to track, and a greater number of personnel records to monitor and maintain. In contrast, Howard was responsible for only 40 salaried workers in a nonunion, nonproduction plant. The additional skill, effort, and headache involved in managing three to six times the number of workers in a more complex employment environment rendered the HR positions in the Traverse City and Peru plants substantially different from the job Howard performed in Fort Wayne.
See Krenik v. County of Le Sueur,
Howard also fails to establish a claim of sex discrimination. To establish a
prima facie
case of failure to promote,
*1006
Howard must show that (1) she is a member of a protected class; (2) she applied for, and was qualified for an open position; (3) she was rejected; and (4) the employer filled the position with a person not in her protected class, or the position remained open.
Mills v. Health Care Serv. Corp.,
The absence of any evidence of pretext is an alternative basis for dismissing Howard’s claim. Even assuming Howard were able to make a
prima facie
showing of sex discrimination, her claim fails because she presents no evidence that UTA’s proffered reason for denying her promotion — that it did not need a separate HR manager in a small plant located near another facility — was pretextual.
Ghosh v. Indiana Dep’t of Envtl. Mgmt,
For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the decision of the district court.
Notes
. Lear Corporation acquired UTA on May 4, 1999. Thus, Lear Corporation is now the proper appellee in this suit. However, since the parties have continued to refer to the appellee as UTA, for the sake of clarity we will follow their lead.
. Holtzinger’s title was manufacturing/engineering manager, a position with fewer benefits than the plant manager designation.
. Holtzinger's letter read:
As discussed with you, concerning Laurie Howard’s performance and abilities to perform the responsibilities of the Human Resources Manager here at Fort Wayne, I am submitting her KJR evaluation and request for promotion.
My belief is she had full-time responsibilities as Human Resources Manager and EH&S (environmental health and safely) Coordinator, and deserves this consideration for her hard work.
. This point is vigorously opposed by UTA, which argues that Howard’s responsibilities were limited to that of a HR coordinator. Specifically, UTA contends that Howard was not authorized to hire, supervise, evaluate, or fire employees. Allegedly she only had managerial control over temporary secretaries. However, we need not resolve this factual dispute. Viewing the matter in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and assuming that Howard performed the duties that would have been assigned to a HR manager at Fort Wayne, we still find that she fails to make a showing of equal work.