DECLARATION OF AUDREY A. IVANCIE IN SUPPORT OF SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSE TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (September 30, 2013)

by Audrey's Case Files

          IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE STATE OREGON FOR THE COUNTY OF MULTNOMAH

Audrey Ivancie, Plaintiff, vs.  THE OREGONIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, Elizabeth Vineyard, Dave Guilard, Kevin Denny Defendants,

) ) ) ) ) )

Case No. 1207-09344 ________________________   DECLARATION OF AUDREY A. IVANCIE IN SUPPORT OF SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSE TO DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I, Audrey A. Ivancie, do hereby declare:

1. I am the plaintiff, pro se, in the above matter.
2. I have personal knowledge of all facts and statements contained herein, and I am competent to testify thereto.
3. I am making this declaration to support Plaintiff’s Supplemental Response to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment.
4. In February 2011 the Defendants promised all Inside Sales Associates they would earn more money and larger commissions than in previous years. This did not happen for me.
5. In March 2011, Defendant Vineyard promised me I would earn hercommission is she worked all 5 days the entire shift. I, did not earn my promised commission that week for working 5 full days as Defendant Vineyard promised.
6. In February 2011, Defendants’ manipulated the phone dialing system to  provide calls of  unviable, “false leads” that I wouldn’t be able to sell newspaper subscriptions to, in many weeks I did not earn her expected commission.
7. Defendants’ had an expressed obligation and responsibility to provide only residential leads for Inside sales associates to sell to.
8. Defendants’ provided male employees more viable leads to sell newspaper subscription to. In this action they paid male employees higher monetary wages, gave them more downtime, and bonuses then to me.
9. Defendants’ paying a higher monetary compensation to male employees acted to discriminate against my gender. I expected equal pay opportunity and believed I was protected from discrimination to receive.

   10. Defendants’ unequal compensatory practices alerted me that I was being discriminated against by the Defendants.

   11. I made a wage complaint in January 2010 to the Defendants because I was not receiving my expected  prospective customers based on her previous years of service with the Oregonian.

12.  I was significantly shorted on her PTO award at a net loss of hundreds of dollars in vacation pay out. I was given the run-around and sent to HR and payroll, but they  and the defendants would not release the calculation formula to this date.

13.  I experienced the following abusive actions by the Defendants on the

electronic phone dialing system within weeks of complaining about wages:

1. Defendants’ providing phone calls that undermined my job performance and my ability to commission, that :
   1. harassed me, used “celebrity aliases,” and abusive language.
   2.  questioned me about sale promotions that I couldn’t answer because the information was being withheld by Defendants.
   3. used distractive language to prevent me from being allowed to “pitch” newspaper subscriptions, then these callers would hang up the phone on the Plaintiff, not allowing me to sell to them. Such as, quoting Shakespeare, talking about city hall meetings, stating residents weren’t home then berating her with unrelated comments about my job. These suspect calls, that didn’t result in sales, provided by the defendants were unlike any “leads” provided to the Plaintiff prior to her making a wage complaint.
   4. Defendants’ provided “calls” that prevented me from preforming my job and commission by:
      1. Giving me leads of already active subscribers. That I was restricted by the Oregonian to sell to.
      2. Giving me leads of repeat customers that stated they had already been contacted by the Oregonian in the last week. These prospective customers had already been labeled not-interested and should not have been reloaded into the system.
      3. Giving me leads of repeat prospective that stated they had already been contacted by me. I had already marked and labeled them not-interested and these calls should not have been reloaded back into the system for me or anyone else to contact.
      4. Giving me commercial phone numbers to contact. Such as hospitals, businesses and Oregonian internal phone numbers to contact, that I was restricted by her job to sell to.
2. 14.  Defendants’ manipulated the phone dialing system by loading “false leads” phone numbers into files and loading these files into campaigns. These campaigns were assigned to specific agents. I received campaigns with files containing: repeat customers, active subscribers, harassing callers, commercial phone numbers, fewer leads.

15. On January 21, 2011, Defendant Denny took me to Jake’s Crawfish to celebrate my employee of the month status. Mr. Denny and two unknown women began hostility questioning me about my job for 45 minutes. I felt threatened. Defendant Denny asks her three times if she would be having the shark soup, out of context, frightening me into thinking I would be involved in legal preceding because of my complaints and questions about her job.

16. In late February 2011, Defendant Denny enters the Inside Sales office turns to me, looks at me, scrunches his face( like he was disgusted and afraid to look at the  me) and covers his face and head with his hands and looks at me again for my reaction.

17. March 17, 2011, I enter the Oregonian building through the tunnel entrance. An 8’x 10’ interior wall at the entrance had been painted the color red. I attends Mr. Denny’s circulation meeting and raise my hand to ask why I was no longer making my commission after having just been named employee of the month, in front of 40 other employees . Mr. Denny is visibly angry and embarrassed that I had made these comments. He tells me they have some extra buckets of red paint, and offers them to the me in front of my coworkers. These comments by Mr. Denny caused  the Inside sales staff to laugh at the exchange between Defendant Denny and the me. I felt mocked and embarrassed.

18. Defendant Denny came to the Inside Sales Agents office and explained  to the me on three occasions that he was trying to explain to the administration how our department was important to company revenue, and that they shouldn’t close the office. This gave me a feeling of uncertainty not knowing how long the company would keep inside sales agents. They had reduced the staff from 32 to 7 employees downsizing on 4 restructuring campaigns to reduce staff.

19. On three occasions Defendant Vineyard made comments about my Weight and appearance and gestured to my cheeks and breast area in front of the Inside Sales staff. I was visibly upset and embarrassed. I became vocally reactionary after the third comment about my weight I am shy about my physical looks and especially weight.

20.  Defendant Vineyard made statement that she heard me making unprofessional comments over the phone. I made no unprofessional comment that she was restricted from making or would qualify as unprofessional by the standards set forth for the previous 6 years of service. Defendant Vineyard used comments I made during sales calls, to mean something else, and tell me that I was in violation of a rule that didn’t exist.

21. In June, 2010 Defendant Vineyard and Guilard takes me to a secluded room and give her a memo stating they have observed her breaking rules ad force her to sign this memo that she had read it. According to all of the Plaintiff’s time cards and attendance records that were approved and signed by all the defendants she had never been late or broken any policy in which they were accusing me and attempting to document. I refused to sign, then, Donna Copadacqua states she must sign or be terminated. Defendants’ had fabricated this memo.I felt ambushed by the Defendants at this meeting

22.  I was pulled out of my sales chair and taken to an adjacent office to be questioned, treated with hostility, have my job threatened, had\ve privileges taken away close to 15 times. I felt I was being intimidated by the defendants to punish and push me out of the company  for making a wage complaint. Prior to my complaint I had only been pulled into a private meeting once in nearly 7 years. This was to discuss the fabricated memo she was intimidated into signing I had read.

23.  The Oregonian manufactured a hostile work environment by:

1. 1. Wage theft
   2. Terminating/ buying out over 700 employees and giving their responsibilities to the Inside Sales agents for little to no compensation
   3. Making employees fear for their jobs.
   4. Creating obstacles for employees through :
      1.  steep rate hikes in newspaper subscriptions;
      2.  arbitrary schedule changes for Inside sales associates;

3.    using electronic billing commitments for subscribers (contracts w/ debit cards v. bill later options;

4.    weekly quota changes, when they had previously been set at the same

quota for over 5 years;

1. taking away manual order submissions (resulting in less compensation for sales agents);
2. providing sales agents with fewer leads to contact;
3. loading commercial contacts, Sales agents couldn’t sell to;
4. ceasing to hold sales contests and sales incentives;
5. selling newspapers in an economic recession.
6. 10.  removing sections of the newspaper: comics, stock reports, TV Click and skimming down sections in the newspaper and ads.

11. Giving competition e.g. door to door sales people and kiosks gift cards to lure new business, not supplying Inside Sales agents with gift card offers to entice customers;

12. transferring or moving female employees that spoke out about dialer manipulation;

13. terminating three women that spoke out and communicated about dialer manipulation;

14. treating Michael Thompson and Don Houston and Dan Nichols more favorably than female employees and compensating them more.

15. announcing they were moving away from the pledge offer;

16. implementing performance evaluations, and telling all Inside Sales employee they would receive low score so they could improve later;

17. making employees contribute 15% of their health care cost after submitting them to health evaluations, in order not to have to contribute 15%.

18. I spoke directly with employees injured in un presented “freak accident” outside of work beginning in 2010: eye injuries, car accidents, family issues. I mention these injuries because they coincided with the additional loads of responsibilities and duties that were given to Inside Sales agents In June 2010 I began getting sores on my elbows, knees, and face and gastro-intestinal problems.

19. 5 of 7 Inside sales associates the Plaintiff worked directly utilized OFLA leave 2010 through March 2011.

1. 20.  Inside sales associates vocally complained about wages and cruelty of management affecting their job on a daily basis between February 2011 and the end of March 2011, when the plaintiff was terminated.

21. Inside sales associates complained directly to me about wages and managements treatment of them. I received phone calls from Tami Foxworthy, off the clock, had brief meetings in the women’s bathroom, and met privately in bars and coffee shops with coworkers to discuss the abuses happening to us in the sales office.

I hereby declare that the above statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief, and that I understand that it is made for use as evidence in court and subject to penalty for perjury.                                                  

                                                                                            SIGNED this date September 30, 2013 by        

                                                                                           ______________________________

                                                                                     Audrey A. Ivancie –Plaintiff Pro Se