Fifteen former employees at a Pinellas County golf resort are alleging in a lawsuit that they lost their jobs because of their ages.
One of the plaintiffs, Mike Markonios, worked at the Innisbrook Resort for 45 years before he was let go at age 62.
Five of the terminated employees were in their 70s, according to the age discrimination suit filed in Pinellas County last month against Salamander Innisbrook LLC, the Palm Harbor resort’s parent company. Nine had been employed there for over two decades.
The company faced nearly identical allegations from four senior workers in 2009.
Mike Williams, managing director of Innisbrook Resort, said the company could not comment on pending litigation. But he added that the resort is a “fully inclusive workplace environment” that does not discriminate based on age.
“We look forward to the entire facts coming out during the legal process,” Williams said.
The 15 plaintiffs either could not be reached or declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing case.
The former employees, who are all over 40, allege that they were furloughed along with other resort staffers at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, according to the complaint and companion Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges filed by the workers.
But as younger employees received calls about returning to the workplace that June, older employees were terminated, the filing states. It alleges that the company’s decision about which employees to let go was “...
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