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Dive brief:
- A claims the former AECOM executive he was fired after he raised the alarm that the company was inflating earnings and because it was looking for a younger workforce, according to The Real Deal.
- Jay Badame had spent nearly 40 years at Dallas-based global contractor AECOM before his abrupt departure in August 2023. Badame served for five years as president of the company’s construction management business, including its AECOM Tishman and AECOM Hunt brands.
- AECOM disputes Badame’s claims. “We disagree with the claims made and will defend the lawsuit vigorously,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email to Construction Dive. “AECOM is committed to operating with the highest standards of ethics and integrity in everything we do, including serving our customers responsibly and fostering a workplace where all are treated with dignity and respect.”
Diving knowledge:
Badame alleges he was demoted and then fired after objecting to AECOM’s whistleblowing practices, according to The Real Deal, and his firing was also the result of age discrimination.
In the lawsuit, Badame claims AECOM had a contractual obligation to pay a portion of the customer funds to its employees as fringe benefits or bonuses. Instead, the company misreported $100 million of those funds as profits in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, according to The Real Deal.
Jay Almond
File photo courtesy of AECOM
According to The Real Deal, Badame said she raised her concerns about the practice with AECOM leaders, but was not taken seriously and subsequently experienced retaliation.
AECOM CEO Troy Rudd allegedly told Badame, 67, and others that the company was going to “dramatically increase turnover” in its construction management division because that group had “the ‘oldest average age and lowest turnover rate within AECOM,’ The Real Deal reported.
Badame joined Tishman Construction in 1985 as a project engineer, before AECOM bought the company in 2010. In 2019, Badame signed a three-year employment contract as president of AECOM Tishman and AECOM Hunt.
But in December 2022, Badame alleges in the complaint that Rudd gave him low ratings in his annual performance review because of “certain unattainable and arbitrary targets,” The Real Deal reported.
Badame was not offered another contract, but continued to serve as president as an at-will employee, according to The Real Deal. In May 2023, Bob Hart was named president of AECOM’s construction management business, while Badame was demoted to executive advisor. almond he abruptly left the company three months later.
The lawsuit also alleges that after his demotion, Badame witnessed at least two other cases where AECOM didn’t want workers in their 70s on a project, The Real Deal reported, and one of those cases resulted in to an internal complaint of age discrimination and to an internal complaint. research
Less than a week after Badame was interviewed as part of that investigation, he was fired without notice or severance, according to The Real Deal. Badame did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
