Age Discrimination in the Workplace
George Siler
Human Resource

Age Discrimination in the workplace

Paul is a skilled welder and has been with the same company for over 40 years. All employees from the owner to the janitor know of his contributions that have allowed the organization to flourish. You see, Paul was a specialized welder that was able to accomplish government contracts that allowed the factory to remain open during the past recession. As he was approaching his sixty-second birthday that was attended by co-workers, supervisors and even the owner attended his party to honor this impressive worker. During this time, the owner decided that the time was right to hire a young worker to be trained by Paul to continue the specialized production for the distant future. This was a prudent decision, because all owners and CEO’S have a primary responsibility to improve the bottom line. I know this is true because every business course that I have had this is the message provided by my professors. This story then takes a turn for the worst. Paul trains the young worker, and then the owner thinks why am I paying two people for the same job? Who do you think gets his walking papers? Paul is clearly a victim of age discrimination. Like most of the labor force he is ignorant of the law and becomes one of the many of unreported cases of this abuse of power. In order to help protect those who stand to be singled out and let go because of the unfairness of ageism, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was created to protect older employees. Sometimes reality is more radical than fantasy. Paul, the welder, was created to show a human touch, reality is the shocking case in a Kmart store in Honolulu. Laurie McCann, attorney for AARP retold the story starting with the Manager telling a 70 year old that she was greedy and too old for her job. He abused this experienced, dedicated worker by routinely changing the schedule at the last second. She collected evidence, presented to EEOC and collected a huge lump sum. The purpose of this article is to review multiple professional articles to obtain an educated consensus on age discrimination and to provide a personal touch that statics and options are unable to provide. Additionally, by providing a comprehensive list of common acts and behaviors by co-workers against older employees should allow new supervisors a host of potential red flags. This is not a debate of which generation provides the best employees, but data supporting the hiring and retaining of baby boomers is something that can’t be avoided. It is the opinion of this writer that each age group provides a unique set of positive qualities and challenges. An ideal company should include diversity to allow for creativeness and efficiency. The need for fresh blood written by Kelly Simon tells all victims of age discrimination that their tragedy is unavoidable because big business demands sacrificial objects. She compares the economy to a vampire and the age challenged as the vampirism that are common in popular culture. Maybe this is true. The court system traditionally supported a strong case by the plaintiff if age was one of the factors of termination. As David Savage reports the conservative Supreme Court decided workers bear the full burden of proving age was the deciding factor. As Richard Worsnop pointed out in his article, “Does federal law protect older workers’ job rights” that this is the best time to discuss this important issue on the thirty year anniversary of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. A recurring theme throughout all the peer reviewed articles was recruitment and training of older workers needs to increase to combat age discrimination in the workplace. Older workers can avoid being the victim of age-based discrimination by aggressively seeking training opportunities to upgrade their job skills (Barett, Laurence mar 97) Aging workers are under-represented in recruitment and training which has resulted in over-represented in early exits from the workforce.”(Walker 371)
Human resources must play a leading role in the war against age discrimination. Managers are the ears and eyes of the company and they need to follow good practices. A good practice is any action to combat age barrier, indirectly or directly, so each individual is able to achieve without disadvantaged by their age. The increase of baby boomers coupled with the trend of downsizing means an upswing of lawsuits for the foreseeable future. Because most employers have knowledge of the law they have resorted to using code words to create a hostile work place. Simon Ruth, “Too Damn Old”, says discriminators have resorted to use terms like overly qualified, shelf life, long in the tooth or the need to freshen up our appeal. When a company advertising for a job opening and uses, “We seek enthusiastic employees for a young, dynamic company” they are using a standard language workaround technique. When the boss says that you don’t have enough runways or refers you to a “bag of bones” he is probably not overly sensitive to your feelings.
Additionally, the Society for Human Resource advices keeping age jokes, even in jest, from the work place. It might seem fun to decorate an office with black balloons or a banner that reads “Over the Hill” but this might provide ammo to a frustrated ex-employee. Supervisor should create severance packages in the place of forced layoffs. Hr. needs to ensure current performance evaluations on file to support future decisions. Some other notable perceptions about older workers are that they are slower and less adaptable to change. This is defined by the inability to write computer code or be an expert in Excel and PowerPoint. Older people are believed to be less loyal to the job due to family responsibilities. More expensive during economic downturns related to pay cuts and medical insurance. Last but the most important, older workers are unwilling to work for someone younger than them. Research has found each of these beliefs to be without merit and in most cases if management voiced their concerns they would discover the baby boomers to be flexible and accommodating. Research has proven that older workers are knowledgeable, experienced, patient, and mature, dedicated and provide excellent mentors to younger co-workers. Another thing most Human resource workers need to understand that there is a bigger percentage of unreported cases of age discrimination reported compared to racism and sex discrimination. This is sometimes under-reported to protect their self-esteem (April Miller) One other item to note is there are four types of ageism. Personal is on an individual level and institutional refers to established rules with the knowledge they are biased against older people. There is also intentional and unintentional ageism which is measured on the knowledge level of the perpetrator on age bias. The bottom line is all supervisors should know the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and not only be in compliant with the law but be in accordance with the spirit of the creators of this important legislation. New college graduates in the business management need to understand that ageism happens and the trend is older people will be more visible for the predicted future.(Barnett 29) The only solution is younger people need to watch their senior workers. If they put their bias on pause, they will probably discover older people as vital and productive. If they really want to profit use this group of people as on the job educators related to the job environment and life in general. Experienced workers should refuse to be a victim. Speak up to a supervisory if future layoffs are coming and ask what the company’s criteria are using to make cuts. It is always easy to focus on the negatives and buy into the perceptions that others have created for your age group. Victims of age discrimination could go on the path of litigation and have their day in court, but as I have already have reported the legal environment is currently not favoring the baby boomer generation. What can be controlled are a person’s attitude, presentation and work skills.