Age Discrimination in the Public Sector
My topic of discussion will consist of an analysis on the subject of Age discrimination. Age discrimination generally is discriminating on the basis of age, which is illegal under the Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
Age discrimination has some special aspects that make it different from other types of employment discrimination. My research will discuss this more in detail. Included will be several court decisions of great importance, the history of the Age Discrimination Statute, and other important data in regards to Age discrimination. Also there is information included on how to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), http://www.hhs.gov/progorg/ocr/agefile.html if one feels that they have a valid complaint.
This topic is of great relevance to this course, because as public administration majors, my fellow colleagues as well as myself need to know the following: their rights, what the law says; what can be done if one is discriminated against; and whether are not the ADEA protects all workers from age discrimination. The article titled “Facts About
Age Discrimination” is a great site not only for public administrators, but for the overall workforce. This article can be viewed at http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html.
Until public personnel administrators wake up to the fact that age discrimination is a critical issue demanding immediate action, the courts are going to continue to impose enormous fines and award severe punitive damages to employees. This is another reason of relevance to this course. Sheldon Steinhauser author of the article “Minimizing Your
Potential for Age Discrimination Lawsuits” gives a list of ways to minimize lawsuits and save the organization hundreds and thousands of dollars. The article can be found at the following site: http://www.clem.mscd.edu/~steinhas/minimizing.html.
“Sketchy evidence that older workers experience discrimination because of their age is easy to find. The popular press includes many stories of individual employees who have been replaced by younger workers, sometimes just before they become eligible for lucrative retirement benefits. Older workers (in the past) were forced by mandatory
retirement provisions to leave their jobs before they would otherwise have chosen to retire. Others who remain on the job claim that they confront hostile work environments or are demoted to less remunerative positions, with their age being the big factor.
Concern by policymakers over these types of incidents prompted Congress to enact the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in 1968, which outlawed discrimination in the workplace against workers between the ages of 40 and 65. Later amendments prohibited mandatory retirement before the age of 70 in 1978 (and then outlawed mandatory retirement altogether with a few exceptions) in...