The workplace discrimination epidemic that no one is talking about
Click to read my story on CNBC
When I started researching age discrimination earlier this year, I thought I understood the problem fairly well.
I had no idea.
I had no idea how much the law favors corporations trying to dump older workers; and I had no idea how much casual age discrimination exists. I knew you could go to a California Labor Attorney for gender and disability discrimination but there very murky waters when it comes to age discrimination.
I am proud that I was able to call attention to this issue with a story on CNBC.com recently; amidst all the other world and market chaos going on, the story was among the site's most popular offerings all day. It struck a nerve.
Speaking of nerve, here's how some younger people reacted to the story:
"Learn personal responsibility for your life. And get a job. These babies crying about can't find a job. It is because they are worthless."
"If you're spending 5 minutes trying to differentiate between a 6 and an 8 on an oversized monitor,..."
"There may be a target on the back of every experienced high salaried employee - and there needs to be...Those that are just trying to float through the last ten years of their career need to go!"
"I love this old person discrimination myth people have. Have fun thinking you are worth something."
Companies coldly lay off higher-paid workers when they reorganize, and for obvious reasons, that often correlates with age. I'll have more details about this in a later post, but I found one example of a firm that laid of thousands of workers, and employees in their 50s were about 10 times more likely to get the axe as those in their 30s.
And that's perfectly legal. At least at the moment, thanks to a series of Supreme Court cases that have whittled away at federal laws protecting older workers.
Older workers are a protected class, but protection against age discrimination is not as strong as protection against discrimination for race, creed, and gender provided by the Civil Rights Act. Please click over to CNBC.com to read the rest of my story. And in this case, I think it's worth reading the comments too. But here, I'll leave you with the comment the AARP offered to me for this piece:
"Age discrimination is the last form of discrimination that we are willing to accept. It's not viewed as wrong or as serious as other forms of discrimination," said Laurie McCann, senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation. "I can make jokes about Dave's age and no one is going to get upset," McCann said. "If someone said something about race or gender there would be consequences, but it's OK to keep asking someone when they are going to retire to spend more time with their grandchildren."
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