Commissioner slams age discrimination by employers
Thursday 30 July 2009 11:49
Patrick Stafford
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/hiring/20090730-commissioner-slams-outage-discrimination-by-employers.html
The Commissioner for Age Discrimination, Elizabeth Broderick, has spoken
out in support of claims in the National Seniors Australia Experience Works
report that maintain mature age works are being discriminated against.
"This report reinforces the position of the Australian Human Rights
Commission - that unlawful age discrimination is a critical problem faced by
mature age workers in Australia today," Broderick said in a statement.
"Not only do we need to raise awareness of the types of age discrimination
that are unlawful, but we need to strengthen the laws that protect against it."
Broderick said while many mature age people choose to retire, often personal
circumstances dictate mature age workers continuing in a job, but that they
face significant challenges in doing so.
"As we know, the trend is now to extend our working lives past 65 - it is,
therefore, vital that the Australian Government and employers take the
problem of age discrimination very seriously."
Broderick said the report shows age discrimination is a significant barrier for
Australians, and urged the Government to embark on an awareness-raising
campaign to address misconceptions of mature age workers and review the
laws that protect them.
The Experience Works report shows that labour force participation for people
aged between 55 and 64 in Australia is lower than in Scandinavia, Britain,
Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Ireland, New Zealand and the US.
"This is an issue that needs urgent attention, not only because age
discrimination and misconceptions about mature age workers are occurring in
our workplaces right now, but because this is an issue that is very likely to
confront anyone who stays in the workforce past 45 years of age - and let's
face it, that is a significant number of us," she said.
Agency files age-discrimination suit against AT&T
BARBARA ORTUTAY
August 21, 2009
http://news.theage.com.au
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Thursday it filed an
age-discrimination lawsuit against AT&T Inc., the country's largest
telecommunications provider.
The EEOC says AT&T discriminated against older employees by denying
them the chance to be rehired solely because they retired under early
retirement plans.
The effect of this denial, the agency said, leads to a disproportionate number
of older workers not having the same opportunity to apply for re-employment
with the company as younger workers. This, the agency says, amounts to age
discrimination.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, claims that Dallas-based
AT&T's policy not to rehire workers, who retired early under such plans as the
company's Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program and Enhanced Pension
and Retirement Program, excludes a class of workers from being re-employed
because of their age, regardless of their qualifications.
The agency says the policy has been in effect at AT&T since at least Oct. 1,
2006. Louis Graziano, the EEOC's lead attorney on the case, said the
programs affected more than 50,000 people. But how many of them were
discriminated against, he added, no one knows. It would only be those who
had tried to get rehired with AT&T.
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe declined to comment specifically on the
lawsuit.
"But I can tell you AT&T makes diversity and inclusion a top priority, and has
received national recognition for its programs and performance," he said.
"Discrimination of any sort, including that based on age, race, gender,
ethnicity, religion, national origin or sexual orientation is not tolerated."