Abstract
The Age Discrimination Act of designed to prevent employers from terminating employees over the age of 40. This paper gives a brief overview of that Act and how it has evolved since its enactment including waivers and tender.
Age Discrimination
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). The act covers persons over the age of 40. At one time the concept of employment was viewed as a cradle to grave situation. As long as a person did their job they could look forward to long-term employment with a gold watch and company retirement benefits at age 65. After the World War II the American economy was good with an almost limitless amount of employment openings in textile and manufacturing. Then in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s eastern influence began to grow. Products from Japan, South Korea, and China began to enter the American market at a greatly reduced price. Slowly almost before anybody could notice, American companies began to feel the pinch in profit and stocks. One way to improve the bottom line, at least on paper, would be to reduce payroll without reducing output. Companies saw that senior employees counted for the biggest portion of the payroll. At first employees nearing retirement age wear offered benefits to retire early. This concept allowed companies to save anywhere from 30 to 50 percent on a persons payroll plus it reduced the long-term payout in retirement since the employee did not stay for completion of full retirement. At first this worked, but later the profit line began dropping again, this time they began to target “younger older” workers. Those over 40 began to find that their services were no longer required thank you very much here is some severance pay and have a nice day. What was happening was that companies could terminate a senior knowledgeable employee making say $30,000.00 a year and hire two new employees at $15,000.00 each. So now you can let 20 employees go, yet high 20 new employees at half the cost, on paper it looks like a 50 percent reduction in the workforce as far as payroll was concerned.
Congress noticed this and in 1967 passed the ADEA which among other things protected older workers from termination if an employer plans on keeping a less senior person that is doing or going to do the same job. It goes without saying that employers balked at Congress for passing such a law arguing that they should have a right to hire and fire and to make a profit. Nobody argued that they couldn’t, but the government was beginning to feel the strain of so many terminated people on unemployment and welfare. Here where a class of workers that has for our purpose, lost everything. Middle-aged people are not normally the first hired when a company solicits a position opening. Even if they are hired, they have no future retirement benefits to look forward too since they didn’t work long enough in their previous company to retire, nor will they be able to work long enough in a new company to build up enough credits to retire.
This act protected the workers from unjustified termination without cause. Over time the act has been used for other types of age discrimination such as discrimination from hiring an individual based on his age, or from promoting an employee based his or her age. The act also prevents employers from making statements or specifications in advertisements or solicitations requiring or preferring a certain age group. Only “bona fide” occupational job positions may have age requirements and those must be documented and backed up by facts or circumstances. An example of this would be the military that currently restricts persons over the age of 35 from applying; the local police and fire departments generally have an age requirement on applicants. Another area covered prohibits the denial of benefits to older employees, but it does not prevent employers from reducing older employees benefits as long as those benefits are equal too or greater then the cost of providing those same benefits to younger workers. Labor unions cannot discriminate by age for people applying to apprenticeship programs or joint labor-management programs. While age discrimination is against the law, it is not against the law for an employer to ask an applicant’s age or date of birth however, employers need to be very careful about asking this type of question as it will be closely scrutinized to make sure the inquiry was for a purpose both lawful and directly related to the job position. Of particular concern that came to light in the 1990’s was a practice of requiring employees to sign a waiver of their ADEA rights in order to obtain severance pay, retirement benefits, early retirement or any other such thing that might be interpreted as age discrimination. Congress set out a committee to investigate and make recommendations to the panel. An amendment to the ADEA was added that states that employers may request that a waiver be signed before obtaining the aforementioned entitlements, however they must meet certain minimum requirement in order to do so. The waiver must be knowing and voluntary for it to be valid and must also meet other requirements such as it must be in writing and be understandable to the individual, it must state specifically if it refers to ADEA rights or claims, must state that the waiver does not waiver that individuals rights or claims in the future, it cannot be made unless something tangible is being exchanged for it, it must also advise the employee in writing to consult with a lawyer before signing anything that waives rights or claims and must allow the individual at least 21 days in which to consider the proposal and give him 7 days to revoke the agreement after he or she signs it. This amendment also prevents what is commonly referred to as “tender back” which means that whatever an individual receives as part of signing the waiver cannot be taken back or asked to pay back it back as a result of an ADEA claim in the future but, an employer can request payment for legal and administrative fees if the individual files a frivolous lawsuit.

Registered Members, login
Join now, it's free

Property of EssaySwap.com