Age Discrimination
The law prohibits employers from discriminating against employees because of their age. Any employee who is at least 40 years old is protected, although employees in Minnesota are protected by state law if they are at least 21. An employer generally may make employment decisions based on age only if it is reasonably necessary for normal business operations. For example, a theatre may hire only child actors to play children’s roles.
Some examples of age discrimination are:
- Your employer fired you or forced you to retire because of your age.
- Your employer has reduced your compensation or benefits, demoted you, or
denied you a promotion because of your age.
- Your employer prefers to hire and promote younger employees or provides them benefits not available to older employees.
- Your employer has treated you badly because you opposed or complained about age discrimination or because you assisted investigations of possible age discrimination.
- A prospective employer hired a younger job applicant even though you were the more qualified candidate.
Nichols Kaster & Anderson, PLLP has litigation experience in many types of cases, including age discrimination. If you think you may become involved in litigation with your employer, feel free to contact us.
The General Electric Model: Forced Rankings and Age Discrimination
Identifying up-and-coming employees has always been important to companies, but during the 1990s, it became an obsession. It was then that GE’s management guru, Jack Welch, devised a system for ranking employees, which Welch referred to as the “vitality curve.” Otherwise known as forced ranking, the system evaluates employees and places them into three tiers. Employees in the top tier are placed on the fast-track up the corporate ladder, while those in the bottom tier are terminated. The use of forced ranking has grown in the United States, and approximately one quarter of Fortune 500 companies (e.g, Target, Cisco Systems, EDS, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Caterpillar, and Sun Microsystems) employ some version of Welch’s system. The problem is that these systems tend to foster illegal age discrimination. For example, Ford (Siegel v. Ford Motor Co.), Goodyear (Jones v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), and Capital One (Feltman v. Capital One Services, Inc.) have all settled lawsuits alleging that their ranking systems violated various age discrimination prohibitions. This issue has piqued the interest of the AARP, which was responsible for bringing the lawsuits against Ford (settled in 2002 for $10.6 million) and against Capital One (settled in 2003 with undisclosed terms). The issue has also impacted Minnesota, as 3M is currently defending against allegations that its employee appraisal system discriminates against older employees. (See Whitaker, et al. v. 3M Company, No. 62-C4-04-012239 (Ramsey County, MN)).
America’s workforce is continuing to grow older, while at the same time, forced ranking systems are becoming more common. Thus, the potential for illegal age discrimination is clearly growing as well. For more information about these issues, see the following websites:
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