As a member of the MIT Class of 1982 my friends are now getting to the age (or beyond) where employers might want to replace them with younger/childless/cheaper/etc. workers. This seems especially likely in Silicon Valley where the cool/valuable companies are seemingly the ones founded by 20-year-olds. Ellen Pao (wrap-up; divorce litigators’ perspective on) started at Kleiner Perkins in 2005. Pao was supposedly 43 in 2012 (Fortune) and thus would have been 36 at the time that Kleiner hired her. Even if she came in with videos of spry 75-year-old relatives doing demanding mental and physical work do we think she would have been hired for that job as a 56-year-old, regardless of race or sex? If not, plainly there is more age discrimination in Silicon Valley than gender discrimination.
The question then becomes what is the threshold age at which a person who had been fired could expect to win a lawsuit under the various federal and state laws that supposedly protect workers from age discrimination? (it is “supposedly” because my business-minded friends say that these laws actually hurt older workers because companies don’t want to hire them and incur the litigation risk)
employers might want to replace them with younger/childless/cheaper/etc. workers.
That sounds like all the H-1B tech workers I’ve known.
I worked (now retired) for a global energy company for 37 years. And know of only two instances of “forced retirement” for age related poor performance. One in his 80s, the other mid/late 70s. Both were skilled engineers in their day. However, in my opinion, both were justified.
… what is the threshold age at which a person who had been fired could expect to win a lawsuit under the various federal and state laws that supposedly protect workers from age discrimination?
Best guess lawsuit eligible: 55-through-70
1) If performance review history does not identify unresolved problems. High maintenance employees will have a problem winning a lawsuit.
2) If general health and vigor are compatible with the work.
The Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 prohibits discrimination against workers age 40 and older, but I don’t know of many cases that 40 year olds have actually won suits.
Typically what happens is that when an older/minority worker is fired, he or she is offered a severance package in exchange for releasing all claims against the former employer. Typically something in the range of 3 to 6 month’s salary. IIRC, Pao was offered something like 6 months salary. In most cases, no suit is filed and the employee accepts the severance instead.
I suppose the size of the severance offer would relate to the risk of a successful suit and would tend to rise as the employee gets older. In order to prevail, you have to show a pattern of the employer firing other older workers besides you and the employer gets to show that they fired you because of your incompetence. As we see from Pao, if you pursue a suit, you might end up with nothing at all except a bunch of legal bills.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/23/google-sued-by-job-candidate-for-age-discrimination/?mod=trending_now_2