Age discrimination has no place in the workplace. The law provides protections for workers under the ADEA and state age discrimination laws. However, the federal government enacted the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act of 1990 (OWBPA). Your employer cannot deny you benefits because you are an older employee.
Many times, employers will systematically weed out the older employees by taking away their benefits. Older employers will then quit. By quitting, employers believe they made a clean split.
The OWBPA prohibits employers from denying older workers benefits for reasons related to age. An older worker who quits because they had their benefits stripped from them may still file a suit for age discrimination in the courts.
In all age discrimination cases, you have the right to file a claim if you were treated unfairly. However, you must prove the negative treatment is related to your age.
You must show that you made your managers, supervisors, human resources department, and/or employer aware of the situation. You need to allow them to handle it through the proper policies and procedures.
If you can prove that your company knew about age discrimination and did nothing to prevent it, you may have a legal claim against your employer.
Derek Smith
5 min. read
Derek Smith