Elderly Job DIscrimination
David
Mrs. Hughes
Period 7
Topic Elderly Job Discrimination
I. Introduction
A. Grabber/Hook—people think of the elderly as older and wiser but people probably don’t think of the elderly as older and richer
B. What is the problem?
1. The problem is that the elderly are being discriminated in the job market
2. Also there are more older workers. Baby boomers are getting older so a bigger percentage of working people are older. There are more people that can be discriminated against. Age discrimination complains are increasing.
C. How does the problem affect the audience?
This problem affects you since once you get older there will be
even more older people wanting Social Security and you have to
give money towards Social Security. As there are even more older
people needing it the younger people will have to give much more
money towards their Social Security.
II. Body
A. Causes
1. Factors leading to the problem.
a. Stereotyping
(1) Some of the stereotypes that companies have of older people are that the older have less energy than younger to do things like work longer hours and moving things around like boxes, another stereotype of older people are that the older lose out to the younger in every situation in the jobs that they can fulfill since the employer will always want the younger worker to work for them since they wont have to be paid as much. Youth is valued more, even though older people are healthier now than they used to be. Another stereotype of elderly workers is that they can’t learn new skills like in the technical fields where they have to know how to use computers.
b. Forced Ranking
(1) Another cause of elderly job discrimination is that companies use forced ranking. They may rank employees against each other based on their age. And then once the workers get into the lowest ranking they are fired. For example, they may get a C ranking in an ABC ranking scale, and all C ranked people get fired.
(2) Companies use forced ranking since it is a good cover up
for stereotypes about the elderly like how they cant change, some well known companies that use Forced ranking are Ford, Pepsi Microsoft and many more.
(3) Many older workers end up working part time or don’t get benefits. And if the economy goes down, they may be asked to retire early.
2. Why does this Problem still exist?
a. These problems still exist since the laws that have been made like the ADEA still have ways that companies can get out since the person suing has to prove that the discrimination was done on purpose.
(1) Disparate impact is when a person has to prove that the company had an impact on a certain group even if they didn’t mean to discriminate. Up until now the courts have required that the older worker prove that the company intended to discriminate. And the courts said it wasn’t good enough just to show that discrimination happened.
b. Also, courts don’t see older people as a ‘special group’ that
needs to have their civil rights protected.
B. Effects
1. Big picture
a. Some of the effects of elderly job discrimination are that as people get older they are being paid less even though they have much more experience. And the younger are being paid more w/ less experience.
(1) This happens since the employers don’t want to pay more money for better experience and that’s what the older workers have.
(a) According to a 2001 Infoworld compensation survey, Senior managers get paid 133 thou, mid level managers get paid 85 thou, staff gets 70 thou in their 40’s then by the time these people are 55 their salaries start to go down.
(2) Another effect of this job discrimination is that when people get fired older workers can’t find new jobs but younger workers can and this is supported by a statistic by Adam Goodman.
a. People who were out of work that found new work in two years or less - 67% of those 35-44 years old, 58% of those 45-54 years old, 39% of those 55-62 years old, but only 8% of those 63 years old and up were able to find work in 2 years or less.
2. How does this affect us on a smaller scale?
This affects us on a smaller scale since it makes me not get the wisdom and guidance of older workers that would be useful for me in the future and my money during my working years would be needed even more for older workers social security and public assistance.
C. Solutions
1. What’s been done? Why no longer done?
In employment law history in 1884 there was an “employment at will” rule that said employers can hire and fire whoever they want to, then in ’64 there was the civil rights act that said you cant discriminate against race, religion, sex, but it wasn’t sure about age. They had a committee study discrimination and they found that age discrimination was a problem and should be included in a civil rights bill.
2. What’s being done now?
a. Ineffective The Age Discrimination Employment Act was passed and it hasn’t worked too well. It gave a way for workers over 40 to file a suit for Age Discrimination and employers can’t fire or hire anyone based on their age, but the person being discriminated against has to file a suit within a certain amount of time and it only applied to employers with 20 or more workers and government, university, and labor union jobs with 25 or more workers
b. Ineffective The ADEA has been ineffective because of disparate
impact.
c. Effective But now there is hope that the ADEA will be more effective since there was a recent Supreme Court ruling on a age discrimination case. This was a case filed by police officers in Mississippi who received lower raisers than younger police officers. The city said that this was because they needed to make the salaries of the younger police officers more competitive with other jobs. The Supreme Court said the person being discriminated against doesn’t have to prove that the discrimination was intentional – it was good enough to prove that the discrimination happened, whether or not they meant it to happen. So they were saying that disparate impact is ok to use as a legal argument now. But there was a flaw in it since the Supreme Court also said that if the company had a reasonable explanation for making their decision, like cost cutting or if the person wasn’t mentally or physically able to do the job, then it was ok to fire them or give them lower raises.
3. Other possible solutions?
a. Some other possible solutions would be to enforce the laws
(1) They could enforce the laws by making sure that old people know the laws and are provided with lawyers.
b. One more possible solution would be to retrain the older workers. This could happen by having retraining programs to let older workers know what they’re doing
III. Conclusion
A. What can audience do about the problem?
You as the audience can educate yourself about this problem and
learn about the rights of older workers and respect older workers
for what they can teach you from their lifetime of experience
B. What have I done to help?
I have educated myself about the problem and I try to learn from
people with experience and older people for what they can teach
me
C. How can audience become involved?
One way you could get involved is to not believe stereotypes about older people and know that those stereotypes aernt actually true, and respect and value what older people can teach you about all they have learned in their life time of experience
Mrs. Hughes
Period 7
Topic Elderly Job Discrimination
I. Introduction
A. Grabber/Hook—people think of the elderly as older and wiser but people probably don’t think of the elderly as older and richer
B. What is the problem?
1. The problem is that the elderly are being discriminated in the job market
2. Also there are more older workers. Baby boomers are getting older so a bigger percentage of working people are older. There are more people that can be discriminated against. Age discrimination complains are increasing.
C. How does the problem affect the audience?
This problem affects you since once you get older there will be
even more older people wanting Social Security and you have to
give money towards Social Security. As there are even more older
people needing it the younger people will have to give much more
money towards their Social Security.
II. Body
A. Causes
1. Factors leading to the problem.
a. Stereotyping
(1) Some of the stereotypes that companies have of older people are that the older have less energy than younger to do things like work longer hours and moving things around like boxes, another stereotype of older people are that the older lose out to the younger in every situation in the jobs that they can fulfill since the employer will always want the younger worker to work for them since they wont have to be paid as much. Youth is valued more, even though older people are healthier now than they used to be. Another stereotype of elderly workers is that they can’t learn new skills like in the technical fields where they have to know how to use computers.
b. Forced Ranking
(1) Another cause of elderly job discrimination is that companies use forced ranking. They may rank employees against each other based on their age. And then once the workers get into the lowest ranking they are fired. For example, they may get a C ranking in an ABC ranking scale, and all C ranked people get fired.
(2) Companies use forced ranking since it is a good cover up
for stereotypes about the elderly like how they cant change, some well known companies that use Forced ranking are Ford, Pepsi Microsoft and many more.
(3) Many older workers end up working part time or don’t get benefits. And if the economy goes down, they may be asked to retire early.
2. Why does this Problem still exist?
a. These problems still exist since the laws that have been made like the ADEA still have ways that companies can get out since the person suing has to prove that the discrimination was done on purpose.
(1) Disparate impact is when a person has to prove that the company had an impact on a certain group even if they didn’t mean to discriminate. Up until now the courts have required that the older worker prove that the company intended to discriminate. And the courts said it wasn’t good enough just to show that discrimination happened.
b. Also, courts don’t see older people as a ‘special group’ that
needs to have their civil rights protected.
B. Effects
1. Big picture
a. Some of the effects of elderly job discrimination are that as people get older they are being paid less even though they have much more experience. And the younger are being paid more w/ less experience.
(1) This happens since the employers don’t want to pay more money for better experience and that’s what the older workers have.
(a) According to a 2001 Infoworld compensation survey, Senior managers get paid 133 thou, mid level managers get paid 85 thou, staff gets 70 thou in their 40’s then by the time these people are 55 their salaries start to go down.
(2) Another effect of this job discrimination is that when people get fired older workers can’t find new jobs but younger workers can and this is supported by a statistic by Adam Goodman.
a. People who were out of work that found new work in two years or less - 67% of those 35-44 years old, 58% of those 45-54 years old, 39% of those 55-62 years old, but only 8% of those 63 years old and up were able to find work in 2 years or less.
2. How does this affect us on a smaller scale?
This affects us on a smaller scale since it makes me not get the wisdom and guidance of older workers that would be useful for me in the future and my money during my working years would be needed even more for older workers social security and public assistance.
C. Solutions
1. What’s been done? Why no longer done?
In employment law history in 1884 there was an “employment at will” rule that said employers can hire and fire whoever they want to, then in ’64 there was the civil rights act that said you cant discriminate against race, religion, sex, but it wasn’t sure about age. They had a committee study discrimination and they found that age discrimination was a problem and should be included in a civil rights bill.
2. What’s being done now?
a. Ineffective The Age Discrimination Employment Act was passed and it hasn’t worked too well. It gave a way for workers over 40 to file a suit for Age Discrimination and employers can’t fire or hire anyone based on their age, but the person being discriminated against has to file a suit within a certain amount of time and it only applied to employers with 20 or more workers and government, university, and labor union jobs with 25 or more workers
b. Ineffective The ADEA has been ineffective because of disparate
impact.
c. Effective But now there is hope that the ADEA will be more effective since there was a recent Supreme Court ruling on a age discrimination case. This was a case filed by police officers in Mississippi who received lower raisers than younger police officers. The city said that this was because they needed to make the salaries of the younger police officers more competitive with other jobs. The Supreme Court said the person being discriminated against doesn’t have to prove that the discrimination was intentional – it was good enough to prove that the discrimination happened, whether or not they meant it to happen. So they were saying that disparate impact is ok to use as a legal argument now. But there was a flaw in it since the Supreme Court also said that if the company had a reasonable explanation for making their decision, like cost cutting or if the person wasn’t mentally or physically able to do the job, then it was ok to fire them or give them lower raises.
3. Other possible solutions?
a. Some other possible solutions would be to enforce the laws
(1) They could enforce the laws by making sure that old people know the laws and are provided with lawyers.
b. One more possible solution would be to retrain the older workers. This could happen by having retraining programs to let older workers know what they’re doing
III. Conclusion
A. What can audience do about the problem?
You as the audience can educate yourself about this problem and
learn about the rights of older workers and respect older workers
for what they can teach you from their lifetime of experience
B. What have I done to help?
I have educated myself about the problem and I try to learn from
people with experience and older people for what they can teach
me
C. How can audience become involved?
One way you could get involved is to not believe stereotypes about older people and know that those stereotypes aernt actually true, and respect and value what older people can teach you about all they have learned in their life time of experience
posted by Alan at 11:48 AM
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