Age Complaints Surge As
Midlife
Workers Find the Gong Harder
by Trish Nicholson
As more baby boomers move into their 50s, they are
finding something new to protest; age discrimination in the workplace.
And they aren't wasting any time. Fueled by charges
from workers in their 40s and 50s, the number of age bias complaints
filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
jumped from 14,141 in 1999 to 19,921 in 2002, up 41 percent.
Of all workers filing age-bias charges in 2002, 64
percent were from 40 to 59 years old.
The nation's baby boomers-76 million strong- were born
between 1946 and 1964 and came of age during the fight for civil rights.
Now, with the new troubles to confront, they are
taking their complaints to the EEOC, which administers the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) that since 1967 has barred
discrimination against workers age 40 and older.
"Baby boomers believe they helped develop the core
values of our society, which prohibit discrimination," EEOC chairwoman
Cari M. Dominguez said in an interview with the AARP Bulletin.
"[They] see the [civil rights] laws that are on the books today as part
of their own efforts" and are very comfortable," she says in asserting
their rights.
Boomers have reason to be unhappy, as do many other
older workers. With the economy still sluggish, layoffs are continuing
at a high level. Total job cuts, which hovered above 400,000 annually in
the mid-1990's, skyrocketed to nearly 2 million in 2001 and dropped to
about 1.5 million in 2002, reports the outplacement firm Challenger,
Gray Christmas Inc.
Noting a connection between the economy and age bias
claims, Dominguez says, "The [claims] go up when opportunities go down."
That's no accident, suggests Dominguez, who is a
boomer herself. She believes there remains a good deal of age
discrimination in the workplace- a charge contested vigorously by many
in business.
But Dominguez, appointed head of the EEOC in 2001, is
in a position to know. She has acquired a strong background in workplace
issues through a varied career. She owned Dominguez & Associates, a
management consulting firm, and was a partner at Heidrick & Struggles
and a director at Spencer Stuart, two executive search firms. She also
served as an assistant secretary of labor during the first Bush
administration.
Born in Cuba, she also is sensitive to the job
problems faced by Hispanics and other minorities.
Dominguez tells a visitor to her office in downtown
Washington that discriminatory patterns are well established. When the
economy slides south, companies often tighten their belts, she says, buy
cutting higher-paid jobs, may of which are held by older workers.
And that, Dominguez says, is largely because of bias:
Some employers perceive older workers as less productive than younger
workers, unwilling to learn new skills and too expensive to keep on the
payroll.
Not everyone agrees. The uptick in age bias claims may
not be an accurate gauge of actual discrimination, cautions Lawrence Z.
Lorber, a lawyer in Washington who represents employers. "Filing an ADEA
claim," he says, "doesn't mean, to be blunt about it, that there is
substance to it."
But Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, a Washington lawyer who
represents workers, argues that age discrimination is vastly under
reported. Many aggrieved workers never file charges, she says, because
they want "to move on with their lives."
