Two new measures that will directly affect older workers in Australia: an increase of the work pension bonus and the subsidisation of wages for older workers.
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Lewis Silkin
A survey by the Benevolent Society – Australia’s oldest charity at 205 years old – has produced some interesting results on understanding of what age discrimination, perception of older workers, and the extent of the harm caused by it.
A report from the Scottish Science Advisory Council (SSAC) shows the population is ageing at a faster rate in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK. Fertility, life expectancy at birth and net in-migration are all lower in Scotland.
Tomas Horgan and Claire Keegan – two members of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) – claim that they suffered indirect age discrimination by being put on lower salary scales than colleagues who started prior to 2011.
Although Valerie Cox’s full-time contract ended legitimately when she turned 65, her freelance contract contained no such retirement age.
The survey carried out by insurance company SunLife found that the workplace was where age discrimination is experienced most often.
The report “A silver lining for the UK economy?” claims that older workers are essential to the future of the UK economy.
The Government is to appeal against a decision that a transitional pension scheme applicable to judges was age discriminatory.
Robert Braden was 66 years old at the time of a layoff in 2012, ending a 29 year long career. Braden claimed the layoffs were intended to target older workers and "replace them with younger workers.”
Deborah Miller (60) was placed on a performance improvement plan whilst on medical leave and informed that "this will not end well", despite performing better than her younger (and mostly male) peers.
IMDB wants to have struck down a new California law that requires them to remove actors' ages from their site (upon request).
Age discrimination can have a deep psychological impact that even its victims do not truly appreciate.
Teachers' union the NASUWT has warned that pupils are losing out in the classroom because older teachers are being forced out of their jobs by school management.
Saheed Fijabi, a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives says that employers are harming the growth of their country by using age limits and allowing age discrimination.
Unemployment hits young people most. The number of unemployed 18-24 year olds shot up by 77,000 to 769,000 a rise of 11%.
Twenty-five in every hundred people said they were discriminated against for their age, a recent survey research institute Tarki released to MTI on Tuesday said.
IPPR suggest that one of the elements hidden in the official figure is this age discrimination evident during the recession. The risk is that older people who have been out of work for this long stand little chance of ever working again.
According to psychologist Becca Levy, PhD, assistant professor of public health at Yale University, age discrimination and negative stereotypes can shorten life span by 7.5 years.
From the US: calling someone an "old man" was not enough to get an age discrimination claim to trial
As a general rule, when a claimant in an age discrimination case alleges that a decision maker frequently referred to him as an "old man," and the claimant was replaced by a younger employee, the plaintiff probably has a pretty decent case. At the very least, the judge is going to let the case go to trial. Generally speaking...
But what if the claimant got fired the day after he allowed a truck carrying a 70-feet steel beam to slide 15 feet into his employer's wall, knocking the wall down? And what if customers had complained about the claimant's job performance?
And what if the claimant admitted that he was excessively chatty, disrupted other employees, and slept on the job?
Will the "old man" comments and the fact that he was replaced by someone younger be enough to defeat the employer's summary judgment motion?
Not according to the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In Ritchie v. Industrial Steel, Inc., Case No. 10-10945 (11 th Cir. May 19, 2011), the court, faced with the above facts, affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the employer.
The court noted that the claimant failed to show that the age-related comments were related to the decision to terminate his employment; thus, they were not direct evidence of discrimination.
And, the claimant failed to show circumstantial evidence of discrimination because he could not demonstrate that the employer's explanation that he was terminated for performance-related reasons was pretextual.
The Ritchie case serves as a reminder to employment law practitioners to evaluate all the facts of a case before making a prediction about the outcome. Discriminatory comments by decision makers are never good facts for an employer.
But sometimes, an employee's poor performance is so apparent and indisputable that even discriminatory comments by the decision makers are not enough to get the case to a jury (US discrimination cases have trials by jury, rather than the judge or tribunal panel used in the UK).
In other words, when an employee in the US is terminated after he accidentally knocks down his employer's wall, he's got a tough row to hoe to prove discrimination. Generally speaking...