We at Nickels Private investigations see lots of sexual age discrimination cases come our way, and this is probably because lots of proof is needed when fighting this type of case. Sexual age discrimination is becoming a larger problem, than it ever was before in the American work place. This may be because a lot more of us are in the work force or because we are living longer more productive lives. You might even want to ask: Aren’t there federal laws that prevent this from happening? The answer is Yes! But it’s not so ¨cut and dry¨ as that! Even though there are both federal and state laws in place, which are supposed to protect you from both sexual and age discrimination, it still happens and it happens almost every day. It is an issue that plagues our society and one which is difficult to address.
The issue is quite complex, and so it is often hard to prove sexual, or age discrimination. That’s why you need both a Private detective and a good attorney if you fear sexual age discrimination.
According to both federal and state law an employer can’t refuse to hire a person, give him a promotion, a raise, certain terms or conditions just because of your gender or your age, but often employers do discriminate and use other terms for the reasons. This is probably the reason why it’s hard to prove age and sexual discrimination.
Exceptions to the Law
• Although companies cannot really force most employees to retire, there are certain employers in certain job fields that can force an employee to retire based on their age, and these jobs include law enforcement, firefighters and some highly paid corporate executives.
• The law also forbids an employer to advertise using certain age preferences, unless age is a job qualification or necessary for the certain type of business.
• It is not illegal for an employer to ask an applicant for his age or date of birth, but it is not seen very favorably either. The employer needs to give a legitimate reason for asking for a birth date.
• Benefits cannot be denied to an older worker but those benefits can be significantly reduced based on an employee’s age. But the costs for an aging worker need to be equal to those paid for a younger employee.
Waiving your ADEA rights
In some cases an employer may ask you to waive your ADEA rights in order to work there. The waiver is enforced but it must meet certain criteria first. It must be put into a written agreement, and it must refer specifically to ADEA rights. At the signing of this contract the employer also needed to inform you in writing to consult an attorney before signing.
Using Sexual Age discrimination to Replace High Wage Earners.
Here things get a little tricky because it is not illegal for an employer to replace a higher wage earner with a lower wage earner. But as is often the case, this means replacing an older worker with a younger one, and many companies use this excuse to be able to get rid of its older workers. This is breaking the law but the employee needs to show that it was because of age that the employer fired him.
As you can see proving this type of case is not as easy as it looks, that is why it is important that you get the help of a good PI and an attorney.
