Boomers Discover Age Bias

Source: AARP Bulletin Today | June 26, 2003

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 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-1990s, 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, by cutting higher-paid jobs, many 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 underreported. Many aggrieved workers never file charges, she says, because they want "to move on with their lives."