I just got layed off today. 16 years with the same company, never once a bad review, several awards for different accomplishments. Really sucks. But that’s life right?
What bothers me though, is that they provided no reason other than that there were ‘several determining factors’ none of which was performance. This is a large, multinational corporation with many thousands of employees. The guy who gave me the bad news hinted that ‘length of service’ may have been a factor??
At 53 my job prospects are not too great, realistically. But I’m also way too young to retire, not to mention still needing to put a kid though college. So to the heart of my post: I know nothing about lawsuits, and I’m not asking for specific legal advice, but in general, this feels like age discrimination to me. Am I way off base, or could I potentially have a lawsuit in my favor?
Oh, and Mods, please feel free to move if this is more of an IMHO type question. Thanks
Do you live in an at-will employment state? If so, age discrimination is significantly harder to prove. From your post, having a gut feeling really isn’t a good reason to go forward with an action. However, dealing with an attorney who specializes in this issue is better than any advice on a message board (even those boards that specifically give legal advice). I haven’t studied the age discrimination act (see eeoc.gov) in quite some time. If you want to do a little self-research, review that site and see if your particular scenario follows the law.
You may want to read up on the federal law about age discrimination. Also be aware there are time deadlines when it comes to filing an age discrimination complaint/lawsuit. If you miss a deadline you may be SOL even if you have a perfect case of age discrimination.
Make sure you read up on all the links on that page. Back in 1996, the US Supreme Court made it much easier to win an age discrimination suit.
I have nothing to add on the legal aspects, but I just want to say that about 11 years ago, I was laid off at the age of 52, then spent about 6 months unemployed. However, eventually I got what in many ways is my dream job, so life doesn’t have to end in your 50s.
Perfectly innocent question here: why would you think it’s age discrimination? If you did your job perfectly and there were never any complaints, then I’m assuming you worked just as hard as the younger guys, produced the same quality/quantity of deliverables/output, and that nothing distinguishes you in any way from them. And so, who, really, age discriminates in such cases? Isn’t “age discrimination” more a factor in hiring rather than in laying off? You know, because the investment in your has already been made. You also suggest that it’s a huge company, so any financial benefit (such as reduced health insurance premiums) by targetting you due to your age wouldn’t be realized.
Was this part of a big round of layoffs? If that’s the case, then the company (since it’s big, as you indicate) has to report all of that data to the federal government for the express purpose of tracking systematic age discrimination. Our HR reports it to us directly; I don’t know what your process would be. But it lists headcount, age brackets, and percentages affected. Perhaps that would be valuable.
And really, maybe I’m just naïve, but I do mean the first paragraph sincerely and welcome a real education if I’m way off base.
Now-a-days employers won’t give any reason for firing you, it leaves them open to lawsuits.
The easiest way to see is ask yourself, were other people let go? If so, were they your age? If other people were let go and they were not your age, that will go in the company’s favour.
The economy has tanked. This will also weigh against you. Even if the company had no real reason to let you go, many companies will use a bad economy to weed out their employees
In reality you have been at the company a long time. The longer you’re with a company the less productive you become and the more money you make. I’ve done research into this and unfortunately I didn’t believe it till I saw the figures. I was shocked at the amount of saving to a company by letting go long term workers.
It’s much cheaper to hire someone younger who will work longer for less pay, and do more work.
Most companies simply fire three long term workers and combine the jobs. Often they can outsource it for less than one worker costs OR I found when I was working on this project for a company, we could fire the three and replace them with one and a half employees.
My hunch is that it wasn’t age, but your length of employment. Your company realized they can hire someone new, give him MORE duties than you did and he’ll take less pay.
You’re actually lucky a lot of companies I have seen will not just let you go, what they’ll do is start writing you up so they can justify not paying you unemployment, as you’ll be let go for misconduct. And it’s easy to find reasons to write people up.
My first thought on the ‘length of service’ bit was that they can hire someone else to do your job for far less than they’re paying you. Years of raises and such add up.
Large financial company based out of “The Hub” in the northeast?
If so, the word I’ve gotten (I’m ok… so far… until the next round), is that it was pure cost savings. Those on the upper end of the pay range for the highest pay grades were the first ones cut. Regardless of how well they did their jobs.
The next round, again from what I hear, is more targeted towards “dead weight,” so hopefully I’m relatively ok there as well.
There are a lot of reasons why an employer would target older employees:
Belief that older employees can’t physically do the job anymore, or that they lack the ambition to put in the long hours
Older employees don’t project the image of a youthful, innovative, aggressive company
Don’t kid yourself about the chance to reduce health benefits, contributions to a retirement plan, vacation, etc.
Some younger managers don’t want to work with older employees
Older employees are believed to be less trainable and more likely to resist change
Older employees are believed to have already reached (or passed) their peak in terms of productivity, promotability and revenue generation. Better to concentrate on younger emplyees who still have an upside, particularly if the company has to shrink.
As someone over 50, I happen to believe all those perceptions are false, but I’ve seen them expressed over and over again.
Oh, I understand that if it’s documented. It’s just that the OP suggested that he’s never had a problem at performance review time. Unless, “not a problem” means “acceptable” rather than one of the upper tier rankings. If that’s the case, it is performance, and not age discrimination.
That would be the case if it were a mass layoff and everyone who had the same performance ratings as the OP were also laid off. However, if employees with similar performance ratings were retained, then it’s a fair question to ask why the OP was singled out.
I’m not suggesting that age (or “length of service”) is the reason for the layoff, only that it shouldn’t be dismissed without any evidence one way or the other.
Without more detail, no one here is qualified to give you advice. However, I echo Duckster’s warning – under federal law, age discrimination plaintiffs may have to initiate suit within 180 days, depending on certain factors. Therefore, if you have any inkling you may have been discriminated against (and it is illegal under federal law to fire someone over 40 on the basis of their age, with many exceptions), you need to talk to a lawyer about it now. You don’t need to know the answer to your questions to ask for counsel. That’s why we call it counsel. The lawyer will help you figure out if you’ve got a case, so there’s no need to make that determination yourself. You aren’t qualified.
If you file a complaint with the EEOC (note that there is a time limit) the employer will normally be required to submit a “position statement” which will almost certainly spell out the official reasons why you were chosen. You and your lawyer can then study the position statement and decide if you have a good case or not.
Are they offering you severance in exchange for a release? If so, there is a good chance that you are entitled to various disclosures from the employer. Again, discuss it with your attorney.
Bottom line: Talk to a qualified attorney. Actually, talk to a few since there are many attorneys who will charge big bucks to prosecute lousy discrimination cases.
First, IANAL, but I was in your shoes not too long ago.
Did you sign anything? If so, it could well contain something about agreeing not to take any action in return for a stated severance, and if you signed that you may well be out of luck.
If not, or even if you did, you need to present these facts to a lawyer proficient in employment law.
Anecdote != data, et al, but here’s my one experience.
I was let go from a big company. No reason given other than my position had been eliminated. I was the oldest (late 50s), as well as the only woman in the department other than one administrative assistant. One other person in the department was laid off, and he was the next-oldest person, also in his 50s. The average age of the remaining employees in the department was 30-something. I had nearly 10 years of positive and laudatory reviews. I was offered a severance package in return for signing a waiver. I took the waiver to an attorney who wrote a very carefully worded letter pointing out these facts, but making no threats or ultimatums. He then pointed out that the severance package was a bit meager, maybe even insulting, considering my many years of excellent service. The severance was subsequently increased by a considerable amount.
This is the only really relevant part of anything said so far. These sorts of cases are not easy. The factors they turn on are not obvious, and it’s not the sort of thing that the layman can readily grasp, even with a good tutorial in hand.
Go
See
An
Attorney. In the process, ignore most anything posted here other than well-cited information about the timelines.
That’s why I said “initiate,” rather than file. I expect the OP’s attorney can help him work through the deadlines; I merely wanted to warn him that the applicable limitations period is short.
