A ‘sell-by’ date for employees? Ageism needs fix
As life expectancy grows, many still choose to work
WESTCHESTER, N.Y. – After 20plus years as a probation officer, Keoni May, now 68, was surprised by a shift in his employer’s attitude toward him.
Throughout his career, he was awarded commendations, rewards and promotions. But suddenly, his superiors were second-guessing everything he did.
“I had always been good at writing investigation reports. Now they were starting to question what I was putting in the report, when prior to that, no judge, no district attorney, no law enforcement agency ever questioned anything I wrote,” said May, a decorated Army veteran who served in Vietnam. “I was having to do eight drafts instead of one. In the paperwork and in evaluations, I was being portrayed as a screw-up of the worst order.”
Then one day, all subtlety went out the window.
“You know that we could hire three younger officers for what we pay you?” May, then pushing 60, recalled a depu- ty commissioner, his boss’s boss, saying to him. “You remember that one short sentence quite well.”
The conversation still haunts him almost a decade after what he terms his premature retirement – voluntary on his part, but under duress, he said.
Ageism is widespread, termed “an insidious practice which has harmful effects on the health of older adults” by the World Health Organization. Political satirist Bill Maher famously called it the “last acceptable prejudice in America.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once publicly noted: “Young people are just smarter.”
With 10,000 baby boomers reaching
65 every day – a trend that began in 2011 and is set to continue until 2029 – it is past the time to have a conversation about attitudes toward retirement. After all, since the time Social Security set the retirement eligibility age at 65 in
1936, life expectancy at birth has gone up by 20 years.
“How we shift the individual and corporate mindset around employees who want to and need to work beyond their
mid-60s is going to be a huge societal issue over the next decades,” said Carol Evans, chief relationship officer of Respectful Exits, a national nonprofit that aims to mobilize the voices and talents of aging workers.
Evans, president emeritus and founder of Working Mother Media, said after years of advocating for flexibility for working mothers, she is now championing the benefit for all workers.
Age discrimination occurs when an employer treats an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In May, Armonk-based IBM was sued for age discrimination by a 60-year-old employee from Texas. The lawsuit fol-
lowed an investigative report by Pro-Publica and Mother Jones, which alleged that over five years, IBM had targeted its older American employees for layoffs.
Since 2013, the report estimated IBM eliminated more than 20,000 employees ages 40 and older in the U.S. The company has denied the allegations.
Among the initiatives Respectful Exits is pushing is the concept of phased retirement.
“Phased retirement gives people a much better emotional and financial way out than just falling off the cliff and going from full-out commitment, giving your heart and soul to the company, to immediately stopping their work,” Evans said. “It’s very difficult for people.”
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which protects people older than age 40.
A half-century later, age discrimination in the workplace remains notoriously hard to prove.
Of the 18,376 cases filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2017, only 2.2 percent were found to have a “reasonable cause.”
Jane Gould, an employment attorney at White Plains, New York-based law firm Gould and Berg, said the cases are hard to win because an employee must prove to the courts that the employer would not have taken that action but for his or her age.
“The courts have interpreted the age discrimination statute, which has the phrase ‘ because of age,’ to mean that age has to be the factor,” Gould said.
Evans said she sees the fight against ageism as a “mass movement.”
“We want preretirees feeling confident and strong in their own abilities. When you are faced all day long with ageism, you can start to lose faith in yourself,” Evans said.
“We want to make sure we help the older aging worker to see that you don’t have to just retire and join AARP. You can stay in your career, and you can ask for training and ask for phased retirement.”