Age Discrimination - Essay Example

Age discrimination is discrimination based on the age-related factors. It has been a problem for the whole world for centuries. It can be direct or indirect. There are many laws and regulations have been established to prevent age discrimination but there is still need a lot to be done to overcome this problem.

According to a survey conducted by the University of Kent, England, 29% of respondents said that they had suffered from age discrimination – the percentage is higher than for race or gender discrimination.

Prevailing System

The prevailing system of compulsory early retirement is not fulfilling the needs of the era; the system is biased toward the ages of older workers. This system is used by many UK-based law firms. The system is also a cause of brain draining since there are many older workers who do not want to leave their jobs and are still capable of doing tasks perfectly. Thus, the prevalent system is considered a major cause of age discrimination.

New Legislation

The new legislation will be implemented from 1st October 2006; the new system can help organizations and people in reducing age discrimination. The compulsory retirement age that is different from the legal standard of 65 will become unlawful or be expired under the upcoming legislation.

“The Government consulted on proposals to legislate on age discrimination in “Coming of Age”.  The consultation ended on 17 October.  Subject to Parliamentary approval the legislation will come into force on 1 October 2006. 

The draft regulations:

• prohibit unjustified age discrimination in employment and vocational training
• require employers who set their retirement age below the default age of 65 to justify or change it
• introduce a new duty on employers to consider an employee’s request to continue working  beyond retirement
• require employers to inform employees in writing, and at least 6 months in advance, of their intended retirement date. This will allow people to plan for their retirement
• remove the upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, giving older workers the same rights to claim unfair dismissal or receive a redundancy payment  as younger workers, unless there is a genuine retirement
• include provisions relating to service-related benefits and occupational pensions

The regulations also remove the age limits for Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay, and Statutory Paternity Pay”. 

DTI Employment Relations –

http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/equality/age.htm (Accessed 4th January 2006)

Reasons Behind New Legislation

Today, employers need to recruit older workers than younger workers. An older worker means a worker of over 50 years of age. There are currently around 20 million people who are 50 and over alone in the U.K. It is estimated that this figure will reach 27 million by 2030.

The government is also consulting on the introduction of the default retirement age (65); with the help of it, older employees will have a right to request to work over the specified age bracket.

What Experts Say?

According to the Department of Trade and Industry experts, to comply with the new legislation, partnerships will also be obliged – partnerships are currently affected by the present legislation.

Impact of New Legislation

Once the law is implemented, one thing is certain it will be unlawful to make decisions or policies about partners which are based on age-related factors. On the other hand, there might be chances of starting indirect discrimination since partners will be bound to follow the rules and not discriminate other partners on the basis of their ages.

What Will Be Covered In Legislation –Example

“An 18-year-old employee has left his emagains ployer, and asks for a job reference. The employer refuses to provide this, stating that employees under the age of 20 will not receive job references because they have built up insufficient length of service to allow for a meaningful assessment. This situation would be covered by the Age Regulations”.

Not Available

http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/equality/consultation_doc_2006.pdf (Accessed 4th January 2006)

Affects on Partnerships

After the implementation of the new law, a partner cannot retire the other partner at the age of 65. A partner can only leave or retire the other partner after measuring his/her performance and whether he/she is contributing effectively to the partnership or not.

Furthermore, all firms will have to reset or re-establish the policies and procedures regarding leave or retirement from partnerships as there will be no compulsory retirement.

New Challenges for Law Firms

Fixing or dealing with the traditional lockstep model of promotion and financial reward will be perhaps the biggest problem that will be faced by law firms. According to this method, the oldest partner (longest in the service) gets the best rewards.

After the implementation of the new law, this method goes in favor of the oldest partner and it could be used for indirect discrimination purposes against younger partners – who do not have a longer period of membership.

What Older Workers Need?

It is important to understand that older workers are not different from the fresh blood. They also like to receive training in their entire career, a good start on a sound footing, flexible working hours, and changes in the kind of work they do.  

Misconception

Some people also believed that the law is all about the older people or workers. This is a big misconception; basically the reason behind implementing the new legislation is to promote parity and equality among all workers regardless of their ages.

In a sentence, the primary purpose of the new legislation is to prohibit all types of direct and indirect victimization, discrimination, and harassment of all workers (especially older workers).