of the following reasons: the employer thinks that they are less productive, they may demand higher salaries, they are more costly to insure, or they may not work long enough for the employer to recover any training costs which it has incurred. The same login applies to promotions and transfers. An employer may want to shed itself of its older workers to cut costs (Age discrimination in the workplace, 1999). The Civil Rights Act does not make age discrimination illegal, but Congress has since enacted another law, the Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). The ADEA is administered by the EEOC, and it is similar in most respects to the Civil Rights Act. Both disparate treatment and disparate impact charges are possible. The Act protects workers 40 years of age and older. A 45-year-old who applies for a job and is rejected in favor of a younger worker can claim disparate treatment. The employer will then have to show that the younger worker was better qualified or provide some nondiscriminatory reason for its decision. An employer could argue that it paid a newly hired younger worker more than an older current employee because this was necessary to attract the younger worker to the job. Except in a situation in which the firm is under great financial stress, it is illegal to get rid of older employees just to save money. In disparate impact cases, employees must show that the entire protected group (workers 40 and older) is affected by the employers practice and not just some part of the protected group (workers over 60, for example) (Player, 14). The law does allow age to be considered a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) more easily than it does sex, but still this defense is relatively narrow. An employer has to show that most people in the protected category who would not qualify for a job because of some age limitation cannot do the job effectively. Alternatively, the employer has to show that some ol...
