There is an ominous new thread starting to pervade my mailbox these days. I
receive an average of five new letters every week from people newly aware of
age discrimination. (CAADE has over 5000 case histories)
People, at long last, are starting to get the message about the dangers of
age discrimination, especially in employment. It happens to real people
every day and every day that we procrastinate in government debate,
somebody, somewhere suffers.
Employers too are becoming aware of the ramifications of legislation (due by
2006) and many of them, through lack of knowledge, are panicking
irrationally about their older employees. One distasteful trait that is
becoming prevalent in our work culture is ‘bullying’. More and more older
employees are being undermined and distanced by employers because they fear
to have ‘too many‘ older employees with demanded new rights, giving them a
hard time. Other employers who fear discrimination legislation have taken
to sidelining and deliberately bullying their employees into early
retirement packages.
Some employers are subtle, some are brutal. All of their fears are totally
unwarranted. Legislation will come in to protect employees AND employers
and nobody is intent on developing a stick to beat employers with.
To this end CAADE has produced a system of ‘Age Audits’ designed especially
to reassure employers and help them develop new and good relationships with
their older employees.