New York Employment Lawyer Blog

A mandatory retirement age is an artificial limit placed on experienced employees in the workplace and amounts to age discrimination. Congress, in passing the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, indicated that its intention, in part, was to prevent an employer from requiring or permiting involuntary retirement of an employee within the protected age group.

Many organizations, including law firms have mandatory retirement ages for employees, but what these organizations do not realize is that they are harming themselves by forcing out the most experienced individuals for no reason other than their age. The decision about when to retire should most certainly not be made for you by your employer.

Thankfully, advances in modern medicine have enabled us to remain active longer and, therefore, remain part of the workforce. The laws against age discrimination support this as well.

There is a great debate as to whether employment discrimination laws are necessary or whether market forces will eliminate employment discrimination altogether. Even though there are Federal, New York State and New York City laws in place to stem discrimination in the workplace, there is no denying that employment discrimination is still rampant throughout all industries. Some corporations have realized this and have decided to take matters into their own hands by establishing their own policies against employment discrimination. However, these polices created by corporations only add fuel to the fire for the ongoing debate.

Such corporate anti-discrimination policies are no more publicized than the National Football League’s (NFL) Rooney Rule. The Rooney Rule, named after Pittsburgh Steelers Owner Dan Rooney, was established in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for each Head Coach position available. Since the rule has been in effect, African-American coaches in the NFL jumped from 6% in 2003 to 22%, which is certainly a stark improvement in only five years. However, while diversity is increasing it is not without controversy.

Recently, in an example of both the pro and con side of the debate, the St. Louis Rams fired Head Coach Scott Linehan and promoted the Assistant Coach, Jim Haslett, a Caucasian man, to the position. In Haslett’s contract, there was a clause that guaranteed him the head coaching job for the following season if the Rams were to win six games with him as Head Coach. If the Rams do win six games, they will have never had the opportunity to interview a minority candidate for the position and the NFL will automatically void Haslett’s contract for next season. What we are left with is that the Rams will be forced to renegotiate a new contract with Haslett, likely costing the team more money than they have already agreed to pay and having to hold a bogus interview with a minority candidate. But what minority candidate would agree to a sham interview solely to help the Rams play by the rules? And so the debate marches on.

A recent New York Times article referenced a study by several law school professors in which their research found that, "companies included mandatory arbitration clauses in 75% of consumer agreements but in just 24% of contracts over all."

This demonstrates that companies seem more willing to arbitrate with consumers than with each other. It is unclear from the article where there was any data with respect to the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment agreements.