The U.S. District Court of Maine has denied a motion filed by national employment defense firm Littler Mendelson in which Littler attempted to persuade the court to make it more difficult for workers to bring discrimination lawsuits. The case involves allegations that Modula, Inc. discriminated against the Maine Employee Rights…
This week Lincoln County Administrator Carrie Kipfer informed County Commissioners of a change to the rules for the Maine Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) that would require it to treat retirees that it employed differently than non-retirees. Ms. Kipfer expressed concern that this rule change could result in age discrimination. …
Earlier this month, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals held that a trial court in Puerto Rico erred when it determined that a worker failed to present sufficient evidence to support her claims of ageist harassment and retaliation. The trial court had thrown the worker’s case out because the…
Last week, a federal judge held that a jury could reasonably find that Hannaford fired one of the Maine Employee Rights Group’s (MERG) clients because of his age, disabilities, and need for medical leave. MERG’s client worked for Hannaford for over thirty years and served as the Produce Manager at…
Starbucks has decided to institute company-wide training on implicit bias. The company’s decision came on the heels of an incident where Starbucks employees called the police to remove some black people from the store for doing something that white people do all the time. These black people were waiting for…
Maine Senator Susan Collins, and one of her colleagues in the Senate, recently sent a letter to Facebook, Google, and Linkedin expressing concern about job advertisements that target only workers in certain age groups. This is the same issue that we discussed last week because there is a class action…
T-Mobile, Amazon, Cox Communications, Facebook and many other companies are defending a new class action lawsuit which alleges that they have engaged in systemic age discrimination by targeting younger workers with Facebook job advertising. The lawsuit seeks relief for millions of older workers who are excluded from this advertising. These…
Have you ever seen a job posting for a position where the employer only wanted applicants with little or no experience? Companies that look for applicants with little or no experience do so, in some instances, because they believe that applicants with relatively little experience will command a lower salary…
Earlier this month in New Jersey, a federal jury found that Lockheed Martin had discriminated against one of its employees because of his age and awarded that employee $51.5 million. Reports about the case indicate that the jury heard evidence that Lockheed Martin had a practice of laying off older…
Recently, there have been articles written about how millennials face employment discrimination because of their age. Some examples are here, here, and here. Millennials face discriminatory stereotypes such as that they are unpredictable or do not have a strong work ethic. Employers who engage in this sort of discrimination are…