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Urge support for the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act

Approved by the RTC Chapter on December 8, 2009 and has to go to Delegate Assembly for approval.

WHEREAS, recently the Supreme Court raised the bar for older employees to prove age discrimination in employment, and

WHEREAS, in Gross v. F.B.I. Financial Services a 54-year old man was demoted at work and sued his employer under the federal employment discrimination law for older workers, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court in the above June 2009 ruling said that older employees must prove the “full burden of demonstrating that age was the deciding factor” in age discrimination cases (NY Times, October 7, 2009) as opposed to the proof for other forms of job bias, and

WHEREAS, due to the recent economic downturn, many Americans 55 and over are working, and age discrimination cases increased 29 percent last year over 2007, and

WHEREAS, Senator Tom Harking said this “extremely high burden really undermines workers’ ability to hold employers accountable,” and has joined with Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative George Miller to propose new legislation to overcome this decision, that be it

RESOLVED, we stand with working Americans to demand that the civil rights of older employees in the workplace be upheld by our legal system, and

RESOLVED, we recommend that the UFT, NYSUT AFT and AFL-CIO urge our Senators and Representative to support the proposed legislation known as the Older Workers Against Discrimination Act to rectify the injustice in the above court decision.