age discrimination

[Tiggeroo]

my df is 62 years old. He's worked for the same company for at least 17 years. Five years ago they were bought out. He kept working there. But for some time they've been trying to get rid of him. They seem to give him more physical work then the other guys, give him worst shifts, etc. He delivers oil and drives a large truck. He passes a very difficult physical and test each year for his licenses and just passed a couple weeks ago, again. He also recently underwent eye surgery for cataracts so that it wouldn't interfere with this.
They laid him off out of the blue, blaming the weather and little oil deliveries. This is a valid reason except that they kept younger guys who were hired after him. Does he have any recourse? They are dropping his health insurance immediately also.

 

[1Prince2Princesses]

Sounds like age discrimination to me! I thought (but could totally be wrong about this) that in a layoff vs. firing, they could not cancel health insurance, provided that the employee continues to pay the premiums. Maybe that varies from company to company.

 

[Tiggeroo]

he'll be able to pick it up thru cobra for 900. per month that he doesn't have. My siblings and I are trying to find a solution now.

 

[DisneyfeverTN]

If they are blaming weather and little oil deliveries for his layoff, yet keeping younger employees that were hired after he was, it seems like discrimination to me. I don't know how you would handle that though. Hopefully someone else on the board will. Good luck. That isn't fair at all.

Regarding his health insurance, he should be able to continue it on COBRA, but the premium will most likely be much higher than what he is paying now.

What they are doing doesn't sound right at all.

 

[Tiggeroo]

his plan was to retire in two years. He has a pension from his first job but he uses that to pay for the home remodelling he had to have done and the car they purchased so that they would be prepared for retirement. He pays his other expenses and keeps the insurance with this job. My mother has been a sahm for all her life. We're really worried about them. We are all contributing to help them out but we can't help with the bills and the insurance. He hasn't really had to look for a job in over40 years.

 

[MrsToad]

Just a couple of thoughts that you likely already had:

1) Is your father in a union? If so, they may have had rules as to order of lay-offs.
2) Is there an Employee Handbook? There may have been language in there.
3) Has your DF documented all of the previous events, such as giving him harder physical work than the other workers? If not, he should make a list as soon as possible of everything he remembers. He should also gather all of those fitness test results and keep them with his other documentation to support his case.
4) Contact your state's labor department. If you don't get anywhere there, contact a labor attorney (maybe do both anyway).
5) If your parents have any kind of medical conditions that need continuing treatment, try not to let the medical insurance lapse. Even though COBRA is expensive, it can be important to keep it, or find other coverage right away. In our state, if your coverage lapses for more than something like 60-62 days, your next insurance company can exclude any pre-existing conditions for a period of time.

Best wishes to your family; we've lived through an unexpected lay-off and know how stressfull it can be.

 

[PoohnPglet]

Did a quick web search and found this. Maybe it can help some.

http://www.workplacefairness.org/age_minimum?view=full&theme=5&agree=yes

 

[Disney Doll]

I'd probably contact an attorney who has labor experience and go over the case with him/her.

 

[Tiggeroo]

my sister works in her state representatives office, though not this state. She deals with alot of attorneys as well as their labor board so she's making some phone calls to see what she can do.