A multitude of federal and state statutory and case law provisions safeguard Michigan workers and their peers nationally from the scourge of workplace discrimination.
That wasn’t always the case. America’s broad and diverse workforce has progressively battled and made strong inroads against various on-the-job wrongs over past years and decades.
Today’s protections extend to job classifications based on widely divergent factors. Those range from race, gender, national origin and sex to sexual orientation, religion, pregnancy and additional categories.
Notably, workplace discrimination tied to age has become the focal point of many cases alleging employer wrongdoing in recent years.
Scores of millions of workers are seasoned veterans in America’s job landscape. They now compete in a progressively evolving labor environment with a younger worker demographic. Many companies are transforming or downsizing and seeking to adjust their workforces. Sometimes older employees’ careers and futures are sacrificed in the process.
Sometimes a management team’s effort to selectively trim its workforce at the expense of older employees is overt and clearly in violation of applicable laws.
At other times, it is not. We duly note on our website at the proven pro-worker firm of Michigan Sterling Employment Law that many companies are progressively “getting more creative finding ways to oust older workers.”
Such targeting is flatly taboo and yields heavy sanctions for violating employers. Moreover, an employee who suffers personal injury owing to selective age-based targeting at work has impressive legal rights that often help him or her secure maximum compensation in the wake of a workplace wrong.
Our deep legal team helps valued and diverse clients achieve that goal. We welcome contacts to our firm regarding this important area of employment law.