New Book Discusses Discrimination in the Workplace

RENO, Nev., Sept. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ Age discrimination is so pervasive in America that even workers in their 30s, 40s are 50s are suffering, according to Patricia G. Barnes, an attorney and judge who has written a new book called, Betrayed:The Legalization of Age Discrimination in the Workplace.

Barnes documents how a confluence of failures by American institutions have effectively gutted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), the major U.S. law addressing age discrimination. Almost 50 years after the passage of the ADEA, Barnes shows that age discrimination remains epidemic, hidden behind terms such as "long-term unemployment" and "early retirement."

Did you know:

• The new titans of commerce in Silicon Valley openly flaunt the ADEA. Tech workers in their 30s use Botox and hide their families to avoid the appearance of middle age.

• The U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the ADEA in 2009 as the Great Recession fueled unprecedented incentive for employers to rid their payrolls of higher paid older workers. The U.S. Congress could have helped "fix" the problem by passing the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA) but fails to do so year after year.

• The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 21,296 age discrimination complaints in 2013; the agency filed seven lawsuits with age discrimination claims that year.

• America faces a major retirement crisis. Age discrimination, long-term unemployment and underemployment, and the decline of traditional pensions have left older workers woefully unprepared for retirement. Forty percent of workers in households nearing retirement age have no retirement assets whatsoever, whether in an employer-sponsored 401(k) type plan or an IRA.

Age discrimination is problematic for younger workers but it can be a devastating life-altering catastrophe for older workers. When they lose their jobs, they often are plunged into long-term unemployment or forced to work in poorly-paid part-time or temp work until they age into early retirement, consigning them to lower Social Security benefits for the rest of their lives.

Feeble to begin with, the ADEA has been further weakened by a pro-business majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Moreover, a hostile federal judiciary summarily dismisses age discrimination lawsuits at a far higher rate than other types of cases. President Barack Obama made the problem of age discrimination worse in 2010 when he signed an executive order permitting federal agencies to bypass older workers and hire "recent graduates" for certain federal civil service jobs.

Barnes challenges the assumptions that led Congress in 1964 to refuse to include age as a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, color and national origin. Older workers not only suffer from ageist stereotypes but are subject to dislike, animus and intolerance. She recommends that Congress do what it should have done fifty years ago - make age a protected class under Title VII. At present, Barnes writes, age discrimination victims are treated like second-class citizens and are denied their U.S. Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

Betrayed: The Legalization of Age Discrmination in the Workplace is available as an ebook or in paperback at Amazon.com and as a paperback at Create Space Store and IngramSpark Books.

Barnes also writes a syndicated legal blog, When the Abuser Goes to Work. Her other books include Surviving Bullies, Queen Bees & Psychopaths in the Workplace (2012) and Transcend Your Boss: Zen and the Difficult Workplace (2013).

Media Contact: Patricia G. Barnes, abusergoestowork.com, (775) 546-0898, barnespatg@gmail.com

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SOURCE Patricia G. Barnes