Retirement Age

My new company has a Retirement section in their personnel policy manual that I have never heard of before. It states:
"Normal Retirement age for company is 70 years. Should the employee wish to continue employment with us beyond the normal retirement age, the employee shall annually submit a request in writing two months prior to the employee's birthdate. Depending on the employee's personal health and work performance, and if we consider the employee's services essential, upon approval of Management, an employee may continue employment with us."

Does anybody else have something similar to this? Are we asking for an age discrimination case? Thanks for your help.

Comments

  • 10 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • In my opinion, that's illegal, unless the job involved is law enforcement or one like Chairman of the Board of a publicly traded company with such rules.
  • HRPager, Yes, you're asking for a lawsuit. The ADEA won't let you treat 70-year-olds differently from 55-year-olds just because of their age. Except, as Don said, you can have a mandatory retirement age for high-level execs, firefighters, law enforcement, and a few other narrow categories.

    Rip that page out of your policy manual.

    James Sokolowski
    HRhero.com
  • Yep. You're not asking for...but begging for an ADEA lawsuit. I guess I am curious why the 70 and over crowd was singled out. Any of this could apply to any employee on a yearly basis.
    What's to say any age group might have poor health, work performance, etc.

    Mandatory retirement is very narrowly defined by the law as has been addressed by previous posters.
  • As a former EEOC director, I would say that you are definitely asking for an ADEA lawsuit if anyone complains.
  • While your policy is clearly in violation of ADEA, it is OK to have a policy regarding what your company consideres as retirement age and how long an ee should be with the company before he/she is eligible for a retirement benefit.

    My policy states that we recognize the age of 65 as qualified for retirement and that in order for an employee to retire from our company he/she must have been employed with the company a minimum of 5 years.

    However, we do not require this person to quit, or reapply for his/her job once they reach those eligibility requirements. We just request that if they do plan to retire once they are eligible to do so, that they provide us with at least a 4 week notice so that we have plenty of time to recruit, hire and train their replacement.

    As others have stated, you need to immediately remove that policy. If it is something that the uppers want in the book, revise it and have each employee sign off stating that he/she has received the new policy.
  • Is it legal to define a certain age in a Retirement Policy? I have been under the impression that age is not allowed to be mentioned under ERISA.
  • JJ: Welcome on board, I am for one glad to read that we now have an experienced EEOC Director on board. I hope you will respond oftain to our issues and responses. Your personal experience and understanding of the actions of the EEOC inter workings can be very important to those of us that have always been on the other side of the fence and facing the many BS X-ee complaints.

    What is your current position?

    I am a 63 year old HR with a multitude of service with different experiences and I very much enjoy, like, "Dandy Don" and many others the opportunity to teach or preach HR activities.

    We look for many great postings coming from your corner of the world.

    PORK
  • I'm one of those you are helping, Pork! Thanks to you and your knowledge, I learn everyday by reading your responses!


  • "Teach or Preach" I like that Pork!
  • Thanks everyone for the great responses!
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