Where is America’s Age Discrimination Commissioner?

Australia, a world leader in combating workplace bullying, recently announced the appointment of Australia’s first Age Discrimination Commissioner.

Despite the fact that age discrimination is epidemic in the United States, it appears the problem is being completely ignored by the federal government and non-profit advocacy agencies like the American Association for Retired Persons (a.k.a., the insurance company).

Australia announced tn July 2011 the appointment of an Age Discrimination Commissioner  to combat age discrimination in Australian workplaces and the wider community.

Where is America’s age discrimination commissioner?

The current economic climate in the United States is like a “perfect storm” for older workers. There is record unemployment for workers aged 55 and above and there is record age discrimination.

The impact of unemployment on older workers is dire as they face potentially decades of retirement, and health issues, without the ability to prepare financially.  Older workers do not have the time and may never recover from the adverse impact of age discrimination.

Age discrimination complaints to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission  are at an all-time high.  In five years, the number of age discrimination complaints has increased FORTY PERCENT.  There were 23,264 age discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC in 2010.

Meanwhile, the  Bureau of Justice Statistics(BJS) reports that unemployment for persons aged 55 and above has increased sharply since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. The jobless rate among older workers was 7.1 percent (seasonally adjusted) in February 2010, just shy of the record-high level of 7.2 percent in December 2009.

In addition, the BJS says that older workers remain unemployed longer than younger workers. The BJS states that nearly half (49.1 percent) of older jobseekers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer in February 2010, compared with 28.5 percent of workers aged 16 to 24 years and 41.3 percent of workers aged 25 to 54 years.

(According to a 2011  CareerBuilder survey on workplace bullying,  women aged 55 and above are more likely than any other demographic group to  report feeling bullied in the workplace, another problem America ignores.)

Australia’s new age commissioner, the Hon. Susan Ryan, will operate under he auspices of the Australia Age Discrimination Act, and will tackle issues such as discrimination in getting job or applying for a promotion, enrolling at a university, applying to rent a house, or using services such as at a bank. The government provided $4 million in funding over four years to the Australian Human Rights Commission to support the new position.

Australia was one of the first countries to recognize the problem of workplace bullying, which causes potentially severe  injury to a target’s mental and physical health, destroys families and costs the United States billions each year in needless turnover, lost work, higher health costs, absenteeism, etc.  In fact, in Victoria, Australia, workplace bullying is considered a criminal offense under some circumstances.

At this point, it may go without saying that America has yet to offer workers any protection against workplace bullying.