age discrimination- Is it legal to lay off a person who has senority over others?

My experience: I had a job with a big company. I'd been hired in April and went to work - my first day - on my birthday. At the end of one year, the company gives you two weeks of sick days and two weeks of vacation. More perks were also headed my way (IRA, 401K, etc). I got fired two days before my next birthday - one day shy of my "one year". Was it wrong? Not in my state. I live in SC. It's a "right to hire" state, which is loosely translated as "right to fire". A company can fire you without having to give a reason, and they can do it immediately with no notice at all. Same with employees: you can walk out at any time with almost no threat of repercussions.

If your dad is in a Union, then he needs to get in touch with his Union Rep. In states where Unions exist, the Unions protect workers from things just like your dad has had happen. If he is not a member of a Union, there really isn't much that he can do. It's frustrating, and it is unfair.

Since he was going to retire soon and the company likely needed to do layoffs, it's more or less "normal" to force someone into early retirement. The company is likely cutting corners and decided that it would be more important to the bottom line to lose someone who has had a lot of years with the company and is headed to retirement than to fire someone who earns less.

Often, law firms offer a free consultation for cases like your dad's (personal injury lawyers, "litigation" lawyers, and others). If he is being hurt financially to a large degree, and the lawyer thinks your dad has a valid complaint, then he/she will likely take it on. But, if this is just a case of cutting corners and your dad just happened to be the one laid off, there's really not much your dad will be able to do about it.

To simply answer you question...it is completly legal to lay someone off, even though they are there longer than someone else.

While age discrimination is ILLEGAL, there are ways for a company to easily work around it.

There was a lady I worked with who had been with the company for 17 years. 3 years away from retirement and they let her go.

The reason they gave her was, "you're not making the transitions with technology. You are not grasping these new programs that are coming out and you aren't keeping up with the depvelopment of the company."

That is a comletely legal reason to let her go.

Now if they said, "You're too old and stuck back in the 50's"...then that's age discrimination .

So if the company twists the words right, they can make it legal.

For your dad to fight it, he would need documentation and proof that they let him go because of his age. "senority" has nothing to do wtih anything.

If i'm at a company for 2 years and the guy next to me has been there for 20 years....and that guy is doing a crappy job and I'm doing a good job, that doesn't mean they have to keep him around just because he has "senority",

I hope this helps and good luck to your father. Sorry to hear about the sad news...

If there is no union to protect him then there may not be seniority in his workplace. If he has a union job, then he has to talk to his shop steward. I'm sure he knows this.

It may very well be age discrimination, he needs to contact a civil rights lawyer and find out who can take his case.

Good luck to you as it may not be easy to prove in this economy that someone was let go due to other than economic reasons. But its worth a look, sometimes the company will even retract its firing if it gets a legal, lawyers letter informing them that a suit is in the offing.

Its worth a try.

I don't think it's illegal.. Just depends on what he was doing... Times are really tough right now.. Our economy is in a downfall... They were probably "cutting corners" wherever they could.. Doesn't make it right by any means, but I don't think it's illegal...

Sounds a little fishy to me.

Your father sounds like a very good man.