.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;}
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Jack Gross vs. FBL Financial Group Inc. might not have seemed as significant if it had been issued a couple of years ago. At least not here in Iowa, where worry was mounting that we were about to run out of workers to fill our jobs.

Now unemployment is the problem, the court has given employers an edge, and it’s older workers’ turn to worry.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Supreme Court opinion: “We hold that a plaintiff bringing a disparate-treatment claim … must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the ‘but-for’ cause of the challenged adverse employment action. The burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that it would have taken the action regardless of age, even when a plaintiff has produced some evidence that age was one motivating factor in that decision.”

You can read the entire opinion at www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-441.pdf.

So the issue has been settled in the technical terms of law. But in the real world, it isn’t hard to assemble a paper trail that leads to dismissal. An aging employee’s job performance can be assessed downward over a couple of years.

The company can lower its necessary staff size or alter its specific needs in narrow ways; it can rearrange job titles and duties.

Before you know it, they’re saying you’re not making the grade, and the fact that you just turned 55 can be set aside as irrelevant.

Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of social impact at AARP, wrote in a letter to The New York Times: “A recent AARP survey found that 60 percent of workers aged 45 to 74 had experienced or observed age discrimination. AARP joins The Times in urging Congress to pass legislation reversing this injustice.”

Cutting an employee loose just to get rid of a high salary isn’t an acceptable way to do business. Companies exist to make a profit, but they’re part of the community, too, and a healthy community treats all of its members with dignity.