Coming of Age

The illegality of hiring practices based on race or sex has been so etched into the national consciousness that the phrase "equal opportunity employer (M/F)" needs no explanation to anyone who reads help-wanted ads. Many fewer people realize that there also is a six-year-old federal law against age bias in employment; among other things, it provides that workers aged 40 to 65 can be fired only for deficient performance or other good cause. Now the Government is stepping up enforcement of the law. Last week it won a settlement under which Standard Oil of California agreed to pay $2 million in lost wages to 160 older persons whom it had discharged, and to offer to rehire 120 of them. The settlement far exceeded the biggest previous award under the law: $250,000 paid to 29 employees of Pan American World Airways in 1972.

In the latest case, the Department of Labor accused a California Standard subsidiary, Western Operations, Inc., of discharging the 160 employees solely because of their ages during a three-year period that ended Dec. 31, 1973. Company officials contended that they had done nothing wrong but chose to sign a consent order rather than fight. Labor Secretary Peter Brennan, 56, hailed the scope of the settlement, which covers workers in eight Western states whose former jobs ranged from assistant service-station manager to executives; some earned about $40,000 a year. Individual awards to the employees will run from just under $10,000 to more than $50,000. Those figures, said Brennan, show that age bias will cost employers heavily in cash as well as wasted talent.

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