Companies Face Age Discrimination Lawsuit Over Facebook Ads

Three plaintiffs have filed a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile, Amazon, Cox and several other large U.S. employers for allegedly excluding older workers from seeing job ads on Facebook’s paid advertising platforms. According to a report on RT.com, Linda Bradley, Maurice Anscombe, and Laura Callahan, say hundreds of major U.S. employers and employment agencies routinely exclude older workers from seeing their recruiting ads on Facebook thereby targeting younger workers and denying older workers those job and career opportunities.

Denying Opportunities to Older Workers

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in San Francisco, includes dozens of pages showing screenshots of ads on Facebook where the companies targeted their recruitment ads to individuals ages 18-38 or 22-45. By doing so, employers violated federal, state and local laws that prohibit age discrimination in employment advertising, recruiting and hiring, the lawsuit said. They are seeking an injunction to stop these companies from engaging in such unlawful age discrimination.

The complaint says by limiting which age groups can see the ads on social media, an older worker who loses a job and is looking on Facebook for employment has no idea that American companies are deliberately denying that worker the job opportunity he or she seeks. One of the plaintiffs, Bradley, who recently lost her longtime job, says she regularly uses Facebook to look for jobs opportunities. A ProPublica investigation found that dozens of companies buy job recruitment ads on Facebook and target young people, effectively turning older people away from those opportunities.

Age Discrimination Laws

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines age discrimination as the act of treating an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age. The law prohibits discrimination in any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. In addition to discriminating, it is also unlawful to harass a person because of his or her age.

A class action lawsuit can be an effective way of getting employers in this case to do the right thing and open up job opportunities to everyone, regardless of age. Companies often prefer younger workers because they don’t have to pay them as much. Older workers have more qualifications and experience making them more expensive to hire. However, such discrimination based on age should never be acceptable. If you have been discriminated in the workplace or have been denied opportunities because of your age, please contact an experienced California employment lawyer for more information about your legal rights and options.

Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/413896-companies-sued-for-age-discrimination/