Age Cymru welcomes Supreme Court ruling

Age Cymru has welcomed a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court about older workers' rights in the Seldon v Clarkson Wright and Jakes case.

The case revolved around Leslie Seldon, a partner in a solicitors firm who was forced to retire when he reached the age of 65 in December 2006.

Commenting on the case, Age Cymru's Director of Influencing and Programme Development Victoria Lloyd, said:

"This case is a wake-up call to employers that age discrimination in the workplace is no longer legally acceptable and that negative ageist stereotypes are out of date.

"This judgement makes it clear it will be very difficult to justify forced retirement on grounds of age alone.

"We are delighted that the Supreme Court has recognised the important contribution of older workers and has sent this message to the UK Government and business."

While the ruling sends Mr Seldon's case back to an Employment Tribunal for re-examination, the court's unanimous ruling has established   new ground rules which will shape the way employers can behave towards older employees.  

These are:

• Stereotypes in which age is used as a proxy for continuing competency and capability  "no longer hold good (if they ever did ) in times of increasing longevity where there are benefits both to individuals and to wider society if people continue to work for as long as they can. Put simply, the younger generations need the older ones to continue to be self-supporting for as long as possible. So we should put such stereotypical assumptions out of our minds." - Baroness Hale.

• Performance  management: The argument  currently used by many employers that  it would be undignified for older  workers to go through any kind of management scrutiny, thereby avoiding supposed  humiliation  is not legitimate  if the business already  has  performance  management measures in place.

• Despite the abolition of the default retirement age, employers can currently still objectively justify retiring older workers because of their age alone as happened in the Seldon case. All businesses will now have to give careful consideration to what if any mandatory retirement rules can be justified.