Asking “When Are You Going to Retire” could be Evidence of Age Discrimination

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently filed an age discrimination lawsuit against Burrow Global Services, LLC.  The EEOC’s lawsuit alleges that a manager made comments such as “when are you going to retire?” to one of the company’s employees.  That employee was in his 60s but did not intend to retire at that time.  By mid-2017, this manager had laid off or fired some of the older members in the 15-employee group.  In August 2017, the manager fired the employee whom the manager had asked about retirement.  The company’s “termination report” claimed that it “laid off” this employee for a lack of work, but it then replaced the older employee with a new employee who was still in his 30s.  This replacement also did not have any formal education past high school while the older terminated employee had a four-year degree.  This alleged conduct is a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.  See EEOC v. Burrow Global Services, LLC, No. 4:20-cv-00423 (S.D. Tex.).