Workplace Report December 2002

Features: Law at Work

Discriminatory age limits on employment rights

An employment tribunal has again suggested that the cut-off point for entitlement to redundancy pay and unfair dismissal rights, at age 65, discriminates against male employees.

In a claim, which is certainly to be appealed, the tribunal accepted that statistically males were more likely to be adversely affect by the bar at age 65 than were women.

This is the second time that a tribunal has made this sort of ruling. In the previous case, in 1998, an employment tribunal also held that the bar discriminated against men.

* Rutherford v Towncircle [2002] IRLR 768; Nash v Mash/Roe [1998] IRLR 168