Florida (FL) Age Discrimination Law in the Workplace

August 17th, 2006 Posted by Ashley

The place to go for general information on employment, workforce development, labor market information, and related topics is the Agency for Workforce Innovation. This particular agency is part of the Florida Department of Labor. The State of Florida relies on federal regulations for labor issues, using the same references to the federal Workforce Investment Act that many other states do. However, I found that Florida has in place a WIA of its own – the Workforce Innovation Act of 2000.

This state-level law consolidated some agencies and was designed to streamline the process for unemployment compensation, appeals, funding, and other areas. The new law repeals the 1996 Florida regulations. Florida has statutes that specifically address age discrimination and in fact, I found a section of the law that not only prohibits such discrimination, but also aims to remedy situations when older workers find themselves disadvantaged because “rising productivity and affluence” has changed the workplace. Florida law even states that setting arbitrary age limits has “become a common practice.”

The intent of Florida law in this area is to remedy some of these problems for older workers that may have suffered when compared to younger workers in the same industry. The bottom line is that the intent of the state’s law is to promote employment of older workers based on ability. Florida law also prohibits, among other things, “fail or refuse to hire” someone because of age, limit or segregate individuals based on age, and reduce wages based on age without employee’s consent to reduced work.

Many of the guidelines are the same as, or very similar to, those in other states. Additionally, guidelines are close in language to federal law. However, Florida’s laws also specifically list employees of the state who are in the Career Service System. A recent case involving age discrimination issues was the suit filed, in federal court against Florida Gulf Coast University. With this, a 62-year-old professor claimed he was demoted because he complained about being a victim of age discrimination.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took up this suit followed by a spokesperson for the university telling Florida media that it was illegal to collect age information when you hire someone and she did not know the average age of the faculty at the university.

Last 10 posts by Ashley

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Georgia (GA) Age Discrimination Law in the Workplace »
Posted in Discrimination, Employment Laws, Flordia, Hostile Environment

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