Britain: The new law on “age discrimination” and what it means for workers

On October 1, the Blair government brought in regulations to make discrimination in the workplace on grounds of age illegal. But are the government regulations going to work and should we support them?

Socialists have always been opposed to all forms of discrimination, not only because it is unfair to a part of the working class, but because discrimination divides us as a class and weakens us all as a result.

In principle, the retirement age of 65 will no longer be compulsory. From now on it will be illegal for an employer to recruit, promote or train on the grounds of age. The bar on promoting by age is intended to help younger workers. It is no longer legal to promote on ‘buggin's turn.'

The rules on training and recruitment are intended to act against discrimination against older workers However, any trade union activist can see the problems in enforcing them. If a candidate believes they have not been appointed because they are ‘too old', they can now ask to see the ages of the candidates shortlisted for interview. But how do they argue against the management reply that ‘the best person got the job?'

The government is probably most concerned about the massive cost of discrimination against older workers. Their consultation paper (Winning the generation game, 2000) stated, "The total economic cost is high. The drop in work rates among the over-50s since 1979 costs the economy about £16 billion a year in lost GDP and costs the public purse £3-5 billion in extra benefits and lost taxes."

The fall in labour market participation since 1979 has been particularly severe among male industrial workers, whose jobs were smashed by the wrecking ball of Thatcherism. In that situation employers could pick and choose who to take on. Older workers in depressed areas were pushed on to the Incapacity Benefit, effectively for ever. Full employment provides the best chance for vulnerable workers to get a job and keep it. So discrimination really becomes important when the tables are turned against the working class.

There is in fact severe discrimination against older workers. "Why should we employ him? All he's ever done is coal mining." Only mining coal! Miners were and are one of the most adaptable and hardworking sections of the workforce. Famously, the do-it-yourself chain B&Q have taken advantage of this age discrimination to staff their stores with helpful and motivated older workers on the cheap.

So the government has introduced the regulations to make it easier for older workers to have a better chance of holding on to a job. In fifteen years time one worker in three will be over 50. But the scare stories about a ‘population time bomb' (too many pensioners, not enough workers to support them) are rubbish - they are basically an excuse to raid our pension funds. It is true that the ‘native' population on average is getting older. Not only are people living longer, they are also staying fit and healthy longer. Also a lot of young people are migrating to Britain to work. And the trend rate of productivity is going up at around 3% a year. So we should be able to support a growing number of older workers in retirement. And, let's face it, if you've spent fifty years in work making your boss rich, you may well have better things to do with what's left of your life than more of the same!

Overt discrimination on pay against women was made illegal over thirty years ago under the Equal Pay Act of 1970. Yet women are still not paid as much as men. It is no longer legal, as it was then, that women can work alongside men and get paid less for doing the same job. But women work in all-female or female-dominated occupations such as retailing and catering, which are low paying job ghettoes.

The Equal Pay Act was triggered by the strike of Ford sewing machinists in 1968, experienced women workers who sewed the upholstery in Ford cars and were paid less than men with equivalent skills. It was enforced by actions like the 21-week strike at Trico's windscreen wiper factory in Brentford in 1976. The gains that have been made since (for instance the equal pay settlement to Carlisle NHS workers) have usually been achieved as a result of trade union organisation and struggle. Top-down measures of reform can help, but only in so far as they make conditions for working class action more favourable.

Of course there is also discrimination against younger workers. In particular youth are often paid less for the same work. In the past this was widely accepted by working class people as the cost of getting trained for a ‘decent' job. Since then the whole system of apprenticeships, which passed on skills from generation to generation, has been dismantled by the ruling class, there can be no justification in just using young workers as cheap labour. Yet the government proposes to continue with a lower minimum wage for young workers, a green light for super-exploitation.

In some jobs workers are on a scale depending on their seniority. So teachers and lecturers in their fifties earn far more than those in their twenties. Management's attitude is therefore to try to get rid of older workers. Training has been seen in the past as a one-off induction into the world of work for the youth. So the outlawing of training schemes geared exclusively at younger workers is welcome.

It's an alien concept to British capitalists, but the most valuable resource any society has is its workforce. Experienced workers should be continually trained in new skills and activities. Management's attitude instead is to regard them as ‘dead wood' and try to push older workers into early retirement. We are told a job for life is gone for ever. If that means going in and doing the same thing for fifty years, good riddance. But the alternative should not mean hopping from one unskilled burger-flipping or shelf-stacking job to another. Workers who are valued by management, as they have been in Germany in the past, stay with the same employer, but their skills are constantly upgraded, so they are actually worth more to the boss.

Workers have very different attitudes to retirement. Some people can't wait to go and, if your boss offers you a good deal, what's the problem? But golden farewells (early voluntary redundancies) are becoming a thing of the past. Other workers dread retirement. Sometimes they end up dying in harness. We should not let the abolition of a compulsory retirement age be used to drive workers till they drop. Part of the reason retirement can be unwelcome is that there is no training for the experience - one of the most important changes in life for anybody. The little training some ‘progressive' employers offer is mainly about financial arrangements.

There's the nub, of course. Under modern capitalism, retirement can still be a trip into permanent poverty. Until we can guarantee a decent living standard for every retired person, the option to carry on working after the age of 65 will not really be a voluntary decision at all.

The decision to retire is usually a decision to go from a full working week to zero working hours. Isn't that a bit drastic? Shouldn't we wind workers down gradually, offering bits of voluntary work for as long as they are physically capable of doing it? As older workers' fitness declines or they experience health problems they might want the option of working a couple of days a week or only working for part of the day. After all pensioners are not really a homogenous section of society. Some are fit and healthy, have decent pensions to fall back on, and are having the time of their lives. Others are chronically ill, isolated and poor.

The trouble is, wage slavery is a universal disease under capitalism. A recent survey has shown that pensioners regret not taking a gap year while in work. Why didn't they? Work is a treadmill. If it's not the bills coming in every month, it's the threat of a career effectively on hold that keeps workers tied to the workplace.

Pensioners are experienced human beings as well as experienced workers. They might ‘just want to do something useful' after serving a boss all their life. Such an altruistic attitude is unheard of under capitalism. The charity sector, for instance, is now a full-scale capitalist ‘industry' with financial targets and accompanying stress on the workers. The workers in that industry wouldn't welcome their wages being undercut by pensioner volunteers.

There is still an economic compulsion for workers to work longer and later in life. Until we can provide a satisfactory standard of pensions for all, there is a danger that the regulations will be used to work the poor till they drop. Capitalism is incapable of putting people first. We need a society that can.