Retirement Bill Voted by House : Workers Over 70 Would Be Allowed to Stay on Job

The House, in a rare unanimous vote that demonstrated the clout of the nation’s burgeoning elderly population, Tuesday approved legislation that would abolish mandatory retirement for most workers.

The legislation would expand the federal law against age discrimination in employment, which now covers most people 40 through 70, to allow them to continue working as long as they are able.

“Age discrimination in employment is as destructive and unjust as (discrimination based on) race or religion,” said the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.), who at 86 is Congress’ oldest member.

By the year 2000, the bill would put an additional 200,000 older workers in the workplace, the Labor Department has estimated, assuming that pension and Social Security laws remain in place.

It was opposed by an array of business organizations, some of which warned that the legislation could cause an unintentional employer backlash against older workers, who might be targeted earlier for firing if retirement at age 70 could not be imposed.

The bill, which passed 394 to 0, would require employers to continue covering workers over 70 under group health plans. However, the House voted 291 to 103 to allow state and local governments to maintain age limits for police, firefighters and others involved in public safety.

“We should not determine whether people who are 87 or 90 years old should be chasing drug smugglers or fighting criminals or fighting fires,” said Rep. Austin J. Murphy (D-Pa.), who had sponsored the amendment.

A total of 13 states, including California, already have laws specifically banning mandatory retirement for most government and private sector workers.

Little Action in Senate

Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate, but there is little chance that it will be acted upon before Congress adjourns for the year early next month. The Administration has aligned itself with business groups opposing the bill.

Nonetheless, the bill’s backers and opponents said that Tuesday’s vote was a significant indication of the political support behind the measure, and strengthens its chances for enactment next year.

“It has a lot of superficial appeal,” said Mark de Bernardo of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the business groups opposing the bill. De Bernardo said that, if enacted, the bill would make it tougher for businesses to dismiss elderly workers with diminished capacities and to recruit younger workers fearing that there will be little opportunity for advancement.

The result, he said, could be that employers would “subject them (older workers) to more rigorous performance evaluations.”

“Lifting the cap will accelerate the dismissal of some older workers, contrary to the intent of the bill,” he said.

Age Raised in 1978

Congress outlawed age discrimination in employment almost two decades ago, and in 1978 strengthened the law by raising the minimum age for mandatory retirement of most workers to 70 from the traditional 65. Lawmakers have argued that many people must be able to work later in life because they cannot support themselves on Social Security and other retirement benefits.

Meanwhile, as the nation’s overall population has gotten older, age discrimination has become, in the words of one of the bill’s opponents, “the hottest area under the equal employment law.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year received more than 13,000 individual complaints of age discrimination, up almost 68% from the number of charges filed five years earlier.

Unlike cases for most other forms of employment discrimination, age discrimination charges may be tried before a jury. “Who’s going to be voting for the corporation versus the little old lady?” asked Jim Conway of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, another of the bill’s opponents. “We don’t want employers to face more suits.”

While the bill would eliminate mandatory retirement for most of the nation’s workers, some could still be retired against their will. Among them would be executives earning more than $44,000 a year in pension benefits, Foreign Service officers, Central Intelligence Agency employees, air traffic controllers and federal law enforcement officers and firefighters.

Testimonial for Pepper

The bill was something of a testimonial for Pepper, the chairman of the House Rules Committee and the chamber’s foremost watchdog of senior citizens rights.

Massachusetts Republican Silvio Conte held up Pepper as the best example of why vigorous elderly people should not be forced to retire. He is “still going strong and has more energy than most (younger) people have in their own bodies,” Conte said. “Age alone has nothing to do with an employee’s ability to work.”

Pepper, noting that he did not start to serve in the House until he was 62, said that being forced to quit work at a younger age could literally have killed him. “If I had stopped public service I don’t think I’d have been living the last several years,” he asserted. “It’s to have something to get up for every morning, something to do, some challenge, that gives (you) the impetus to continue living.”

Concern on Schools Cited

During debate, some lawmakers also expressed concern that the legislation could particularly harm financially pinched colleges and universities with limited ability to add staff if aging, tenured professors refuse to retire and open up teaching slots for younger academics.

“The number of openings will be vastly reduced for talented young people,” Rep. E. Thomas Coleman (R-Mo.) said. Pepper agreed to consider adding language to address the problem if the bill passes the Senate and is sent to a House-Senate conference committee for fine-tuning.