This was the statement issued by Lib Dem Employment Relations Minister Ed Davey this week when announcing the end of the default retirement age of 65, and give people the freedom to choose their own retirement date:
With more and more people wanting to extend their working lives we should not stop them just because they have reached a particular age. We want to give individuals greater choice and are moving swiftly to end discrimination of this kind. Older workers bring with them a wealth of talent and experience as employees and entrepreneurs. They have a vital contribution to make to our economic recovery and long-term prosperity.”
Is it the right decision, with employees now able to decide for themselves? Or simply an inevitable one, with rising life expectancy and fewer people being able to afford to retire at 65? Or the wrong choice, with employers finding it more difficult to end the employment of those who are no longer able to perform as well as they used to, while blocking the opportunities for younger people?
The poll is now live (right-hand column), and you can use the comments thread to explain your working …
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15 Comments
If someone’s not up to the job that can be judged objectively without reference to age. This is a simple equality issue. Discrimination based on age is as wrong as discrimination based on gender or race.
Hasn’t the “finite supply of jobs” argument been thoroughly refuted enough times?
Bit of a silly poll. If you were inclined to vote no then your probably in the wrong party.
Sure, why not? I don’t really see how anybody could object to this.
Sorry but I am a liberal thinker and still believe it’s wrong.
I have 2 graduate sons who desperately want to work and have a lot to offer but
have found it impossible to get regular work that
fully makes use of their education and abilities.
What’s wrong with a bit of forethought in managing a fixed retirement age with knowledge
transfer to next in line and a steady stream of places for new workers?
I recognise there are those who want to keep working but fear that many
will have to keep on to ensure a decent standard of living which is totally against my liberal principles.
Ah yes. The “freedom” to work past 65 – whether we want to or not.
Regardless of whether the move is good or not, the spinning doublespeak of Davey is quite nauseating.
Sir Alan Beith
Malcolm Bruce
Vince Cable
Sir Ming Campbell
Andrew Stunnell
All the above have passed the mandatory scrapheap age. Their electorates obviously didn’t think they were “too old”.
If the Labour Party objects to these proposals (and I don’t think it will), they would have to explain why Gerald Kaufman (80) and Dennis Skinner (78) are still MPs.
Should we kick ageism out of politics? I say we should. The most prominent victim of political ageism in recent times is Ming Campbell, who was hounded out of the Lib Dem leadership because he was “too old”. People who wouldn’t dream of attacking people on grounds of race and gender, were uninhibited about mocking Ming’s grey hair. I believe, too, that the Tories in Weston-super-Mare used age to attack Brian Cotter.
NEW POLL: You gov sunday times-Lib Dems on 12%.Con 42%.Lab38%.The more you feed the parasitic beast the weaker you become.
NEW POLL: You gov sunday times-Lib Dems on 12%.Con 42%.Lab38%.The more you feed the parasitic beast the weaker you become.
I guess you believe the Polls during the General Election too!!!!
Also;
Strange – Two election wins (Gains for Lib Dems) near where I live in North Easrt Somerset this week- perhaps no-one has told the voters!!!!
@dom – I don’t agree. If you vote no, you are more likely to be young or have children who are/will shortly be looking for a longterm job. With both this and the IDS welfare changes, I am strongly of the opinion that those currently seeking jobs – particularly the young ones – need to find them before we block off more ways of getting one or further impoverish benefit recipients. If you consider that the Labour Party’s record is actually good in this, you are on the wrong board.
“If someone’s not up to the job that can be judged objectively without reference to age”
…So leading to thousands of industrial tribunals by those who want to challenge the unfairness of a decision against them, and employers keeping employees in sinecure jobs until they the employee is so decrepit that the outcome of any tribunal is without doubt.
“Hasn’t the “finite supply of jobs” argument been thoroughly refuted enough times?”
Apparently not enough times to actually effect the real world – a 9% unemplyment rate here in West Yorkshire, aged 47 I’ve only worked 13 months out of the last 30, and I do not believe that having an insufficiently large workforce is the problem.
“If you were inclined to vote no then your probably in the wrong party.”
Yes, a view I am beginning to share. I’m a LD member of eight years standing, and voted No. I will very possibly not renew my membership, although this is only oneof the issues causing my lack of commitment.
It is kinder for a person who is not up to the job to retire at a mandatory retirement age than to be dismissed because of their lack of competence. Also this proposal will block opportunities for younger people.
Of course we should not force people out of work just because they have reached a certain biological age. And those who seek an easier way out for managers to lose people who are no longer competent should ask why these people are in management in the first place. If they can’t take objective decisions about an employee’s suitability, or if they don’t have the courage to dismiss on competency grounds, they shouldn’t be in management in the first place.
Finally, why should we discriminate against someone on age grounds by making them retire, in order to discriminate in favour of someone on age grounds because they are young? Age discrimination either way is wrong. Hiring or firing should be undertaken on relevant grounds – the suitability of someone to do the job or not.
I’m not going to vote, because my position isn’t a straight yes/no.
I’m uneasy about this because of possible unintended consequences. I think it could lead to employers being even less likely to employ someone in their late fifties, for fear they could be stuck employing them into their late sixties and beyond. And so a proposal to increase employment among older people could have the opposite effect. Much better if legislation found ways to make it easier for people to stay on, without compulsion on the employers.
A lot of people in their late sixties still have a great deal to contribute in employed work. And with an ageing population, who are much fitter than in previous generations, the UK economy can’t afford to have so many productive older people economically inactive.
The trouble is, older employees are usually a great deal more expensive. Their seniority and long-term service gives them higer pay, longer holidays.
If there were a way to do it, and I’m not sure there is. I’d favour a system that encouraged employers to keep older employees on, but for there to be a renegotiation of their package at retirement age. Perhaps with a move to part-time work, if that was agreeable to both sides.
This is the sort of issue on which elected politicians, and I’m not one, will be reluctant to speak publicly. Lots of potential for banana-skins here.
But there is an uncomfortable truth. As we age, our energy and flexibility does decrease. We compensate for this with experience. But at a certain point, experience isn’t enough. Retirement policy does need to acknowledge this uncomfortable reality.
“Of course we should not force people out of work just because they have reached a certain biological age. ”
Of course we should. Unless we allow the people at the other end of their working life to stay in education in perpetuity. Work and work and work til you die. And the only ones smiling are the sun-tanned toffs.
George Kendall,
If you wish to continue to deprive a section of the community of a fundamental human right, then I think you are going to have to come up with something rather more substantial. You will be aware, I imagine, that similar phoney objections were made to the abolition of slavery, the outlawing of race discrimination in the workplace, equal pay for women, etc. The mandatory scrapheap age was abolished in the United States in the 1980s, and none of the dire consequences you are warning against have come to pass, as far as I know. Your suggestion that over 65s should have their contracts of employment compulsorily renegotiated is frankly crazy. If implemented, this would lead to older people being used as a source of cheap labour.
Most private sector employers are incorrigeably ageist, just as they are incorrigeably racist and sexist (I once had to sit in on interviews for warehouse workers, and the comments made privately by the interviewers could have come from the Ku-Klux-Klan). The issue here is one of enforcement, something the state is not that good at doing, and in the case of age discrimination, doesn’t do at all. Employers found guilty of any kind of unlawful employment discrimination should be given a bloody good hiding (metaphorically, of course). That is the only way to bring them into line.