Keep up to date on articles and news and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Employment agency to pay $150,000 in age-bias suit

An Indianapolis employment agency must pay $150,000 to settle a federal age discrimination lawsuit.

Protis Executive Innovations also agreed not to discriminate against older workers in its employment placements, according to the settlement announced Monday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“We believe that Protis’ officers thought, and communicated to their recruiters, that Protis should not refer older candidates in order to be competitive in this business. We believe that this case has changed the way that they do business,” said Laurie A. Young, regional attorney for the EEOC, in a statement.

The $150,000 will be distributed by December 2007 to job candidates deemed by the EEOC to have been affected by Protis’ discriminatory tactics, the settlement says.

Federal law prohibits an employment agency from discriminating against job candidates older than 40 on the basis of age.

The EEOC said the settlement of its lawsuit against Protis in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis requires the company to train its employees in age discrimination laws and not use terms in its database that hint at a job candidate’s age, such as “senior” or “seasoned.”

Protis also must notify the EEOC of any future requests from client employers that ask Protis to send them job candidates using age as one of the selection criteria.

Danny Harter, district director of the EEOC’s Indianapolis office, said that as employers make greater use of job placement agencies, “it is important to send a clear message . . . that the EEOC will hold employment agencies accountable for violations of the federal statutes prohibiting employment discrimination.”

A Protis official did not return a call for comment.