A class action lawsuit accuses aerospace and defense company RTX Corporation (Raytheon) of age discrimination in its hiring practices, specifically targeting workers over 40.
Who's Affected: Raytheon Technologies / RTX workers who were allegedly denied employment due to their age.
Reason for Lawsuit: The lawsuit alleges that RTX Corporation's focus on "early career hiring" and preference for recent college graduates disproportionately excludes older, qualified applicants.
Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Aerospace and defense company RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon Technologies Corporation, has a nationwide pattern of discriminating against workers older than 40 in its hiring processes and, in turn, violates the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, a new lawsuit alleges.
The company has openly promoted its focus on “early career hiring,” reserving many positions exclusively for recent college graduates, a practice effectively excludes older workers from qualifying for these positions, the lawsuit states.
67-year-old Virginia resident Mark Goldstein, who has 40 years of experience in project management, cybersecurity, technology, risk management, security engineering, and more, filed the proposed class action lawsuit against RTX, saying he is one of the “many older workers adversely impacted by Raytheon’s discriminatory practices with respect to Recent Graduate Positions.”
Since 2019, Goldstein has applied to numerous positions at RTX for which he met all the qualifications, except he was not a recent college graduate and he did not have less than 12 or 24 months of relevant work experience, the lawsuit explains.
“Despite the fact that Mr. Goldstein has been genuinely interested in a position with Raytheon, committed to relocating, if necessary, and has skills that Raytheon needs to address a years’ long labor shortage, Raytheon has not hired Mr. Goldstein for any of the positions to which he applied, has never offered him an interview, and has failed to seriously consider Mr. Goldstein’s applications based on his age.”
In 2019, Goldstein filed a charge with the The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which entered a finding of discrimination. But despite that, “Raytheon has continued, unabated, to publish discriminatory job advertisements and notices with the same offending language to the detriment of older workers, and to apply similarly discriminatory criterion that exclude the vast majority of older workers for Recent Graduate Positions.”
RTX is one of the world’s largest aerospace and defense companies, with over 185,000 employees worldwide and approximately $69 billion in revenues in 2023. It provides aerospace and defense products and services to commercial, military, and government customers.
In April 2020, it merged with United Technologies Corporation to form Raytheon Technologies Corporation, which later changed its name to RTX Corporation.
According to the lawsuit, Raytheon “prides itself on attracting and retaining younger workers” and focuses on doing so by reserving many positions exclusively for recent college graduates. These positions typically require applicants to have graduated within the past year or two or to have less than 12 to 24 months of relevant work experience. This practice effectively excludes older workers from qualifying for, competing for, and obtaining many jobs at Raytheon, Goldstein argues.
Despite an ongoing labor shortage and EEOC finding, Raytheon continues to publish job postings that indicate a preference for younger workers, discouraging older workers from applying and deterring qualified older applicants. Raytheon’s strategy has proven effective, with the company's former global head of talent acquisition noting that approximately 25% of all new hires in May 2023 were new or recent college graduates.
Job postings often require applicants to have less than one or two years of experience or to have graduated recently, necessitating the submission of recent college transcripts and graduation dates. This language discourages many older workers from applying and prevents those who do apply from advancing in the hiring process due to their graduation date or work experience, effectively screening out older applicants regardless of their other qualifications, the lawsuit alleges..
“Age discrimination has become normalized in the workplace in recent years in a way that other forms of discrimination has not,” Peter Romer-Friedman, co-counsel on the case, told USA Today. “Whether it's remarks in the workplace or people talking about looking to hire in ageist ways, older people seem to be in a disadvantaged place right now.”
To tackle that, both workers and the government have taken legal action against companies that allegedly perpetrate age discrimination, and in many cases, have caused them to pay up.
In February, J&M Industries, Inc., a manufacturing and distribution company based in Louisiana, had to pay a former employee $105,000 to settle an age discrimination lawsuit filed by the EEOC. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, J&M Industries violated federal law when it fired an employee because of her age after she refused to retire when she turned 65 years old.
Late last year, Lilly USA, LLC, an Indiana-based pharmaceutical company, and its parent company, Eli Lilly and Company, had to pay $2.4 million to settle a nationwide class age discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC, which accused the company’s “Early Career” hiring initiative of fostering discrimination. And in 2019, tech giant Google paid out $11 million to end a class action lawsuit, where 227 people accused the company of systematically discriminating against applicants over 40.
Goldstein is bringing his lawsuit on behalf of workers across the country who were denied a job at RTX because of their age. He is seeking injunctive relief, damages, and more.
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