The Communications Workers of America have filed a new lawsuit (pdf) against T-Mobile, Cox, and Amazon -- accusing the companies of engaging in age discrmination in its hiring practices. According to the lawsuit, the companies practice of limiting recruitment ads to specific age groups on Facebook violates the rights of older, more experienced potential hires. The lawsuit comes after an investigation by ProPublica found numerous companies engaged in the practice, including Verizon (which for some reason isn't named in the CWA's lawsuit).
Goldman Sachs, Target, and Facebook itself are also named in the investigation but left out of the lawsuit.
"These companies eliminate older workers from receiving job ads by specifically targeting their employment ads to younger workers via Facebook’s ad platform," the suit alleges.
“For example, T-Mobile recently sent the following ad via Facebook to recruit prospective job applicants for its stores nationwide, and in doing so, upon information and belief, limited the population receiving the ad to 18- to 38-year-olds. The screenshot (above, left) shows that T-Mobile sent the job ad because T-Mobile ‘wants to reach people ages 18 to 38 who live or were recently in the United States.'"
The original ProPublica investigation argued that the practice could violate the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which forbids hiring or employment bias against people 40 years old or older. T-Mobile has consistently been a target of the union for its attempts to block workers from unionizing, including one suit that accused the "uncarrier" of creating a
fake union with the specific task of preventing real ones.