AGE DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1967 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, GENERAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR OF THE Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 11:15 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John H. Dent (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Dent, Hawkins, Erlenborn, and Scherle. Mr. DENT. The General Subcommittee on Labor will come to order for the purpose of holding hearings on H.R. 3651, HR. 4221, H.R. 3768, and other related bills. The question before us is a question of age discrimination in employment. Due to the fact the full committee had an executive hearing this morning, the committee is starting a little late but we will try to make up for it by extending into the afternoon as long as the House permits us to do so. Mr. Harmon, you had a suggestion you wanted to make. Mr. HARMON. Yes, I had hoped we might let the other witnesses go on before us. Mr. DENT. Thank you for the courtesy because I understand the third witness is very busy. I would appreciate it, therefore, if you gentlemen will permit Miss Cooper to precede you. Is that all right? Mr. HARMON. Yes. Mr. DENT. Our first witness will be Miss Margie Cooper, vice president of the Steward and Stewardess Division, Air Line Pilots Association. Miss Cooper, we welcome you to the hearing and thank you for taking the time to come down and participate in our hearing. You may proceed in any manner you wish. STATEMENT OF MISS MARGIE COOPER, VICE PRESIDENT, STEWARD & STEWARDESS DIVISION, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY HERBERT LEVY, ATTORNEY FOR THE AIR LINE PILOTS ASOCIATION Mr. LEVY. My name is Herbert Levy and I am attorney for the Steward & Stewardess Division of the Air Line Pilots Association. Before coming to Miss Cooper's presentation I would appreciate the opportunity for a few observations with respect to the pending legislation. Mr. DENT. You may proceed. 103 Mr. LEVY. First, on behalf of our association, we appreciate the opportunity to be here today and to speak in support of legislation that recognizes that there is a fundamental wrong in discrimination based solely on age where age is not a bonafide occupational qualification. The association would like to urge this committee that section 13 of the proposed legislation which contains a proviso limiting the protection of the legislation to persons between 45 and 65 be deleted. Those supporting that proviso argue that what we are dealing with here is older worker legislation. They say there is no need for legislation that covers persons below the ages of 45 to 65. Our position, and we feel that the committee will recognize the merit in this position, is that the legislation before you is essentially civil rights legislation declaring it is fundamentally wrong to discriminate on age alone where age is not a bona fide qualification of employment. Therefore, it is just as wrong to practice discrimination against someone under age 45 to 65 as it is someone between age 45 and 65. Those who argue in support of the older-worker-legislation concept state that social security is a form of older-worker legislation and there is no difference essentially between the kind of protection that social security affords to persons in older-age brackets and the kind of protection the pending legislation would afford to persons age 45 to 65. Our view is that the pending legislation is not financial assistance legislation as was social security. The pending legislation rather is recognition of the immorality and wrongfulness of discriminating against people solely on the basis of their age. There is one further aspect to our position that we would like to present before the committee for its attention and that is this: We believe there are serious safety implications with respect to the application of the pending legislation to stewards and stewardesses working for the airlines. The airlines who argue in support of excluding these people from the protection of the proposed legislation take the position that there is no real need to protect stewardesses from age discrimination in employment. They concentrate on a discussion of the personal beauty characteristics and sex appeal of young stewardesses and ignore for the most part the reason a steward or stewardess is on an airplane: to perform significant actions with respect to emergency situations, and ill or deranged passengers. They ignore the fact that, to take off an airplane, at age 32, an experienced, efficient qualified stewardess, one who is indeed attractive and whose only failing is her date of birth, and to replace her with one less efficient, less qualified, probably no more attractive, who is only younger and has perhaps more youthful sex appeal, has potentially serious implications for the safety of passengers in airline transportation. So it is our view that section 13 of the proposal should be deleted. With that I should like to come now to the presentation of a young lady sitting beside me who served for some 14 years with distinction as a stewardess for Braniff International and is now vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association for the Steward and Stewardess Division, Miss Cooper. Miss COOPER. On behalf of the 30,000 flight-crew members represented by ALPA, including some 8,000 stewards and stewardesses, I wish to express our appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you to urge your support for legislation which would outlaw current employment discrimination against female airline flight attendants based upon age. Since the targets of this discrimination are employees whose careers are abruptly cut short solely because of age, well in advance of age 45, we most urgently request a change in section 13 of H.R. 3651 and 4221, both of which, as now drafted, leave employees below age 45 exposed, subject only to the later possibility of downward revision. of the stated minimum age limits by the Secretary of Labor should he find that the effectuation of the purposes of the act so requires. It is our hope that, on the basis of the facts submitted here, the Congress will itself determine here and now that it is inconsistent with the purposes of the proposed legislation to leave these employees outside the protection of this legislation, and dependent solely upon the uncertainty of later proceedings before the Secretary of Labor, in a State forum, or in a series of economic contests between ALPA and the remaining airlines which still practice the discrimination for the preservation of their civil rights. ALPA's Steward and Stewardess Division currently provides representation for the employment rights of flight attendants working for 27 airlines and providing in-flight services in virtually all of the States of the Union and in many foreign countries. These airlines are: Airlift, Alaska, Allegheny, Aloha, American Flyers, Bonanza, Braniff, Continental, Central, Frontier, Hawaiian, Lake Central, Mohawk, National, New York Airways, Northern Consolidated, North Central, Overseas National, Ozark, Pacific Northern, Piedmont, Slick, Trans-Texas, United, West Coast, Western, and Wien Air Alaska. Some but not all of these airlines practice age discrimination against female flight attendants; I shall provide more detail in this area at a later point in this statement. We flatly oppose all discrimination in employment based upon age, not simply when the victim of discrimination is between ages 45 and 65, but at any age where age is not a bona fide occupational qualification. A substantial majority of the several thousand people for whom I speak are female, and a substantial number of these are targets of discrimination based upon chronological age. The same public policy reflected in H.R. 3651 and 4221 for the protection of persons of ages 45 to 65 is equally applicable to those who suffer identical economic loss solely by reason of age discrimination at age 32 or 35. A flight attendant may serve her airline for 10 years or more only to find herself suddenly without a career at age 32 or 35 because of her employer's compulsory termination policy. She cannot then meet the hiring qualifications for a flight attendant's position on another airline which has no such policy. All the occupational skills which she has carefully developed during 10 or more years of diligent service are no longer usable in employment which is open to her. Unemployment is the likely reward for her loyalty and diligence, unless the airline, in its discretion, makes other less desirable employment available to her. Yet, many flight attendants have much the same financial and other obligations as the persons of age 45 to 65 who are the sole beneficiaries of the proposed legislation in its present form. The irrelevant and invidious character of discrimination based solely on age-its inconsistency with existing moral standards and our civil rights principles-does not vary with the age of the victim. If such conduct is wrong, it is as wrong when practiced against a 35year-old stewardess as by a 45-year-old businessman or woman. To exclude a large group of employes from congressional protection against admittedly wrongful conduct on the basis of such an unreliable projection is, in effect, to establish a means test for equal protection of the laws, and to license the continuation of unlawful conduct against one group of citizens, while prohibiting its practice against others. There should be only one test used to define the reach of the legislation which you are considering; is age a bona fide occupational qualification for a position of employment? If yes, then the employer's decision may properly be based upon age alone; if no, then age may not lawfully be used as the basis for inflicting economic injury upon any citizen. It would be unfair and indeed anomalous for Congress itself to carve out a group of citizens solely on the basis of their age and, on that basis alone, to deny them the protection of a law against age discrimination. Those who disagree with this view argue that the measure now under consideration should be deemed to be "older worker" legislation; they pretend that age discrimination against flight attendants doesn't exist, and argue, as they have argued to the Congress, that there is "*** no significant age discrimination problem affecting younger workers requiring remedial legislation." They ignore the fact that the practice of terminating stewardess careers by reason of age alone has been described by a Member of Congress, speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, as "one of the most flagrant cases of age discrimination to be found anywhere in the labor market." Congress has, in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, broadly outlawed discrimination based upon race and color; it has prohibited such discrimination not only against Negroes, the largest and most directly affected group, but also against Indians, Orientals, as well as all other races, as to some of which there have been no significant racial discrimination problem. Congress recognized then that the practice was invidious and inconsistent with fundamental precepts of civil rights, and banned such conduct against all citizens; no reason exists to change that approach here. To exclude persons below age 45 from the protec tion of this legislation is no different in principle than a law which would outlaw racial discrimination except when practiced against American Indians. Neither is rationally or morally defensible. An assertion that there is no significant age discrimination problem affecting female flight attendants is inaccurate and misleading. The matter of age discrimination has been the subject of controversy and dispute in the airline industry for some years, and has been explored, but not resolved, in several forums to date. I shall now address this discussion to a specific consideration of the problem as it now exists, and the efforts, largely frustrated to date, to fashion a remedy for it elsewhere than in Congress. A. THE DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM The airlines themselves are divided on this issue. Some of them apply |