Severance package age dependent difference?

[Wartrace]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Tennessee.

We have a partial plant closure going on. There is a policy that if you have accrued enough "points" for minimum retirement they will pay you the total hours of the next years vacation. If your total vacation time per year is 168 hours they will cut a check for that amount. They are paying everyone for any unused vacation for this year.

What is my beef? I have 18 years of service at the age of 45. I have a total of 63 points. You need 78 points to qualify for retirement. If I were 60 years old with 18 years on the job I would qualify for the longevity pay package. The only reason I do not qualify for this extra severance pay is my age. There are numerous people in my situation & for me it is a loss of 4000 dollars. Can they use age as a determining factor in determining who gets this additional severance? There are older workers with less time on the job who happen to be older than me who are being paid additional money based on their age.

 

[ecmst12]

Age discrimination is only illegal if it is based on you being to old, not too young. Retirement is in fact based on age. 60 is close to retirement age, 45 is not. That they are allowing people to get a retirement benefit early if they have worked enough years with the company is legal. That you have not worked enough years to qualify for early retirement benefit is unfortunate, but also legal.

 

[Wartrace]

I kind of figured I didn't have a leg to stand on with it but thought I would ask. It just seems unfair that two people with equal number of years of service would not get the same deal only because of their age.