Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

When considering any legislation, the House should first determine whether the legislation is needed and, next, whether the bill under consideration will adequately address or improve the situation.

The Committee on Education and Labor, unfortunately, did not have a full hearing on H.R. 1230 and heard from only one witness, invited by the Democrats, about the bill at a general hearing on multiple topics.

This legislation, at the very least, deserved a standalone hearing so that committee members and the House could get more information to make a considered decision regarding this legislation.

Publicly available data does not show the Supreme Court decisions in Gross v. FBL Financial Services or Nassar v. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discouraged individuals from filing discrimination charges with the EEOC, which is the primary agency that enforces Federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate. A discrimination charge is a signed statement asserting employment discrimination.

The lone Democrat-invited witness who testified in favor of H.R. 1230 at the Committee on Education and Labor's hearing in May, which covered several topics and bills, acknowledged that it is difficult to quantify the impact that the Gross decision has had on the number of older workers who bring cases and the number of those who win them.

This witness also acknowledged that when we might have expected a drop in charges due to Gross-inspired discouragement from employment attorneys, there was a sizeable jump in the number of ADEA charges filed at EEOC.

EEOC data shows that the rate of EEOC age discrimination charges as a percentage of all charges filed is approximately the same for the 9 years before and after the Gross decision.

There has been a slight uptick in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act retaliation charges as a percentage of all charges filed in the 4 years following the Nassar decision, which does not indicate individuals have been discouraged from filing these charges.

Court decisions show that the plaintiffs have continued to win age discrimination and Title VII retaliation cases in the wake of the Supreme Court's decisions in Gross and Nassar.

This amendment will provide Congress much-needed data on the impact of the two Supreme Court cases at issue in H.R. 1230.

If the GAO report indicates Gross and Nassar have not discouraged individuals from seeking relief or from achieving it, the bill would not go into effect.

The House should look before it leaps, and Members should vote in favor of this amendment to ensure this happens.

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Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, again I repeat, the lone witness, a Democratic witness at the Committee of Education and Labor's hearing in May on H.R. 1230, acknowledged that it is difficult to quantify the impact that the Gross decision had on the number of older workers who bring cases and the numbers of those who win them.

This witness also acknowledged that we might have expected a drop in charges due to the Gross-inspired discouragement from employment attorneys, but that there was a sizeable jump in ADEA charges filed with the EEOC.

I merely present this amendment to make sure that the committee and this House look at the data before we have some law here that is going to create, really, fewer opportunities for people to file these charges.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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