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September 6th, 2008
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Seniors need not apply

Czech Republic is one of Europe's worst countries for age discrimination

By Claire Compton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 11th, 2008 issue

Lying on your résumé is never a good idea, but one man’s tweaks revealed to him the real reason he wasn’t getting a job — his age.
Highly qualified and experienced, this fiftysomething’s job inquiries weren’t getting the responses he’d hoped for. On a hunch, he created a “shadow C.V.” that took 20 years off his age but left all other details the same.
To his dismay, his younger self elicited several job offers at places where he’d previously been stonewalled, prompting him to pick up his job search with a C.V. that did not include any clues to his age. And when pressed about it, he lied.
“Now he has a job. But he says he cannot understand why it was so difficult,” said Lucie Vidovičová, a sociologist and researcher at Masaryk University who studies age discrimination. Vidovičová’s age-altering subject asked to remain anonymous.
It appears a relatively high number of Czechs do understand why it would be so difficult to get a job after the age of 50, as many have experienced age discrimination themselves.
According to a recent study by Vidovičová, age is the most oft-cited reason for discrimination in the country. In her poll, conducted by the GfK Polling Agency on 1,810 respondents, 92 percent responded that they believed age was a factor in employment.
The 2008 study raises concerns, especially when compared with the results of a similar survey conducted in 2003. Then only 77 percent of respondents believed age was a factor in employment.
Vidovičová’s findings are not the only indication of the problem in the Czech Republic, which, despite a labor shortage, is one of the least friendly environments in all of Europe to older workers.
Some 26 percent of the country’s citizens have faced age discrimination or had friends or family members affected by it, the second-highest total in the European Union, according to a 2008 report by the European Commission’s directorate general for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities. Only Latvia was higher, at 29 percent.
The report, “Discrimination in the European Union,” also explored the reasons for age discrimination, which Vidovičová describes as “complex and deeply rooted.”
Employment offices reported that the most common form of age discrimination in the work force is an employer’s preference for young women in positions as secretaries and waitresses in bars, restaurants or clubs. Even larger multinational companies are reported to discriminate on the basis of age or gender, but employment offices find their hands are tied due to lack of evidence, leaving the victims with little recourse.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is an unwillingness to make younger employees oversee older ones, regardless of experience, meaning younger generations may not advance as quickly as they like or deserve. “[Employers] find it inappropriate that young people oversee and give instructions to older employees,” the report found.
Long time coming
Without a comprehensive anti-discrimination bill, Vidovičová said there is not enough legislation to combat ageism, although laws are only a part of a solution that also needs to include a cultural shift and education.
“You also need these laws to be enforceable, understood and respected. Some people believe an anti-discrimination law will solve the situation,” she said. “But we know that laws are only part of the story. They are indicators that society does not accept the discriminatory practices, but it does not solve the issue itself.”
The Czech Republic faces possible fines after failing to pass an anti-discrimination bill before its entrance into the EU in 2004. Four years later, it is the only remaining country out of the 27 member states not to incorporate this legislation.
Though such a bill was passed in March, it was vetoed by President Václav Klaus shortly after. The bill would ensure equal access to education, work, health care and social advantages irrespective of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, health, sex, religion and world outlook.
Vidovičová presented her findings to a June 2 session on age discrimination organized by the Chamber of Deputies’ committee for equal opportunities, which included three members of Parliament.
The next day, the lower house was expected to hold a vote attempting to overturn Klaus’ veto, but, after a proposed postponement and further discussion, there was no time left for the deputies to vote.
The fate of the bill is now uncertain after the leading opposition party, the Social Democrats, withdrew its support for the attempt to overturn the veto in protest of unrelated political appointments. Klaus has said he opposes the bill because its provisions already exist in current legislation and would add nothing new.
With the country’s population aging in general, Vidovičová believes this graying will work out some of the issues of ageism, rather than exacerbate it. A larger population of older citizens will cause greater understanding and acceptance of older workers, she said, pointing to a McDonald’s program that recruits older workers as an example of a shift in hiring practices.
“As there is an increasing number of older people in society, older faces will become more common in the media and advertisements,” she said. “One day people will realize the aging population actually means people born in the ’70s. It will become ‘us,’ not ‘them.’ ”

Claire Compton can be reached at ccompton@praguepost.com


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Reader's comments:

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[06:15 13/06/2008] : Maybe this is stating the obvious, but Klaus isn't much of a leader if he opposed this bill "because its provisions already exist in current legislation and would add nothing new".
Any intelligent person would realize that even if this is true, the symbolic value of passing this bill would far outweigh the consequences of repetition.
Now the Czech Republic is the last of the EU countries without a law against discrimination. What kind of symbolic value does that have?
Daniel Padolsky
Praha
[12:02 13/06/2008] : A Speed Challenge in Prague

Launching a Czech beer brewing in a few days, organizing its shipping and export to France, and selling 6,000 bottles to benefit a humanitarian organization in India -- this is the challenge that has been given to 20 French executives during their training in Prague, recently.

This challenge is an idea of their coach, Dominique Byramjee, founder and leader of the ITEG's training program.

The principle of the training sessions is to combine specific case studies and learn methods to improve efficiency at work. In addition, team challenges give participants the opportunity to discover the city / country in which the training takes place.

When it comes to these "challenge events", the location plays a central role. Today, it is Prague, its history, its secrets, its charm and its dynamism.

How do you discover such a great city without acting like tourists? The participants fully immerse themselves in the city, and, with its inhabitants, use their professional skills and motivate and lead their team to success.

This group has achieved similar success in other capitals in the past few years: funding a vehicle for a humanitarian association in South India, getting introduced in the newspaper world in New York, and getting last-minute meetings with local CEOs in Shanghai. This innovative and original approach brings dynamics to the training and allows the team to apply the techniques used as soon as they are back in their home companies.

Let's not forget the benefits of the humanitarian actions towards the poorest, either.

The latest challenge has been launched, and it must be completed before the end of June 2008. Contacts have been established in Prague, and need to be pursued.

If you would like more information or wish to support this cause, please contact the ITEG team ITEGChallenges@yahoo.fr.
Thanks very much!
Vincent Durieux
Paris
[08:10 15/06/2008] : The reason why old people aren't in demand is because most of them are useless. They spent the bulk of their careers "working" under the old regime, and are unable to adapt to a capitalist economy. They are typically lazy and inefficient and have no relevant skills. What sane employer, for example, would hire a waiter who spent most of his career working in a state-owned restaurant insulting customers? Younger staff are more likely to have traveled or even worked in a Western country and will have a totally different attitude.

This is not a problem caused by lack of legislation, it's an inevitable legacy of this country's socialist past.
Peter Andrews
Prague
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