Ikea has agreed to settle five lawsuits alleging age bias at the company, according to court documents filed Aug. 6.
Among the resolved cases was a 2019 lawsuit (Paine v. IKEA Holding US, Inc. et al.) claiming the retailer maintained a “corporate culture of age bias.” Ikea did not respond to a request for comment.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers age 40 and older from discrimination on the basis of age in any aspect of employment — “hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, benefits, and any other term or condition of employment,” according to a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explanation.
The law also prohibits age-based harassment and protects workers who complain about age bias from retaliation.
Paine alleged Ikea promoted four young employees while demoting the plaintiff — part of a broader move to “favor younger employees over older employees by offering younger employees better jobs with higher pay.”
Another, Donofrio v. Ikea US Retail, LLC, (No. 2:18-cv-00599), similarly alleged the company maintained a culture that favored the development and advancement of younger employees into management positions while denying older employees those opportunities.
“IKEA’s preference for the advancement of its younger employees is openly expressed at the highest level,” the Donofrio plaintiff alleged. “IKEA managers openly express age bias and ageist stereotypes; complaints of age discrimination expressed to the highest level of the company are not remediated; and older workers are dismissively labeled, without good or apparent basis, as lacking in ‘potential.’”
Those cases, certified as collective actions, were consolidated with a third. And last year, a judge ordered that Ikea pay $566,000 for “spoliation of evidence” in that consolidated case after the company deleted emails it had been ordered to preserve.