In the first case of its kind, a 20-year-old woman has won a discrimination case for being too young.
Reported by The Times newspaper, the case involves a young woman, Megan Thomas, who told the tribunal that she was sacked from her job as a membership secretary at London club Eight, after being told that she was too young to deal with its members.
The claim falls under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 originally intended to protect older workers from discrimination.
The £19,000-a-year job involved organising poker nights and wine-tasting events for members, as well as handling subscriptions and general office work. But in August, just four months after starting the job, she was dismissed.
According to the report, she said: “I was upset to lose my job. I had never lost a job before. It was humiliating, especially because I was told I was too young and if they had met me a few years later there may not have been a problem. They also said that I was deceitful, sly and lacked integrity, which was hurtful and untrue.”
The claimant was awarded compensation of about £2,000 for injury to feelings and unpaid notice. Thomas’ solicitor, Lawrence Davies, said that the ruling would help to end discrimination against young people in the workplace.
Commenting, he said: “This is the first time that a tribunal has ruled that age discrimination adversely affects the young and young-looking as well as the old.
“Employers will now have to look at the rights of young workers more carefully than in the past and their ability to simply dispense with them has now gone. Once they realise they have rights and that they have been exploited, young people are often more likely to stand up for themselves and we would hope that more young workers will now exercise their employment rights.”
A spokesman for Eight said the club was happy to employ young people and that many of the waiters and waitresses working there were younger than Thomas. “She had finished her probation and had made some mistakes, so we decided to end her employment.” The club plans to appeal the decision.
