Centre for Vital Elders

A High Court challenge to the mandatory retirement age of 65 means there could be trouble ahead for the government.

After months of consultation and wranglings at the highest levels, the new age laws have already been labelled as incompatible with the EU legislation they aim to implement.

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 bring into force the age-related provisions of the European Equal Treatment Directive.

But Heyday, a membership group for baby boomers (people born between 1945 and 1957), has been granted a judicial review of the regulations before the High Court, challenging the mandatory retirement age (MRA), which allows employers to force workers to retire at 65 without giving any reason.

Ailsa Ogilvie, director of Heyday, said the government was sending a stark to over-65s - that “they are not worth having in the workplace”.

“People want the choice to continue to work, but they don’t want to feel they are being given their P45 on the basis of their birth certificate,” she told Personnel Today.
Unprotective

You can see why Heyday is upset. Most people believe the age regulations are designed to protect them against discrimination in their old age. Unfortunately, they are in for a shock. For the first time, employers have a cast-iron excuse to discriminate against those aged 65 and over - and there’s nothing retirees can do about it.

This situation seems to run contrary to the EU legislation, which says “any direct or indirect discrimination based on age… should be prohibited throughout the [EU] community”.

Where the confusion arises is article six of the directive, which adds that EU member states may effectively discriminate on grounds of age if, “within the context of national law, they are objectively and reasonably justifying a legitimate aim… and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary”. Then add the fact that “the directive shall be without prejudice to national provisions laying down retirement ages”, and the lawyers have really got something to get their teeth into.

So just what is a legitimate aim, and did the UK already have national retirement ages? And what are the chances the government has mucked it all up?

The Department for Trade and Industry would only say that “the government is confident that the [age] regulations implement the directive correctly”, and points out the MRA will be reviewed in 2011 anyway.

However, the CBI was more than happy to elaborate. Richard Wainer, principal policy officer at the employers’ group, which lobbied hard for a retirement age, said the MRA would create better workplace relations.

“It will encourage dialogue between employers and employees that will lead to a more fruitful and consensual discussion over retirement,” he said. “Abolition [of the MRA] could lead to conflict as companies try to manage people out.”

The CBI believes that having the MRA will help aid workforce planning, adding weight to its assertion that a default retirement age is a legitimate aim. It also argues that the state retirement age already operates as a default retirement age, which the EU directive explicitly recognises as a bona fide reason to discriminate.

Challenged

It’s difficult to predict how the High Court will approach this matter. A judicial review has only ever once successfully forced the government to change a law. That was back in 1999, when it was successfully argued that a two-year qualification period for a claim for unfair dismissal had an adverse impact on women.

Jane Amphlett, a partner at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, said the courts would be reluctant to declare the government acted illegally, as it would “raise arguments over whether the judiciary is more powerful than the government”.

In this case, the High Court does not seem too perturbed - it has taken the unusual step of granting Heyday a ‘rolled-up’ hearing, which means that a judge will consider the application for the case to proceed in an oral hearing, which, if given the green light, will lead straight into a full trial. Usually, judicial reviews have to wait six months to be heard.

However, as Heyday’s solicitor Andrew Lockley points out, the group is not challenging the whole of the regulations, but just one part, which would limit the impact of any constitutional issues.

Ashley Norman, employment partner at law firm Pinsent Masons, said the whole question should be sent back from whence it came.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if this was referred up to the European Court of Justice - that’s the usual route for employment decisions to be challenged,” he said.

If that comes to pass, then employers will be in for the long haul. In the meantime, businesses might have come to recognise that young employees are harder to find, and they might not have much choice when it comes to keeping older workers on the payroll.

What’s the problem?
Heyday claims having a mandatory retirement age in the new age regulations is contrary to the European Equal Treatment Framework Directive (Council Directive 2000/78/EC).
It is challenging articles three and 30 of the UK law, which cover discrimination on grounds of age and the default retirement age respectively.
What is a judicial review?

Judicial reviews are the power of a court to review a law or an official act of a government employee or other public body if it is claimed the law or act is itself illegal. To bring a judicial review, you must show you have ’sufficient interest’ in the decision.

Source Article

I was struck by the similarity between something Ken Wilber  says in his forthcoming book, Integral Spirituality, about religion, and what Don Miguel Ruiz , the Toltec nagual, has to say about lies in his book The Voice of Knowledge.

If I understand Wilber correctly, one of the things he is saying is that the world’s great religions have got stuck in the values system or Meme that prevailed 2,000-3,000 years ago.

In Spiral Dynamics  terms, they are still anchored in the Magic Meme (Jesus performed miracles) and the Mystic Meme (Jesus as the Son of God), whilst most of the Western world has moved on to a Pluralistic Meme. The religious manifestation of this Meme might be the world religions agreeing that there is only one God and many paths to him, of which theirs is but one.

Because most religions have not been able to say this they have not evolved in values terms to the same level that Western society has and so they have become increasingly irrelevant despite the fact they have much that is good to offer with respect to love, peace and compassion.

Ruiz, from a Toltec perspective, says that most of the unhappiness, anxiety, pain and suffering we experience is because of the lies that we accept as truths. Firstly there are the lies about ourselves – “I’m not good enough”, “not worthy”, “I can’t do it”, “they don’t love me”, etc. And the lies that are a part of the Story or Dream we are domesticated into by our parents, schools, religions, peers groups and others. For example, what’s right and wrong, what we should and shouldn’t do, how the world ‘really’ is, etc.

According to Ruiz, the Toltec were  scientists and artists thousands of years ago in Mexico who formed a society to explore and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones.

He points out that these lies are reducing over time as we evolve. For example if you lived 2000 years ago, the lies that existed about what is meant to be a woman were much more extensive that they are now. You would have been punished, even killed, for going against the prevalent ‘lie’ by speaking of equality and rights as they exist today for women.

It seems to me that Toltec spiritual knowledge contains a lot of truth that we are beginning to rediscover and bring into the mainstream today through people like Wilber.

In a similar way, I think Wilber is making the same point. Although he does not use the word ‘lies’, its clear that many of the values that were appropriate 3,000 years ago do not make sense to us today.

It seems to me that whether you call them ‘lies’ or ‘memes’ both Ruiz and Wilber are saying pretty much the same things, that is until we learn to explore how we have constructed our realities, we are going to be imprisoned by them.

A world of love and happiness awaits us when we break free of the lies/values that we accept as truth.

I’m not sure exactly where I picked them up, but somehow I’ve managed to learn all the words to It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and The White Cliffs of Dover. Maybe it was CGIT camp, or a radio station that played really old “oldies,” or First World War documentaries I watched in school. Whatever the exact conditions, by some mysterious transfusion, the melodies of Vera Lynn and her contemporaries seem to have entered my bloodstream, so that I can join in any seniors’ sing-along with great gusto.

As I sat beside my grandfather last week in the singing circle at his senior home, I looked around and tried to envision my peers and me 50 years hence. And all I could picture was a horseshoe of wrinkled faces puckered up to hear the strains of the headphones strapped over their hearing aids. I imagined a persistent buzz, like that of a large colony of bumblebees, but each isolated in its own honeycomb cell.

For the men in my grandfather’s home, the sing-along acts as a regular wake-up call in their week. For some of them, it seems to break through the daze of dementia and temporarily rouse them into cheerful lucidity. The songs serve up a draft of clear, refreshing memory they can all share.

That’s because the folks of my grandfather’s generation didn’t just wave lighters in unison at a rock concert – they sang together to get through the bad times and celebrate the good. They sang as they marched off to war together (or waved from the train platform). They hummed to keep their spirits up when the stock market crashed. They entertained themselves with popular tunes at small-town picnics, and they comforted themselves with familiar hymns at the neighbourhood church.

My parents’ generation, as it ages, will still know some of the old-time hymns and show tunes. Baby boomers will have the consolation of at least a few common cultural reference points. Maybe they won’t all be able to keep up with a recording of Buddy Holly or Elvis, but at least they’ll be able to tap along together. Because boomers shaped their culture via school dances, glee clubs and a handful of radio stations, not satellite TV, their pool of collective musical memory will be a pond compared to the ocean generation Xers grew up swimming in.

By the time we 30- and 40-somethings reach old age, we could be drowning in the consequences of our cosmopolitanism. When I try to picture senior “group activities” for my group of peers, my imagination falters. That failure could be partly my mind protecting itself from the threat of its own decline. But it also, I think, shows up the way commercialized culture makes us drift apart. If I’m not already hard of hearing by the time it’s my turn to enter a home, I’m afraid the silence will deafen me.

Should my husband and I be blessed to make it to a nursing home together, I’m not sure even we could make a sing-along between us. He’ll be asking the recreation director to play a Beatles tune, and I’ll be hoping for Sarah McLachlan. Maybe the woman next to me will want Boy George, and the fellow next to her might respond only to Travis Tritt. Come mid-century, the nursing homes will be even more crowded than they are now; but, in another sense, there will be much more space between the residents. Over time, world beat won’t bear up – or bear us up – nearly as well as When Irish Eyes are Smiling.

As much as we like to babble enthusiastically about living in a “global village,” there’s a big difference between “global” and local culture. I can pick and choose my global culture – decide whether I want to buy gypsy guitar music or reggae, or whether I want Chinese or Vietnamese take-out. But truly local culture is home-made, and not the sort of “home-made” you buy at a craft show. The kind of culture that prevents senile solitude grows out of group creativity. It’s an activity, not a product, and it involves more than just me and my IPod or my DVD player.

Down the road, there’ll be a cultural gap to pay for our being so cosmopolitan in our tastes and treating culture as a commodity rather than as a community effort. Maybe I should join a glee club (if there still is one) before it’s too late. Otherwise, I guess when I pack up all my trinkets in my old kit bag to head for my room in “the home,” I’ll need to take with me my personally eclectic audio menu. I’m sure whatever music technology I’ll have will be outdated, so I just hope the recreation director will be able to play it.

Source Article 

Dr. Patricia Rashbrook, 62, a psychiatrist, has become the oldest women in the UK to give birth. She had a baby boy who weighed 6lbs 10oz. Her husband, John Farrant, 60, says they are both doing well.

This birth has come amid controversy in the United Kingdom. Some say that a person in Dr. Rashbrook’s financial position is well placed to bring up a child in a comfortable, loving environment. Others say that having a child at such an age is a selfish act and that the child will eventually pay the price.

Dr. Rashbrook, who already has three children, aged 26, 22 and 18, went to Russia for her fertility treatment, which was carried out by Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility expert. All her adult children were from her first marriage. The baby boy, known as JJ, was conceived through IVF. A donor egg was used. The whole process, which was successful after the fifth attempt, cost £10,000 ($18,200).

This birth means Rashbrook’s present husband is a father for the first time.

Several health care professionals feel Dr. Rashbrook is too old to have a baby. Many point out that she will be 80 years’ old when the boy completes his A-levels (Senior High School), she will be 78 when he completes his GCSEs (Junior High School). The risk of developing some disabling or fatal disease significantly grows for Dr. Rashbrook each year from now on, compared to a mother who gave birth in her twenties, thirties or forties.

According to an interview Dr. Rashbrook had with The Daily Mail, having the baby was the right thing to do. She says she does not feel too old to give birth and bring up a child. Had she thought they would not be good enough parents they would never have considered this. She says she and her husband are extremely healthy and have always felt and looked very young. They have friends who will act as surrogate parents should their present health and vigour change. Dr. Rashbrook stressed that for a child, what matters more than age, is meeting his/her needs - and she is confident of doing that.

According to her husband, they have received 200 letters of support and one unsigned letter that expressed the opposite. They have not decided on a name for the boy yet - for the moment he is called JJ.

JJ was delivered by casesarean section at Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, Sussex, UK.

The world record for giving birth is 66, by a Romanian woman called Adriana Iliescu. She had a baby girl.

We have had several emails on this matter, some in favour and some against. Here are some quotes:

“I was brought up by my grandparents when my mother and father died. I had a lovely childhood and could not have asked for more.”

“How will the child feel when he is picked up at school by a very old mother or father?”

“Will the boy be teased at school?”

“Unlike millions of children in the world, this child will not suffer the hardships of poverty.”

“If a drug addict in her twenties can become a single mother, why shouldn’t a well-to-do 62 year-old married woman?”

“This child will probably receive much more love than I ever did. My parents were 21 and 22 when I was born. They used to beat me all the time.”

“If her body refused IVF treatment four times, shouldn’t she have taken that as a message from nature?”

“Most likely, the boy’s children will never know their paternal grandparents.”

“It is highly unlikely this boy will become a menace to society as a result of having elderly parents. Most likely, he will become well balanced and productive as an adult.”

It’s a confusing time in the world and individuals have many choices facing them. The problem is knowing what to choose. I am writing about 10 future trends to help you with your decisions.

10 Major Trends

1. For every trend there is a counter-trend. We see this exemplified by the rise in fundamentalism in our world while, at the same time, there is a rise in tolerance for other religions as seen by Jews practicing Buddhism and Christians doing Native American ceremonies.

2. The children growing up now are being given quantity of stimulation, not quality of experience. They will be bored staying in jobs and will start choosing alternative lifestyles in their twenties.

3. We live in a time of chaos and change and, because there are few certainties, it is difficult for us to make even simple decisions. For example, let’s say we need a bed, but we can’t decide if we should buy twins or a queen. We are single right now and have lots of friends staying over so it’s best to buy two twins, but we may meet “the right” someone any day and then we’ll need a queen. However, the twins might still come in handy because he may have kids and they could sleep in the twins. Our inner dialogue continues about even the simplest decision. This exhausts us and gives rise to our next trend.

4. Security, both personal and financial, will be two growth areas. In a world with a breakdown of old rules we must rely on ourselves to create our own security and safety. We know that the government and our employers are no longer taking care of us, and that there is no such thing as employment for life, so we will look after our money and physical safety ourselves.

5. However, we still want people to take a personal interest in us so there will be a rise in personalized services and a professional server class who will do this. Some examples of this trend are workout trainers, professional cooks, career coaches, dressing consultants, spas and healing centers.

6. Because of the increase of information, specialists in inter-mediation will arise. These will include people who navigate information for us on the Internet and on the 500 TV channels. These people will know our preferences and requirements and find the information for us so that we don’t spend time doing it ourselves.

7. Nanotechnology is a billionth of a second and the human brain is too slow to compete with computers when processing information. Because computers are taking over doing for us, we are thrown back on developing our being. Yes, the very thing we tried to talk aboriginal societies out of for the last two hundred years is now valued by North Americans, which gives rise to our next trend.

8. The quest for spiritual fulfillment is increasing. Books, films, seminars and leisure activities increasingly deal with spiritual themes. Simultaneously, the same industries increasing deal in violence and sexual obscenities. Yes, we live in an age of paradox. As Dickens said at the beginning of David Copperfield, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”

9. Home-based and small businesses are increasing as traditional places of employment shrink. For every 500 people employed in a traditional organization today, only 50 will be there in ten years. There will be three kinds of workers who are employed by large organizations in the future. These are: 1. professionals who manage key positions; 2. consultants who are specialists hired on term contracts and project basis; 3. supporters who assist the other two groups.

10. There will be many changes in the health area as people spend more money on alternative medicine and cosmetic surgery. Healing will move from curative, cut and stitch medicine to prevention and the barriers between traditional medicine will fall to acupuncture, aromatherapy and massage.

How to Diagnose Trends

a. Where will people find work?
b. How will they spend money?
c. What is the modus operandi in the next economy?

Conclusion

To succeed in many of these growth trends we do not need advanced education, but we do need to be intuitive and a self-starter. Because the brain develops the most in the first four years of life children who receive good nutrition and positive stimulation are at a great advantage to those who don’t. This is one of the key areas where we should be putting our money and resources, or we reap the consequences of our neglect twenty years later.

Tanis Helliwell, M. Ed., author of Take Your Soul to Work is the founder of the International Institute for Transformation whose mission is to assist people to live and work with meaning and purpose. For information on programs call (403) 241-0933 or visit www.iitransform.com.