In February 2006, the EEOC district office in St. Louis, Missouri brought this suit against the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company, a national freight courier, and the Transportation Union Communications International Union (TCU) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The complaint alleged that Burlington Northern unlawfully terminated employees above the age of seventy and did not allow them to participate in the Voluntary Retirement Board Program in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The complaint also alleged that TCU unlawfully discriminated against clerical workers in violation of the ADEA when it refused to allow employees above the age of seventy to participate in the Voluntary Retirement Board Program.

In August of 2006, the EEOC and the union entered a partial consent decree amending the language of the Burlington Northern collective bargaining agreement so that it does not violate the ADEA. In March 2007, the EEOC settled with Burlington Northern as well. Burlington Northern agreed to pay a total of $800,000 to 138 individuals, to refrain from implementing any voluntary retirement incentive that discriminates on the basis of age, to refrain from retaliating on the basis of age, to post EEO notices, to allow the EEOC to inspect any documentation regarding this litigation, and to notify the EEOC if any new voluntary retirement incentives were to be added.

The terms of the agreement were to run for 2 years. The docket sheet does not show any further enforcement took place; the case was presumably closed in 2009.

Jason Chester - 06/18/2007
- 06/10/2017


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