"Older Workers Benefit Protection Act and Public Policy"

In 1990, Congress passed the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) amended the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to safeguard older workers' employee benefits from age discrimination. This session will discuss the practical implications of the OWBPA, for example, the requirement for employers to pay the same amount for each benefit provided to an older worker as is paid for a younger worker, and the provision for the increased costs of providing certain benefits, such as life insurance, to older workers.

Professor Michael LeRoy holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois. He also holds an M.A. in Labor and Industrial Relations from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Professor LeRoy has published extensively on strikes and lockouts, voluntary and mandatory arbitration, employee involvement teams, and more recently on employment and labor law. Professor LeRoy has testified before the full U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources; consulted at the request of the President's Council of Economic Advisers in connection with the Taft-Hartley labor dispute involving Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union; and served as an advisor to the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service. His research has been cited as authority by two federal appeals courts and the Minnesota Supreme Court. Recent research publications appear in Northwestern University Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Emory Law Journal, and Stanford Law & Policy Review.