RTX Accused of Discriminating Against Over-40 Job Applicants

RTX Corp. is facing a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing the world’s largest aerospace and defense company of discriminating against older workers in hiring.

The company reserves many jobs only for recent college graduates, excluding candidates who are 40 or older, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Massachusetts. The policy has deterred tens of thousands of individuals from applying to positions at RTX, the complaint alleged.

Mark Goldstein, 67, filed the suit because he claims RTX wouldn’t consider him for at least seven recent graduate positions between 2019 and 2023 and said discriminatory ads deterred him from applying to dozens of other roles. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission already ruled in 2021 that RTX rejected Goldstein because of his age and that the company’s advertisements used language that discriminated against older workers.

Discriminatory language in job postings like “recent college graduate” or “new grads” isn’t unusual, and the suit is intended to be a wakeup call for other companies, said Peter Romer-Friedman, one of Goldstein’s lawyers. “We want other employers to know they could be violating a law if they are doing the same thing,” Romer-Friedman said.

AARP Foundation’s litigation arm is also helping represent Goldstein. A spokesperson for RTX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the EEOC case, RTX denied its job postings gave an age preference and said Goldstein couldn’t prove he was qualified for the positions he sought. The company also noted Goldstein should have applied for other available jobs that weren’t entry-level, according to an EEOC letter attached to the lawsuit.

Goldstein claimed RTX has continued to reject qualified older applicants and advertised jobs exclusively for younger workers. Many of the company’s job postings require applicants to have less that one or two years of experience, according to the lawsuit.

RTX “has failed to seriously consider any of Goldstein’s applications based on his age,” his attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.