Suit Accuses Sears of Age Discrimination : Labor: Equal employment commission says retailer failed to give older workers time to weigh a severance package.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Wednesday accused Sears, Roebuck & Co. of discriminating against older employees in the way it offered severance packages to its workers.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, said Sears has been cutting its work force by offering employees a severance package if they sign a document waiving their right to bring an age-discrimination suit.

However, Sears violated the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act--which protects employees over age 40--by failing to give employees 45 days to make a decision on the severance package, said Gregory Gochanour, an EEOC attorney based in Chicago.

“There are conditions under which you can ask employees to waive their rights as long as they are given time to consider such a waiver,” Gochanour said. “It’s unfair to ask an employee to make such a decision on short notice, because that employee would not have enough time to determine whether he or she is a victim of age discrimination.”

Sears, in a statement, said it has not seen the suit but that “based on the information available, the law was not violated and no one was hurt.”

The EEOC said it has not determined how many employees would be affected by the lawsuit, which was prompted by a complaint from a Chicago-area Sears sales clerk. However, Gochanour said, the EEOC will ask the court to invalidate severance packages approved by Sears since February, 1992. In addition, the suit asks the court to force Sears to offer double the severance pay to those who refused to sign a waiver during the initial offer.

The use of legal waivers in severance offers has become common in recent years because many large corporations have been undergoing work force reductions, said Larry Shapiro, publisher of the California Employer Advisor, an Oakland-based newsletter that tracks legal issues related to the workplace.

“Companies are not required to offer severance pay,” said Shapiro. “However, if they offer a severance package that includes a waiver, they have to meet certain requirements--and that includes giving employees adequate time to make a decision. If they don’t do that, the waiver could be ruled invalid and an employee could later file an age discrimination suit.”

Sears said in its statement that it offered the option of pay cuts totaling 10% or more or severance incentives to sales associates in departments that offer more expensive goods, such as furniture and appliances. The company said that plan was not a retirement incentive program.

However, Sears still must give those employees adequate time to consider such an offer if a waiver is involved, because courts have ruled that workers don’t have a viable option if the proposed pay cuts are too large, said Joseph Posner, an Encino lawyer who sits on the board of the National Employment Lawyers Assn., which represents workers.