HOUSTON – Burrow Global Services, LLC, headquartered in Houston, Texas, will pay a former employee $50,960 to resolve an age discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. Burrow Global provides engineering, design, and related technical services for clients in the petrochemical and refining industries.

According to the EEOC’s suit, filed in 2020, a senior electrical designer over age 60 was subjected to age discrimination when a much younger individual became his supervisor. Almost immediately, the new supervisor began making comments about retirement and repeatedly asking the employee when he planned to retire, the EEOC said. The lawsuit further charged that, shortly thereafter, the supervisor made the decision to terminate the employee. Burrow Global subsequently offered the employee’s position to a significantly younger person, the EEOC said.

Such alleged conduct violates the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of age. The EEOC filed its suit (Civil Action No. 4:20-cv-00423) in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas after first attempting to resolve the case through its administrative conciliation process.

Under a three-year consent decree entered March 26, 2021, Burrow Global will pay the employee $50,960 in back pay and liquidated damages and will also conduct training regarding the ADEA, update its ADEA policies, post a notice prohibiting discrimination, and provide regular reports to the EEOC.

“The ADEA protects workers age 40 and over from adverse actions taken by employers on the basis of age,” stated Rudy Sustaita, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Houston District Office. “We will continue to bring lawsuits to enforce the law in instances where age was a cause of an adverse employment action.”

Connie Gatlin, the trial attorney in charge of the case, added, “Employers are prohibited from making employment decisions on the basis of an employee’s age if the he or she is 40 or older. As the agency that enforces the ADEA, we will always seek to hold employers accountable for such actions.”

The EEOC’s Houston District Office is located on the sixth floor of the Leland Federal Building at 1919 Smith St. in Houston.

The EEOC advances opportunity in the workplace by enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov.