This work discusses the possibility of extending the legal protection provided for the elderly (people aged 60 or over) to workers who, even before reaching this age mark, are inferior in the labor market because they are socially identified as old. The investigation is based on the version of egalitarian liberalism developed by Ronald Dworkin, arguing that a government is only legitimate when it strives to demonstrate equal consideration for the destinies of all those governed and full respect for the personal responsibility they have for their own lives, thus to the two Dworkian principles of dignity. In this sense, the right must be consistent and treat people as equals. In the context of the research, the correct interpretation of the rights of the old person in labor relations is one that expresses this effort to treat everyone with equal respect and consideration. The construction of the interpretation begins with the understanding of aging in the social perspective and its projection in the work relations with the outline of the figure of the old worker, who reached the age group, is seen as a person in physical, psychological and social decline who no longer meets the requirements arising from the employment relationship due to its progressive distancing from the privileged age frame. Then, a survey of the legislation resulting from the intense process of normative production in the framework of Human Rights proceeds, which, challenging the presumption of incapacity of work for the elderly, recognized specific rights intricately linked to the condition of old. In this research it is argued that our legislation for the elderly is a reaction to the aging process and is based on the need to guarantee legal protection to all those who are inferior because they are considered old, even before the age of 60. Limiting its application to the group arbitrarily defined as elderly would imply an unfair limitation of legal protection to a group that has aging as the determining cause of its vulnerability. The best reading of Brazilian legislation, therefore, is in the sense of extending the legal protection guaranteed to the elderly to workers who are inferiorized due to aging, regardless of age.
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