Investigation Confirms IBM Layoffs Targeted Older Workers
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
https://www.cringely.com/2016/03/28/is-ibm-guilty-of-age-dis...
https://www.cringely.com/2016/04/06/is-ibm-guilty-of-age-dis...
First, while individual discrimination cases can be difficult to win, it's much easier to win a case exactly like this because of the "disparate impact" standard. Under this standard, an employment practice need only be shown to negatively impact a protected class to be unlawful — it does not need to be intentional, and it cannot be easily waved away by a claim of alternate intent (rather, it puts the burden on the employer to prove business necessity). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
Second, an EEOC attorney stated in a case in 2012: ""We hope that all employers and employees will now understand that even if employees sign severance agreements with their employer, they are still entitled to file a discrimination charge with the EEOC." https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/12-20-12.cfm
But it is an industry-wide open secret that tech firms want to get rid of their older workers and replace them with younger workers or possibly offshore the position. Startup scene is outright hostile towards older tech workers where the vast majority of the work force is in their 20s.
I don't see this getting any better. IBM is a special case because they have been suffering during this tech/economic boom we are in right now. So they have been laying off lots of people while most of the tech world has been hiring. I think many corporations are waiting for a recession to provide them an excuse to "trim" their tech workforce and I suspect most of that "trimming" will be done at the older end.
That said, whoever hires or fires based on age, get good at hiding it, because its illegal, and one should not be expected to just let that go.
> But, the new documents added, employees had to waive the right to take their age cases to court. Instead, they had to pursue them through private arbitration. What’s more, they had to keep them confidential and pursue them alone. They couldn’t join with other workers to make a case.
Forced arbitration means they were aware that this would appear to be an age discrimination case... And chose to continue with their actions without trying to dissuade that idea.
That doesn't seem like something that would happen.
The only PR steps seem to be ones to reduce liability, namely that no one involved should talk about it.
As for liability, it stinks to high heaven.
Age discrimination was picked out for extra protection, shortly before the layoffs began.
It is the only form of descrimination where forced arbitration was applied.
It was the only place where a complaint was required to be kept secret.
And the only complaint where you could not join others with similar complaints.
None of this is damning, but it is highly indicative.
Most of the bigger companies, like IBM has in the past, will increase contractors in a demographic if that demographic is overly proportionate in a layoff. It's a simple PR stunt that helps show that it isn't likely intentional.
Or issue numbers, or statements, like IBM has in the past.
They have done nothing to show the public this wasn't on purpose, despite having successfully done so in the past, under the same PR director.
...when did I say that? What i've said, consistently, is that it's unclear from the evidence presented whether they targeted older workers, or whether they chose some legitimate axis along which to fire people that happens to correlate with age. Like high salaries, or lack of expertise in newer technologies.
You responded saying that their PR strategy is evidence that it was specifically about age. That's the only context in which PR has come up, and I still don't see how it proves or otherwise susbtantiates the connection.
However, one trend that has become apparent over the last couple of decades is that there is a growing attitude that older workers are unable to keep up with technology. The funny thing here is that, many time, this new technology is a repeat of older technology in a new set of pyjamas.
The younger set, in not having a good grasp, of technological history, do not see that what they have created is a repeat of past endeavours. In some cases, the conclusions of the past was that the particular track was not followed for specific valid reason which are still valid.
For many years, there is a portion of the older community that has used specific tools and languages which have made us very productive yet date back to the 60's, 70's and 80's. we have been looked on as not getting with the future by many of the younger generation, while we are viewing it as we are waiting for the current generation to get to the future (where we are).
It is actually quite funny. I am not saying that new technology is not worth pursuing, I am however saying that many lessons of the past have been missed.
Sure, but it's not illegal to be stupid.
Ya, i'm not arguing that this is a good policy. Merely that it is a plausible interpretation of the same evidence. It may be that IBM sees the most value in skills that younger people tend to possess (say, React.js coding skill), or that they want to pivot their business in those directions. And those things merely correlate strongly with age.