Age Discrimination, Indian-Style

theodp writes "In April, IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano told investors Big Blue hopes to dodge an estimated $6 billion in liability stemming from a judge's ruling that IBM violated U.S. federal age discrimination laws. In May, IBM closes on its $150-$200MM purchase of Indian outsourcer Daksh, whose age requirements for job applicants make Logan's Run seem progressive. On its Opportunities page, Daksh states that Customer Care Specialists should be between 21-25 years of age and Team Leaders should be no older than 27. Early Daksh investors included Citigroup and we-don't-need-no-stinking-unions Amazon."

Comments

story text is misleading

[poincare]

From the article: A judge ruled last summer the pension changes IBM made in the 1990s violated federal age discrimination laws. Palmisano said Tuesday IBM hopes to win the case on appeal and avoid an estimated $6 billion in liability.

IBM has discrimiated against older workers in the past, and they're buying a company that discrimiates against aged works now, but other than sharing the common feature of discrimination by big blue, these two events are unrelated.

Re:Nice theory, but...

[corporatemutantninja]

I didn't say "unaccented" I said "neutral accent" and there absolutely is such a thing. It's simply a language spoken without an identifiable regional accent, sort of an "average" accent. In the U.S. we have "newscaster English" which is neutral-American, and in the U.K. BBC newsreaders speak in neutral-British. In India they try to teach something which to American, UK, and Australian speakers sounds neutral. And they do a damned good job of it. I'm from Maine, and believe me they weren't talking "the people talk where I grew up." Ayuh.

And, I was "traveling a bit": I was observing an accent training class at Daksh in Mumbai two weeks ago.

Know of what ye speak.