Age-Discrimination Suit Against Google Seeks Class Action For Engineers (dailymail.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes the Daily Mail: A potential class action lawsuit that claims Google discriminated against people over 40 is one step closer to becoming a reality. A motion for conditional certification of collective action status was filed in a San Jose federal court Wednesday, which could open up a suit to anyone over 40 who feels they had been discriminated against by the tech company and not hired because of his or her age. The suit would include "all individuals who interviewed in-person for any software engineer, site reliability engineer, or systems engineer position with Google in the United States in the time period from August 13, 2010 through the present; were age 40 or older at the time of interview; and were refused employment by Google...."
We've discussed ageism before on Slashdot. Now dcblogs shares an article from Computerworld, which says the lawsuit alleges a "systematic pattern" of discrimination, citing the median age of Google's workforce as 29 (according to PayScale), while the median age for U.S. computer programmers is 43. "I think this is long overdue and potentially huge..." says Dan Lyons, who has complained about ageism during his time at HubSpot. "When it comes to age bias, the tech industry doesn't even bother to lie.... Everyone in Silicon Valley knows this and everyone just accepts it."

Comments

Yep

[geek]

My company has a new program that targets "millennials". Our HR department has been very vocal about it and how they need to target things millennials want on a work environment, like game rooms and catered meals etc. Its all talked about like this great thing and the future of the company. The hype is huge. Meanwhile I'm seeing fewer and fewer people over 50 at the company.

We're a fortune 500 company. The age bias is blatant and in our faces. We are not based out of Silicon Valley either.

Re:Yep

[Opportunist]

Boomers had it pretty easy in the job market, with salaries that actually allowed a living. We still have it pretty good that we (ok, I at least) managed to get into the job market with a salary that allowed me to ... well... at least I got a salary right from the start! And I was hired by a company right from the start, I didn't have to go through a temp agency that sends me about like a cheap ho, here today, there tomorrow. Back in my day you could actually even get a foot in the door without degrees that put more debt onto you than the average gambling addict has after spending a lifetime in Vegas. Dot-com started quite a few careers of good people who, to this day, don't have any kind of wallpaper toilet paper to their name.

It's way different for people starting today. Without any kind of degree, forget trying to get into the business AT ALL. You start out with a debt that rivals small island states into a temp job hire-and-fire world where you have zero job security for the next few decades, and even if you're ten times better than the guy next to you, it's not a given that you'll get hired "for sure", ever.

This is not going to end well.

Why not Facebook?

[ark1]

Facebook has a bout the same median age. In addition Zuckerberg openly stated “Young people are just smarter” on hiring practices. While we are at it, why not a lawsuit for gender and race equality...

Re:bs like we find people over X don't work over 5

[AmiMoJo]

bs like we find people over X don't like to work over 50 hours a week and that is not the what we want in this office.

Wait a sec, when people think women don't want to work 50 hour weeks so get fewer promotions and less money it's all fine, because that's their lifestyle choice and they prioritize work hours over pay. But when older people don't or can't work like a 20 year old who hasn't figured out they are being exploited yet, it's unacceptable and a lawsuit is required to fix it.

Of course 50 hour weeks are ridiculous. At the moment they are mostly illegal in the EU (the limit is 48 hours, and even that can't be a constant thing). Just apply it equally to everyone.

older employees won't put up with abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Quiet simply, older employees aren't willing to be walked all over by management. What, you want me to work 80 hours a week without overtime? That's why these companies want people under 30 and H1Bs as well. It's about control. Older employees are more likely to tell you to go fuck yourself when you tell them to work more unpaid overtime.

Guess what kiddies, the longer you keep taking it up the ass, the more you are going to get fucked over. Do you think this companies actually give a shit about you? They don't. Don't be a corporate fan boy, they have no loyalty to you, thus you shouldn't either.

But what do I know, I'm one of those old people that can see through all of the bullshit. We've been through downturns, the .com crash of the early 2000s etc etc.

Figure out what is REALLY important to you, work is a means to an end in life, not the point of life.

This is getting more of a land mine

[Opportunist]

I am already stating in any job offer I send out for applicants to explicitly NOT include race, age, sex, religion or ANYTHING that I could possibly discriminate against. At least if they do I can reject them for not following application guidelines without fearing a lawsuit. At least legal told me so, and I tend to believe them.

Quite frankly and directly: I would hire a 55 year old over a 25 year old INSTANTLY, provided I can afford him. What's coming out of college these days is such a bunch of useless self entitled special snowflakes that I could literally fire them out of a cannon from my top floor office. If legal didn't tell me that this is oddly still illegal, for some odd reason that I just can't understand.

Sorry, had to vent some steam. Mod this any way you like, I have Karma to burn, but this had to be said!

Re:This is getting more of a land mine

[serviscope_minor]

What's coming out of college these days is such a bunch of useless self entitled special snowflakes that I could literally fire them out of a cannon from my top floor office.

Hi Plato, is that you again? Do the kids these days also lover chatter in place of exercise?

Re:bs like we find people over X don't work over 5

[I75BJC]

How funny! A youngster deems to know about oldsters. Most people over 40 work more than 40 hours per week. Top that off with child-work, house-word (of all sorts), help-friends-work, volunteer-work, car-work, etc., etc. Our senior sysadm joined the company at age 52 and worked 45 hours a week consistently and the 36-hour yearly outage until he left for a more lucrative position. Older workers, being more experienced, seem to troubleshoot quicker and/or better from what I read and experience. The problem with stereotyping is that one day your stereotype will catch up with you. The glory of young men is their strength; The glory of old men is their gray hair (assuming they have any). Youth and strength is one thing; Maturity, experience and (possible) wisdom is quite another.

I've always found age discrimination odd

[rsilvergun]

Since it's pretty much a fact that you can work longer and harder when you're young. And it's not like experience is all that important in a brand new field. I understand why the working class is against it. We all get old but very few of us can stop working at 40. But I sorta wish we working class folks could be more honest about it and just admit we're protecting our own interests. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that but we act like we're doing something disdainful...

Re:I've always found age discrimination odd

[Lije Baley]

Show an "old guy" 5 new things and he'll draw on his experience to give you 5 reasons each why a) they're not new, and b) they still won't yield a return on investment. The "young guy", however, won't be fazed by such "cynicism", and will be a preferred hire for managers and their ilk who build their careers by doing projects, "successfully". Experienced people are just rain on the parade.

Re:I've always found age discrimination odd

[PJ6]

Since it's pretty much a fact that you can work longer and harder when you're young. And it's not like experience is all that important in a brand new field. I understand why the working class is against it. We all get old but very few of us can stop working at 40. But I sorta wish we working class folks could be more honest about it and just admit we're protecting our own interests. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that but we act like we're doing something disdainful...

Programming isn't like shoveling coal - working harder and longer usually results in worse output. And experience can be a very strong productivity multiplier.

If you had any tech experience at all you'd know this.

... what are you doing here?

Re:Divide and conquer

[ATMAvatar]

why would any sane person invest their time in qualifying for such a career if its longevity is threatened.

Because IT isn't threatened. With computers going into everything, IT is here to stay, and it is going to continue increasing as a proportion of all jobs. This is in spite of the industry's attempts to kill itself with cut corners, aversion to experience, and constant reinventing-of-the-wheel due to a refusal to learn from history.

Re:The work Millennials do is just plain bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

The GP makes some really good points, and the best you can counter them with are some insults and gibberish?

The gedit text editor is a superb example of how hipsters/millennials are ruin perfectly good software.

Here is a screenshot of the gedit UI from 2009.

It shows gedit as it was developed by Generation X, with a clean, sensible, and consistent UI.

Here is a more recent screenshot of the gedit UI after hipsters/millennials have had their way with it.

The hipster/millennial version is a total mess, with no consistency, functionality that's hidden and inaccessible, and usability that is absolutely terrible.

It is hard to believe but those are the same program!

Only hipsters/millennials could take a really usable software UI and ruin it as quickly as they have done with gedit.

Re:bs like we find people over X don't work over 5

[DragonTHC]

I don't get paid to push buttons. I get paid to know which button to push.

Re:The work Millennials do is just plain bad.

[AmiMoJo]

Boomers always blame the young. They seem to think it's the normal thing to do, the way their parents complained about their rock and roll music and silly clothing. But boomers are much worse, they actually hate the younger generation, as you just demonstrated.

Millennials didn't invent or popularize Javascript (they were just kids when it took off), but the have to deal with it because that's what people want nowadays. Web apps. The ones I know quietly complain about how bad Javascript is, but it's what people want so they go on with it and deliver. Meanwhile the older guys just want to keep sending SMS messages and editing text files for config, because users are idiots for not liking that.

And actually, they all know C++ in my experience, it's just not the best language any more for most tasks. It sucks for embedded because of memory management and garbage collection, it sucks for servers because of lack of security features, it sucks for desktop apps because it creates loads of unnecessary work compared to say C#, and it sucks for web because only idiots install plug-ins these days.

Re:bs like we find people over X don't work over 5

[AmiMoJo]

It's exactly the same. Women want to do those jobs, but are more likely to refuse putting in masses of overtime regularly, and employers worry that they might want to take maternity leave more so than men so outright refuse to hire them.