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IBM is Being Sued For Age Discrimination After Firing Thousands (bloomberg.com)
A lawyer known for battling tech giants over the treatment of workers has set her sights on International Business Machines Corp. Bloomberg reports: Shannon Liss-Riordan on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of three former IBM employees who say the tech giant discriminated against them based on their age when it fired them. Liss-Riordan, a partner at Lichten & Liss-Riordan in Boston, has represented workers against Amazon, Uber and Google and has styled her firm as the premier champion for employees left behind by powerful tech companies. "Over the last several years, IBM has been in the process of systematically laying off older employees in order to build a younger workforce," the former employees claim in the suit, which draws heavily on a ProPublica report published in March that said the company has fired more than 20,000 employees older than 40 in the last six years.
The lawsuit comes as IBM faces questions about its firing practices. In exhaustive detail, the ProPublica report made the case that IBM systematically broke age-discrimination rules. Meanwhile, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has consolidated complaints against IBM into a single, targeted investigation, according to a person familiar with it. Further reading: IBM Fired Me Because I'm Not a Millennial, Alleges Axed Cloud Sales Star in Age Discrim Court Row, and IBM is Telling Remote Workers To Get Back in the Office Or Leave.
The lawsuit comes as IBM faces questions about its firing practices. In exhaustive detail, the ProPublica report made the case that IBM systematically broke age-discrimination rules. Meanwhile, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has consolidated complaints against IBM into a single, targeted investigation, according to a person familiar with it. Further reading: IBM Fired Me Because I'm Not a Millennial, Alleges Axed Cloud Sales Star in Age Discrim Court Row, and IBM is Telling Remote Workers To Get Back in the Office Or Leave.
Even in Canada.
I have dealings with IBM on equipment from time to time. Back in the last 90s, it would be experienced people in their mid 30s and 40s, sometimes an old experienced greybeard with encyclopedic knowledge was also on the team I dealt with. It gave you the impression they were well versed in what they were selling and supporting.
Gradually they started pushing the older people out of their workforce here, until it's now reached absurd levels. The last 2 times I had IBM SAN people here to discuss storage, they sent 1 manager who I'd hazard a guess to say they couldn't be over 30, and 2-3 techs who looked the same age as our college interns. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence that IBM is retaining their institutional knowledge and experience if the shit hits the fan and you need a crack support team to sort out an issue on site.