IBM reportedly targeted older workers in layoffs

IBM reportedly targeted older workers in layoffs

IBM has been put into the spotlight for the wrong reason. The computer giant now deems older workers obsolete and puts them into the front when layoffs occur.  This disregards the federal law on discrimination against aged workers.

ProPublica and Mother Jones  co-published an exhaustive report that alleges IBM has for years disregarded age discrimination laws in an attempt to push out employees over 40 and replace them with younger workers. The company is believed to have laid off around 20,000 US employees over 40 years of age over the past five years.

Former workers say performance reviews suddenly became much harsher with the pivot in business focus. Some felt forced to accept an early retirement package when the alternative was being fired outright. IBM encouraged some of those affected to apply for jobs elsewhere in the company, but ProPublica found internal communications that discouraged managers from rehiring them.

IBM has had some serious allegations for years deeming with unfair practices as well as being a company nobody would like to work for.   A quick read on the collapse can be read in  The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon? by Robert X. Cringely which describes the chaos and mismanagement of big blue for the past.

It has been stated that employees who were brought back on were given lower pay and reduced benefits. Employees had to agree to private arbitration to receive severance, leaving them on their own to prove IBM had wrongly run afoul of age discrimination laws.

Back in the early days of 1970, IBM was envisioned as a huge computer giant that kept workers for life if they gave their lives to the company.  This changed for the worst in the 1990s after IBM squandered changes of going with Microsoft and building Windows when management pushed for OS/2.  That alone should display the insight that the corporate heads had.