Is IBM guilty of age discrimination in its recent huge layoff of U.S. workers? Frankly I don’t know. But I know how to find out, and this is part one of that process. Part two will follow on Friday.
Here’s what I need you to do. If you are a U.S. IBMer age 40 or older who is part of the current Resource Action you have the right under Section 201, Subsection H of the Older Worker Benefit Protection Act of 1990 (OWBPA) to request information from IBM on which employees were involved in the RA and their ages and which employees were not selected and their ages.
Quick like a bunny, ask your manager to give you this information which they are required by law to do.
Then, of course, please share this information anonymously with me. Once we have a sense of the scope and age distribution of this layoff I will publish part two.
So is John McAfee the guy who told the FBI how to hack the IPhone, or do you think they made it all up just to make IPhones seem insecure?
McAfee admitted a week later he was just joshing.
there is suspicion a long-time trusted contractor like one Isralei outfit was the one that found the opening.
I bet it isn’t there in 6 months.
Contractor that also does work for Apple. Could they have been given the items to let Apple secretly comply?
He only said he was joking about the social engineering hack. He continues to say he can do it. Here’s a more recent, detailed story: https://www.techinsider.io/john-mcafee-hack-iphone-2016-3
Steve Gibson referred to a respected journalist, Pete Williams, appearing on the Today Show. Quoting Steve in is latest podcast: “… the FBI has not said they have decrypted it. They have said they have extracted the phone’s data. Well, okay. That’s not hard…” https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-553.htm
IBM found a way around this two years ago:
https://www.ctemploymentlawblog.com/2014/05/articles/has-ibm-found-a-way-around-the-owbpa-and-should-others-follow/
Short version: they will provide this data only if the employee insists on arbitration, at which point they will provide the data to the arbitrator, not you.
If I’m not mistaken, taking the arbitration path also completely disqualifies you from the separation package, leaving you with nothing. It’s not a great package but it’s better than nothing, who’s going to do that?
Well, I studied this topic, just a bit, in my first year in law school, but that was 13 years ago. Still, the employer can’t use their bargaining power advantage to take away an already existing right. The problem with fighting that is that you have to sign up a lawyer to fight this for you.. A note to all who don’t already know this, but law suits are the sport of kings. We read a book called “The process is the punishment.” IBM & Donald Trump can file a law suit every time they exhale. But most people are broken by the process. So, if you are getting laid off you are rarely in a position to file a law suit. Now some lawyers will take it on a contingency basis, and maybe with a notorious opponent like IBM they might. But IBM is surely counting on people who are losing their jobs aren’t going to be in a position strong enough to file a law suit. There might be some guy working there, who does it because he loves it, not because he needs the money and might file, but most people won’t. As Bernie Sanders says, the game is rigged. Actually I think George Carlin said it even better. It’s a club and you’re not in it.
Thank you TimKa. The comparison of IBM and Donald Trump seems appropriate in this situation.
Trump is the only candidate complaining about H1B visas, while Obama has illegally expanded them, and given work permits to the spouses of H1Bs, potentially doubling the pool.
@MikeN Cruz and Rubio have both demonstrated they understand the H1B Visa issue too. Really surprising to see the topic finally come up.
Ed, Rubio’s bill would have increased the number of H1B visas, I think doubling with I^2.
Cruz was a supporter, but has since retracted, claiming he changed his mind with the Disney situation, but more likely adjusting to Trump.
Rubio may understand it, but he is supporting an increase.
I suspect that Bernie Sanders opposes H1B, but he has retracted and is going full open borders in an attempt to get the nomination.
Thanks for the insight. Maybe if some of those fired can get the data from their managers (maybe some are dumb enough to just hand it over, who knows) there may be enough compelling data for a law firm to take it on as a contingency or class-action. We already have some rough statistics from those who have reported in to Bob and Lee Conrad, and there appears to be pretty overwhelming evidence from that sample that this is definitely age-based and discriminatory. No secret that part of the ‘secret sauce’ to who goes is how close they might be to getting vested in their future health account, and how much time they have in with IBM (and hence how big their salary may be, making it attractive to replace them with a $17/hour H-1B person).
Except IBM reads this blog, and will probably send out a memo banning it.
As I understand it, IBM has been able to not release the age and position information by making their severance package conditional on accepting arbitration for any age discrimination complaints.
Well, if IBM is only offering one month of severance now, maybe enough people will band together and fund the severance for a chosen person in a big unit to reject IBM’s paltry severance and get the list.
Or who knows maybe a competitor would be willing to fund the severance just to cause IBM aggravation. For $10K or $20K they could cause IBM far, far more in legal fees as they fight releasing the data and then as people see the facts, possibly in more cases taken to arbitration or more cases rejecting arbitration and taken to court.
Things must be bad at IBM if they are down to paying only one month of severance.
Gotta remember, it’s not only one month’s severance. It’s a year of Cobra coverage.
One question only… how old are Ginny and the Board members? well, OK, two then. And are they going out with the rest of the “too old” crowd?
Expiring minds want to know.
Bob, shouldn’t you be more specific as to what you want people to request?
Can a single employee demand to know the age of everyone that IBM is firing?
It would be more interesting to have a list of people with age/skill set. IBM argues they need those with new skills for their transformation focus. (IBM stopped their training budgets it seems about a decade ago.)
When I was RAd in 2003, part of the package I received was a listing of every person included in the RA, by position, location, and age (names were not included.) Supposedly this was to show that there was no discrimination, even though even then it appeared to be skewed toward those over 40. I managed to escape that RA and stay with IBM, and have been with the company since then, for a total of 17 years and countless RAs. Several years ago, IBM stopped giving out the position, location, and age information, citing privacy concerns (yeah right.) I will say that based on my observations, they seem to go after people approaching retirement age (because if they can call it a “retirement”, it doesn’t count as a layoff) and those who work from home or in smaller locations (so that the W.A.R.N. act isn’t triggered in the U.S.)
Apart from very senior management IBM is trying to re-invent itself at least in marketing terms as a Google type hipster company. This is the big transformation. Make IBM appear cool. Really it’s a sales sham. We all know IBM is doomed. It’s on a death march but it is being sexed up to collect as much cash as they can. Only an idiot would fall for the hype. Buffet down 2 billion! Even he is hoping other suckers pile in and help him get some money back on this Ponzi scheme.
As a grey hair myself I am out! The first quarter results will be another blood-bath. Yes all the old people are going! Unless you are wrinkle free and have glossy hair it’s good-bye! The new IBMers speak social and walk around with selfie sticks trying to look cool and in doing so maybe IBM will look cool enough that more idiots part with their cash.
Just maybe the hipsters will save IBM?
I’ve heard rumblings about GE as a buyer of IBM! Nothing substantial, speculation, but an interesting thought.
Large swaths of bodies cut in Canada yesterday. The labour laws are more labour friendly (less corporate friendly?) here so the packages are “less bad” than in the US but not as good as they once were.
There’s no denying the IT evolution now taking place, and its threat to the traditional IBM model. IBM has the right motives, only they are underpinning a clumsy bureaucratic transformation to an unproven model, all covered up by a thick coating of marketing makeup and lipstick.
Some will say IBM is too big to undergo an elegant transformation but in the end the experienced client facing roles – sales and delivery – not the baby – are being thrown out with the bath water. They will end up with inexperience managing opportunities and with witless delivery representation doing their best to make excuses for poor service across all the IBM brands.
A number of those grey haired folk will end up working on the customer side because not every company out there is undergoing similar transformation, and those companies value that IBM experience working for them. In that position, they will see through the makeup and judge for themselves – in a more informed manner – whether the new IBM is the route to take their company.
Seeing Alpha mentioned that there was another round announced in Germany. Another quarter, another round. Here we go again.
looks like they’re down to “I B” at this point. soon to be down to “I ?”
Which Friday ?
Based upon the “next weeks” from the kickstarter posts I’d say….. the second or third one in June.
Getting the age discrimination goods on IBM? Good luck with that, for two reason. One, you look down and find the black spot in your hand and are in shock/denial knowing odds are even your IT career is over. Two, you are suddenly dead walking with a communicable disease (to your fellow worker bees) and an unexploded bomb for your management that wants to get you out the door as fast qas possible with as little as possible.
All you can see is the glittering edge of the axe coming down on your neck.
Stepping back a bit, perspective-wise, and bringing Apple into the discussion re IBM’s apparently imminent demise…
Could it be that Apple today is about where IBM was back in the System 360 1960s?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/apple-at-forty-steve-jobs-led-us-to-the-fourth-dimension
Watson Sr./Jr. approx = Steve Jobs? And without the visionary at the helm, does it spell the end of Apple’s dominance in the tech world?
(Sorry to be off-topic here Mr. RXC, feel free to delete if you feel it’s appropriate.)
This is a little off topic from the age discrimination deal. My thought was to restructure IBM so they would not need to constantly shed workers.
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Normally I would say the way for a company to restructure itself is to review the current or possible needs of the market, review its current or possible resources, and start to produce what appears to be desirable and doable. Maybe there is some high margin product or service that IBM can discover by some miracle.
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However IBM has spent so much effort in destroying most of its resources in a misguided effort to satisfy the Wall Street mantra of “earnings per share” that this concept may not be feasible.
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Perhaps the best thing would be to split up the top heavy company into several smaller pieces that would not be burdened by the gross incompetence of IBM’s Board of Directors and top management.
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Guess I wasted everyone’s time on this off topic rant. Please forgive me.
I proposed that in the prior set of IBM articles. I basically argued that IBM should be a holding company like Coca Cola, or Liz Claiborne, or Berkshire Hathaway. That “holding company” should have have 100 small to mid-sized companies under the umbrella of “Father IBM” or “Mother IBM”. The database company, the analytics company, the middleware company, the Bank Services company, the Healthcare Services company, the SAP implementation company, the supply chain services company. Each with a singular FOCUS!!!! Keep the acquisitions like they were acquired. Keep the brand names (which probably still had meaning back then): Tivoli, Rational, Lotus, Sterling, WebSphere, Softlayer, Aspera, Watson. They had already grown to a successful and sustainable size with effective management before they were acquired. If they didn’t have an ROI, IBM would not have bought them. Make a new company or companies for the Storage and/or the Mainframe. In IBM’s executive arrogance, they are destroying the brands, attempting to have one brand. IBM. While there WILL be technical synergies between brands, let those brands decide to work together themselves. Many of IBM’s acquisitions ran on Oracle databases, and the first thing IBM did after the acquisition, was to delay a year (or more) of enhancements to the products so DB2 could be supported. But let each of them COMPETE in the management structure and style that got them to this point. Forcing them into the 1960-1970’s IBM infrastructure is completely the wrong move! I watched us get acquired with two NA divisions, East and West. Then I watched us get split into two levels of management and went from 2 managers with about 12 people each to 8-9 managers with 4-5 each. Then when the managers had too few reports, they diluted the brands by having each manager cover 4-5 brands. Then the business lost focus, lowered sales. Then there’s the customer “elimination” strategies of software audits which behave like police raids. The mind-numbering effort required to “quote” a customer, then the multi-day turnaround to get a discount approval (when we should have been priced competitively in the first place). As a small business, we had a smaller number of people doing more work, with less duplication of effort. We could turn around sales in a single day, not weeks. You want to know why IBM isn’t working it’s because we get 1000 junk emails a day from our own company begging us to try “BlueMix” and “Cognitive” and “Crowdsource Funding” and 9 layers of “All Hands Calls” inside the company. Kind of makes it difficult to find the 10-20 emails from customers with urgent needs for help or support, or examples. There you go. You want to know why IBM isn’t making money, there it is. And the crappy morale we have when we watch 15-20% of our colleagues leave each quarter. We can only do that 3-4-5 times before there’s no IBM left. Then what?
I guess in a quarter or two it won’t matter anyway….
For the past 4 years, quarter by quarter IBM has been chasing its tail in a downward spiral of reducing revenue followed by reducing payroll. All the while the Wall Street gods are still not pleased and the top executives stash away their personal wealth. Unless a circuit breaker is triggered, the company will fold. It is just a matter of when.
In terms of what the circuit breaker is: It may not have been the right solution in early 90’s when Gerstner came on board, but 20+ years later, the path to survival most likely lies in splitting up IBM into smaller and more focused companies. Some may be bought by other tech organisations, and some will be released from the soul destroying IBM bureaucracy and may return to growth. Don’t hold your breath on this happening, but at least I am verbalising a possible way out for Big Blue.
Would someone consider a shareholder initiative that restores the old severance package? And then a separate initiative that binds upper management to the same caps as regular employees. Shareholders should vote on this.
Without getting the lawyers involved, the only way to really get this information is by anonymously surveying the population in question.
1) age at time of separation
2) year of separation
3) optionally, years of service
insert into favorite database and mine appropriately
Like many big companies, IBM’s workforce ‘good paying’ jobs is skewed heavily towards people born into older cohorts.
You can’t hide from the underpaid overskilled younger folks forever
[…] Is IBM guilty of age discrimination? — Part one […]
A good friend of mine over 45 was just ‘separated’ from IBM after 30 years of service with a simple thank you and 4 weeks severance. He had devoted his entire professional career to IBM. 30 years in this economy is a lot. And they give you 4 weeks? Why would anyone want to work at or work with IBM?
I don’t know whether it’s just me or iif everybody else encountering problems with your blog.
It appears luke some oof the written text on yourr posts are running offf the screen. Can somebody
else please provide feedback and let me kniw if this is happening to them as well?
Thhis could be a problem with my web browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Thanks
In ie11, and edge as well, on Windows 10, I can zoom in on this webpage up to 250% without having to scroll horizontally. But at 300% word wrapping is not perfect.
When I was “resource actioned” back in July 2013 we were given a packet that contained a breakdown by position/ job title of those RA also shown was the age at each title