Posted on 04/01/2018 8:41:46 AM PDT by catnipman
It slashed IBM’s U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas.
ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years.
In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
Among ProPublica’s findings, IBM:
Denied older workers information the law says they need in order to decide whether they’ve been victims of age bias, and required them to sign away the right to go to court or join with others to seek redress.
Targeted people for layoffs and firings with techniques that tilted against older workers, even when the company rated them high performers. In some instances, the money saved from the departures went toward hiring young replacements. Converted job cuts into retirements and took steps to boost resignations and firings. The moves reduced the number of employees counted as layoffs, where high numbers can trigger public disclosure requirements.
Encouraged employees targeted for layoff to apply for other IBM positions, while quietly advising managers not to hire them and requiring many of the workers to train their replacements.
Told some older employees being laid off that their skills were out of date, but then brought them back as contract workers, often for the same work at lower pay and fewer benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at features.propublica.org ...
Many big corporations ignored the law at cuts they made in 07 & 08 in my opinion. Plenty of suits and claims.
The problem is in these technical fields the claimant with Federal traction just gets his job back somewhere where he knows he will live of borrowed time the rest of his career. The guy that goes for a big claim is usually someone who was at the top of the income ladder for their field and they have to make a claim in the corporate home office venue. Juries in Texas think canned execs in expensive states made way too much money and rarely award anything.
I have NO pity for anyone in the NorthEast. Labor unions, Vote Commies in to tax the crap out of you. What in the world do you expect a Co. to do. They have two choices - Move to a lower cost state or hire lower cost labor
They simply do not value the older employees that much. They must feel that they can hire newbies with little in reduced quality and quantity of work, at a lower cost.
Not just IBM. And Federal law has been flouted with complete and full support of the uniparty.
In the area of Large scale oil refineries, LNG plants and the like, this is exactly what is happening in the Cos. that design these.Back in the early 1990's Mexico was the first destination, higher wages and drug related violence shut that down. Now much of work done in India has migrated to Eastern Europe and Manila as well as Vietnam.
China is out because they steal and do not speak English
I absolutely agree with you. They are also abusing the H1B saying no American has the skill. Also the new collar job nomenclature is pure bs. What they are really saying is they will pretend it is different skills but pay much much less.
Years ago I took a job with NCR (never completely repaired). The pull was the 13% commission given on gross sales. They sent us to a three-week disaster of Sales School in Dayton (”We do not sell at NCR, we allow people to buy,” “Never wear green. It says you are insincere,” etc. Three weeks in a flea-bag hotel where pipes banged all night, hookers in adjoining rooms yelled). The moment we got back, NCR cut our commissions from 13% to 1 1/2% but kept or worthless $211/week salaries. We all quit What a surprise, huh?
The a-holes who sold America out in manufacturing, IT, and defense are all mostly dead. America is a shell of what it was when America WAS #1 in EVERYTHING. This is how these scum make decisions by caring less about outcomes to Americans in the present and future but reaping a windfall in their personal gain.
The points system IBM used, according to the article, is pretty clearly set to target those who are older more than those with higher prices. ...and with much less regard for performance.
Yup, and yup. Living it every day. Ph.D-Physics, working as a financial advisor.
Re: “The greatest pool of under/non-utilized talent in the world are displaced professionals over 50. If you are a technical and laid off after 50, you are probably done career wise.”
More accurate for IT professionals would be 35.
No. IBM is one of the biggest outsourcers in America. For instance, CenturyLink (real example) will outsource to them, including sending the employees for they systems outsourced to become IBM employees. This means that CenturyLink can say that they didn't fire anyone.
Once IBM gets these systems it just keeps them running, not doing a lot of enhancements or conversions. It will squeeze as much labor out of the systems as possible, because that is how they make money. The absolute fewest employees will be kept to keep the systems running.
Then after the system is at its end of life, it will turn it off and lay everyone off.
So no, it doesn't care that it is laying off people. That is the whole point of the exercise, to make their partners look good, and take responsibility for the firings themselves.
Not a year goes by anymore where IBM doesn't fire tens of thousands of employees, but they never run out of employees either.
Was your Dad in Mission Viejo ? I work next to the old Unisys building. Now a storage facility and RV parking lot. I think they moved to Blue Bell PA in the 90’s. Probably in China, today. Sorry to hear about your father.
Corporations try to justify their evil doings with older workers via the “voodoo new age lingo of paradigm shifts”. Well such workers may need to undergo paradigm shifts of thinking of their own, network with each other to form ventures that drive IBM and other corporations into the dust. To hell with non-compete clauses when a particularly good worker is “cost shifted” out of work but is told he can’t work for anybody else for 5 years. Do a Stormy Daniels(in terms of nondisclosure agreements, not false sex allegations) on such employers and dare them to sue you...they can’t get blood from stones anyway so what’s to lose!
The younger ageist discriminators in these Corporations HR departments who think that anybody older than 40 needs to be gone from tech forget one thing...those older boomers invented the bones and infrastructure upon which modern tech now rests and math is still math. Those older boomers know where the “bodies are buried” where as the younger workers have no experienced insight as to how things work as they do now.
Corporations need to fear one thing...that is to have fear of American Employees they are screwing deciding to unify against them and form new seed businesses. Patents be damned!
Oringally he was in the Bay Area then he was moved to Collegeville, PA. I went to visit and take care of him and mom as they died of cancer within 30 days of each other. Two younger siblings had to be taken care of...what a mess.
Lefty outfit, righty outfit, middle-of-the-road outfit, the majority of major corporations in the U.S. are no different.
It happens much faster than people realize. The really cheap foreigners have no experience. At one point one company I was working for had to outsource three deep because as soon as they had six months experience they were gone. In 18 months they were here making sizable percentage of US workers' wages. A few years after that, a lot of them were citizens making US wages.
To keep the gravy train of cheap labor, companies like IBM have to keep mining the bottom of the barrel, and boy do they. IBM has more in common with Nigerian scam artists than a technology company at this point.
You have a big separation at this point between American companies with an actual staff, talent, and core competencies, and Amazon-like "storefronts" whose only skill is outsourcing.
I see that in many areas.
Thank you for the in depth perspective.
What has never been widely tested is the implication in the “signing statement” you and others have mentioned that what the company (and others like Disney) doing to you might have been a “suable offense” and there-fore admissible as evidence of the company’s fore-knowledge of possible wrong doing.
I suppose in 2006 perhaps the severance for you was still 6 months pay? I hear it is now 1 month for IBM if one can still collect it. But for one month’s severance I’d say...nope I ain’t signing but I still expect the severance or I’ll see you in court. Such a signing statement is really an admission of guilt on their part, that perhaps one might have a plausible reason for suing them but they are gambling that most folks are “by the contract, law and order types short” of money and they will sign such a deal and not sue.
I got cut at IBM in 1995 after 28 years. I was 55 and could retire under the old plan. It was a sad ending but in my case I went to work for another company in Silicon Valley the next day for 5 1/2 years. Salary doubled from IBM and my name is on 3 patents. Loved IBM until Gerstner came and turned the place into a nightmare. You could just watch the older workers disappear.
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