'Let's make the dinobabies extinct': IBM
emails reveal that execs forced out older
staff to make way for younger staff to
boost number of 'digital natives'
Daily Mail (UK),
by
Christina Coulter
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
2/14/2022 2:58:19 PM
IBM faces an age discrimination lawsuit for forcing out hundreds of older employees, referring to them as 'dinobabies' who should be an 'extinct species' in favor of younger 'digital natives,' according to court documents. A court filing by attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who is representing hundreds of former IBM employees for 'age animus from IBM's highest ranks,' claims that unnamed executives were aware of a 'companywide plan to oust older employees in order to make room for younger employees.'(Snip)Another unnamed executive, according to court documents, expressed 'frustration that IBM's proportion of millennial employees is much lower than at a competitor firm.'
Reply 1 - Posted by:
GustoGrabber 2/14/2022 3:00:25 PM (No. 1071893)
I'll take class action age discrimination for $1000, Alex.
23 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
laurenc 2/14/2022 3:11:27 PM (No. 1071899)
They can deny it, but common sense says that they were trying to cut older, higher paid employees in order to hire younger employees at a lesser wage. I wish i could be on that jury!
19 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Skinnydip 2/14/2022 3:21:04 PM (No. 1071903)
If IBM actually needed employees with different skill sets then it will difficult to win an age-discrimination lawsuit. That being said, I sure don't blame them for trying. Big corporations can be brutal.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
lynngirl122 2/14/2022 3:28:02 PM (No. 1071907)
What's "old?" 40? 50? 45? 60?
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
itsonlyme 2/14/2022 3:29:22 PM (No. 1071908)
Were there "crackers" being ousted ?
Might want to ask NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
6 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
seamusm 2/14/2022 3:38:40 PM (No. 1071913)
IBM should not only owe a huge settlement but it should equal all the lost wages and benefits if not back pay and being rehired. Further the responsible parties should be fired for cause without being eligible for rehire. Age discrimination is even more vile than other forms because older employees aren't welcome anywhere after a certain age and likely near to retirement.
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
skacmar 2/14/2022 3:58:00 PM (No. 1071924)
IBM is seen by many as a dying dinosaur of a company. What exactly does IBM produce today that is a household name or used in every office? What was the last innovative thing coming from IBM? The younger people want to work for companies that are seen as cool and innovative. That is certainly not what comes to mind when thinking of IBM these days. If they would come out with the latest greatest gaming system, tablet, or cellular telephone younger hipsters would flock to IBM.
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
hershey 2/14/2022 4:10:45 PM (No. 1071934)
Finally us old people, 1G'ers, living in a 5G world, win one...
3 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
3XALADY 2/14/2022 4:10:59 PM (No. 1071936)
I was 46 years old in 1991, got laid off at McDonnell Douglas after the A-12 cancellation. After several months found another good paying job. Was there almost 5 years (pharmaceutical industry), then my company bought another company and kept their employees because they had already been thru the age related lay off stuff. So went job hunting again at age 51. I never found another GOOD job and finally took early Social Security at age 62. This all started in the early 90's and it has been going strong since.
13 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
columba 2/14/2022 4:29:56 PM (No. 1071954)
I was raised to see elders as having experience and probable wisdom. As I age I see me being seen as garbage that is in the way.
8 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Terry_tr6 2/14/2022 4:56:06 PM (No. 1071967)
a problem with older employees with many years in the company is when some new shooting star young exec gets hired and promotes is "new cutting edge " plan to remake the division or sector or whatever he is now in charge of, we old guys remember a couple exec's back a similar plan that fell flat on it's face after a high body count and failed products.
8 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 2/14/2022 5:29:18 PM (No. 1071994)
"Slave labor would be even better if they could get away with it, but younger workers and H1Bs will do for now." - Slave labor? Think China and some other tech savy third world countries. Thank you outsourcing.
Frankly surprised the lawsuit only represents hundreds of IBM employees. How many employees did IBM employ in the 80s in the United States? How many does IBM employ in the US today?
IBM is not alone in this, btw.
Don't know if the lawsuit will be successful. IBM offered retirement incentives as well as severance packages during layoffs.
2 people like this.
I was laid off five years ago, and everyone laid off on the same day was over 50. The compensation package was only available if you agreed to not sue the company. Checked with a lawyer, and it would’ve cost about double the compensation package to litigate the issue. I took the money, and working had a new job, less pressure, no travel, and it’s warm around where we’re living now. A win, win for us.
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Luandir 2/14/2022 5:50:23 PM (No. 1072017)
There's a thing called institutional wisdom, which IBM has just chosen to disregard. We'll see how it works out for them.
8 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Scribelus 2/14/2022 6:15:43 PM (No. 1072041)
Oh my. I wonder what might be the predominant skin colors and so-called genders of the incoming digital natives, versus those of the exiting dinobabies.
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
kono 2/14/2022 7:20:24 PM (No. 1072093)
IBM has thinned the ranks of older workers several times since Louie "The Axe" Gerstner first T.J.Watson's traditional "full employment" corporate culture. My older brother got reamed once, then AGAIN after IBM bought the startup he joined and then subjected THEM to layoffs.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
john56 2/14/2022 7:20:42 PM (No. 1072094)
The trick in corporate America is to run the non-inner-circle white males out the door in their late 40s so the age discrimination claim is tougher to deal with.
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Folsomguy 2/14/2022 8:50:03 PM (No. 1072147)
Don't get mad at me but...a 21 year old recent college grad is far more knowledgeable than a person working for IBM for 25-30 years. It's a fact of the computer industry today. 30 years ago; in most companies, you learned more by working in the industry than what was taught in college. The education prepared you to learn in the industry.
0 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
MickTurn 2/14/2022 11:35:17 PM (No. 1072227)
Bad move OneBM...Age discrimination, and Billions in Lawsuits...See Ya!
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
JimBob 2/15/2022 1:38:24 AM (No. 1072264)
I'm just glad that I never bought stock in that outfit!
It seems to me that the last really influential thing that IBM did was to select Microsoft as it's software partner.
Previous to that, there were many brands of computers on the market, each with it's own, mutually exclusive software. Business people were reluctant to adopt any brand of personal computer due to the risk of putting a large amount of time and company data into a system that would prove to be a dead end.
Once IBM adopted Microsoft, business people at the time then bought IBM PC's, as with IBM support they could count on the machine as a business tool, rather than an expensive, time-sucking toy.
What the IBM guys did not realize is that it was the software that people used, regardless of who built the electronics -the machine itself- that it ran on. Microsoft became the standard operating system for most businesses, and who made the machine became irrelevant. Today Microsoft is sitting in the dominant position that IBM held, back in the typewriter days, and IBM has withered to a shadow -and a faint one- of it's former self.
0 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Kumoan 2/15/2022 2:49:13 PM (No. 1072843)
Well, I've seen a bit of this up close and personal, and it explains also why some gummints prefer young SJWs over older people who have at least some connection to reality, and cover up their resultant disasters under mountains of $$$ and non-disclosure agreements with the Red Cross used as a convenient, gummint-friendly burial detail.
Besides, it is Glowbull Warming.
0 people like this.
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How can the rootless international corporation maximize its profits without using the cheapest labor possible? Modern people find this to be entirely laudable. Slave labor would be even better if they could get away with it, but younger workers and H1Bs will do for now.