Slashdot: The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Confirms a Pattern of Age Discrimination at IBM

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Confirms a Pattern of Age Discrimination at IBM
Published on September 11, 2020 at 09:25PM
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a sweeping decision concluding that IBM engaged in systematic age discrimination between 2013 and 2018, when it shed thousands of older workers in the United States. ProPublica reports: The EEOC finding, contained in an Aug. 31 letter to a group of ex-employees, comes more than two years after ProPublica reported that the company regularly flouted or outflanked laws intended to protect older workers from bias in hiring and firing. The letter says a nationwide EEOC investigation “uncovered top-down messaging from (IBM’s) highest ranks directing managers to engage in an aggressive approach to significantly reduce the headcount of older workers to make room for” younger ones.

Employment law experts said the agency’s finding could result in IBM facing millions of dollars in settlement payments or a federal lawsuit at a time when the company is under continued competitive pressure and in the midst of a management changeover. Lawyers for some former workers said EEOC investigators have told them the agency decision may apply to more than 6,000 ex-IBM employees, a number that could grow considerably if, as experts say is likely, the agency’s finding prompts new, private age discrimination lawsuits.