3 ms·

Isn't this just as easily explainable by older workers having been there longer, and therefore having higher salaries, and therefore having the most to save by

by darawk 9y ago

Isn't this just as easily explainable by older workers having been there longer, and therefore having higher salaries, and therefore having the most to save by firing them? The fact that they fired more older workers isn't, in and of itself, proof that older workers were targeted.

shakna 9y ago
> In fact, they specifically said employees were not waiving their right when it came to age and could pursue age discrimination cases against the company. > But, the new documents added, employees had to waive the right to take their age cases to court. Instead, they had to pursue them through private arbitration. What’s more, they had to keep them confidential and pursue them alone. They couldn’t join with other workers to make a case. Forced arbitration means they were aware that this would appear to be an age discrimination case... And chose to continue with their actions without trying to dissuade that idea.
- darawk 9y ago
  Or they, correctly, predicted that it would be spun that way, and wanted to mitigate their risk ahead of time?
  - shakna 9y ago
    Are you suggesting they knowingly mitigated risk without any attempt to redirect the PR backlash, or the government investigation that would result? That doesn't seem like something that would happen.
    - darawk 9y ago
      It seems like they took lots of steps to mitigate the PR backlash...? It's also pretty unclear what your point is. If they did indeed age discriminate, wouldn't they also want to take steps to mitigate PR backlash?
      - shakna 9y ago
        I don't really see any steps to reduce PR backlash. I do, however, see a lot of steps taken to reduce liability, which is a bigger concern if they were targeting a demographic. The only PR steps seem to be ones to reduce liability, namely that no one involved should talk about it.
        darawk 9y ago
        Right, but what is that evidence of? I don't see how that is suggestive of anything other than them caring about liability risk.
        shakna 9y ago
        You've moved the target. You said it was all PR, it isn't. As for liability, it stinks to high heaven. Age discrimination was picked out for extra protection, shortly before the layoffs began. It is the only form of descrimination where forced arbitration was applied. It was the only place where a complaint was required to be kept secret. And the only complaint where you could not join others with similar complaints. None of this is damning, but it is highly indicative. Most of the bigger companies, like IBM has in the past, will increase contractors in a demographic if that demographic is overly proportionate in a layoff. It's a simple PR stunt that helps show that it isn't likely intentional. Or issue numbers, or statements, like IBM has in the past. They have done nothing to show the public this wasn't on purpose, despite having successfully done so in the past, under the same PR director.
        darawk 9y ago
        > You've moved the target. You said it was all PR, it isn't. ...when did I say that? What i've said, consistently, is that it's unclear from the evidence presented whether they targeted older workers, or whether they chose some legitimate axis along which to fire people that happens to correlate with age. Like high salaries, or lack of expertise in newer technologies. You responded saying that their PR strategy is evidence that it was specifically about age. That's the only context in which PR has come up, and I still don't see how it proves or otherwise susbtantiates the connection.
oldandtired 9y ago
The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. However, one trend that has become apparent over the last couple of decades is that there is a growing attitude that older workers are unable to keep up with technology. The funny thing here is that, many time, this new technology is a repeat of older technology in a new set of pyjamas. The younger set, in not having a good grasp, of technological history, do not see that what they have created is a repeat of past endeavours. In some cases, the conclusions of the past was that the particular track was not followed for specific valid reason which are still valid. For many years, there is a portion of the older community that has used specific tools and languages which have made us very productive yet date back to the 60's, 70's and 80's. we have been looked on as not getting with the future by many of the younger generation, while we are viewing it as we are waiting for the current generation to get to the future (where we are). It is actually quite funny. I am not saying that new technology is not worth pursuing, I am however saying that many lessons of the past have been missed.
- exolymph 9y ago
  > The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. Sure, but it's not illegal to be stupid.
- darawk 9y ago
  > The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. Ya, i'm not arguing that this is a good policy. Merely that it is a plausible interpretation of the same evidence. It may be that IBM sees the most value in skills that younger people tend to possess (say, React.js coding skill), or that they want to pivot their business in those directions. And those things merely correlate strongly with age.
URSpider94 9y ago
At least at the places where I have worked, salary has a pretty weak correlation to age within a single job family and level. Yes, older employees are probably over-represented in the more senior job families, but it’s pretty unusual for a company to just lay off senior engineers or directors ... they do cost more, but at least in theory they also deliver more value.
- darawk 9y ago
  I think that is fairly different at a place like IBM though, where employees tend to have long tenures. It's pretty common in places like that to get steadily promoted and given raises over time. I don't know either though, and would be curious to see data on it.

by darawk 9y ago

shakna 9y ago

> In fact, they specifically said employees were not waiving their right when it came to age and could pursue age discrimination cases against the company. > But, the new documents added, employees had to waive the right to take their age cases to court. Instead, they had to pursue them through private arbitration. What’s more, they had to keep them confidential and pursue them alone. They couldn’t join with other workers to make a case. Forced arbitration means they were aware that this would appear to be an age discrimination case... And chose to continue with their actions without trying to dissuade that idea.

darawk 9y ago
Or they, correctly, predicted that it would be spun that way, and wanted to mitigate their risk ahead of time?
- shakna 9y ago
  Are you suggesting they knowingly mitigated risk without any attempt to redirect the PR backlash, or the government investigation that would result? That doesn't seem like something that would happen.
  - darawk 9y ago
    It seems like they took lots of steps to mitigate the PR backlash...? It's also pretty unclear what your point is. If they did indeed age discriminate, wouldn't they also want to take steps to mitigate PR backlash?
    - shakna 9y ago
      I don't really see any steps to reduce PR backlash. I do, however, see a lot of steps taken to reduce liability, which is a bigger concern if they were targeting a demographic. The only PR steps seem to be ones to reduce liability, namely that no one involved should talk about it.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Right, but what is that evidence of? I don't see how that is suggestive of anything other than them caring about liability risk.
        shakna 9y ago
        You've moved the target. You said it was all PR, it isn't. As for liability, it stinks to high heaven. Age discrimination was picked out for extra protection, shortly before the layoffs began. It is the only form of descrimination where forced arbitration was applied. It was the only place where a complaint was required to be kept secret. And the only complaint where you could not join others with similar complaints. None of this is damning, but it is highly indicative. Most of the bigger companies, like IBM has in the past, will increase contractors in a demographic if that demographic is overly proportionate in a layoff. It's a simple PR stunt that helps show that it isn't likely intentional. Or issue numbers, or statements, like IBM has in the past. They have done nothing to show the public this wasn't on purpose, despite having successfully done so in the past, under the same PR director.
        darawk 9y ago
        > You've moved the target. You said it was all PR, it isn't. ...when did I say that? What i've said, consistently, is that it's unclear from the evidence presented whether they targeted older workers, or whether they chose some legitimate axis along which to fire people that happens to correlate with age. Like high salaries, or lack of expertise in newer technologies. You responded saying that their PR strategy is evidence that it was specifically about age. That's the only context in which PR has come up, and I still don't see how it proves or otherwise susbtantiates the connection.

oldandtired 9y ago

The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. However, one trend that has become apparent over the last couple of decades is that there is a growing attitude that older workers are unable to keep up with technology. The funny thing here is that, many time, this new technology is a repeat of older technology in a new set of pyjamas. The younger set, in not having a good grasp, of technological history, do not see that what they have created is a repeat of past endeavours. In some cases, the conclusions of the past was that the particular track was not followed for specific valid reason which are still valid. For many years, there is a portion of the older community that has used specific tools and languages which have made us very productive yet date back to the 60's, 70's and 80's. we have been looked on as not getting with the future by many of the younger generation, while we are viewing it as we are waiting for the current generation to get to the future (where we are). It is actually quite funny. I am not saying that new technology is not worth pursuing, I am however saying that many lessons of the past have been missed.

exolymph 9y ago
> The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. Sure, but it's not illegal to be stupid.
darawk 9y ago
> The opposite side of this is that the value of knowledge held by such workers is enormous and getting rid of them because the bean-counters will see a savings in wages and salaries is counter-productive to the long term health and viability of the company. Ya, i'm not arguing that this is a good policy. Merely that it is a plausible interpretation of the same evidence. It may be that IBM sees the most value in skills that younger people tend to possess (say, React.js coding skill), or that they want to pivot their business in those directions. And those things merely correlate strongly with age.

URSpider94 9y ago

At least at the places where I have worked, salary has a pretty weak correlation to age within a single job family and level. Yes, older employees are probably over-represented in the more senior job families, but it’s pretty unusual for a company to just lay off senior engineers or directors ... they do cost more, but at least in theory they also deliver more value.

darawk 9y ago
I think that is fairly different at a place like IBM though, where employees tend to have long tenures. It's pretty common in places like that to get steadily promoted and given raises over time. I don't know either though, and would be curious to see data on it.