🚀 go-pugleaf

IBM has circumvented age discrimination laws and dumped thousands of American
workers for younger, cheaper H-1B visa holders.

No surprise to readers of "I, Cringely," or those who have followed these issues
closely.

IBM has long been in the process of becoming a hollowed-out shell of its former
self.  Despite becoming an increasingly irrelevant also-ran, it takes a long
time for such dinosaurs to die.

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https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/

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But when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM
faced the changing landscape with a distinction most of its fiercest competitors
didn�t have:  a large number of experienced and aging U.S. employees.

The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential
planning document, would "correct seniority mix." 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.

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