Comment by pinewurst
7 years ago
They didn't fire theirs - they ordered them to move to an arbitrary office, most commonly not the closest geographically either, without relocation money. If you didn't move, it was considered a voluntary departure. There was often no room at these offices even for the minority who accepted the moves.
It was/is a deliberate attempt to dispose of senior, less portable people without having to pay layoff charges.
Who needs fusion power when you can run off the Watsons spinning in their graves at relativistic velocity?
Holy bleep, have any good references for this?
ProPublica did an incredible investigation into this:
https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a...
https://www.propublica.org/article/investigating-ibm-digital...
The second link, which details how the reporting for the story happened, explains how older workers were often given 90 days to move thousands of miles to "an office" or else lose their jobs.
-- The results are stunning and should shock and scare all of us, whether we're in our 20s, 30s, or beyond. Because we all age -- this is a fact. And if the IBMs of the world can get off scott free, other companies may do this too.