Comment by rdtsc
6 days ago
> years of work at Microsoft plus their age totals 70
Is that ageism? How is that different than saying if their gender is Y, their race is X or their religious belief is Z?
6 days ago
> years of work at Microsoft plus their age totals 70
Is that ageism? How is that different than saying if their gender is Y, their race is X or their religious belief is Z?
In the US, ageism is allowed as long it doesn't discriminate against older people(45 years old or older I think?). You're allowed to discriminate against youth all you want.
Offering a buyout is in no way discriminatory since it is voluntary. If it was forced buyout, then yes it would be discriminatory
> In the US, ageism is allowed as long it doesn't discriminate against older people(45 years old or older I think?). You're allowed to discriminate against youth all you want.
I think it's 40 https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination. So for 40 or less years + X years worked to be more than 70 they'd have to work there 30 years starting at 10 years old or younger. Granted, some of the decisions I saw Microsoft make do look like they were made by 10 year olds, so maybe there is some truth there.
> Offering a buyout is in no way discriminatory since it is voluntary. If it was forced buyout, then yes it would be discriminatory
Still, what if they offered it based on gender, religious belief, or race? Would that look just as good or bad of an offer.
>Still, what if they offered it based on gender, religious belief, or race? Would that look just as good or bad of an offer.
Those would be illegal. Based on age + tenure is not. Simple as that
But in terms of optics, I think this comes out positively. They're basically letting people retire early with a generous buyout offer that they are not required to take instead of just laying these people off with or without severance, which they'd be within their legal rights to do
By that logic a job offer is in no way discriminatory since it is voluntary?
A job offer can be discriminatory, why not? "You were our only female candidate, so we're offering you the job"
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"Hey, John. I see here that you didn't volunteer to retire. I admire your dedication to your job and to the company. However, I just got a troubling message from HR about your recent performance/allegations of misconduct/social media postings/<etc insert other BS excuse that HR makes up etc> and I need you to come with me to the board room so that we can sort this out. Don't bring anything with you. Just leave it on your desk. That'd be grrrrreat..."
Because "number of expected working years left" is a factor in evaluating common law severance.
I can see if it would be exact years working at the place not years left.
The idea is that a 60 year old will have a harder time finding a new job than a 30 year old.
Not all ageism is illegal.
I am not a native English speaker so I actually geniunely wonder:
1. Could you please tell more?
2. Could this be said for other -ism s as well? (Sexism, Racism, Ableism, Classism, Nationalism, Nepotism)
In the US ageism is illegal if you are discriminating against someone for being too old. It is not illegal in the US to discriminate against someone based on how young they are
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I mean they could instead fire them, at least they can opt to this.
Going by age, wouldn't that be breaking the law? Can't imagine they'd get more than a slap on wrist for it though, so kind of surprised they even bothered with the offer.
If it’s just by age I’d guess yes, but they always have the option to do mass layoffs including these folks + others.
In Spain there’s something similar called “prejubilación” (apologies for the Spanish link but the Wikipedia entry does not have an English version):
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejubilaci%C3%B3n