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posted by takyon on Saturday January 12 2019, @12:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the people-in-garbage-out dept.

IBM is still refusing to turn over documents in a bombshell age-discrimination lawsuit that attorneys representing plaintiff Jonathan Langley believe will show Big Blue has deliberately and systematically shed older workers.

"IBM simply refuses to produce any of [the documents] in violation of the requirements of open and honest discovery," Langley's legal team said in a motion filed on Tuesday in a Texas court to compel IBM to cooperate.

The IT titan also sealed internal confidential files submitted by Langley to the court, though we were able to glimpse them before they were pulled from public view. More on that in a moment.

Langley, who joined Big Blue in 1993 and was worldwide program director and sales lead of IBM's Bluemix cloud service when he was laid off in 2017, claims the IT giant broke the US Age Discrimination in Employment Act when it let him go in pursuit of a multi-year campaign to de-age its workforce. For one thing, he was praised for his work and landed a $20,000 performance-linked bonus just two months before he was kicked out, leading him to accuse the biz of dropping him purely because he had turned 60.

Last month, IBM was accused by Langley's lawyers of attempting to derail the lawsuit by blocking discovery requests and narrowing its focus away from the claims of systematic discrimination.

In March 2018, ProPublica and Mother Jones reported that IBM for years has been implementing a layoff strategy that targeted older workers. According to the report, IBM is estimated to have rid itself of 20,000 workers age 40 or older between 2014 and 2018, representing about 60 per cent of job cuts since then.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @06:08AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @06:08AM (#785417)

    Well aren't you an obvious a "Me"-lennial!
    I don't think you'll be so pragmatic or unsympathetic when you get turfed from your job when you turn 52.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 12 2019, @01:16PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 12 2019, @01:16PM (#785486) Journal

    I don't think you'll be so pragmatic or unsympathetic when you get turfed from your job when you turn 52.

    Why would that happen?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @04:58PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @04:58PM (#785574)

      Why would that happen?

      Hey, I didn't think it would happen to me...then about a year ago, 'there's the door, don't let it hit you on the way out' and I was replaced by a younger model, that I'd fucking trained up on *one* aspect of the post (the rest he's clueless on) I'm north of 52, he's south of 30.
      For my skillset(s), I expected to walk into another job almost immediately....almost a year later, I can't believe how fucking stupid and naive I was to think that, and every time I hear some wanker on television bleating about lack of skilled workers I reach for my (sadly) imaginary Carl Gustaf [wikipedia.org] [still the favourite 'toy' I've ever played with even after all these years]

      I suppose the moral of the story is (as I was told decades ago): be your own boss.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 13 2019, @04:40AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 13 2019, @04:40AM (#785790) Journal
        I didn't think it'd happen to you either. Still don't, to be honest.

        But I happen to be in a business that hires a lot of older people, because they're cheap and reliable. They start playing games with laying off or not hiring people over 52 and they'll run out of people to do the work (and actually have experience in the business).