Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog
Allegations of California age discrimination at tech companies are continuing to pile up. One of those on the receiving end of this litigation is IBM, which has noted in a March 2018 ProPublica investigation, had eliminated more than 200,000 of its employees over the age of 40 – roughly 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts – just in the five years preceding. Los Angeles age discrimination attorneys at Nassiri Law Group noted recently that same investigation was cited in a Jan. 17, 2019 employer retaliation affidavit filed by a former executive as evidence in a pending class action lawsuit. The executive alleging she was ordered by her employer not to comply with the request of a federal agency to turn over the names of employees over 50 who had been laid off by the company.
Further, the then-vice president and senior executive at the company’s Nevada branch, she warned superiors that the company was vulnerable to age discrimination claims because of its layoff practices. She now alleges she was fired in 2017 as a result of giving these warnings. A company spokeswoman denied this in a statement issued to a ProPublica reporter following up, saying the executive’s termination was entirely unrelated to age discrimination allegations, and that the 39-year veteran of the company, age 62, was terminated for “gross misconduct.” The former employee indicated in court records that she’d received decades of excellent reviews and insisted the misconduct charge was unfounded.
As noted in the 2018 story, the company reportedly (as indicated in at least one internal company record) intended to attain the “correct seniority mix.” Former employees – including this one – allege these practices flouted federal and California age discrimination laws. Continue Reading ›