Layoffs have started. People are being given one month's severance and their last day will be the 28th. They sent out an email about two months ago encouraging people to find other jobs. They are counting the email date as the beginning of a 90 days notice. As for this happening to products that are losing money, this is not the case. If the product was profitable, people are still being given a pink slip.
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Tough to prove.. IBM isn't firing based on age, but based on salary (which is legal).. It just so happens that those of us older workers were also making higher salaries.. Then they also have the relocation to major hubs.. Go or be fired.. IBM knows that it is difficult for an older worker to pull up roots and move with no future gaurantee...
Why hasn't there been a class action lawsuit for age discrimination? Doesn't any law firm worth their weight not think this would be easy money? This should at least slow down the layoffs or an I foolish?
Your 65 just retire and enjoy life. Work to live not live to work !
@ -3pqa I joined as a college hire in the past few years. It was pretty much a bunch of Kool-Aid that my naive college self with zero real world experience drank right up. I do like my team and my job to be fair, but now that the honeymoon phase is long past, the problems with the company are glaringly obvious.
As it is now, I sit across from my manager's office and heard him mention my name and "RA candidate" back on Monday. I haven't heard anything yet, but there's still a full day tomorrow and who knows what will come in the next week or two. This is in California. Does anyone know if we're getting hit soon, or if it passed by and I just didn't hear about it? One thing I know for sure is that I never got that email that others are talking about...I specifically checked back to November and December and didn't see anything remotely resembling what people described.
Honestly, I've been planning to leave for greener pastures come early summer, once I've hit an anniversary date in the role and can claim a few full years of experience. So if I do get RA'd it's pretty much just a case of me starting my job search a few months earlier than planned.
@-3pha the best thing you can do (after finding your next, better job) is to tell other people your age to NEVER join IBM. I don't know what they tell prospective college hires but it can't be the truth.
Also RA’d because of a bad quarter (after many great ones). Can try to find the email they sent a few months back. It simply warned that you would have to do better next quarter or your job was at risk. I then met my quota but was still RA’d. It was a huge shock- happened over the phone while I was running 3 proof of technologies at once. Unlike many others, I’m young (I’m 26) and was hired through the Summit Program (for those coming out of college.
Does anyone have details of the email (sender name, subject line, etc)?
-2sjv Yes it's sickening. I'm not a communist or socialist, but just google a chart on the difference between executive compensation and worker compensation. You see them moving in lock-step until about the 1980's, when the era of greed commenced. Then exec compensation takes off on a wild ride into the sky, and worker pay traversed a straight horizontal path, where it still is. I have no problem with those that have worked hard to get where they are getting paid well. But crap like this is off the backs of workers and workers. It's time for some good old strikes, sit-downs, walk-outs to get things back in line. Unions were a solution, but they too were taken over by greed, organized crime, and other problems too often.
During my brief tenure in Armonk, I was surprised to find that IBM maintains a fleet of luxury jets for the executives. On the weekends, commuting to island homes, ski areas and vacation spots is one of the many perks the higher ups enjoy. At one time, Ginni even flew her husband to a luxury golf resort in New Zealand !!
Obviously there is a double standard !! Paid for on the employees backs !
Same story here..... husband worked there for 7 years. Gave him 2 weeks notice and he's done. Best part was his boss called him while he was a client meeting. No face to face meeting just a quick phone call. He made over $ 300,000/year last year in sales and had 1 bad quarter in sales and is gone. Amazing. Same VP guy who would send hand written notes praising his performance each quarter is the one that fired him. Bring on the class action lawsuit.
Is there anyone who got RA'd and didn't get that email?
Got RAed today - and I heard about other colleagues as well. IBM Sales - selling the latest Cloud portfolio. 01/28 and 1 month severance. Long term IBMer. Looks like HR thinks they can get away with any term they put out. Same deal for everybody! So sad that HR is ruling over business in these decisions.
Good luck with the class action... If IBM felt there was even a remote chance of losing to age discrimination they wouldn't have cut the severence to 30 days.. Take the money and don't look back..
yep, reserve the right to sue.
a class action is coming, 1000% guaranteed
not sure it's even worth signing the no-sue doc now, with two weeks notice and one month's pay. I'd refuse and hold out in case a class action age discrimination suit arises.
No, this is not how it happened 2 years ago. This is a 2 week notice, not 90 days. Big difference between telling someone they should look for work if they feel their skills don't match up vs. telling someone you're out of here in 90 days.
Pretty much how it happened 2 yrs ago, except only after they got back from the big binge in LAS. So that would make it around March 2cd as I remember. About 10k of us were given notice. March 2 + 90 would be our last day. You could try to get another job within the company, but managers were warned not to laterally transfer an RA into their group. We were supposed to work for the next 90 days, but nobody did. Most jobs went to Brazil, some China and most India.
We would no longer be eligible for employment with the company. Corba (for me) lasted about 8 months. They sent last paycheck and vacation accrued as a check to my home. I had to sign no-retribution (no sue) docs if I wanted that last bit of $$ and Corba.
I believe that year there were 5k-10k RAs each quarter, and Ginni received a $25mil bonus plus raw (redeemable) stock options worth over $50mil.
Ok guys, it's coming, get over it. I'm 65 and I'm getting interviews with Google, Microsoft, RedHat etc so keep your chin up. No weather they'll hire a 65 yr old is another story lol