Cutting ‘Old Heads’ at IBM
The important bit:How did IBM get around the legal requirement for the disclosures? With a move that even critics acknowledge is ingenious.The company’s pre-2014 layoff documents required employees receiving severance to waive all bias claims based on “race, national origin, ancestry, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital status, age... disability, medical condition, or veteran status.” The new documents deleted “age” from the waiver list. In fact, they specifically said employees were not waiving their right when it came to age and could pursue age discrimination cases against the company.But, the new documents added, employees had to waive the right to take their age cases to court. Instead, they had to pursue them through private arbitration. What’s more, they had to keep them confidential and pursue them alone. They couldn’t join with other workers to make a case.Forced arbitration continues to be an awful thing that companies foist on employees to strip them of their rights.