As it scrambled to compete in the internet world, the once-dominant tech company cut tens of thousands of U.S. workers, hitting its most senior employees hardest and flouting rules against age bias.
ProPublica and Mother Jones published a hair raising investigative report on years of institutionalized ageism at ‘Big Blue’ told through the voices of the displaced workers. Many were systematically moved out of their positions, some on the precipice of receiving their pensions, after years of service to the company.
They received a flood of responses and started seeing a pattern of respondents who had worked at IBM. They uncovered a Facebook Group formed to discuss the pattern by former employees. They conducted a more in depth survey to this group and filled in the blanks with direct interviews and a pile of incriminating internal documents.
