#ageism

Basically this is a way for a company to downsize older workers (and their higher salaries ) without breaking the law. Its not so much about making it less brutal.

The rest of the workforce is told it's less brutal because those who take severence are about to retire anyway. It simply accelerates that choice.

Legal Requirements

Employers typically offer severance in exchange for the employee signing a General Release of Claims, which prevents them from suing the company for wrongful termination or discrimination.

Review Periods: Under the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA), employees aged 40+ must be given 21 days to review an individual agreement (45 days for group layoffs) and 7 days to revoke their signature.
The federal WARN Act requires employers with 100+ workers to provide 60 days' notice for mass layoffs. Failure to provide notice often results in the employer paying 60 days of salary as a penalty, which effectively acts as a mandated severance

In case you missed the earnings report, they have reduced staff by 3% and plan on aggressively reducing staff to be replaced by AI. They consider employees liablities not assets. I have tried and tried to get out but being middle aged is tough. The discrimination is real. I hope the younger generation leaves and doesn't deal with this BS. BTW the employees that are not coming into the office? Their bonuses were NOT impacted. This means they were effectually making more than the rest of us su-kers going in. Unreal.

Another age discrimination lawsuit articlegoing. Funny how at&t claims cursing is code of conduct violation and potty mouth Legg does it all the time.

Link

https://www.nj.com/news/2026/04/att-faces-age-discrimination-suit-after-firing-longtime-nj-employee.html

Some of article below

A longtime AT&T employee in New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit alleging age discrimination and wrongful termination.

The suit, filed March 31 in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, claims Daniel A. Zuckerman, 62, was demoted and ultimately fired last year without warning in retaliation for opposing discrimination and seeking legal advice.

A longtime AT&T employee in New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit alleging age discrimination and wrongful termination.

A spokesperson for AT&T called the lawsuit “baseless,” and said the company will defend itself in court.

“This employee was not a victim of discrimination: he was given a new job assignment during an organizational restructure, and he was terminated for violating our Code of Business Conduct,” the spokesperson said.

Zuckerman, of Hillsborough, started his career at AT&T in May 1985, according to the lawsuit. He spent nearly 40 years climbing the ranks before he was fired from the company’s Bedminster office on Jan. 27, 2025.

At the time, he held the role of level-three director as a member of technical staff. However, days before his termination, he was notified that he would be demoted to level two associate director in cybersecurity, effective Feb. 1, according to the complaint.

Zuckerman claims he has never received disciplinary action or a negative performance evaluation during his tenure.

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T maintains a corporate culture of age discrimination which encourages older employees to leave voluntarily, and favors younger employees.

Zuckerman also claims he was instructed in 2014 not to hire a highly qualified 56-year-old candidate because of the candidate’s age.

The lawsuit says the age discrimination originated with top leadership. It points to remarks by former CEO Randall Stephenson in 2016 about AT&T’s aging workforce and need to reinvent itself, and alleges current CEO John Stankey made “outrageously offensive” ageist statements.

During a July 2023 town hall, Stankey stated that the workforce needed younger employees to better match the U.S. population, according to the suit.

I've been at FIS for years. Never once got a bad review. Never been put on a PIP. I showed up every day, did my job, kept my head down. Then they called me into a room without any prior warning and handed me a layoff notice. No explanation beyond the usual corporate language. I'm over fifty. I've given this place a big chunk of my life. And they cut me like I was nothing. Perfect reviews didn't protect me. Being a good employee didn't protect me. Nothing protected me.

People keep trying to make this about generations. Older workers don't get younger workers. Younger workers resent older workers. That's not the real problem. The real problem is the gap between everyone who does the work and the executives who make the decisions. That's the only divide that matters.

Artemis astronaut ages ranging from 47 to 50. They are all GenXers, in a "sweet spot" of maximum competence and experience. Meanwhile at ExxonMobil’s we can’t abuse our Gen X employees enough and can’t run them off fast enough.

Millennials just wait you are next in line.

The hiring managers here
How many people you had not hired because candidate is above 60 years old?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/lawsuits-claim-at-ts-ceo-saw-the-relocation-mandate-as-a-way-to-replace-older-workers-with-younger-ones/ar-AA20YBUD?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Stankey should have a nice read while he’s taking his afternoon dump.

Everyone I know from 40 to 45 lately has been moving to lateral or even jobs they're overqualified for. Has anyone in this age range been able to move up in the last year or so?

JVB the corporate queen of organizational destruction is at it again. Glaring ageism on display and everyone sees it and knows it. Forcing generals out and bringing inexperienced and unqualified barely out of boot camp privates in. She’s earned her reputation and will leave this organization in the same shambles as she left MM sales. Arnoldi forced to take this demoted sales failure should really inspect this spin up junkie before ops becomes another failed more, better, faster experiment.

If EM-service 5 & Age > 35 & CL = 55 then celebrate
Age = Age +1
End loop

I would be curious to hear from folks that feel like they aren’t being considered for spots due to age. I know I have two other bad marks against me, white and male. But I’d honestly like to hear some feedback. More me personally I keep getting told it’s competitive out there but then I think maybe they forget that emails go out with who got selected for positions.

How is HR or someone at the top think this is a good idea. Several highly tenured employees are being put on 30 plans who have never received warnings or prior poor ratings. If this is the plan to move out employees without paying severance, this should be illegal. #concern #ageism #unethicalHRpractice #values #ethics

I’ve noticed a lot of posts from employees who are feeling anxious, especially those with longer tenure. But if you look at the RTO and data science groups, most of the people who ended up on PIPs were actually under 40.
When a manager isn’t technical, they often rely heavily on the more experienced people in the team. Those employees frequently position themselves as “mentors” or “coaches” to younger staff — sometimes as a way to stay relevant. The reality is that in the age of AI and rapidly evolving tools, not everyone keeps their skills current, and performance gaps can show up. In some cases, that wrong team dynamic ends up putting younger employees at a disadvantage.
A big part of the issue is XOM’s structural design. Opportunities aren’t distributed evenly, and we end up having some people doing tasks for years.

https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/employment-law/former-att-director-alleges-return-to-office-mandate-drove-out-older-workers/570973

A former director is suing the company for age discrimination related to the RTO and relocation BS. She specifically cites Stankey’s remarks in 2023 about the employee demographics skewing too old. Too much to ask first but boy would it be awesome if they got nailed for this!

You are all missing the point on NRE. It was never about conferring a benefit on older workers. Precisely the opposite. The purpose of NRE was to put pressure on older workers that the company no longer wants and convince them to voluntarily leave at 55 with gratitude to their management who kindly kept them on for a few years as the bogus performance reviews piled up.

The so-called elimination of NRE is likely the combination of two things: 1) no more protection for those who are clearly abusing the system, and 2) dialing up the pressure on the targeted older workers to leave voluntarily with even more gratitude toward the managers who could have let you go but worked the system to squeak you over finish line .

Stop wasting your energy on this lawyering-up cr-p. Not much has changed except that older workers will now find themselves compelled to plant a big wet one on their boss’s backside as they voluntarily exit. Anyone who has made it this far in their career can surely find the strength to pucker up one last time.

If you have been let go, How old were you when you were laid off, and what was your years in service?

Dell is the biggest offender of age discrimination in the industry. Everyone currently being laid off is over 40. Does anyone know someone currently being laid off who is under 40? I sure don't. Fu-K Dell!!

Ok i know this question is unanswerable because there are too many unknowns but here goes. I am early 60s. 30 years with Citi. Mostly 2/3 occasional 1/2. LEA a few years back. I'd like to quit this afternoon but financially I would be better off to stay a couple more years. If I stay they pay me for 3 years and I work. If I get RFI'd they pay me for a year. Does that make any difference?

Ttell FIS management that they don't want to be transferred as Cognizant discriminates age and country of birth.

Provide this evidence
https://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/it_firm_found_liable_intentional_discrimination_against_class_terminated_non_indian_1024.html

They want 50k employees almost universally making less than 6 figures. That means everyone making more than that and over 40 years old need to be made as miserable as possible until they quit. Performance and knowledge DO NOT MATTER. Leadership believes all this work can be done for pennies by AI and offshore. There are plenty of H1Bs out there to replace you in their little slave commune in Frisco, TX, right next door to the new campus. The more of you that leave on your own, the less of you they have to fire. That is how they sleep at night - they think they are doing you a favor by letting you leave on your own terms instead of just firing you outright.

Exactly what @aj+1kn7ewyd6 said.

Anyone else noticing targeting older experienced employees to push them out .?

From the emails and town halls, they are outsourcing some departments in two waves. We are near the end of wave two. We all received the email that future waves are not planned at this time.

But with AI, tension internationally, cheaper international call centers, demand for product changes, who knows what the future looks like.

And to the comment: umm yes, if they let people go they are probably age 40+. The people that continue work here are also over age 40 on average. Not sure why you made a comment on age, oh because you don’t work here.

So in the Morrisville, NC office it seems just about all of the layoffs were older employees 60+. I think there were enough older employees it might be worth a conversation with an attorney. Nothing definite, just get a professional’s point of view.

Well they got me yesterday. I was in the hospital January for a stroke, still recovering and one year away from retirement. The best they could muster was an email. I was the only person let go on my team and also the oldest at 66. The least they could’ve done was a face-to-face layoff but being the cowards they are they hid behind a computer somewhere. In all honesty, I hope they burn to the ground.

It does seem like, on average, older more experienced people were laid off. Anyone else notice this? Our group is half gone, and it's ALL the older folks - I'm not talking really old, just over 40.

Every layoff round seems to disproportionately affect older employees. Is the same true for this one?

Anyone else notice the Cognizant transitions hitting mostly people close to retirement? On my side, everyone 60+ got pushed to Cognizant while younger folks stayed. Feels off—anyone seeing similar across teams? Just curious if it’s a pattern or coincidence.

Layoffs at Meta last year allegedly targeted older workers at higher rates, according to a new lawsuit. Former Meta Senior Director of Monetization Analytics, Nicolas Franchet, who worked at the company for 13 years, claims he was unfairly laid off because of his age.

https://gizmodo.com/meta-unfairly-targeted-older-workers-during-layoffs-last-year-lawsuit-claims-2000737045

So they're trying to push out the "older" sales reps. How is this allowed?

So how do they decide who is laid off vs who stays? I was laid off a couple of years ago (and then came back to a different role, lower pay grade) and there were 2 of us laid off from our team of 5 - I was 48, she was in her 50's; I'd been with the company 17 years, she'd been there 9 years (1 team member that stayed was older than her, the other 2 were in their 40's but younger than me but all had been there at least 7, with 2 of them 20).

With yesterday's layoffs, there were 25 HDP pharmacists let go. I've only gotten 5 names, but of those 5 all of them are in their 50's and closer to retirement than not. 1 of them has been with the company 10 years, the others all at over 18 years.

So are they trying to get rid of older people and/or those with tenure?? And if so, isn't that ageism?

In one region, they have laid off or fired BOAs 3x (that I know of ....there could be others) within the last year.

Pattern: All women over 50. All single wage earners, worked at EJ for several years and one was getting ready to retire in September. Told the news out of the blue on Zoom calls with Associate Relations.

Simply got rid of them to bring in younger inexperienced people.

If anyone else experiences this situation, call an attorney and the EEOC.

So, if a BOA meets the Rule of 70, but has just been terminated (to make way for a younger person), can they still keep their LLP?

Heard through the grapevine that the policies around age based employment protections have been updated and that employees with NRE status will no longer have that protection. Has anyone else heard of this?

Has anyone find that age is a part of the layoff decision making?

Somebody should tell Mike institutional knowledge is a thing.

Here’s a piece of advice for those still at Verizon: don’t hesitate to consult with an employment lawyer promptly when your management does something illegal. It’s been my experience that they get away with things because employees tend to let things slide. For example, you only have 180 days to file an age discrimination complaint. There have been many instances of management choosing an inexperienced “leadership development” candidate over a much more capable and experienced employee. Document as much as you can discreetly then consult with a lawyer. At the same time start applying elsewhere.

Making them face the consequences for their illegal behavior is the only way to put an end to it.

Does IBM severance agreement have a revocation period after signing if you are over 40 years old