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Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat at 9:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum f176ffa5f062021e42d31888319061b7Dinosaur of a Company Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
http://techrights.org/videos/ibm-ageism.webm
Summary: The privileged people who insist they’re supporting inclusion and diversity — to the point of collectively slandering or concern-trolling the Free software community — are probably the biggest and worst offenders if not the sole culprits; today we focus on IBM and show how some of the same offenders ended up in Microsoft and the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation
=> collectively slandering or concern-trolling the Free software community | so-called
On March 16, 2023 (i.e. exactly 13 months from now) Richard Stallman will turn 70. IBM as a company and pertinent workers of IBM (like Hashman) ran a smear campaign against him, based partly on libellous characterisations. Maybe they want to force him to ‘retire’ already, leaving IBM workers in charge.
=> ↺ Richard Stallman will turn 70 | IBM
“We’ve been seeing discussions to that effect in layoffs-centered forums and we occasionally see reports about court disputes over age-related discrimination.”
In any event, there’s some new and very damaging material from (right from the horse’s mouth) and about IBM [1-6], revealing a culture of ageism (since they fancy “isms” so much, why not turn that back on them?) and messages which not only are certain to impede recruitment efforts but also motivate some existing workers to resign. We’ve been seeing discussions to that effect in layoffs-centered forums and we occasionally see reports about court disputes over age-related discrimination.
Image: unknown
A lot more could be said which isn’t covered in the video above. Does IBM plan to retain “young” Red Hat staff with derogatory terms? Everyone ages. All of those IBM-led fake “woke” campaigns (like eradication of supposedly racist terms) are ruined by revelations like these; this will render the company broke, not woke. Because IBM is not woke, it’s the opposite of it, based on the company’s long history. Putting aside the connotations of words like “dinobabies” (combination of two negative-sounding terms), the general strategy of discrimination is incredibly harmful to the company’s public messaging. The company insists that the term “master” (like name of a branch in Git) offends people, but calling old people “dinobabies” is OK? Which of these words is more offensive?
It is worth noting that Mr. Perlow from IBM (and later Microsoft; currently in Linux Foundation i.e. their front group, where he’s chief communicator) compared Richard Stallman to a dinosaur (with a highly derogatory image made by his brother and published in ZDNet back in the days). Maybe he learned this slur during his time at IBM. We responded here and elsewhere. Here’s a newly-taken screenshot:
=> Mr. Perlow | Linux Foundation | here
Image: Worked for IBM, then Microsoft, now a spokesperson, for Linux Foundation
Notice how he embedded the face of a person almost 60 years old in the body of a dinosaur (later he came to our IRC channel and told us his brother had produced that image).
“Notice how he embedded the face of a person almost 60 years old in the body of a dinosaur (later he came to our IRC channel and told us his brother had produced that image).”
Very mature, eh? Very professional! That’s how you net a top job at Zemlin’s PAC, the Linux Foundation, which tells us that it's all about inclusion and diversity. Watch how the Linux Foundation’s spokesperson speaks of people almost 20 years his senior.
=> tells us that it's all about inclusion and diversity
So we now know that at IBM “dinobaby” is basically “snowflake” (right-wing slur) with ageism added on top. Not too shocking that such a racist, sexist company would resort to this internally; at least we can see the pattern. If IBM does not hire old people because they’re a “burden”, one might go further with analogies, recalling that IBM profited from helping Germany remove the "burden on society".
In terms of standards, they’re inconsistently or selectively applied inside IBM, a company which champions/celebrates its very own “dinobabies” (calling whole product lines after them), even if they're the "very fine people" who literally saluted Hitler — a fact they can only try to hide by aggressive censorship online. █ _________
=> ↺ champions/celebrates its very own “dinobabies” | they're the "very fine people" who literally saluted Hitler | try to hide by aggressive censorship online
A trove of previously sealed documents made public by a Federal District Court on Friday show executives discussing plans to phase out older employees and bemoaning the company’s relatively low percentage of millennials.The documents, which emerged from a lawsuit contending that IBM engaged in a yearslong effort to shift the age composition of its work force, appear to provide the first public piece of direct evidence about the role of the company’s leadership in the effort.
Internal emails show IBM executives calling older workers “dinobabies” and discussing plans to make them “an extinct species,” according to a Friday filing in an ongoing age-discrimination lawsuit against the company.The documents were submitted as evidence of IBM’s efforts “to oust older employees from its workforce,” and replace them with millennial workers, the plaintiff alleged. It’s the latest development in a legal battle that first began in 2018, when former employees sued IBM after the company fired tens of thousands of workers over 40 years old.
IBM executives discussed in emails how to force out older workers and derided them as “Dinobabies” who should be made an “Extinct species,” according to a court filing in an age discrimination case against the company.The communications show “highly incriminating animus” against older employees by officials who at the time were in the company’s “highest ranks,” according to the filing Friday.The partially redacted filing says the emails surfaced in separate arbitration proceedings but it doesn’t reveal the identities of the company officials or indicate when they were speaking. A judge has ordered the release of versions of the underlying documents.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a renowned employment lawyer who has represented employees in disputes against Amazon, Google, and Uber, then filed a class-action complaint on behalf of three former IBM employees in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that that tech giant discriminated against them based on their age when it fired them.According to Bloomberg, a court document in the case, unsealed last week, showed that senior IBM officials were directly involved in conversations about the need to shrink the company’s older staff population, sometimes referring to them using terms like “dinobabies.”As per the filing, IBM executives expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that the company had a smaller percentage of millennials in its staff than a rival firm, and said that the situation would change following the lay-offs.
The case is Lohnn v. International Business Machines Corp., 21-cv-06379, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.
Newly released documents in a lawsuit alleging IBM discriminated against older workers reveal that Big Blue wanted to “correct” its “seniority mix” by weeding out older workers it labelled “dinobabies.”A document unsealed last Friday in the case file of Lohnn vs International Business Machines discloses evidence gathered by the plaintiff in which a person whose identity is redacted applauds “use of the disparaging term ‘Dinobabies’ to describe older IBM employees, as well as his plan for how to oust them from IBM’s workforce, stating his intent to ‘accelerate change by inviting the dinobabies (new species) to leave’ and make them an Extinct Species’.”
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