IBM 'dinobabies': Internal documents show executives discussed plans to make older workers an 'extinct species'
IBM execs were unhappy over the fact that the company had a smaller percentage of millennials in its staff and vowed to move against its 'dated maternal workforce'
Internal IBM documents made public by a US District Court last week have revealed how IBM senior executives called old workers "dinobabies" while discussing plans to replace them with millennial workers.
The documents [pdf] were unsealed last Friday in an ongoing age discrimination lawsuit brought by former IBM employees against the company in 2018, after thousands of employees over the age of 40 were laid off.
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.
One senior executive, whose name was redacted in court documents, reportedly said that the company had a "dated maternal workforce" and "this is what must change".
They continued: "They really don't understand social or engagement. Not digital natives. A real threat for us."
The document describes an IBM plan to force the senior staff to voluntarily retire by transferring them to undesirable places. The executives believed that the majority of such workers would refuse to relocate.
In this case, IBM had requested that the internal records be kept off the public record, but the judge refused.
These documents, according to Shannon Liss-Riordan, demonstrate that senior IBM officials were actively conspiring to displace older workers from IBM's workforce in order to make way for millennials.
IBM currently faces age discrimination complaints in arbitration and court proceedings by many ex-employees across the US.
An IBM spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company never engaged in systematic age discrimination and that employees were terminated for reasons other than their age, such as changing business conditions.
The representative went on to state that in the ten years after 2010, over 10,000 employees above the age of 50 were employed by IBM in the United States.
The median age of employees in the US was around 48 years in 2020, the same as it was in 2010, according to the company.
The spokesperson also said the language cited in the emails "is not consistent with the respect IBM has for its employees and as the facts clearly show, it does not reflect company practices or policies."