For The Last Five YearsThey Continue to Wish We Were Dead

Today, July 15th, 2020 marks the fifth anniversary date for the first Intel Corp. massive layoff of the 21st century. 2015 also represents the year in which Intel Corp. lost its leadership position within the semiconductor industry, due to a continuous wave of operational flops and process-engineering disasters, most of them due to bad management decisions and a rising wave of mistrust between management and employees.

Intel Corp. 2015 Layoff Action
 Age Composition of Affected Employees

Intel Corp. management, under the leadership of CEO Brian Krzanich (BK) focused on lowering the cost of labor by laying off thousands of veteran employees, instead of fixing organizational and technological issues that plagued the company for many years. The company was unable to fix its high volume manufacturing (HVM) problems for chips manufactured in 14nm for longer than five years. The follow-up 10nm production line never matured into commercial viability. This type of phenomenon never happened at Intel Corp. at anytime in the past. Having the benefit of hindsight today, this colossal inability to deliver reliable silicon products, can clearly be attributed to the scarcity of technical and organizational leadership among the remainder of the company engineering workforce, following the 2015 and 2016 massive layoffs. 

 

Laying off more than 16,000 employees, many of them in senior grades with decades of experience under belt, was a very costly business move. Intel Corp. replaced experienced employees with much cheaper and inexperienced workforce. Company executives apparently had a notion that their veteran workforce was nothing but an easily replaceable commodity. The immediate result of the mindless mass layoffs created bad employee morale, lack of trust, led to operational chaos and penalized the company with enormous lack of productivity--a great deal of which still persists inside the company to this day.

 

In spite of external criticism of his actions, CEO Brian Krzanich continued to prove his leadership incompetence for a few more years of spiraling chaos, during which Intel Corp. lost its credibility as well as its world leadership position as a result of the company's inability to deliver on its promises to its customer base.  

 

Fighting the sinking reality of the semiconductor market slipping away, year after year, Intel Corp. expensive PR campaign to save face, met its eventual limits. Due to ever repeating lack of meaningful operational results, Intel Corp. Board took action and fired BK in June 2018.

 

To protect INTC stock value, the Board explained the firing of BK with a "Roger Stone style story" utilizing a sexy connotation that was meant to distract public attention from the incompetence of Intel Corp. C-Suite as well as the incompetence of the company Board of Directors itself.

 

Apparently egomania and greed can never be satisfied. Even after leaving his CEO position with the company, Krazanich himself is under SEC investigation for insider trading of Intel stock. Regrettably, as we have witnessed over the last decades, how U.S. Government agencies seem to operate more like "paper tigers" than "Rambo". Rich executives can continue to live the high life as long as they keep paying their "high shelf" high hourly rate lawyers.

Ex-Intel CEO Lists Lavish Silicon Valley Compound

Intel Corp. worst legacy is still lying ahead. In its hasty effort to restructure its workforce the company laid off thousands of older workers, as well as forced many more thousands of senior employees to retire under duress. By doing so, Intel Corp. management violated the civil rights of older workers ("older workers" defined as employees who are 40 year old or older). Such workers are classified by Federal regulations as a "protected class", which requires employers to take specific actions before laying them off.

 

Specific U.S. Employment Law rules and regulations were set in place to protect  employees aged 40+ from discriminatory practices. Most of such protection rules are defined in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, otherwise known as the ADEA.

 

Although employers are allowed to lay off older employees, the ADEA specifically requires employers to follow employment practices meant to guarantee that older employees are not to be discriminated against during the whole course of their employment as well as during the hiring and/or firing process.

Janet Dhillon - EEOC Chair

Members of PDX-TIE.ORG filed and brought forward substantial evidence that Intel Corp. knowingly violated the ADEA in many ways, during the course of Mr. Brian Krzanich rein as Intel Corp. CEO. Charges written by members of our organization (PDX-TIE.ORG), submitted and filed with the Federal government Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2016 are in full progress of investigations.

 

We recently received yet another confirmation that the EEO investigation is still in "active" state. It is already more than 4-1/2 years since our charges have been filed and the clock keeps ticking on the Federal investigation. Amazingly, Janet Dhillon, the Chair of the EEOC, appointed by President Donald Trump in May 2019, testified under oath in a hearing in front of congress:

It is the sad reality that too often, justice delayed is justice denied. Evidence can be  misplaced, and memories fade with the passage of time. The opportunity to quickly stop and remedy a discriminatory practice can also be lost – potentially to the detriment of other impacted employees. To ensure quality service, it is critical that private sector charges and federal complaints are handled promptly and fairly – and so we must work to reduce backlogs across all program offices.

Shall we take her for her word? Do words stated under oath inside the halls of the U.S. Congress, have a meaning if not translated into enforcement actions?

One of the advertised policies of the EEOC over the last few years was "working with employers", namely convince employers to police themselves, in matters associated with employees age discrimination in the workplace. In the words of EEOC Chair she is driving the EEOC to pursue a "Litigation Last" policy namely, avoiding law enforcement, seemingly at all costs to the U.S. Government. This type of "soft talk, self policing" methodology has been exercised extensively, by another Federal agency, the FAA. The results of such actions (or lack thereof) turned out to disastrously manifest their outcome in the Boeing 737MAX fiasco.

 

The result of forfeiting external supervision on large corporations and "letting the dogs guard the hen house" cost the lives of hundreds of innocent people and at the same time pushed the Boeing company to the brink of bankruptcy. There are very serious lessons to be learned from this story. Lack of external supervision and dereliction of duty on the part of Government Oversight, unavoidably leads to a situation where everyone, corporations, clients, employers and employees turn to become big losers.

With the above being said and judging from the "snail's pace" at which justice for older employees affected by the Intel Corp. layoffs is being pursued, many of us may be dead already, before Intel Corp. is brought to justice by the Federal Government. Many of us are older and form the most vulnerable segment of the U.S. population at risk for COVID-19 severe infections and ultimately death.

 

Clearly, the political and the corporate echelons would rather wait and see us (the "problem" in their view) vanish into oblivion, as more of our members meet their demise. With no proactive actions on the part of the U.S. Congress, and with the EEOC forfeiting their law enforcement actions, dereliction of duty continues to rule the day.

Latest unemployment Trend Charts
(click on image to enlarge)

The latest unemployment data report clearly demonstrates that the U.S. is in the middle of a major economic trough, following the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the circumstances, it is very likely that many workers, particularly those aged 40 and older, will never return to their original jobs. This situation presents employers with the perfect opportunity to "weed out" their most expensive employees, which in most cases are the most senior and experienced, namely "older", replacing them with younger and certainly "cheaper" workers. Past experience demonstrates clearly that commercial corporations that view their workforce as "replaceable" commodity, tend to fail "big time", while business entities that treat their employees as an "asset" tend to flourish. Look at IBM, GE, and of course Intel Corp.

It is important to note that in most companies, older employees serve as de-facto mentors to younger and less experienced employees. The value of mentoring has been proven to be a major contributing factor to the success of business. Clearly, with proper management policies, a good balance of employee diversity is not only required by employment laws--it actually contributes to cohesion of the workforce and increased productivity.

Unfortunately and to detriment of many companies, for the average C-Suite executive, having mostly inexperienced workers onboard, does not seem be an issue of great concern. By the time that the business begins experiencing serial operational failures after getting rid of its experienced workers, the executives have already harvested their mega bonuses and pulled their "golden parachute" cords to pursue "new opportunities"...

Intel Corp. serves as a perfect example of a company that "lost its soul" due to getting rid of its "experienced" workforce, while rewarding its egocentric executives with fat monetary rewards. It may have taken five years to note the destructive effect of the 2015/2016 massive layoffs; however, it is now widely recognized that the "Intel Empire" is collapsing from the inside, due to so called "cultural" problems. (see: Intel’s Culture Needed Fixing. Its C.E.O. Is Shaking Things Up. Robert Swan, who leads the world’s biggest chip maker, is pushing his 110,000 employees to confront internal problems more openly).

During these days when the world is facing a major pandemic, it may be convenient to ignore problems that could have made headlines in the past. However, it is futile to deny the demographic trends in the U.S., which clearly show the working population is getting significantly older.

Workforce-age Group Composition
(click on image to enlarge)

OLD at 40 YEARS of Age?

 

Remember what we said earlier in this article about the ADEA defining older workers as those who are 40+ years of age? Well, if this fact eludes you for one reason or the other, Millennials, namely people who were born between 1980 and 2000 are in the process of entering this class of "older" workers. People who were born in 1980 are already 40 years old! Having the largest representation in the current workforce, Millennials have every reason to be concerned about age discrimination in the work place. Seeing your chances of keeping a well-paying job diminish as you cross the "magic 40" line, could be a nightmare come to life unless corporate greed, with its insatiable appetite for cheapening the cost of labor is met with effective enforcement of laws that have been written to serve the public, as opposed to serving the corporate world.

It is unnerving to think that the U.S. economy can continue to function by the rules of the corporate world with automation and major layoffs producing whopper bonuses to enrich the few individuals sitting in corporate C-Suite roles while denying the actual workers from the ability to maintain sustainable living wages. What are we going to do with people in the 40s, 50s, and 60s who can no longer find a decent-paying job? It is time to recognize that "older" is a relative term and that term applies to every single person throughout their lives. There is no cure for aging unless jumping from a tall bridge is your favorite hobby. One day the other guy is "old" and on the next day you are "the other guy".

Achieving equal rights for women is getting a new life in the political arena, particularly when it involves equal pay for equal labor.  However, very few proponents of women's rights acknowledge the fact that "older" women bear much harsher treatment from employers due to age discrimination, than men of similar age. The MeToo movement made remarkable progress to expose and (hopefully) curtail sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Maybe it is time to up the ante, use the momentum and declare the birth of the "Me-Three" (Me-3.00) movement to fight rampant age discrimination for women.

It is an "open secret" that Corporate America is in charge of the country, at least for the last 40 years. We have the "best politicians that money can buy", regardless of their political party affiliation. The current political system is totally fueled by money, which it seems to guzzle at an alarmingly high rate.

 

Although we currently (2020) have a President who seems to continuously make the wrong choices and then cover up in order to save face, both houses of the U.S. Congress seem to be stuffed with people of similar ego maniacal core. Congress and the U.S Senate are stuffed to the gills with recycled politicians who obey the wills of their donors, as opposed to the wishes of their constituents.

 

This situation is hard to explain, since most voters do not identify with either the RNC or the DNC propaganda. Gallup polls conducted frequently over the last few years consistently indicate that there are many more "independent" voters than voters that identify themselves with either "R" or "D". The latest poll conducted during the first week of June indicates that independent voters amount to 40% of the voting population as opposed to 25% Republicans and 31% Democrats.

 

To the best of my visibility, most people are more motivated to vote "against" a particular political candidate than "for" an alternative candidate. With this type of voters' psychosis, it is no wonder that the whole country is falling apart at the seams and what unifies us as voters are our differences...

While disaffection with both of the major parties has been rampant, attempts at creating a significant third party that could act as a tie-breaker in both houses of Congress have not been successful thus far. The political system is essentially rigged by the current players to prevent newcomers from taking political power from the entrenched establishment. As much as I would like to see a large "Independent Party" taking place in U.S. politics, it is difficult to imagine that such a phenomenon would come to life, absent a major long-term crisis. While the COVID-19 pandemic could potentially extend into a full blown existential crisis, most of the American public still believes that full recovery is a matter of a year or two. Throughout history this type of apathetic shortsightedness has always been the "Achilles Heel" of the plebiscite.

In reality, elected politicians must be "supervised" on a continuous basis. The power of money, concentrated in Washington D.C. lobbying firms, can be defeated if the voting constituents regularly and continuously check their representatives' actions by looking at their day to day, actions and voting records. Congressional representatives ears must be be kept open through continuous stream of messages sent to them by their constituents. In the absence of meaningful communication from their constituents, Congressional Reps attention becomes captive to be grabbed by D.C. lobbyists who's time is well paid to deliver their master's messages.

Calling politicians' bluffs does not need to wait for the next elections cycle. The Internet provides access to most Congressional records and it is too bad that most people do not care to read these records to enlighten themselves.

 

We all carry responsibility to manage our Reps, since otherwise, the money'ed interests in D.C. remain the only entities that interact with them. While big demonstrations in the streets have a significant "splash factor", such events tend to fizzle quite quickly. Generally, politicians have short attention span. In the absence of continuous follow-up on the cause, our politicians will not change their behavior, since most of them depend on money to retain their seat and the money supply is still concentrated in the hands of the "one-percenters" and the big corporate interests.

Take charge and call on your elected representative today! Tell them what you really care about.

Stay healthy and all the best!

--Dr. Flywheel

References:

• Intel’s Culture Needed Fixing. Its C.E.O. Is Shaking Things Up. Robert Swan, who leads the world’s biggest chip maker, is pushing his 110,000 employees to confront internal problems more openly
• Ex-Intel CEO Lists Lavish Silicon Valley Compound
  
• UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS
• STATEMENT OF JANET DHILLON, CHAIR U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
  
• Gallup Polls - Party Affiliation
• Age Discrimination Is A Women's Issue That Women's Groups Tend To Ignore
• Why age discrimination is worse for women
  

 

Intel Corp. Marked Employees as Thieves to Prevent Their Rehiring

Back in July 2015 Intel Corp. laid off about 1300 employees. Information gathered from the Federal Government mandated OWBPA Report, associated with this layoff, revealed that employees over 40 years of age were targeted for this layoff in a disproportionate way. At the time of the layoff the OregonLive web site produced an analysis demonstrating this fact, as shown in the chart below.

(click on image to enlarge detail)

However, under the discretion of Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO at the time, the HR department was directed to prevent any possibility of Intel Corp. managers, rehiring any of the 1300 laid off employees. Consequently, the employee records of each one of the laid-off employees, in the HR database were marked with a special code, declaring them as THIEVES.

By marking an employee record with the THIEVE code, a warning would be issued through the Intel Corp. HR database system, to any hiring manager who would examine the eligibility of an ex-employee to be re-hired. This warning would block the potential re-employment of such person, permanently. Note that the rehiring ban applied to all categories of employment: Regular Employee (Blue Badge), Contract Employee (Green Badge), Full Time, or Part Time.

We were able to interview a number of people who worked, at the relevant time, in various capacities at Intel Corp. HR and other departments. These witnesses confirmed to us that all 1300 laid-off employee records were marked with the special THIEF code, within the company's Employee Data Archive database.

Note that Intel Corp. is the largest payroll employer in Oregon and a major employer in several other states. By marking laid-off employees as THIEVES, Intel Corp. essentially wiped out a potential source of income for a significant number of people. This capricious corporate edict would persist for the rest of these affected ex-employees lifetime, unless Intel Corp. is brought to justice and the policy is consequently, reversed.

There is an open question whether a company can be disparaging a group of laid-off employees as THIEVES and get by without legal scrutiny. Clearly, such behavior is discriminatory action all by itself and a strong argument can be made that such action is intentional and criminal in nature.

We are hereby calling upon the U.S. Government, the State of Oregon Government, our U.S. Congressional delegation, the EEOC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to inspect and seriously review the relevant Intel Corp. Employee Records and databases in order to investigate the facts stated above.

--Dr. Flywheel

Update July 13, 2019

We interviewed a number of people who testified that uniformed armed guards hired by Intel Corp. management, were in full view, as part of a psychological move by the company to coerce laid off employees to sign the separation agreement that was laid of in front of them, on the spot.

Apparently psychological coercion of employees is a common method used by corporations to get rid of employees with minimal backlash to corporate management. A recent court trial in France, involving Orange S.A. (formerly French Telecom) reveals that corporate management came up with an "innovative way" to reduce their workforce while minimizing public backlash to the company due to major layoffs. As Fortune Magazine reports:

In 2008 and 2009, dozens of employees of France Telecom took their own lives or attempted suicide amid a massive restructuring at the company. A 52-year-old technician who killed himself in July 2009 described the situation as “management by terror” in his suicide note. Starting this week, six former executives, one current exec, and the company itself—now known as Orange SA (ORAN)—are in court to face a devastating question: What role did they play in 35 employee suicides?

See reference #5 in the notes below.

Notes:

1. Can you sue an Oregon employer for defamation based on a reference?

2. If my boss recorded false statements in my personnel file, is this libel?

3.  Flawed Separation Agreement Does Not Bar ADEA Claims :
   Every separation agreement for an employee who is age 40 or older should include an ADEA waiver and the protections required by the OWBPA. Failure to include these provisions does not necessarily make the entire agreement invalid or create a separate legal claim, but the employee will have the ability to proceed with ADEA claims against the employer despite the payment he or she has received.
4. Wells Fargo Faces Scrutiny for Black Marks on Ex-Employee Files
5. France Asks a Devastating Question: What Role Did Telecom Executives Play in 35 Employee Suicides?

The Federal Government is Investigating Intel Corp. for Age Discrimination Violations

Recently published articles in the Wall Street Journal and the Oregonian web site, report that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is conducting an expanded class-level investigation regarding age discrimination complaints that have been filed with the EEOC against Intel Corp.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) was the first news organization to report about the ongoing investigation in an article written by Georgia Wells, entitled: Intel Faces Age-Discrimination Claims. The WSJ article mentions that multiple complaints have been filed with the EEOC in conjunction with several rounds of massive employee layoffs over the last three years. The fact that the EEOC would continue an investigation almost three years after a reported violation indicates that the reported allegations are substantial, in spite of Intel Corp. denial of the charges.

The Oregonian news organization expands the coverage on the subject matter in an article written by Mike Rogoway entitled: Intel under investigation for alleged age discrimination. Rogoway, who covered the Intel Corp. massive employee layoffs back in 2015 and 2016 also provided statistical charts showing a clear correlation between an employee age and their odds of being selected for layoff. In this recent article, Rogoway provides a copy of a previously published chart from 2016, demonstrating the very clear age discrimination factor in the 2016 layoffs. Similar charts are available for the 2015 layoffs.

Intel Corp. 2015 Layoffs (click on image to enlarge)

Intel 2016 Layoffs (click on image to enlarge)

Publicly available information also demonstrates that while Intel Corp. was laying off thousands of its current employees, the company was actually acquiring new employees by the thousands. Many of these employees came in via Intel corp. sponsorship of H1B visas, H4 spousal work visas, "Green Card" sponsorship and F1 to OPT work permits. All of these additions to the workforce involve importation of foreign workers who are at the mercy of Intel Corp. for continued stay and employment in the U.S. In other words, Intel Corp. was actively replacing older workers with imported slave labor.

Intel Corp. Number of employees from Annual Report

(click on image to enlarge detail)

As can be seen from the above information, taken from the Intel Corp. 2016 Annual Report, The number of employees reported at the end of 2015 was 107,300, or about 600 more employees then reported in the previous year. However, since about 1200 employees were laid off mid-year, in July 2015, the the end-of-year number shown in the Annual Report actually represents a gain of 1800 employees relative to the previous year. This gain of 1800 new employees acquired before 2015 year end, contradicts Intel CEO's announcement to employees that the July 2015 were necessary to save on expenses "due to forecast of flat revenue"! Throwing experienced (and older) employees off the bus in order to replace them with cheaper newcomers, is the more likely explanation.

Similarly, in 2016, Intel Corp. laid off about 12,000 employees, yet the difference between the numbers reported for the end of 2016 are 106,00, thereby reflecting an effective gain of 10,700 employees  (106,000 - (107,300 - 12,000)) = 10,700.

Where did Intel Corp. acquire the replacement employees? According to a recently published Pew Research Center report: "By the end of the 2004-2016 period,  there were a total of 1,474,000 OPT approvals and 1,473,000 initial H-1B visa approvals".

Layoffs of older U.S. citizen employees not only manifests employment costs savings due their higher salaries, but also cuts on the cost of medical insurance expenses for a self insured company like Intel Corp. It is taken for granted that medical insurance costs tend to rise with the age of older employees and their dependents. If induction into employment of almost 3 million imported slave laborers in the high tech sector is not a significant economic factor in this lucrative sector of the U.S. labor market, what is? 

Intel Corp. attitude towards lowering the cost of labor led company management to commit law violations by conspiring, along with Apple, Adobe and Google to halt competition for employee recruitment in the Bay area and by doing so curbing potential employee pay escalation. The company was engaged in this practice for over a decade since 2001. Court records show that Intel Corp. was forced to settle its ill behavior with its employees, following a court ruling in 2013 (see United States District Court of Southern California - San Jose, Case No. 11-CV-02509-LHK).

Taking the significant risk of engaging in an anti-competitive illegal activity is a clear indication of the high priority that  company executives and the board of directors gave to curbing payroll costs. Clearly, Intel Corp. never refrained from its quest to curb employee compensation and was looking for every avenue to achieve its goals. The evidence points to systemic changes in the company's HR practices, enacted by company executives to get rid of older workers and replace them with cheaper workers. The 2015 layoffs, in which about 1200 employees lost their jobs, seem to be a small scale "experiment" that was meant to serve as a learning tool for company executives before executing the "magnum opus", the massive layoffs of 2016.

While Intel Corp. is not the only company to utilize the F1 to OPT loophole to circumvent the H1B visa quotas, utilization of such loophole is certainly one of the tools that the company utilizes to recruit cheap, captive workers. Public records show that Intel Corp. was the number one company to sponsor F1 to OPT foreign worker visas, with twice as many records registered as Microsoft corp. (see chart below).

Click on image to enlarge detail

Both the WSJ and the Oregonian articles provide new exposure to issues that we have been covering in this web site for the last two years. We encourage our readers to refer to several of our previously published articles, including:

• Useful diagrams for explaining Intel Corp selection of employees for termination in 2015 and 2016
• The Cheap Labor Loophole - OPT is the Name of the Game
• Open Letter to Rep. Susan Bonamici
• Investigation Reveals Silicon Valley’s Abuse of Immigrant Tech Workers
• Intel Corp. Sponsored 10,168 H1B Visas In 2017
• Coal Miners, H1B Visa, George Orwell and Alternative Facts
• 40 Year-old Retirees - Age Discrimination in the News

Further recent information regarding the ill practices that high tech employers are using to substitute older workers with cheaper workforce are covered by Peter Gosselin in these ProPublica articles:

•  CUTTING ‘OLD HEADS’ AT IBM
• Federal Watchdog Launches Investigation of Age Bias at IBM

All the best.

--Dr.Flywheel

Open Letter to Rep. Susan Bonamici

Honorable Congresswoman Bonamici,

With an estimated 70-80 million “baby boomers” entering retirement over the next 15 years, the U.S. economy will be forced to shift the tax paying burden and dig into the pockets of people who still work, to support the growing elderly population.

The subject that I am raising here is the common practice of age discrimination in employment. There is mounting evidence that employers are laying off employees who are older, under a variety of covers, while circumventing the Civil Rights laws of this country. Note that the definition of older in this case, is workers, who are 40 year old and older. This definition comes from our legal system, as represented by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967.

This issue of marking employees for potential layoff, once they reach the age of 40, is very serious. As a principal member of PDX-TIE.ORG, an organization that was originally created for the purpose of mutually supporting employees who were laid off from Intel Corp. since 2015. I know from my own personal experience, as well as from the testimonies of many of our members, that Intel Corp. discriminated against hundreds or perhaps thousands of older employees by either laying them off, or forcing them to retire. In fact I filed an official complaint with both the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) and the Federal agency in charge of enforcing fair employment practices, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). My charges are currently being investigated.

A recent article published in Pro Publica, a highly esteemed investigative journalism web site exposed many of the practices that IBM Corp. used to get rid of its older employees and either replace them with less costly younger workers, or shift their jobs overseas. The relevant Pro Publica article is entitled CUTTING ‘OLD HEADS’ AT IBM and the article content can be found at: https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-american-workers/

Many members of our mutual support organization, PDX-TIE.ORG, once they read the Pro Publica article, immediately found corollaries and parallels between the way in which they were treated by Intel Corp. and the various nefarious methods that Intel Corp. dealt with older employees.

Since I have dedicated the last 2-1/2 years of my life to researching the growing phenomenon of age discrimination in employment, I found that affected employees, have very little support to plead their case and seek justice, because the current system is rigged up in favor of employers. Among other things, employment attorneys refuse to take representation of age discrimination cases under a contingency fee arrangement. Consequently, there are very few such cases, brought into court. After all, older employees who lost their main source of income, following their employment termination, are in a very bad position to spend large amounts of money on attorney’s fees. My own personal experience and the testimony of many of my colleagues, support this fact.

There are many more issues regarding age discrimination in employment that I would be happy to share with you and your staff.

Note that while discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin is covered Under Title VII Protected Classes of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88-352) Vol 42(2000e), age discrimination in the work place is specifically covered under the separate scope of the ADEA.

Federal (and many state laws) provide protection (at least on the books) to certain recognized Protected Classes, defined by the law as: Race, Color, Religion or creed, National origin or ancestry, Gender (sex), and Age.Yet, we find very few cases of age discrimination brought into justice due to weaknesses in application of the law, as compared with other types of discrimination in employment.

Lately, issue of equal pay and sexual harassment came to light in the news and began to wake up the public to the fact that these practices are in fact much wider spread than the public were led to believe. I contend that age discrimination in employment is much wider than many people recognize. I noticed that non of your news letters, sent to your constituency ever mentioned age discrimination in employment as an action item to be corrected via both public education and legislative action. I hope that your office will attend to this issue at the high priority that it deserves.

Let us not forget that aging is unavoidable, whether a person is black or white, male or female, gay or straight. Regardless of gender based pay equality issues, once a person find themselves out of a job, pay equality becomes moot.

Thank you for listening.

--Ron Tsur

Court Will Decide If Employer Can Avoid Hiring Older Workers To Maintain Image

The EEOC filed its law suit against the Texas Road House for practicing age discrimination against older workers. The law suit is referenced as: Civil Action No. 1:11-cv-11732-DJC, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Details of the case are summarized in this press release: Texas Roadhouse Refused to Hire Older Workers Nationwide, EEOC Alleges in Lawsuit

The law suit claims: The EEOC alleged that Texas Roadhouse has hired significantly few “front of the house” employees 40 or older in age. In addition, Texas Roadhouse allegedly instructed its managers to hire younger job applicants. For example, Texas Roadhouse emphasized youth when training managers about hiring employees for its restaurants. All of the images of employees in its training and employment manuals are of young people.

Although the law suit is currently taking active action in court, you may be interested in the EEOC request:

Individuals who believe they may have been denied a position at Texas Roadhouse because of their age or who have any information that would be helpful to the EEOC’s suit against Texas Roadhouse should contact the EEOC toll free at (855) 556-1129 or by e-mail at texasroadhouse.lawsuit@eeoc.gov.

Peter Gosselin of Pro Publica, the investigative journalism and public interest news organization published a recent article, covering the court proceeding. Click on this link to access Peter's article:

Federal Court May Decide If Employers Can Reject Older Job Seekers to Protect ‘Image’

Note: Peter Gosselin continues to investigate age discrimination in employment cases and is particularly interested in talking to people who have experienced such illegal treatment by their employer.

Peter's contact information is:   Peter.Gosselin@propublica.org
   @PeterGosselin

These days that our government is showing a great tendency to pursue the interests of Big Business, while the 70-80 million population of the Baby Boomer generation is heading into uncertain retirement, it is crucial to insure that corrective actions will take place. Age discrimination has been the "big elephant in room" for a long time. Big Business took advantage of weaknesses in the way Congress phrased civil rights protection against age discrimination and deterred affected employees from taking legal action against their employers. The EEOC final rule of 2012 removed some of the ambiguities of the ADEA law; yet, very few legal actions were followed by the EEOC.  If the new administration proves to act against the interest of the voting population by blocking protection of older workers' civil rights, then perhaps it would be time to mobilize older workers to march into the streets. Older workers tend to be more active in casting votes than the general population and I fully expect that politicians who ignore their plight will be punished for their lack of corrective action. On the other hand, perhaps our new President, will see the light of day and understand that pursuing protection of civil right for millions of Americans is what can make America Great Again. Perhaps members of the U.S. Congress will understand that the elections of 2018 are around the corner.

--Dr. Flywheel

Open Letter to Rep. Suzanne Bonamici

Ms. Bonamici,

I voted for you in Tuesday's elections and so did many of my colleagues, believing that you will represent our common interests in front of the Federal Government.  We fully expect Rep. Bonamici to scrutinize the operations of the executive branch, specifically the EEOC protecting us from age discrimination in the work place.  I believe that the results of the last elections prove beyond doubt that the status quo cannot be maintained. Action and transparency are needed to keep this country running in the right direction.

Let it be clear that we are an organized group of disenfranchised, highly educated and highly skilled people who happen to be mostly over the age of 40. Most of us have been unemployed between 5 to 17 months due to ineptness of Intel Corp. management and the impotent handling of our case by Oregon BOLI and the EEOC. We are representative of the group of voters that both the DNC and the RNC will be facing over the next two years, leading to the next election cycle. Whoever fills the ranks in the U.S. Congress cannot ignore the fact that age discrimination in the work place is not confined to isolated incidents or to any particular socio-economic group of people. In terms of gender, there is plenty of proof that women suffer from age discrimination even more than man.

From our perspective, lack of action in enforcing existing anti-discrimination laws will lead to a major disaster in the economy while 70-80 million baby boomers are transitioning into retirement over the next 15 years. Corporate America is facing no law-enforcement challenges to keep their actions in check when it comes to age discrimination. Because executive management salaries are so disproportionately higher than regular worker's compensation levels and they mostly focus on short-term profitability, older workers jobs are being selectively terminated. These actions are typically disguised as "performance" related, because under existing law enforcement practices, a corporate employer has a very slim chance of being brought to justice by either State or Federal Government agencies. Older workers are essentially sacrificed to show good numbers on quarterly balance sheets, mostly because their salaries are higher. To politicians in this country this issue may seems insignificant at this time; however, if left unchecked, it will not be very long before the streets of our nation will be filled with angry men and and women who were forced to sell their homes in order to make ends meet.

Ms. Bonamici, I call upon you to bring this issue into the U.S. Congress for proper review and corrective legislation; however, even before legislating, please follow up on our request to review the actions and defaults of the EEOC that are pertinent to our filed case.

For a quick background I advise clicking on the link below and reading the following article on this web site:
    http://www.pdx-tie.org/2016/08/useful-diagrams-for-explaining-intel.html

Thank you for representing us.

--Dr. Flywheel

EEOC Investigation Can Toll Statute of Limitations in Employment Discrimination Cases

On July 27, 2016, a court decision known as Reginald Mitchell v. California Department of Public Health (“Mitchell”) (Superior Court Case No. BC550911),  set a precedence in favor of tolling employment discrimination charges against an employer, while the EEOC investigation was taking place. The term "tolling" refers to stopping the clock on the statute of limitation, due to a pending significant process or event. In this case the pending event was conclusion of the EEOC investigation. In the Mitchell case, the Court held that Plaintiff’s Complaint was timely even though it was filed nearly three years after the DFEH issued its “right to sue” letter.

The full article can be viewed in the frame below.

--Dr. Flywheel

Revised Article Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs)and Dual Filing

The following article on our web site PDX-TIE.ORG (click below):

Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Dual Filing

has been revised on 8/22/2016, adding Contact information for Fair Employment Practice Agencies in the USA.
I believe the information to be correct and cover all relevant U.S. States. If anyone on this list finds errors in this information, please contact me with the details and I will fix it ASAP.
Thank you for your support.