It’s always dangerous to take about “tapping into youth” as part of a leadership development program. Couple that with layoffs that disproportionately affect older employers and you’re courting a lawsuit. It’s a combustible legal mixture that a company would do well to avoid.
3M found itself in this pickle in the wake of layoffs of hundreds of older workers between 2003 and 2006, so today it decided this is not worth taking to court.
Instead, the company will pay $3 million to settle age discrimination allegations stemming from those layoffs, the EEOC announced today.
The EEOC cited evidence that older employees were denied leadership training and laid off to clear space for younger workers. The commission also dug e-mails describing the then-CEO’s “vision for leadership development” as “we should be developing 30 year olds with General Manager potential” and “He wants us to tap into the youth as participants in the leadership development.”
All that is code to the EEOC for age discrimination. In other words, making employment decision not based on individual employee’s qualifications, but on generalizations about older workers, in this case, that they’re not up to the leadership challenge.
Read more here.
