Richard Walstrom sensed something was wrong during a job
fair last May, when he saw some of his IT colleagues, who had also
been told they were losing their jobs at Best Buy.
"There was a high percentage of people with grey hair," said the
57-year-old Walstrom, one of 44 former Best Buy IT workers who
filed a class-action lawsuit last week claiming that the
electronics retailer engaged in age discrimination when it made
them redundant. The plaintiffs range from 40 to 71 years old, with
an average age of 51.
The redundancies were announced in April, when Best Buy said it
planned to outsource its IT operations to Accenture, following a
smaller round of cuts in October 2003.
"We believe these claims are without merit and intend to
vigorously defend the action," said Best Buy, which said that the
average age of its 3,700 employees was 35.
When it first announced the outsourcing contract with Accenture,
Best Buy said that only 40 of its 820 IT staff would remain with
the company. The retailer expected about 650 workers to receive
comparable job offers from Accenture and continue working at Best
Buy's offices. The other employees were told they would be made
redundant.
According to the lawsuit, 126 IT workers were made redundant in
June. The plaintiffs' lawyer Stephen Snyder said 82 of those
workers were at least 40 years old - the minimum age required to
file an age-discrimination claim in the US.
Thirty-one of the plaintiffs are workers who were dismissed in
June. The 13 others lost their jobs in 2003.
Snyder said the Best Buy case involves the largest number of
plaintiffs that his firm has represented in an age-discrimination
complaint.
"Computer industry employees are particularly vulnerable to age
discrimination because of this commonly held perception that older
individuals can't keep up with new technology," he said. "As with
any stereotype, that may apply to some people, but it doesn't apply
to others."
He added that the most recent performance reviews for each of
the plaintiffs had indicated they were "solid performers" or
better.
"If you're doing your job well, getting good reviews and merit
bonuses, you don't expect to get dumped," Walstrom said of his
redundancy. "In that respect, it was a surprise."
Walstrom, who worked at Best Buy for almost seven years, was the
manager of the company's database support group until September
2003 when the group was shifted from operations to Best Buy's
database development team. Walstrom said he soon learned from his
new boss that his job was going to someone else.
"The guy picked to replace me had no experience managing
databases," Walstrom said. "He had been a project manager. But he
was about 20 years my junior. You look at that in hindsight and
start figuring things out."
Not every former employee eligible to file an age-discrimination
claim against Best Buy has done so. Snyder said workers who
accepted redundancy pay-offs were required to sign a document
releasing the company from all claims, including age-discrimination
complaints.
Carol Sliwa writes for Computerworld