HP, HP Enterprise Accused of Age Discrimination in Suit -- Update
August 26 2016 - 8:04PM
Dow Jones News
By Don Clark
Four former employees of Hewlett-Packard Co. have filed a
lawsuit alleging they were victims of age discrimination as the
technology giant pared its workforce in recent years.
Their suit, filed Aug. 18 in the U.S. District Court in San
Jose, Calif., alleges violations of California and federal laws and
seeks class-action status on behalf of other workers who were 40
years old or older at the time they were laid off. It names Hewlett
Packard Enterprise Co. and HP Inc., the two companies formed when
Hewlett-Packard broke up last fall.
Representatives of the two companies denied discriminating
against older workers.
H-P, founded in 1939, reported 287,000 employees at the time of
the breakup in October 2015, nearly 63,000 fewer than the same time
in 2011. The majority went to the portion now called HP Enterprise,
which sells server systems, data storage and networking gear,
software and servers aimed at corporate customers. Fewer than 20%
went to HP, which sells personal computers, printers and printing
supplies.
The lawsuit quotes from comments since 2012 by Meg Whitman, then
chief executive of H-P and now CEO of HP Enterprise, which it
claims indicated a desire for a larger proportion of younger
workers at the company, particularly in its enterprise-services
business. The suit claims she expressed a preference for a
distribution that could be compared with a pyramid, with many young
workers at the base, replacing a diamond shape with a bulge of
middle-aged workers.
"We are working very hard to recalibrate and reshape our labor
pyramid so that it looks like the more classical pyramid that you
should have in any company" and particularly in enterprise
services, the complaint quotes Ms. Whitman as saying in a 2013
meeting with securities analysts.
The complaint states that the four plaintiffs were all laid off
under circumstances that shifted their duties to younger
workers.
A Hewlett Packard Enterprise spokesman said in an email
statement on behalf the company and Ms. Whitman that the company
has a longstanding commitment to the principles of equal
employment, including relating to workers' ages. "The decision to
implement a workforce reduction is always difficult, but we are
confident that our decisions were based on legitimate factors
unrelated to age."
A spokesman for HP said in an email that the company is aware of
the claims, denies them and plans to defend against them. He also
expressed a commitment to equal-treatment principles, even during
workforce reductions.
"We take care to make tough decisions based on legitimate,
non-discriminatory reasons," the spokesman said.
Write to Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 26, 2016 20:49 ET (00:49 GMT)
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