Sprint - The Computer Did It

As written about in Sprint – Boomers Under Attack Again, the $58 million settlement was finalized in Kansas City and the 1,706 plaintiffs will average $21,688 each. The 20 attorneys representing the plaintiffs will have to get by on only a mil each. Sprint also settled a $5.5 suit earlier this year in Atlanta.

From a Kansas City Business Journal article, Sprint/Nextel blames the mess on a computerized evaluation program that singled these people out. It must have been the “computer” that moved older workers to departments that the “computer” decided to disband. It was also the “computer” that programmed itself to make it difficult for a higher paid and more senior worker to be as productive and their lower paid counterparts.

If Sprint would have gone about this in an open and honest way by offering the senior workers a fair compensation package, the only losers would have been those 20 attorneys.

Sprint - Boomers Under Attack Again

From a DAVID TWIDDY article on Breitbart.com Sprint Nextel settled an age discrimination suit for $57 million. From the article:

“The suit, filed in 2003, claims then-Sprint Corp. illegally moved employees 40 and over to positions that were then eliminated as part of the company's downsizing efforts.”

“"We elected to settle this case so that we can continue to focus on the business," said company spokesman Matt Sullivan.”

As if a single law suit is going to distract Sprint.

Companies’ targeting their highest paid (and most experienced) staffers is nothing new, like UPS or IBM, the difference is the way they go about it. To deliberately transfer older workers to positions that they know would be eliminated is outright discrimination.

But Sprint Nextel is not the only ones trying to gain financial advantage of the Boomers. From the Twiddy article each of the 11 lead plaintiffs received and average of $155,000 and the remaining 1,686 averaged $20,332. Meanwhile the attorneys have to squeeze by on $21.4 million.

But this isn’t the companies’ first age discrimination suit, last May they paid $5.5 million to 462 former employees in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Atlanta.

Sprint, Motorola, Nortel & Kodak Plan Major Cutbacks – In People

Kodak: 30,000

From Ben Dobbin, AP Business Writer writes an interesting article about Kodak. They are adding an additional 3,000 layoffs to the previously announced 27,000 planned for this year. That comes on the heals of 23,000 already sent packing.

At its peak in 1988 Kodak employed 145,000 and after the cuts planned for 2007 will employ 29,000. At the end of these cuts Kodak will have shrunk by 80%.

Sprint: 5,000

This is a different story, in an InformationWeek story by Elena Malykhina Sprint plans to cut 5,000 of its staff. As quoted by Ms. Malykhina:

“Sprint is the most ambitious of the four major U.S. cellular carriers, acquiring Nextel for $35 billion and making bets on emerging technologies like WiMax. But with costs up, customers unhappy, and layoffs imminent, the No. 3 U.S. cellular carrier may have taken on more than it can handle.”

The recent breakout of the video blogging and pod casts, has caused carriers to throw out any previous projections concerning bandwidth requirements. With the consumer now demanding substantially more bandwidth networks have to be reworked before they are even finished. From an article in The Guardian titled Rise of video downloads threatens gridlock on net:

"The growth in video downloads could create an internet traffic jam that threatens the net's development, according to Google."

Motorola: 3,500

Motorola has announced layoffs of 3,500 after having a record breaking 4th quarter where sales of handsets rose 47%. Unfortunately profits went the other way by 48%. Motorola does so many different things and has been on a buying spree lately that the poor results have to be answered somewhere, or by 3,500 some ones.

Nortel: 2,900

Nortel, a Canadian Company with a 2,600 worker plant in the Research Triangle Park of the Raleigh/Durham, area has announced layoffs of 2,900. The specific locations of the proposed layoffs weren’t given but the company has indicated plans to cut spending in the R& D and administration areas.