To the OP:
My condolences; been through this sort of thing a few times in my career, it's never fun. I can tell you that I've wound up in much better shape over time due to being cut; otherwise I would have remained in place and not progressed. Maintain a positive attitude - it will pay off.
Now on to RP:
Oh I agree it is a very scummy thing to do and IBM has a history of doing fairly scumming things.
But I have a feeling if they slated the entire group that is a fair amount of cover. Mind you Employers are not above laying off 10 people just to dump the single one that want to get ride of.
I bet there the law is written that you can dump the entire group with out fear. The more I have learned about IBM over the years tells me that IBM at most is a company that you go to if you need a job and use it because it may look good on a resume to get to a place a little more trustworthy.
I have a feeling you were being hyperbolic to try to make a point, but going over the top with your commentary isn't helpful here to people reading this thread. Some people may even take you at face value, which would be unfortunate indeed.
So, allow me to step in here briefly, as unfortunately I have some real-world experience here.
I won't comment about IBM specifically as I have no experience with them, but I do have experience at extremely large multinational corporations down through mid-sized businesses down to me and the owner.
Also, bear in mind that I don't *LIKE* everything I'm about to communicate. I'm not a ruthless capitalist, rather, I'm communicating reality.
* Employers can indeed target entire groups for layoffs. However, saying this is for "cover" is... silly. If a business unit (say, the buggy whip division of Ford) is ailing and failing, it's wise business to shutter that division and let the people go. If the division is large enough and the cuts are big enough, a WARN notice has to be sent out, but I'll grant you that companies have gotten better about getting around WARN.
* Employers wouldn't even consider laying off 10 people to lay off 1 person. That's.... silly. Separation costs are significant for the employer - monetarily speaking, plus ongoing knock-on effects that linger after cuts (morale, organizational impacts, overworked feelings by those left behind, etc).
* Company-provided health insurance and benefits at a company the size of IBM aren't going to take a major hit because someone had a child. The extra costs are negligible.
* Letting people go during paternity/maternity/sick leave can also be done. Companies are rightly hesitant to do this as it really sends a crummy message, but it's legal as long as certain steps are taken.
* Letting people go that have recently communicated a status change (a health issue, marriage, divorce, baby, etc) or are otherwise in a protected group (over 40, minority, etc) only have recourse if they were specifically targeted for the action. But if they can prove they were targeted (individually or as a group) then there's a case.
However, for this last bullet, companies are generally proactive in making sure there's no targeting involved. This is done by:
* Drawing up a list of suggested employees to be cut
* Legal and HR review the list for targeting
* The list is sent to outside legal for additional advice
* Revised lists are made up again and the process starts all over again
I've found that the bigger a company is, the more attention they pay to who they're cutting (as a whole). There is more legal review than you may expect. But it's also a cold hard analysis, they'll be looking at ages, salary, job history, job performance and other types of parameters to decide whether a line item on a list should remain or not. Yes, that line item on a list is a person. I'm sure that people that weren't originally selected to be cut were added to the list so that (for example) the percentage of people laid off above the age of 40 went below a certain figure.
Mid-sized to smaller companies tend to be the ones that make many more mistakes in this area. There, I could definitely see a (bad) manager decide to cut someone out of spite or worries over higher costs. Actually, I have seen it.
Yes, this all sucks. But it's better to understand your real rights (vs. perceived) and the company's real rights (again, vs. perceived) than to go through your career without knowing. In the end, everything comes down to business decisions.
