Hewlett Packard Hit With New Class Age Suit Over Retrenching

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. is accused of discriminating against 100 or more workers, aged 40 or over, in another federal class lawsuit citing comments by CEO Meg Whitman regarding the tech giant’s push to retool its workforce.

The suit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama by former pre-sale consultant Alan Green. He seeks to represent separate classes under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act asserting claims of intentional and disparate impact bias.

The classes will include employees over the age of 39 who worked in HPE’s USA business unit and were laid-off at any time since May 1, 2016, as part of Hewlett’s workforce reduction, including those denied transfer into other positions after receiving notice of their selection.

The systemic discrimination is part of a pattern of age bias spurred by Whitman’s 2012 announcement of a five-year plan to restructure Hewlett Packard’s workforce, the lawsuit says. The retrenching included the 2015 split of the old Hewlett Packard Co. into HPE and Hewlett Packard Inc., and has seen more than 80,000 workers lose their jobs, the suit says.

Whitman publicly stated in connection with the moves that HP needed to “keep up with this next generation” and would need to bring in “early-career people” and a “whole host of young people” to do so, Green alleges.

HPE “willfully violated the ADEA” by laying off workers who were 40 or older at a greater rate than younger employees,” the suit says. Management also made it known a fixed percentage of outside hires should be young graduates or individuals early in their careers, according to the suit.

Statistically significant disparities in the rates at which older employees lost their jobs in the restructuring supports the class claim that bias resulted from a facially neutral policy that had a disparate impact on those 40 and over, the suit says.

“Inclusion is part of HPE’s values, and we have no tolerance for discrimination in any form,” issues management and policy communications director Adam R. Bauer told Bloomberg Law Thursday in an email. “We were just made aware of this complaint and will evaluate it once served.”

Causes of Action: Disparate treatment and disparate impact discrimination under the ADEA.

Relief: Declaratory judgment that HPE engaged in age bias; permanent injunction barring continuing discrimination; restructuring of employment practices and procedures; lost wages; other monetary and non-monetary relief needed to make Green and classes whole; attorneys’ fees and costs.

Potential Class Size: 100 or more workers.

Attorneys: Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb LLC represents Green and the proposed class.

The case is Green v. Hewlett-Packard Enter. Co., N.D. Ala., No. 1:20-cv-00717, class complaint filed 5/21/20.