Opportunistic downsizing of aging workers: The 1990s version of age and pension discrimination in employment

Hastings Law Journal

Volumn 48, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 511-

  Minda, Gary ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0042264009     PISSN: 00178322     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (2)

1. The word "downsize" first appeared during the oil crisis of the early 1970s, when automobile executives used "downsizing" to describe the move toward the design of smaller, gas-efficient automobiles. See Louis Uchitelle & N.R. Kleinfield, On the Battlefields of Business, Millions of Casualties, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 3, 1996, at A1, A14. When applied to workers, the word "downsize" has come to signify reduced expectations and reduced employment opportunity. In the labor relations offices of corporate America, downsizing has become a euphemism to soften the hard edge of words like "fired," "dismissed," and "laid off." In the corporate-speak of the 1990s, employees "are 'downsized,' 'separated,' 'severed,' 'unassigned.' [Employees] are told that their jobs 'are not going forward.'" Id. In board rooms and chief executive officer (CEO) offices of corporate America, downsizing is a word that summarizes a host of business survival strategies designed to save the corporation from death in the global market place. For most American workers, the word symbolizes the permanent loss of a career job. In the print media, the word "downsize" is used to characterize a fundamental transformation in the workplace; changes which rival those of the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.
2. RIF has a euphemistic quality similar to downsizing, and has similarly been used to mean a reduction in the number of employees in a particular employer's work force for economic reasons. See Lisa Imbrogno, Can You Have Your Cake and Eat It Too? Ratification of Releases of ADEA Claims, 20 FORDHAM URB. L. J. 311, 326 n.104 (1993).