Google’s anti-worker actions evoke IBM’s racist past | Clyde W Ford
The companies are linked by their records of discrimination, silencing dissent and undermining human rights
My father, John Stanley Ford, was the first black software engineer in America, hired by IBM in 1946. In his day, there were no unions, and IBM’s founder, Thomas J Watson, sought to keep it that way. Watson offered healthcare, paid college tuition and access to IBM country clubs – all of which helped thrill most employees into never questioning whether they should organize for greater rights, like freedom from workplace discrimination. When I started as a software engineer at the company a quarter-century later, employees still enjoyed healthcare and country clubs but had very few rights. It was IBM’s black workers who first fought to change this.
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