FOLSOM, Calif. -- A group of former Intel Corp. employees with grievances against the company recently set up a Web site where they accuse Intel of systemic discrimination. On the time-tested theory that there is strength in numbers, these individuals have joined in an organization called Former and Current Employees of Intel, or FACE Intel.

Several members have filed civil lawsuits against the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker charging discrimination on the basis of age, medical disability, ethnicity and/or race. FACE Intel's complaints are among approximately two dozen civil and federal discrimination suits, new and old, listed at the site that have been brought against the company by former employees, not all of them members of the organization.

FACE Intel faults the company's so-called Rating and Ranking management techniques as both a source and vehicle for much of the alleged discrimination. The group claims Intel mandates that a specific percentage of employees--varying at times from 5 to 15 percent--must be given poor employee evaluations, regardless of actual performance. It contends that the rating system is intrinsically unfair, but is further abused to target employees for termination on grounds other than performance.

FACE Intel was formed here early last year, said the group's spokesman, Ken Hamidi. Folsom is home to one of Intel's smaller operations, the Flash Memory Division. Originally called Associated X-Employees of Intel, the group changed its name when a number of current employees signed on.

During the latter half of 1996, the group held at least three demonstrations outside Intel operations in Santa Clara and Folsom. Periodically, it sent out mass e-mailings to Intel employees describing what it considers to be Intel's unfair labor practices.

At the beginning of March, the group established its Web site, sending e-mail to 35,000 Intel employees to announce its inauguration. It believes that Intel blocked most of these messages, and estimates that perhaps 10,000 actually got through. On March 7, according to FACE Intel, the company cut off access to FACE Intel's Web site from all of its locations.

Stacy Koon, Intel's corporate-affairs manager, said the company has had a longstanding policy against e-mail solicitations. Since FACE Intel had asked Intel employees to join or support the organization, that constituted a solicitation, so its e-mail is being blocked as best as Intel can.

"We consider these mass e-mailings to be spamming," she said. In addition, said Koon, hundreds of Intel employees had asked that e-mail from FACE Intel be blocked.

Koon also confirmed that Intel did indeed block access to the FACE Intel Web site from corporate computers. She said the company blocks access to pornographic sites and frequently cuts off access to commercial sites that have spammed Intel employees in the past.

But Hamidi disputes whether Intel has blocked internal access to any Web site other than FACE Intel's. He also said the group complies whenever Intel employees ask to have their names removed from the mass-mailing distribution list.

There are 11 "core" members of FACE Intel, most of whom have lawsuits charging the company with both discrimination and wrongful termination. Nine of the 11 core members are over the age of 40, five had some sort of medical disability and six are Indian, Japanese-American, African-American or Persian.

Hamidi claims 65 current and former Intel employees as members of FACE Intel. He said the participation of friends, family, churches and labor supporters triples the total membership number.

Koon said it is corporate policy to not comment on pending litigation, but said Intel considers the charges filed against it to be "without foundation." She said three suits filed by known FACE Intel members have been dismissed as being without merit.

Despite the adversarial stance, FACE Intel does not consider itself anti-Intel. Many members continue to be stockholders, and strands of loyalty to the company remain, even with Hamidi.

"I want the Intel I used to know back," he said. "This company was so great. I was so dedicated. Intel people are wonderful, they will work harder than anyone in the world for you. [CEO] Andy Grove changed it."

The change that Hamidi and FACE Intel take greatest exception to is the introduction of a series of Rating and Ranking management techniques. IBM Corp. and Exxon are among the other companies said to have used the Rating and Ranking system, or some version of it.

FACE Intel says that Intel's policy is to terminate a certain percentage of employees every review period. Not only is the employee-evaluation process inherently unfair, the group contends, but it has also proved to be a vehicle for systemic abuse, and provides cover to discriminatory practices.

Koon categorically denies that a policy to terminate a preset percentage of employees exists now or ever has existed at Intel.

Hamidi said that Intel employees have anonymously been sending FACE Intel materials that tend to bolster the group's claims. He also said that chapters of FACE Intel may soon be formed in two more states, centering around Intel's large operations in Hillsboro, Ore., and in Chandler, Ariz.

FACE Intel is formulating a legal coalition with other former and current employees of Intel who wish to share legal and other vital information. The group can be reached at FACE Intel, P.O. Box 1901, Loomis, Calif., 95650.

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