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Cut execs' pay before laying off more workers, IBM union demands

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• As RTP campus braces for cuts, IBM picks Iowa for 1,300 new jobs

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“We're getting people telling us that groups in RTP are being notified of their layoff status today. People associated with the ‘P Series’ [servers] are affected. Other groups are being told the funding to their departments is being cut-off, and that they will know status of the next steps within the next week.” – Note from anonymous IBM worker

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Jan. 23 is still “L” day, as in layoff day, according to a growing number of workers at IBM. The note above is just one of many making the increasingly bitter scuttlebutt route. And the fledgling union that seeks to represent Big Blue workers is making a last-ditch appeal to management to not cut thousands of jobs.

Among its demands: Cut exec pay and perks before putting the ax to more workers.

Monday morning, Alliance@IBM issued an alternative to another “resource action” – IBM-speak for layoffs.

According to the union, which is part of the Communications Workers of America and is officially called CWA Local 1701, IBM should carry out the following:

• “IBM must make every effort to save jobs.
• “If cost-cutting is needed, IBM should suspend its stock buyback program – the company has spent $26 billion since 2007 -- instead of terminating workers.
• “If job cuts occur, IBM must divulge the number of job cuts, where they are taking place and whether any of these affected jobs are being shifted offshore.
• “Executive positions should be eliminated in divisions where job cuts occur.
• “Pay, bonuses and perquisites for executives should be slashed.
• “Work cannot be shifted from IBM workers in the United States to offshore locations.
• “Full disclosure of why individual jobs are being eliminated is essential.
• “Before any new hires are added to the payroll, IBM must recall and rehire employees terminated in past resource actions.”

The last point is an especially bitter one for current IBM workers facing the “RA’d” label because IBM announced plans for a new tech center in Iowa that will hire 1,400 people. Big Blue also is establishing a new research center at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

While these are jobs that aren’t being outsourced or off-shored, their creation leaves some current IBMers scratching their heads. Why are they being sent to the unemployment line while someone new is trained and hired somewhere else?

The Alliance also wants IBM to be more public in announcing whatever cutbacks it makes. Normally, IBM is more secretive about its resource actions than Homeland Security is about the latest terror threats. And IBM workers are threatened with immediate termination if they talk to the press.

The Alliance does offer a comments page for job cuts. It’s a good place to start for people inside and outside of Big Blue who are wondering what will happen next. Note the anger and resentment in many of the comments. This is sad, sad reading.

The Skinny

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