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IBM Europe Workers Strike
csimoes writes "IBM employees in Europe are on
strike today. This is in response to the 10,000-13,000 job cuts that IBM is planning, most of them in Europe. Strikers will be wearing black and blue to signify their struggle. Here is their main union web site. Now I can't say I'm big union guy, but they do make some interesting points on their site. Such as: "IBM is a wealthy and successful company. Its first quarter profit for 2005 was $1.4 billion, and $9 billion for the whole of 2004. It increased the dividend to its shareholders, recently bought back $5 billion in IBM stock, and acquired 19 companies in 2004." The union also questions if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may jobs."
Corporations don't give you vacation days in Europe, governments do. It's regulated by law. I know the word "law" is a difficult one for Americans to grasp. :-)
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
That is how it works in USA, but IBM is a registered company of UK too and they have to follow the laws of the country. UK, as all the rest of the European cuntries have laws that regulatre what a corporation can do when it comes to layoffs. You can't simply dump employees for no reason and this is a no reason.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/insiders.a sp?symb=IBM&vc=0&siteid=mktw&dist=dropmenu
$13 million in the proceeds of a stock grant sale and options exercize to J. Bruce Harreld alone.
Bruce Harreld came from Boston Market several years ago where he also helped drive that company straight into the shitter.
Most IBM employees got no annual increase last year and variable pay e.g. bonuses which is what most people count on, were cut to the bone - average awards were half what they were the year before and about one fifth of the people got them. This year IBM suspended annual increases to executives but stock and other equity awards were not frozen. In the meantime the employees are bracing for another year of no increases and no variable pay. Simultaneously, benefits cost were increased about 15-20% to employees. Moreover any employees sitting on options that were awarded after 1998 have worthless paper - priced around $132 which is where the stock was headed in 1999 before it had its relentless crash since then ($76 as of today). And there is a strong push to force employees to work from home so IBM can sell their real estate. Employees are expected to give up one room of their house to for a home office and the reimbursement of their office supplies to the employee is now imputed income.
It is improper for one individual to use extraordinary means (going on strike in this case)
Where exactly are the extraordinary means here?
Their right to strike is enshrined by law, provided due ballots have taken place (which I believe is the case)
RTFM (strike-HOWTO-1.4.23, by N. Kinnock)
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
The unions (multiple) in Europe are doing the striking. They are faced with these layoffs and are responding.
The IBM employees in this country that have joined CWA through Alliance@IBM (a grassroots group that _choose_ to affiliate with CWA) are simply supporting their fellow employees - at the very least by publicizing the strike. That is what workers in unions do - they help each other out. That's the point. To work together to make things better for everyone at the workplace, even in the industry. Instead, the parent chooses to throw stones. Nice guy.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
That really works well when you can evaluate how much a particular division generates in hard numbers. It works great in consulting firms since revenue is tied directly to hours billed. However, in a lot of large firms, entire divisions of people are support people who are not in a position to generate revenue for the company. They may be there to book the revenue or to prevent losses from legal issues or theft, etc.. The value that they add isn't so easy to measure. Now, you could argue that each division could hire their own set of such people, but many companies find that they get an economy of scale from having them all in one divison.
That being said, not every layoff is a terrible thing. I have some friends who were dying to get laid off from Deutsche Bank because of the generous termination packages and the abundance of positions elsewhere.
How is running a corporation a privilege?
Roosevelt said so over a century ago:
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form, which frees them from individual responsibility, and enables them to call into their enterprises the capital of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful representations as to the value of the property in which the capital is to be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.
People can freely do business all they want. But a Corporate Charter exempts one from certain rules and taxes, and more importantly, liabilities (ie. RESPONSIBILITIES) - and it is, indeed a PRIVILEGE granted (and FAR too infrequently, revoked) by the government.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
From the article:
The data's a bit old, but I don't think things have changed that much since the survey.