Slashdot Mirror
IBM Says 'Couldn't Fire 150K US Workers If We Wanted To'
theodp writes "In an e-mail worthy of the Dilbert Hall of Fame, IBM execs responded to Robert X. Cringely's Project LEAN layoff rumors, reassuring employees by pointing out that they've already wiped out too many U.S. jobs to be able to lay off another 150,000. Big Blue's employment peaked around 1985, when it had about 405,000 workers who were acclimated to a long tradition of lifetime employment. IBM puts its current global workforce at 355,766, with a 'regular U.S. population' of less than 130,000."
Is this evidence enough that Cringley's stuff can never appear on Slashdot ever again? He's a complete hack of a "journalist". I'd rather see blogs written by 12-year-olds than "articles" by Cringley.
I'm ashamed that he is funded in part by non-profit funds from US taxpayers and makes a bad name for PBS in general.
Americans are getting poorer and cheaper. They're 25% cheaper than just a couple of years ago. The urgency to outsource to cost effective workforces is reducing.
Deleted
I used to work at a company, where the standing joke at headquarters was if a plant (factory) did anything wrong, they would close it. The big boss would say: "Either they make target, or I'm going to close the plant!" Of course, the targets were completely unrealistic, so the next meeting would be: "Well close the plant dammit!!! Close the plant!"
The people at HQ would keep a running tally of how many divisions (plants) were closed that week. 15 plant closures was a bad week, as the company only had 13 plants. At one point, things got so bad they had to purchase a few more plants to make up for the plants they really did close. I'm glad I'm not working for that company anymore.
Yes, it is possible for management to discuss closing more plants than they have, and to fire more employees than they have hired ...
then they haven't victimized you, they've just been responded to a force in the market.
These are not mutually exclusive. Our huge trade deficit is a political issue created by international corporations who want to do things their way and hire top lobbyists to get it. The huge trade deficit is not good for Americans, but the international corporations don't give a sh8t.
(By the way, maybe IBM hired 2 guys at $14/hr to do the job of one American at $30. Even if the replacement is lousy, they get an extra one to clean up the first one's booboo's. They thus would save 2 bucks.)
Table-ized A.I.
Well, at least it's not Auschwitz. You gotta be glad it hasn't come to that yet.
Seems pretty silly that in this 21st century the billionaires can move their funds and trade across the globe in milliseconds... But the ordinary people still need some silly visa permit from the king to move their skills likewise. Trade at the post-industrial level, immigration at the Napoleonic law level?
Kind of a sweet deal for the industry: move your production to whichever country has cheaper citizen slaves knowing the people cannot follow in kind.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Excuse me but the Napoleonic Law was innovative and revolutionary - so much in fact it remained the legal code of choice for the countries formerly-occupied under Napoleon. If anything the French Code Civil was and is a very good system of law. And today most of the world's legal systems are based up on the Civil Law legal system with deep French roots. The US legal system however is mostly based up on Common Law..