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IBM Offers to Send Laid-Off Staff to Other Countries
TheAmit writes to tell us that many recently laid off IBM employees have been offered jobs if they will only move somewhere it is cheap to employ them. IBM's new Project Match program offers some financial assistance for moving and immigration help for visas. "However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States. "
on low pay and see how long that idea will last.
So all those laid-off engineers will get a job in sales?
Good job I don't get to place purchase orders where I work!
that this is going to go well for IBM. Management is openly admitting that their present American workforce has the skills they need; it is just a question of cheap labor. This is not the time for a company to be picking this sort of fight.
What if that happens to be your home?
I know IBM must employ a lot of workers on visas. Are they targeting that group?
Americans workers would like to work in America for American wages. However, are they also willing to pay the prices of American made products?
I'm waiting to find out if my job will be moved to a country where the "cost of a comparable person" is 1/3 what it is in the US. Even in that situation I'm not sure how I feel about this politically and morally. How ever as the unemployment rate goes up, and more white collar high paying jobs move else where, I believe this will become a hot topic politically.
There are many ways I see this as a bad sign for the US. Innovation happens where the engineering talent is located. If the worlds best engineers are no longer heading to the US (for high paying jobs) then the US will not longer be the center of innovation it has been for the last 50 years.
Think Deeply.
It was once well known that IBM stands for "I've Been Moved."
I have a few tech friends from India and it's funny because one of them said that on a yearly salary in the US, they could retire comfortably back home. Fact is, a dollar goes really far in other countries and companies could probably provide an even better standard of living for their employees if they were located in other countries. Now, I'm not saying that this is the ideal situation. Just that the reality for some companies is that they cannot or will have trouble surviving/remaining competitive when another company, based in a cheaper location, can undercut them by a significant amount. It's not simply a matter of CEOs fattening their profit margins but that eventually, efficiency will take over. What I believe will happen, is that an economic homeostasis will occur (over several decades) whether we like it or not.
Ah, pay me no heed as I'm just ranting.
Our culture has put such a premium on the price of goods, at the expense of quality, that it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when (like all other resources), labor also finds itself subjugated to this rule. You are now on the dollar menu, Citizen. Ah, but let us rail against our evil corporate overlords instead--it's so much easier to blame anyone but ourselves for this. Labor is dead in this country. You've got "at will" employment, anti-union legislation, and did you know we are the only industrialized country on the planet without a Labor party? Our entire culture has been split up and sold off piece by piece thanks to "intellectual property". You don't own your car, your home, or anything that costs more than about $5,000 these days, stuck paying student loans for the next thirty years, with debt-collection law changes now on the books that make starting over an impossible proposition. We call ourselves a "capitalist" society where the individual has the power and the choice, but tell me dear reader, when was the last time you bought something that didn't come with a contract or a legal document stating what you could and could not do? Want to watch a movie? Read the FBI warning. Use a computer? Read the End User Licensing Agreement. Drive a car? You'll need insurance and a car loan for that. Live in a house? An apartment? Sign here please. You can't even enter a building without "giving consent to search", no cameras or recording devices please (except for us, see the black globes?). Freedom? Where, pray tell, is your freedom?
One Nation, Under Contract. Please sign on the dotted line.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
IBM is gaming their stock price not competing. If they wanted o compete they would want a highly paid domestic workforce that would buy their customers products thus making their customers flush with cash and wanting to buy some more IBM consulting.
Has IBM announced consulting price-cuts to go along with their now lower wages? If not then they're really not competing. They're just trying to get a larger profit margin out of their current pricing scheme. We should start calling bull on this sort of thing. Let's change the headline to:
"IBM hopes to raise stock price by sending laid-off staff to other countries where the can rehire them for cheaper thus boosting their profit margins."
The general reaction seems to be that IBM is in the wrong here.
I think it's also possible to interpret this as a sign that IBM recognizes that the people it's laying off are both a valuable resource that it doesn't want to lose as well as a resource that it cannot afford to keep paying. The union's reaction, of course, is hardly surprising of course -- it has its own interests in mind.
Naturally, this offer isn't one that will appeal to everyone. Obviously laid-off employees with families probably aren't in a position that they can just uproot and move to another country. For others, though, I can see this being an intriguing opportunity.
I know that if I were in this position -- laid-off, facing unemployment, and offered the chance to go live overseas and stay in the company, I'd seriously consider it.
TFA calls it an "innovative" solution. That seems about right. It's not perfect and it's clearly not motivated by altruism, but it might actually work out for some people.
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
ibm will be an indian company
i have spoken to an employee of ibm, who lives and works in the hudson valley (ibm's historical stomping grounds), and he is being relocated to bangalore under this exact program. he is indian anyways, so not that huge of a deal, and he even looks forward to the massive decrease in cost of living
but he's done a lot of recent improvements on his home, like installing 45K worth of solar panels (not including the 10K new york state gives him for doing that), and now he has to sell his home in the current real estate environment. ugh. i don't think this ibm program has a home value relief program?
according to him, ibm had already planned the move in semisecrecy for years, on a 10-20 year timetable. but the worldwide economic recession has meant a rapid acceleration of the process
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I live in Vancouver, Canada. I used to work for a software company here that was acquired by a company headquartered in Washington, DC. In the summer of 2006, once the 'merger' was complete those of us that worked in Vancouver were given an option: Move across the continent and to a new country and join the DC head office, or be let go. The majority of us chose to stay and found ourselves unemployed.
why does that instinct require moral validation?
that is an instinct which has driven the entire history of human innovation and technological progress
the guy who goes "say, i could make a mechanical loom powered by a waterwheel, and sell yarn at $1/ yard rather than $10/ yard" does you a service. of course, he also puts 5 human yarnspinners out of work
but based on some sort of "moral validation" argument, we should not pursue technological progress. we shouldn't, in order to continue employing the human yarnspinners, and to continue paying $10/ yard for yarn
no, sorry, not going to happen
this "moral validation" argument is hollow, and is really just an argument for luddites, and an absurd one at that, since we are both sitting at computer keyboards, arguing over fiber optic cables: innovations that would otherwise be impossible, innovations that, ironically, some of which happened at ibm
innovation is something that flows directly from human laziness and cheapness. we want more for less. and our minds are such that we can actually dream up ways to make that happen with novel organizational structures, energy sources, and bizarre new materials
so i say, fuck "moral validation", fuck the yarnspinners, and fuck the out of work american ibmers
progress isn't all fun and games, and is often cruel. but one of those laid off ibmers will innovate the next big thing that will employ the children of those laid off ibmers, and none of them will question the principle of creative destruction, and they will look at their father's mode of employment the way we look at blacksmithing jobs and chimney sweeping
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For those that don't know, there isn't one. I believe what the summary is referring to (and possibly the article itself, which of course I didn't read) is Alliance@IBM, a ... well, rumor site that gets a lot of disgruntled workers on it.
IBM has a ton of international employees but I believe the largest percentage of employees is in the US. It'd be interesting to compare, say, HP, IBM, Intel, etc., with percentages of employees and where they work, etc.
I guess, in order to make people REALLY happy, they should have just laid off workers and said goodbye for good, huh? Offering to re-locate and stay employed, pfffft, how stupid. Right.
Nobody is forcing you, the self-importance filled "American Citizen", to move abroad, work abroad, or take any job less than what You the Great want to make. IBM is moving the position overseas; you have the option to follow it, not the requirement. It's hard to fault IBM; the cost of employing people in the US is egregiously high compared to other countries, and the international business laws offer no strong disincentive for doing so. Regardless, though, nobody will be forcing You to take a job paying less than you want; there may just not be many jobs up to Your standards soon, though.
Except that protectionism has never fucking worked and was one of the biggest reasons the Great Depression lasted as long as it did, but that's OK.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States.
This is the most basic law of capitalism. America is about creative destruction at its best. For all this daydreaming, if a job can be done elsewhere for a lower cost, it will in the long run. By IBM or someone else like with weird "Tata" names.
IBM must assure its survival; not keep inefficient jobs. If Lehman can die, so can IBM.
The USA has the best universities and the best talent in the globe--that's where IBM (and all others must concentrate, the hardest, most value-added tasks). The rest goes away, baby, like it or not, to some far away land where people talk weird and spend all day building iPods.
Let me tell you something: I'm from Brazil, a PIECE OF SHITE country (despite the awesomeness of the girls), and you know why it's a fuckup? Because our politicians and economists have always tried to protect this banana republic from Schumpeter and David Ricardo. If America goes that route, well, let me just tell you: it backfires.
There are so many tech-areas expanding and so many opportunities in the US that one wonders why the fuck so many whining protectionists don't start working on android, iphone, adobe air, palm's pre system, and other ??? profit! opportunities up for grabs.
The downside is that you cannot simply demand that a company create jobs or bow to your demands that they pay for your society.
Yes we can. The privilege of a corporate charter, and all the benefits that come from that are granted by the people of the United States. It is NOT a RIGHT. The trend over the past hundred years has been for corporations to take more and more while giving less. The expectation that a corporation will exist to serve the public good is all but gone now and pretty much anyone with the requisite fees can become incorporated.
Maybe allowing that to happen was a mistake, but, the ultimate authority in this country, the People, have been misinformed, lied to, and manipulated by the same people who own and run these corporations. It is not impossible in these 'connected' times that enough people will become fed up and start revoking charters.
The wage earners of this country are the engine that drives everything in our present economy, not the stock market, not the capitalists. A strong and healthy middle class is needed to support YOUR standard of living. Take care of it or you too will suffer.
Regarding your insult to the poor and uneducated in this country (der takin oar jorbs): Your place in society is not at all secure, and if you continue to speak and behave as if it is, you will be the one responsible for your children or grandchildren becoming one of the same people you ridicule. The number of upper middle class 'slots' is becoming fewer and fewer every year and there might not be a chair for you the next time the music stops. The way things are going, it could even happen in your lifetime -people don't always get what they deserve, but you just might.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Yet another instance of the prisoner's dilemma.. We're each better off individually to buy the cheapest thing possible regardless of where it comes from, but as a society we'd be better off to support only businesses that contribute back to our economy (i.e. American businesses).
Protectionism, in the forms of high taxes and tariffs, has given many European countries a very comfortable lifestyle. Why not the same for us?
" The number of upper middle class 'slots' is becoming fewer and fewer every year and there might not be a chair for you the next time the music stops. The way things are going, it could even happen in your lifetime -people don't always get what they deserve, but you just might."
That reminds me of the musical chair game they taught us in grade school. Do you think they where trying to inform us of something?
The Real Owners George Carlin:
There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it'll never ever be fixed - it's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got, because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now. The wealthy big business interests that control things, and makes all the important decisions.
The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners.
They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear.
They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it.
They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club.
By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.
The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard working people: white collar, blue collar it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue (these are people of modest being) - continue to elect these rich douchebags who
don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you - they don't give a fuck about you.
They don't care about you at all - at all - at all,
and nobody seems to notice.
Nobody seems to care.
That's what the owners counted on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It's called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
(Listen to him - the power of the words heard is so greater than read, it's the difference between seeing a punch and taking one.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Actually I think a LOT of it can be traced to "owners like you and me" BS. Why? Because we USED to have a nation with investors. Now, we have day traders. And there is a BIG fucking difference. An investor is in it for the long haul. He knows that you have to spend money to make money, that you have to build your business clientele and infrastructure, basically they are looking at the long term picture and investing accordingly.
Compare that to the short termer or even worse, the day trader. They are strictly looking for that short term profit baby. They don't care if you burn the fucking company to the ground as long as the insurance you gets pays them a good dividend. They do NOT want you to fix anything, or spend the money needed for you business(and this country) to grow. Because that affects the short term profits and that is all they care about. If they don't see the numbers in the quarterly reports that they are looking for they'll dump your stock like it was made of toxic waste and you can watch you company become nearly worthless if they get in a panic.
But the simple fact is we NEED investors, not short termers. We NEED the heads of companies to be looking at the long term. We NEED them to invest in the business, the infrastructure, all the things that will help them to grow(and hire more of us to work as they do). But instead a company has to run overseas, they have to let the buildings rot around them. Why? Because if they don't hit those quarterly earning reports the stock market can rip them apart. Because nobody is looking at long term. That is why we have such volatility in the market, and why if Steve Jobs coughs the stock tanks at Apple. Because the stock market has become a giant casino instead of what it originally was, which was companies trading their stock to investors to grow their business and paying them dividends in return for their investment.
Personally, and I know folks REALLY don't want to hear this, but I believe that all this passing the buck and profits above investment will cause this economic crisis to be much worse than they are predicting. I believe that the governments are going to keep pumping money to their friends and flooding the market with cash trying to keep the party rolling and it won't end until we have gone through "Great Depression Part II". Maybe then we will look to straitening out this mess, and we'll reward investment in this country instead of punishing it with tanked stock prices. We'll just have to wait and see.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
After all, that worked well for the UAW.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading