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IBM Stops Disclosing US Headcount Data
theodp writes "ComputerWorld reports that IBM has stopped providing breakouts on US employees, closing a door to data that provided insights into the bellwether company's employment shift. In its latest Annual Report, Big Blue only provides its global headcount, and an IBM spokesman confirmed that disclosure of US headcount is a thing of the past. The Rochester Institute of Technology's Ron Hira called the US workforce data critical for policymakers trying to understand the dynamics of offshoring. 'By hiding its offshoring, IBM is doing a disservice to America — through omission the company is providing misleading labor market signals and information to policy makers,' Hira said. Ironically, CEO Sam Palmisano's Letter to Shareholders, which accompanied the Annual Report, touts how IBM's Analytics and 'Smarter Planet' efforts are empowering US government decision-makers. Nondisclosure domestically and abroad seems to be the new rule of thumb for Big Tech, sparking calls for government intervention." IBM laid off about 10,000 US workers last year, and 2,900 so far this year, according to the Alliance@IBM, a labor union.
but then get all fucking communist when it affects THEIR jobs
India isn't too bad but a lot of the jobs will be going to China, which IS all fucking communist. When I lived in China I applied to the local IBM to do business intelligence / data warehousing. They wanted to pay me a Chinese wage which would be OK there in China. But IBM wanted to send me to the USA on an L visa which lets them continue to pay the China wage the whole time. I made it through three levels of interviews before I found this out. When I said that as a US citizen I'd have to make at least US minimum wage (which would NOT be cool at all) they hung up and stopped responding to my calls. If you have an IBM consultant in the USA who is Chinese - he (she) is getting paid about $1,000/month while you're getting billed $120/hr from Blue.
As a soon-to-be IBM ex-employee caught up in this latest round of layoffs (or "Resource Action" in IBM corporate lingo), I'm glad that IBM's total disregard for its own country's workforce is finally coming to light. IBM has been engaged in this behavior for years now, yet it has done such a good job burying the information so it gets little to no coverage by the media. In fact, according to a leaked management-level PPT posted on the Alliance@IBM site, IBM upper management is actively implementing a policy where even employees rated by their managers as solid contributors are artificially given lower ratings in subsequent years if their salary is deemed too high so that there is a pretext to push them out of the company and re-hire cheaper labor abroad. While I truly hope that the government would provide much needed intervention, I sincerely doubt any meaningful action will be taken. The best thing we can do is ensure as much media coverage as possible.
binghampton, to be exact
it used to be a major employer in hudson valley towns like kingston, poughkeepsie, fishkill, westchester, and new york city, and all the rust belt cities along the thruway corridor to buffalo
but this started shrinking as it went international, and accelerated as the political center of gravity within the company has shifted to bangalore. hey, it makes sense economically, and its good for india. but ibm has shafted its birthplace, and as someone from the area, so i say fuck them for the betrayal
as a historical major and influential employer, it has developed relationships with new york state and the feds for decades. therefore, the story of ibm is a shining burning example of how corporate money destroys my country
if you want to start your own ibm hate machine, and you should, start here:
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00434
dear frothing at the mouth tea party morons:
stop listening to your demagogues who redirect your rightful anger at your government. the people robbing you blind are corporations, not your fellow poor citizens who just need healthcare. money influence in our government and our congress is destroying our nation. stop focusing your hate at your poor brothers and sisters. focus your righteous anger at the corrupting influence of corporate dollars that pay for the propaganda that fools you, all the while stabbing you in the back with a smile
stop hating your fellow man who just needs healthcare, your anger's direction is paid for by healthcare companies and their demagogues for hire
don't focus your anger on your government. focus your anger on the assholes in your government who are supposed to represent you but instead sell you out to the highest bidder. you need to reform government, not destroy it
and finally, focus your anger on the corporations themselves, who take away your job, defy your rights, and destroy your country with their special interests, all the while paying demagogue assholes to tell you that it is your poor neighbor who is to blame, because he needs healthcare and unemployment benefits, that they deny him
if this is too michael moore for you, recall that what motivated him to initially make films like roger and me was hatred for gm for destroying flint michigan. dear tea party right winger: you get poorer, and you get angrier, and they get richer, and they take your lifeblood out of this country. you want to talk patriotism? go ahead and hate michael moore for his left leaning beliefs if you want, but don't hate him because he fights for YOU: the future third world residents of the formerly great country known as the usa
know the real villain: corporations, not the government. the government is only the villain insofar as corporations have paid them to be
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For some of us it was our generation. And we tried, we really tried to warn you. Then for years we kept getting told by the white collar workers that it was all our fault that the manufacturing jobs were shifting away. We kept trying to tell you guys that your turn would come next, because we looked at the situation, hell we were living the situation so it was easy to see, that the big increases were going to wall street, that's where the massive skim was going, but you refused to listen. You believed the big liars instead. Because those crooks are "white collar" too, so you automatically identify with them, so you believed those guys instead of the older generation blue collars who tried to tell you the straight shit.
Even now, with all the emphasis on the economy and every single possible clue you need to see what is really going on..crickets. Mass denial. The white collars generic "you" will not ever understand that your own government and big economic leaders have been hell bent on stealing everything, all of it, yes even from you, then getting the theft victims, starting to include you now, to blame each other instead of the real crooks.
Enjoy the big bucks "you" might still be getting now, because it won't last long. The same globalists who ripped us off and then shifted the blame are doing it to you now, but you'll wait and do nothing as one by one by one by one you are picked off, sniped, until there is just one little special snowflake left who melts away whimpering, wondering what happened.
And you'll never blame the correct people, because you got suckered completely into believing their globalism and stock market bullshit that you could get something for nothing forever, and that you were somehow special and exempt from the great global wage arbitrage scam because you are "white collar", and you won't notice that global wage arbitrage is never accompanied with global cost of living reductions in places that lose mass numbers of jobs. You see that's the con, they claim that costs of living will go down, and more jobs will just magically appear, just spring out of the ether, but they don't, and you have had an entire generation and a half to see that, but you still aren't seeing it.
That's the lie they use to sell that con, and it is very effective so far, because they gave you credit and "stock" numbers instead of real wage increases. You can't even tell those things apart, you believe those crooks that they are the same thing.
People don't pick up on it until they lose their job..and look for work..and look for work. And a year later are still looking for work and they are now completely broke and wondering when the unemployment checks will stop. But by then they finally have taken the time to take a real look at the situation and figure things out better, but it is too late then to do anything about it to help yourself.
And the cost of living never adjusts down to deal with the lost wages and jobs, that stays the same or goes higher, because those thieves are never satisfied and they want it all and they 100% own government and keep the laws in their favor, always. Oh, they let you "vote", and you keep voting for one of the two hand picked for you candidates at the top, believing this is your "choice", or one of the two hand picked for you candidates for lesser than the top job. And the cycle continues and you keep wondering why.