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Cutting 'Old Heads' at IBM (propublica.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: As the world's dominant technology firm, payrolls at International Business Machines swelled to nearly a quarter-million U.S. white-collar workers in the 1980s. Its profits helped underwrite a broad agenda of racial equality, equal pay for women and an unbeatable offer of great wages and something close to lifetime employment, all in return for unswerving loyalty. But when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM faced the changing landscape with a distinction most of its fiercest competitors didn't have: a large number of experienced and aging U.S. employees.
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would "correct seniority mix." It slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would "correct seniority mix." It slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
You assume they would have listened and learned.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Worked for several compaines, here's what I leaned.
Be a team player, be loyal, work ovetime without pay, show up no mater the weather, on-time.
As soon as your pay gets closer to being fair, your job is history.
Loyal employee works in one direction only, the company doen't care about us, they care about the cash.
Don't be a fool and believe you are special, have unreplacable talent or whatever, they will get rid anyone to save a buck.
Seen it happen to many fantastic people, soon as they found a cheaper employee.
You need several head-down coders to make stuff work.
You need a lot fewer old hands to look things over and point out the problems.
When Fat Lou Gerstner took over he essentially put everyone at IBM that didn't touch a product, deliver it, or face a customer on notice. Fortunately he spared the payroll department, but many mid managers disappeared. And so did many very capable people, some of whom went on to become IBM customers elsewhere.
Now the work has changed dramatically over the 8-10 years, and the employees have to change also, and to whine that they have to be 'allowed to change' doesn't work. IBM is in the midst of a lot of changes, GS being one, and they are playing a dangerous game by ditching experience and embracing offshoring in the name of cost reduction. It's not fair, but little in life is fair.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Not true. Social Security and Medicare taxes are based on wages that the employee earns, not how much the companies are making. I pay in half of those taxes, the employer pays the other tax and how much money the company parks off shore is largely irrelevant. If they don't pay their half, the IRS can come in and seize whatever they need to seize to collect on that tax.
The place where that kind of thing may have some impact is that the Republicans have been borrowing from the trust for years in order to "balance" the budget, and at some point that's going to have to be paid back. All this bullshit about cutting benefits, is just that bullshit. If the feds default or fail to pay what's promised, it would create a depression the likes we haven't seen in nearly a century.
Congratulations, you fallen for their con.
To be in the 1% in the US you need to be earning $400k a year.
The middle class is roughly $42k to $125k.
No, the 1% aren't the upper middle class, they are well above it.
And how do they preserve their privilege? By convincing people like you that they really aren't rich, by conning people into thinking they are part of the middle class they they are working to kill off.
This is the way I have seen it go down every time over my 38 yr career. If it is a big layoff and you as a manager have bee told to RIF 10+ staff in your group, you will be next.