Spirit of celebration missing for many
as IBM gears up for 100th anniversary
As IBM prepares a massive public relations campaign
around the founding of IBM 100 years ago,
employee morale in the US is rock bottom.
Job cuts and mass terminations continue as IBM abandons the US workforce for
cheaper overseas locations. It seems to most US employees that the 'churn
and burn' in IBM just never stops.
For those employees targeted for the recent resource action and for the over
15,000 who lost their jobs the past few years, a celebration of IBM's founding
will ring hollow. In Endicott, NY where IBM was founded, the company is almost
non-existent. Abandoned by executives who have no loyalty to the community
where it started.
As the celebration gears up, the media and the country are seeing IBM presented
through the eyes of the corporate executives, not the rank and file IBMer.
While IBM ranks high in international rankings for business, the days of IBM
being at the top for being one of the best places to work are long gone.
IBM employees are forced to train their offshore replacement and then are
terminated as the work moves out of the US.
Fear of job loss rules the day for many employees.
Pay raises have become a thing of the past while executives receive huge stock
bonuses and options.
Benefits have been shrinking.
Respect for the employees who have made IBM great has disappeared and employees
are treated as liabilities instead of assets.
Retirees find that promises made became promises broken.
To be sure, IBM employees around the world are proud of the work they do for
the company.
They are also civic minded, giving back to the communities where they work
and live.
IBM employees are simply saying to the CEO and the executives--give us respect,
not empty words and public relations campaigns. Treat us as assets not liabilities.
Call us people not 'resources'.
Reward loyalty with concern for employees well being.
Let us have a true voice in the workplace.
Let us join our unions and the new IBM Global
Union Alliance free from intimidation.
Do all that and more and there will be cause to celebrate.
Lee Conrad
National Coordinator
Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701
www.allianceibm.org
International Coordinator
IBM Global Union Alliance