IBM draws criticism for job cuts, outsourcing
Category IBM/Lotus
From CNN.com: IBM draws criticism for job cuts, outsourcing
IBM's reported plans to lay off thousands of U.S. workers and outsource many of those jobs to India, even as the company angles for billions in stimulus money, doesn't sit well with employee rights advocates.
IBM employees are being dealt a double blow, said Lee Conrad, national coordinator for Alliance@IBM, a pro-union group that has been fighting IBM's outsourcing for years.
"We're outraged that jobs cuts are happening in the U.S. and the work is being shifted offshore," Conrad said. "This comes at the same time IBM has its hand out for stimulus money. This to us is totally unacceptable."
I'm having a hard time with this layoffs/offshoring/stimulus money scenario. Especially when followed up by statements such as:
"In the research we've done working with the transition team, we know that $30 billion could create 1 million jobs in the next 12 months," IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said in January.
The problem is where those jobs would be, said Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
"This is really a question of policy," Hira said. "IBM is doing what's in its best interest, and in this case it's not in the best interest of America. And that's why you need policymakers to step in to ensure that this money gets spent to create American jobs."
OK... I'm reading that to mean that IBM could help create a million jobs if they got $30 billion in stimulus monies to work on upgrading power grids, moving to electronic medical record summaries, and furthering the use of broadband. But IBM is not an electrical company stringing wires, so it must be the software to control the grid to make it smarter. Same with Meidcal Record Technology. They aren't doctors, but they make all those medical computers run. Furthering the use of broadband can mean so many things, from better chip sets to more cell towers. But all these technologies are really hardware and software
While IBM is still considered an American company, they do have global players all over. But the focus seems to be that the American worker, hard working and paid well, is finding himself Increasingly in the target sites of senior management. They're looking for numbers... How they can have more resources to do more with less. And it appears to do that you need to lay off our trained US citizens to go find one of those "high-skill' possibilities that exist overseas.
Our federal stimulus packages are set up and designed to take from one US taxpayer and give to another so that the money being spend is still in our circulation. It's not to give to companies so that they can write, design, and service software in another country to pump it up instead. I still believe that AIG is the grossest example of greed and complete lack of ethics, taking billions of *bailout* money to pay execs millions in *bonuses*. IBM is moving up on my personal list pretty fast, pushing for stimulus dollars to benefit IBM, not necessarily to create jobs here in the US. And of course, getting billions in stimulus money means the end-of-year financial results will look pretty sweet, leading to... you guessed it... bonuses for executives.
(To be clear... the attitude expressed here has *nothing* to do with how I feel about Lotus software, people I work with at IBM/Lotus, or even the technology produced by IBM.)
From CNN.com: IBM draws criticism for job cuts, outsourcing
IBM's reported plans to lay off thousands of U.S. workers and outsource many of those jobs to India, even as the company angles for billions in stimulus money, doesn't sit well with employee rights advocates.
IBM employees are being dealt a double blow, said Lee Conrad, national coordinator for Alliance@IBM, a pro-union group that has been fighting IBM's outsourcing for years.
"We're outraged that jobs cuts are happening in the U.S. and the work is being shifted offshore," Conrad said. "This comes at the same time IBM has its hand out for stimulus money. This to us is totally unacceptable."
I'm having a hard time with this layoffs/offshoring/stimulus money scenario. Especially when followed up by statements such as:
"In the research we've done working with the transition team, we know that $30 billion could create 1 million jobs in the next 12 months," IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said in January.
The problem is where those jobs would be, said Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
"This is really a question of policy," Hira said. "IBM is doing what's in its best interest, and in this case it's not in the best interest of America. And that's why you need policymakers to step in to ensure that this money gets spent to create American jobs."
OK... I'm reading that to mean that IBM could help create a million jobs if they got $30 billion in stimulus monies to work on upgrading power grids, moving to electronic medical record summaries, and furthering the use of broadband. But IBM is not an electrical company stringing wires, so it must be the software to control the grid to make it smarter. Same with Meidcal Record Technology. They aren't doctors, but they make all those medical computers run. Furthering the use of broadband can mean so many things, from better chip sets to more cell towers. But all these technologies are really hardware and software
While IBM is still considered an American company, they do have global players all over. But the focus seems to be that the American worker, hard working and paid well, is finding himself Increasingly in the target sites of senior management. They're looking for numbers... How they can have more resources to do more with less. And it appears to do that you need to lay off our trained US citizens to go find one of those "high-skill' possibilities that exist overseas.
Our federal stimulus packages are set up and designed to take from one US taxpayer and give to another so that the money being spend is still in our circulation. It's not to give to companies so that they can write, design, and service software in another country to pump it up instead. I still believe that AIG is the grossest example of greed and complete lack of ethics, taking billions of *bailout* money to pay execs millions in *bonuses*. IBM is moving up on my personal list pretty fast, pushing for stimulus dollars to benefit IBM, not necessarily to create jobs here in the US. And of course, getting billions in stimulus money means the end-of-year financial results will look pretty sweet, leading to... you guessed it... bonuses for executives.
(To be clear... the attitude expressed here has *nothing* to do with how I feel about Lotus software, people I work with at IBM/Lotus, or even the technology produced by IBM.)
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Comments
* They have to hire american taxpayers (citizens and legal residents) at a higher number than they hire people abroad. E.g. they can't hire 100 in the US and 5000 in India, Russia and China.
* They are not allowed to fire anyone in the US (except on the normal grounds for dismissal, like not doing their job, stealing, sexual harassment, etc) if they at the same time hire people to perform the same/similar actions abroad in the same business unit/division. E.g. they can't fire a US-based programmer who develop say the Lotusscript language, and then hire someone in India to do the same job.
* If the work is similar but the company feel that the workforce overseas is better trained, the money should be used to re-train the US workforce instead.
* If they fire US workers and within 18 months need that skill back, they have to rehire in the US, they can not rehire for that position abroad. The previous worker at the terminated position will have the first offer to get the job back.
That, perhaps with a few tweaks and adding a lot of legalese, should cover most of it, I think.
Posted by Karl-Henry Martinsson At 10:58:24 On 27/03/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Vitor Pereira At 14:54:13 On 27/03/2009 | - Website - |