IBM Has Slashed 14,000 Jobs In Two Years, Despite Announcing The Creation Of 800 Jobs Recently

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/13545

By Doug Cunningham

IBM recently announced it’s creating 800 jobs in Missouri, but the iconic American company has in fact been slashing U.S. jobs for years. Lee Conrad of the Alliance@IBM

: “IBM has been cutting jobs for the last four or five years. In fact last year they cut around 11,000 jobs and the first quarter of this year they cut 3,000 . Now many of these jobs are being cut and the work is being moved offshore. With all the talk about how many jobs they’re supposed to create, like 800 jobs. The net effect is IBM is cutting jobs around the country.”

Alliance@IBM is an organizing effort at IBM in the U.S. Conrad says IBM is unionized elsewhere but not in the U.S.

: “Well, inside the United States we are an organizing campaign. We do not have a collective bargaining agreement with IBM or recognition. It’s a very tough row to hoe to get IBM workers organized. Forty to forty-five percent of them work from home across the country – very difficult. But IBM is organized in Europe and also in Japan. And there have been some recent organizing victories at IBM in Argentina and Australia.”

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Alliance@IBM started back in the early '90s while I still worked for IBM. I was 'down-sized' by

IBM exactly 7 days after hitting my 29th. year anniversary. I was allowed to 'bridge' the next 12 months to my full (although cut by 1/3 from 'resource actions' in 1994 and 1999) retirement. Therefore, I was one of the lucky ones.