Union Calls For Protests Over IBM Job Cuts

IBM is facing potential protests over its recent decision to axe more staff, with an IBM union calling for pickets at IBM locations on 24 April.

The Alliance@IBM, which touts itself as an IBM employees’ union, said its members and supporters will be holding informational pickets at various IBM locations around the country to call attention to the IBM job cuts and off-shoring.

Picketing Big Blue

So far, the alliance plans to hold pickets in Austin, Texas; Poughkeepsie and Endicott, N.Y.; Boca Raton, Fla.; Burlington, Vt.; Boulder, Colo.; Rochester, Minn.; and Research Triangle Park, N.C.

“IBM employees and their communities continue to see IBM cut employee jobs while shifting the work offshore,” Tom Midgley, president of the Alliance@IBM, said in a statement. “This destruction of IBM jobs is unacceptable, and we will be sending a message to IBM – ‘Stop off-shoring our jobs.'”

“The recent termination of 2,500 IBM US employees shows that IBM clearly does not value the experience and expertise of US workers,” Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance, said in a statement. “To have IBM US employees help transfer work out of the country and then get terminated is outrageous and a threat to all jobs and our economy.”

America Decline

IBM no longer releases headcount numbers by country. The Alliance estimates that the IBM US employee population is now at 95,000, down from 132,000 in 2005.

Meanwhile IBM employee numbers worldwide, especially in low-cost countries continue to increase, the Alliance maintains.

In its press release on the pickets, the Alliance@IBM calls for no tax breaks or incentives for companies that shift jobs offshore and terminate U.S. workers, full disclosure of IBM job cuts and where the jobs are being shifted, and an end to moving work offshore and firing US workers.