Thousands of jobs going anyway

What most people outside IBM don't realise is that we are losing hundreds (if not thousands) of people through these pension changes anyway.

IBM have an "early retirement window" currently open. We will be losing a lot of people aged 50 and over through this, as many will be financially better off by retiring from IBM now rather than later.

In first quarter next year a lot of very experienced people will be leaving. It will be interesting to see how those of us left behind will cope without them.

Get your Facts right.

jeremy - IBM does not recognise any union - get your facts right you plonker

Lib Dems

Thank your deity of choice Hell will freeze over before they get a sniff of power.

what about a decent state pension?

rather than relying on companies that have only profit as ultimate goal. At the least the state should have other goals. Other European (sorry if the word Europe gives you a fit) countries have state pensions that give people something like 70% of their job salaries while we get 5% if we are lucky.

How do they find the money? Well maybe not wasting billions (and lifes) in Iraq and Afghanistan helps.

final salary in bangalore?

i wonder if they care about final salary pension schemes in Bangalore. IBM (like the rest) are just offshoring what they can get away with and inshoring what they can't. just rotate some low paid employs (by western standards) from India around every 6 months and who cares about final salary schemes?

@jeremy 3

Unfortunately I haven't seen any evidence of employment laws hindering the likes of Fujitsu and IBM or any other big business from attacking pay packets, pensions and jobs while the management team and shareholders walk away with boom time profits in a recession etc etc.

While employers continue to attack pay, pensions and jobs, employees are faced with either just taking it or deciding that enough is enough, in which case a union is normally the last recourse.

The old argument is 'if you dont like it leave' which I used to follow, but the problems is all of the buggers are at it now, cutting pay, pensions and jobs without even thinking about those that it hurts. It's time that behaviour stops before we are all eating out of dustbins.

Believe me no one want's to go on strike (as obviously we don't get paid) but sometimes it's the only recourse employees have when employment laws are no longer working.

Besides the likes of a final salary scheme would be sustainable if employers didn't keep dipping into the pension pot with impunity.

As for 'sake em all' thanks for your support. I hope you continue to get a good deal where you are and the you won't face redundancy or your pay packet being cut.

what you forget is that employees going on strike or are considering strikes are also 'taxpayers' who expect to be treated fairly which is not the case at the moment.

It depressing that unions are required, but they still have there uses.

Issue is NOT just the final salary scheme, Skippy.

Its the fact people are being encouraged to 'apply' for early retirement immediately - because if they don't they'll lose a big chunk of retirement cash by switching to the proposed scheme: Please collect your belongings - you are too expensive and we'd rather avoid paying any redundancy for your 20-30 years of service.

And if you refuse to move right away, you become a second class citizen in terms of salary increases. None for you because you're not playing ball.

Final salary is fully affordable for the *current* population who were always known and planned to have this scheme. Unfortunately the pigs of Armonk and their various local corporate whores are going back on promises which were made only 3 years about leaving the DB schemes alone until well into the next decade. They're determined to trim the cost associated with experienced employees to the bone, all in the name of their stock options. Meanwhile customers will suffer.

BTW - I'm not in this scheme. I'm not affected - in fact I'll benefit a little. When I joined 10 years or so ago, it had been closed to new members for a while. But this is an important indicator of the underhand management techniques applied by those who hold the true assets of this corporation with such contempt.

What's the Early Retirement scheme called?

I got early release back in 1993 after The Year No-one Bought Mainframes. This was about the time the ranking lists started. Two years later they tried to hire me back, but I was earning 50% more and taking home twice as much (tax break for start-up company).

We had such laughs from the weasel naimng of the schemes. First was Career Transition Programme - instantly renamed Cash To Piss off. My own one was Skills Rebalancing Option - became Smilling Rich and Out.

@Sarah 5

I literally can't imagine that happening at IBM in the UK; as a full time employee I can only apologise if it did.

Most people I know appreciated the role of contractors, didn't begrudge them the pay, flexibility, freedom from PBC process and slap-head management's BS emails telling them how well IBM was doing but that there were no bonuses or payrises....!

Scheme names

I think the new scheme is called FROOP. As in "F--- right off, old people."

No cash, no pay off. Just being told you'd have to work another 3 or 4 years to get the same pension you were expecting to get after the last attack on the DB scheme in 2006.

I'm not affected by this

@Jeremy 3 - I'm not in this scheme, and I'm not in a union, but I fully support those that are. I actually hope they do go on strike, and that the unionisation of the IBM workforce spreads.

@ Sarah 5 - I don't know where or in which brand you worked, but in SWG here in Australia I've never known contractors to be treated any differently; personally I count many of them as friends.

Here in Australia, the union had a small win against IBM October last year (for the small number of workers at a particularly important NOC), despite reports which indicated IBM employed underhanded tactics to try to prevent the action (offering thousands of dollars in bribes^H^H^H^H^H bonuses to individuals who agreed to work through the planned stoppages).

Go for go on strike and teach the IBM management we won't take their dishonesty anymore.