LibDem backs IBM staff in pension row... Hampshire MP Sandra Gidley has intervened in the row over IBM closing its final salary pension scheme, but hers is a confusing brand of support staff might rather do without. The Liberal Democrat has called on the government to boycott the firm, a move that would guarantee thousands of job cuts. "I have written to the …
Out source to a company that does not have unions.
Its my tax money they want in final salary, i don't get a final salary as it is something that is unsustainable.
Obviously its only fair if NO-ONE gets them (i,e. not execs either).
I am fed up of unions going on strike to hurt employers when it is just me (the consumer, customer or taxpayer) that is always paying.
Also anyone who claims that unions have helped maintain employment rights and stuff is talking about the past (like the 1970s) we now have strong enough employment law in the UK that unions are just a cost and barrier to progress!!!
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.
The thing that folk seem to miss is that the so called "unaffordability" of final salary pensions is most likely a temporary affair. In the days before Browns raid on Pensions etc and Equties going down the tube they could be cheaper for companies than defined contribution pensions - remember "pension holidays"?
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.
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?
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.
you know, IBM has done some good stuff, but it is a behemoth that's not really needed anymore.
IBM being a service company in the main, is driven by the people who provide the service. If they leave IBM has nothing, but the demand for services doesn't drop, in fact with IBM effectively dismantled by groups going off and doing their own things, the total demand for services would probably increase.
Big companies and IT never mix, not if you want a good stable IT Solution, that always comes from the smaller players, knowledge doesn't scale, or more accurately bureaucracy scales to strangle knowledge.
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.
I left IBM in 2005. I've been contracting for a few years since then, and thanks to the actions of IBM, I have just advised the pensions trust that I want to start my pension now.
IBM operated pay and promotions policies in the UK that were morally reprehensible, and were contrary to the spirit of UK Employment law, if not the letter. I was a manager for five years; I remember the ranking spreadsheets that identified those individuals that IBM wanted to lose without paying redundancy to. IBM management hoped they would 'self-select out' of the organisation if they stopped giving them pay rises, minimised bonus payments and generally made life miserable. I stopped being a manager then, and it wasn't so long after I stopped being an IBMer altogether.
Heh. Having been a contractor at IBM the full time staffs attitude stinks. I had doors, litterally slammed in my face and held closed... so I couldn't use the canteen, spat on and a host of other plesantries.
IBMers deserve every bit of bad that can happen to them. Including spending their remaining years wondering where their pension went.
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.
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....!
@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.
I'm shocked at what you say. I was a contractor at IBM for 4 years and never had any problems (apart from one person who was just obnoxious to everybody!). In fact, I still regularly see my old team.
I wouldn't wish this on anybody, and it stinks that it is actually legal for companies to take away money that is morally yours. Mind you, after seeing first-hand how IBM treats it's staff I can't understand why anybody is still there. My advice is vote with your feet.
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