Alliance@IBM, which is affiliated to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), last week joined unions, work councils and IBM employees to protest against proposed job cuts at the technology giant. In a release from Alliance@IBM, national coordinator, Lee Conrad, says that there is widespread concern and anger over the announced job cuts and restructuring.
"Many employees believe that the job cuts are being used to appease Wall Street and boost the company"s stock price, at the expense of workers, our families and our company," he adds.
According to the release, one of the major concerns for IBM employees is how the company can be laying off 13,000 employees and still buying back $5bn in stock. At the beginning of April, IBM announced that it intended to slash around 13,000 jobs, mainly in Europe, aiming to restructure its organization to focus on high-growth markets, and had already began discussions on voluntary and involuntary workforce reductions.
Alliance@IBM said in its statement that proposed shows of solidarity included wearing black and blue to signify the pain caused by the job cuts. Additionally, employees were encouraged to join in a ten-minute "silent" break, while retirees were urged to call CEO, Sam Palmisano, and ask for support for employees and retirees. Spouses of laid-off employees were also asked to e-mail or write to Palmisano to detail how the job cuts have affected their home lives.
According to IDG, the mass action was off to a slow start, with little happening in IBM Asia-Pacific. In Italy, Belgium, Germany and Japan, a four-hour strike was planned, with a statement to be delivered to IBM management, Alliance@IBM says.
While the local IBM office did get wind of the proposed action, IBM global services general manager, Mteto Nyati, says that the local operation was not affected.
"The job cuts do not affect the SA office at all," he says. "In fact," he adds, "the establishment of a local integrated delivery center (IDC) here in our Sandton office will create around 700 jobs by the end of the year. We currently have 250 people employed in our IDC, which supports IBM services clients across Africa, the UK, the Nordics and the Netherlands." IDCs, according to IBM, are set up as hubs for clients, offering outsourcing services, application development and maintenance, and support services for offshore clients.
"IDCs also give IBM the opportunity to develop much-needed skills for the local IT industry, being able to identify trends for skills needs and work closely with local universities to develop those skills," adds Krishna Hann, IBM global services communications manager.
Good news for local IBM clients? Most probably. The fact that the multinational has identified SA as having the right skills to support a number of foreign countries, in addition to the local market, should be seen as a huge vote of confidence. And Nyati is confident that SA can pull it off.