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Highlights
for week ending June 3, 2000
- If you read nothing else this week, at least look at an opinion piece
from CBS MarketWatch. See IBM's
Gerstner: Pay for performance?
- 1,500
Layoffs in IGS, 45% from Education Services. Further trouble ahead for
IGS
- Worldwide
IBM layoffs since 1990 number 415,000 (See
also)
- Lou
Shadow discusses destruction of the IBM brand, compares IBM to Arbeit
Macht Frei
- The sum total of what you dealing with here is the largest financial
scandal in US history--one that easily topples the next largest the
S&L scandal. That one only cost a couple hundred billion. This one
is a multiple of that one--and hurts people far more. Link.
This post is from Andy Lang, a 60-year old retired actuary who is bringing
light to the corruption of his field, and is advocating changes in pension
law to return pensions to their original purpose...providing for the
retirement of employees...not shoring up profitability through phantom
profits. Andy maintains his own Yahoo discussion forum at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/andylang
- An excellent article explaining the differences (pros and cons) between
traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions and new defined contribution
(DC) pensions, including possible litigation issues involved in the
transition from DB to DC plans. See Litigation
Issues in Cash Balance Plans. Note that litigation against IBM is
one of the avenues being explored to restore stolen pension benefits
to IBM employees. This article suggests what some of the grounds might
be for the class action law suit being filed against IBM. (Other avenues
to restoring pension benefits include legislative and union organizing
paths).
- H-1B
visas, opinion on why they're popular with Corporate America
- The Alliance@IBM Site has
been updated--excellent site!
- Another selloff: Solectron
to buy IBM Brazil operations. CPR
comments on this sale.
- Seagate's pacts with Veritas show how tax avoidance can save lots
more for shareholders than manufacturing can make for them. See
Newsweek article.
- The temptation to fiddle on tax by Lou
Shadow (Part
1), (Part
2)
- Never
since the days of DPD and GSD have I seen IBMer versus IBMer. The
inter-generational warfare and distrust is now filtering out in front
of customers.
- Debunking
the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage, Testimony to
the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration by Dr.
Norman Matloff, Department of Computer Science, University of California
at Davis. An excerpt:
"Some applied for similar jobs at Siemens that opened up after
the layoffs, but they were unable to even get interviews, according
to the plaintiffs' attorney, Stephen Snyder. The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission has sided with the workers. In a 'letter of
violation' sent to Siemens in 1997, the EEOC said it found 'reason
to believe' that age discrimination had occurred. According to the
EEOC, the layoffs that included 11 former employees unfairly targeted
older workers. 'The termination rate disproportionately affected software
engineers over 40, resulting in the termination of 21 percent of the
software engineers over 40, and only 2 percent of the software engineers
under 40...'"
"Mr. Snyder, the attorney representing the Siemens plaintiffs,
said his clients were unable to find work after they were laid off,
despite years of experience. One became a bus driver."
- An
editorial in the Dallas Morning News by Michael Kinsley that criticizes
George W. Bush's plan to change Social Security.
- Boeing
attrition rates up to 5 times normal
- AT&T
begins outsourcing thousands to IBM. An excerpt: "Older programmers
are unhappy about the switch, because it means they will have to put
in as many as 15 years at IBM before they qualify for the kind of lifetime
retirement benefits they would have been eligible for at AT&T under
a much shorter schedule."
''Between AT&T and IBM, they cost me my retirement-related benefits,"
said one 51-year-old programmer who will move to IBM next month. "If
I was a younger man -- 41 instead of 51 -- it's not such a bad deal.
The older folks are going to bite the bullet on this one." ..."Except
for union members, those who refuse to accept the new assignment will
be fired." (Join the
Alliance@IBM today!)
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