Join your fellow employees who are fighting for your benefits - Join the Alliance!

Retirees, Vendors, Contractors, Temps, and Active Employees are all eligible to become members of the Alliance.

To the Editor:

Here in [state], tens of thousands of employees have lost significant pension benefits when their companies switched from a traditional pension plan to an inferior cash balance plan. Congress now has a chance to either protect older employees or abandon them to a future of retirement insecurity. Workers need to know what is at stake.

Back in the 1990s, companies like AT&T and Duke Energy converted to cash balance plans, which reduced older employees' expected benefits by as much as 50 percent [I lost X dollars when my employer converted]. This practice has been very controversial and declared age discriminatory by at least one federal court.

As it considers pension reform legislation, Congress has an opportunity to make sure that companies keep their promises to workers. The Senate bill, the Pension Security and Transparency Act of 2005 (S.1783), has provisions that protect older employees. The House bill, deceptively named the Pension Protection Act of 2005 (H.R. 2830), does nothing of the kind. It will simply legalize age-discriminatory cash balance plans without protecting middle-aged workers who gave their lives to these companies. Even worse, there is a push to legalize these plans retroactively - which could undermine the rights of employees who have lawsuits against their companies.

As Congress works on the pension bills over the next two weeks, I hope they will protect older employees by choosing the Senate provisions on cash balance plans.

Sincerely, [Your name]

• Washington Times: Health-care reform: Be patient. By Alex Gerber. Excerpts: Our health-care system is in deep trouble and, according to some pundits, threatened with a "meltdown." Soaring costs now account for 16 percent of the U.S. annual gross domestic product (GDP) and are slated to climb to 20 percent by 2015. This is deemed "unsustainable" without severely effecting our national economy. Equally serious are the millions of Americans with limited access to our health-care system due to lack of medical insurance.
  Unique among Western industrialized societies, we do not provide coverage for all our citizens through either private or public insurance. This national disgrace has aroused relatively little concern from an administration that has seen the world's only "superpower" increase its medically uninsured from 41 million to 46 million (rising 100,000 monthly) since Mr. Bush took office. [...]
  Nor has any health-care proposal been advanced by the administration that calls for ending our anachronistic employer-based, multipayer private health insurance system, a holdover from World War II. At that time, employers picked up the entire health insurance tab to lure workers whose wages were frozen by the War Labor Board. Thus, some 25 percent of current total health care costs are eaten up by the insurance industry's overhead expenses -- marketing, advertising, competition, stockholder dividends and huge executive salaries -- none of which cure a single patient.
  The answer to our health care dilemmas is single-payer, government-sponsored universal health insurance (UHI) -- Medicare, with an overhead of less than 5 percent, for all age groups. Evolved and improved over the last 25 years, Canada has such a UHI system that provides one standard of care for rich and poor alike, with no additional costs (copayments or deductibles) so economic considerations are not paramount at the time of accident or disease.
  A recent ABC News poll indicated that, 2-1, Americans would prefer government-sponsored UHI over our current employer-based health insurance. Moreover, in a Harris Interactive poll among Western democracies of patient satisfaction with their health-care systems, Canada ranked first and the U.S. last.
  Because of its advanced technology, Canada spends one-tenth as much as U.S. insurance providers spend for overhead. Indeed, more people are needed to administer Blue Cross Blue Shield in Massachusetts than to administer the entire health-care system of Canada.
  Of further significance, Canada's health-care system functions at almost one-half the cost of ours yet boasts lower infant and maternal mortality and longer life expectancy than the U.S.
  There is not the slightest chance the Bush administration will consider changing to the Canadian health-care system. Our president is more oriented toward the corporate than the public good. This was well shown when he rammed a prescription drug benefit bill through Congress that disallowed any drug-price negotiation (Canada has negotiated these prices for 16 years).

• "Travel Arrangements" by "eteeple". Full excerpt: When traveling with IBM, are you put in Business class? Do you stay at nice hotels? Do you get your own room or share, I´m guessing IBM makes all the arrangements. Is there a certain level or band where consultants fly on a private jet. Thanks!
• "Please allow me" by "pork". Full excerpt: Although Dose and Ey_ore would be much more sarcastic and provide insightful analogies I will give it to you straight.
  1. There is no corporate jet.
  2. No one flies business class unless you use your own miles or (have) status to upgrade.
  3. You will never fly the most convenient route, you will always fly the cheapest, regardless of the number of stop-overs.
  4. You are forced to use the IBM travel system so it is almost impossible to circumvent the "rules"
  5. Even if you find a cheaper flight than the travel system you will be forced to use a preferred carrier regardless of price. In summary traveling for IBM is a nightmare on the best day.
• "Come on guys.....geezzzz....tell him the truth." by "deep_eye". Full excerpt:
  1. You actually travel first class but only if your utilization levels are above 98.5% for the 12 months immediately preceding your flight or the project start date
  2. If you would rather not travel at all, just alert your pm or the partner on the project, they will be extremely helpful in rescheduling the project launch to better suit your personal requirements.
  3. The day of the flight, you will be gently awakened by a Sir John Gilgud look alike, who will serve you kippered snacks, blueberry marmalade, muffins, tea and fresh squeezed orange juice in your own bed. He will also personally drive you to the flight, argue with the boarding staff, load your luggage in the overhead bin and pour you a single malt scotch.
  4. You will only be permitted to stay at Michelin four star rated hotels and per IBM policy, can only have access to the presidential suites and above. You will, however, be limited to a $750/day meal and alcohol allowance. As you can imagine, in such higher end hotels, it is quite easy to exceed this limit - exercise caution!!
  5. You will not have access to the fleet of IBM personal jets until you have sold your first 10M project - this should probably happen in your 2nd or 3rd month of employment.
• "Everything is relative..." by "ey_ore". Excerpts: Dear Samsanjheeb: You can expect to travel and stay First Class, relatively speaking. For instance, no more open air bus sitting next to the guy with a box full of live chickens. Instead you will get your very own center aisle seat where you will be nestled snuggly between a very overweight faucet salesman from Peoria and tattooed teenager with a pierced nose and an iPod stuck in his ears. Here's the really cool thing, you will get to change planes! Fresh new seats and companions at least two times even if you're only flying from NY to Detroit. In this way, you get to see more of America.
  As for hotel accommodations--strictly 5 star all the way, relatively speaking. No more dirt floors and dung stoves. You will get a lovely room with green shag carpet and green/orange matching bed spreads on the TWO, not one, twin beds. And the freshly vacuumed smell of Carpet Fresh. And get this, there will be only four of you per room. Forget this nonsense about having eight to a room like home. Amazing, don't you think?
  The only disappointing thing may be regarding the private jet. This is reserved for the elite who sell outsourcing so they can conveniently travel back to your homeland. Being from there, you'll probably have to take the tramp steamer. Sorry, we're working on a better alternative. But then, you're not interested in going back there any time soon.
  Hope this helps. Good luck and may your curry always smell like your brother. Welcome to the big time, Punjab.
• "Travel for the consultant" by "reality_works". Full excerpt: IBM's travel policy is consistent with industry standards. That being said, it's bad... really bad... Like all company travel policies, the point is to learn the system and then work the system. Stop overs v. using preferred carrier... I've heard people whine about it, but never encountered it myself. Even in my old company we had the same policy and never encountered the problem of having to take connecting flights to save a buck.
  Hotels... IBM wants you to stay in their preferred hotels. In addition, they have this "negotiated" rate for most cities which is really low and limits you to one hotel option for that city. However, if you are working on a client engagement and for some reason the project doesn't want you staying at the IBM preferred hotel, you can stay elsewhere. You just have to explain when filling out expenses.
  The key thing is that as a consultant all of your expenses are billed to the client, so as long as the client doesn't have a problem, IBM shouldn't have a problem. Some project managers are hawks about expenses, but I've never had a problem.
• "Welcome to fahntassy eyeland" by "Dose of reality". Full excerpt: Tattoo: Da Plane! Da Plane! I can hear the belly laughs all over Armonk as surfers read the predecessor post from really_weak.
  The system here is set up for one reason and one reason only. That is to steer staff to carriers and other vendors that we have negotiated kickbacks from. It doesn't matter how much the fare costs, or how inconvenient the itinerary. In fact, the options that come up in the system are inevitably the combinations that the airlines have the most trouble filling and consequently dump on us to fill seats and rooms. Yet they still charge us the “negotiated” rate regardless of the underlying supply and demand.
  IBM doesn’t care if we pay another 20 or 30%, since it is passed on to the client. There is no lost productivity to the company, since you travel on your own time and are expected to make up the lost time due to stopovers and indirect flights. All we care about is collecting and pocketing the “rebates” from the carriers who not only get inflated prices, but are filling seats and rooms that they would have trouble filling otherwise. The rebates are in effect a profit center for IBM that clients and staff ultimately pay for with no benefit to themselves.
  Go to Expedia or Orbitz, and I guarantee that 90% of the time you could find options that are significantly cheaper, more convenient, and with higher quality lodging than you get from the travel center. What does that tell you about the reasons behind our business practices?!
  Getting around the system is about as easy as running a decathlon, and takes about the same amount of time. Sometimes if clients have a mandated vendor, it can be done. However, that is not what drives the need in most cases – it is cost and convenience, and those are NOT grounds for out of policy choices! PM’s are not the problem – travel administration is.
• "Right on, as always" by "IGS_Consultant". Full excerpt: Dose, You're right on as usual. I live close to Denver, which is dominated by United Airlines. IBM does not like United...in fact, I don't know if it's still there but at one time there were words on the W3 travel site that employees should avoid using United airlines...the only airline that was selected for this unique distinction.
  A few years ago I was traveling regularly to Kansas City, which is less than 500 miles away and just over an hour's flight. United had several flights a day to MCI, and they were very cheap (around $200).
  So, what did OTR offer? How about American Airlines through Dallas? Or, an America West flight through Las Vegas? That one was actually a red-eye...six hours total time instead of just over an hour.
  The United flights didn't appear in OTR, even as an exception. And, the United flights (visible on united.com, Travelocity, and Orbitz) were half the price of the connecting flights. I'm not making this up. I've encountered similar situations in traveling to other cities, and have talked to colleagues that have experienced it with other airlines on other routes.
• "OTR" by "huffty". Full excerpt: I live in a city well served by American Airlines. OTR now attempts to put me on the discount airlines, or United. AA does not even show up anymore! I can't believe IBM's travel policy is as screwed up as it is.
• "Learned the hard way" by "David Banner". Full excerpt: Amen, same experience here...it's been a few years since I last travelled for business, and I discovered that the online tool has changed - not for the better. I found that when booking online, what should be a 2.5 hour direct flight was instead transformed into 6+ hour with a connecting flight that was a complete detour, nowhere along the flight path, from a 3rd rate carrier. After an hour of fruitless attempts to modify the date/time in order to get a direct flight, I researched flights on the major carrier sites, and found all sorts of flight times at reasonable rates, that were not even listed in the tool. Next time, I plan to research flight possibilities on the Internet first, then call into the AmEx travel line to reserve. Screw the online tool - my time is worth something too!
• "How true" by "wonderaboutibm". Full excerpt: I do hope the message is getting out on the BCS utilization nonsense. Once the utilization cant was embittering, then it was amusing, now it is numbing. I once was annoyed by the monthly and quarterly begging from the management to pump up utilization numbers -- you know, all those Lotus notes flying about. Now I don't even bother to consider the message, except to examine the latest literary style or feel perhaps a little pity for the poor suckers who have to beg. But with our pool of saps, maybe all this begging still has some effect. There were some rumors earlier in the year that utilization targets would be changed, but guess what? Nothing has changed, nothing will change as our dumbing down continues.
• "A classic story pt 2" by "Dose of reality". Let’s bring this back to your question. There is a very good reason for the mass departures. BCS represents itself as a top tier management consulting organization with interesting work, a generous salary and bonus trajectory, and an employee-friendly culture. Once inside, you will discover that we are a commodity IT service body shop, with stagnant salary, “sorry we didn’t meet our targets so here are a few crumbs in lieu of a bonus”, a culture of ridiculously high utilization, a mentality of “take this project or else”, and an administrative nightmare, all backed up by cost-cutting and business-ignorant HR and finance functions.
  That’s why we have so much churn. It is always higher this time of year, since we just completed another pay cycle and most of the staff are upset about the results. I hope that helps give you some perspective. Look at IBM as a place to come if you have no other options and are in desperate need of a paycheck.

• Alliance@IBM: Attention IBM employees: IBM is blocking e-mail to and from the Alliance@IBM e-mail address endicottalliance@stny.rr.com from inside the company. Please send your job cut information and other correspondence from your home e-mail. You can also contact us the following ways: Phone 607 658 9285 or Fax 607 658 9283.
• Job Cuts Status & Comments page
• From the General Visitor's Comment page:
  • Comment 3/30/06: I'd like to share my experience as a recently terminated IBM professional. A 2+ performer throughout my time there, having trained my India replacements and going through the charade of trying to find another position in that company, it was clear to me in the end that I was dealing with an evil so profound and calculating I am convinced that their demise is inevitable. Their shortsightedness has been well documented. Their desperation in trying to save this dying dog of a company is vintage "keystone cops" material. BTO and BCS are the final attempts at resuscitation and all indications are that the dog is not responding. Why? Because they can't get enough experienced, qualified IBM professionals to sign up for these jobs, that are not only temporary in nature, but will destroy your family in the process. (Goodbye work/life balance). Apparently, more and more people (myself included) are saying "Why prolong the agony. Why would I put myself and my family through that hell just to end up in the same position I am now? Unemployed" BTO positions, as stated to me, are 6 month to 2 year "assignments" after which you are either placed in another BTO job (could be anywhere in the U.S.) or you would have 30 days to find another job. (Already have been there. Good luck in making that happen.)
    As for IBM's stated "values"; This transparent attempt at getting IBMers and customers to believe that this company has any connection to the once great IBM company is not only laughable, it is pathetic. The signs are everywhere that point to the end for this dog. From an evil, immoral and incredibly greedy leadership team to a, rightfully so, unmotivated, disloyal and fed up workforce. God has been good to me and my family. Getting me out of that hell hole is just the latest example of that. Best of luck to all of you that are still there. -Anonymous-
• Pension Comments page