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• New York Times: Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile. By Robert Pear. Excerpts: Vicki H. Readling vividly remembers the start of 2006. “Everybody was saying, ‘Happy new year,’ ” Ms. Readling recalled. “But I remember going straight to bed and lying down scared to death because I knew that at that very minute, after midnight, I was without insurance. I was kissing away a bad year of cancer. But I was getting ready to open up to a door of hell.”
  Ms. Readling, a 50-year-old real estate agent, is one of nearly 47 million people in America with no health insurance.
  Increasingly, the problem affects middle-class people like Ms. Readling, who said she made about $60,000 last year. As an independent contractor, like many real estate agents, Ms. Readling does not receive health benefits from an employer. She tried to buy a policy in the individual insurance market, but — having had cancer — could not obtain coverage, except at a price exceeding $27,000 a year, which was more than she could pay. [...]
  It is well known that the ranks of the uninsured have been swelling; federal figures show an increase of 6.8 million since 2000.
  But the surprise is that the uninsured are not necessarily the poor, the unemployed and the undocumented. Solidly middle-class people like Ms. Readling are one of the fastest growing subgroups.
• Washington Post: Health Care Already a Key Issue in 2008 Race. By Christopher Lee. Excerpts: Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) says providing health coverage to the 47 million Americans who lack it is so important that he is willing to raise taxes to do it. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) says he is determined to enact universal health care by the end of his first presidential term.
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: AARP: Drug prices zoom. Numbers disputed: Industry organization says figures don't reflect slowing of growth. By Larry Lipman. Excerpt: twice the rate of inflation, according to a report released Tuesday. The annual report by AARP, the nation's largest organization of Americans aged 50 and older, found that prices for the 193 drugs most commonly used by that age group increased an average of 6.2 percent in 2006, while the Consumer Price Index rose 3.2 percent. The pharmaceutical industry called the study "inaccurate and misleading."
• Physicians for a National Health Program: Universal Health for Insurance Companies. By DrSteveB. Excerpts: Last week I outlined the generic components of so-called mandated or mandatory plans. This week we will, with the help of Professor Len Rodberg briefly outline some of specific national proposals that have been in the news lately:
  • America’s Health Insurance Plans
  • Better Health Care Together Campaign
  • Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured
  • Sen. Ron Wyden with SEIU & Safeway
  • Federation of American Hospitals
  • John Edwards
  What they share is the goal to keep the insurance companies healthy… lets see how that works. [...[
  So what about those plans…

  • The Good News: “Universal health care” is accepted as the goal.
  • The Bad News: This is defined to mean using tax dollars to help the uninsured buy private insurance from the existing high-overhead middlemen of the for-profit insurance companies.

New on the Alliance@IBM Site:

• From the Job Cuts Status & Comments page
  • Comments 3/04/07: At a recent services event that was billed as "educational", a senior executive was forced to admit that major segments of IGS haven't been making their numbers for almost 6 years. In response, the answer is more aggressive offshoring, even of a temporary nature and "near shore staging" where H1B's could be housed for quick travel into high wage countries for services work. The other strategy is to move all sales in IGS to telesales as much as possible. Once this is "optimized", then they'll move it to a BRIC country. Everyone was talking about the big layoffs scheduled for Q3, a la 1992-1993 for IGS, especially GTS/ITS.BTW, I also heard that they were surreptiously tracking attendees with RFID and reports of their whereabouts given daily to management. Big Brother is here folks...and it's sponsored by IBM Management. -Anonymous-
  • Comments 3/04/07: Job cuts you say? I CANNOT BELIEVE THE ADMINS ARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING HERE! Please, let's hear from the admin assistants. Maybe they never post because they are the most intimidated, unappreciated group of all the IBMers. Half of them don't even reply to the yearly manager surveys anymore because managers are known to gather their teams and harass them if they get bad reviews. No lie. You wouldn't believe the veiled threats the admins live with and accept as just another normal working day at IBM. Some of them are now supporting 10 to 20 managers per person and are so overwhelmed they will either get sick or bail. Which is fine with IBM because they want to fire us anyway. Come on admins, speak up. You know what they are doing to us! Tell it like it is and support your peers. Tell them about all the great perks we get, like overtime. NOT. Tell everyone what they are doing to us! FIGHT THEM! We are the ones who make the execs look good. We are the ones who smooth out the wrinkles in their day. We are the ones who get their coffee and lunch so that they can rise higher and make more money. We deserve to be heard. SPEAK!!! -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/07/07: "Resource Action in IT Delivery. 200 Jobs cut effective March 6, 2007. Also Redeployment action in Accounts Payable." Do you have more specific information on this? I am in IT Delivery and I have not heard this...so it's news to me! -Anonymous- Alliance reply: We received a copy of the resource action. Generally, if you are not cut you won't be notified. IBM makes small cuts at different locations in order to keep things quiet. The only way to break the silence is for employees to spread the word and also contact the Alliance.
  • Comment 03/07/07: 20 Global Admin staff employees have been given a resource package, with a date of March 26th. See cuts for contractors by month's end. GA is a snake pit that reports into the most dysfunctional group in IBM: HR -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Don't you people realize that anyone getting cut deserves to be cut.............if you're not keeping up with your skills, you're no good to IBM nor will you be any good to any other company. You can't expect to just sit around for years at a time, a glide by, at this company.....everyone wants a union..it's unions that will kill this country. Y'all should move out of the US. -Joe IBM-
  • Comment 03/08/07: To Joe IBM: I've known other people who expressed the same sentiments as you, but when their area moved all the work to India and Brazil, they found out that hard work and good skills still don't cut it when the move is a cost measure and nobody in IBM will even interview you for a position if there are any. I've seen some really talented top notch people let go with everyone else. Sometimes cuts are based on merit. sometimes it's totally arbitrary, and other times it's the whole area that's on the chopping block.
    I don't know if a union could have stopped the cuts, but it may have made a difference with people with just a year or two to get full retirement. I was a 1 or 2 performer for 27 years and received several awards and recognition right up to the end. I was the only expert in my product area. I was making a decent salary, but I was working long and hard hours too.
    My only fault was being within a couple years of being able to bridge to retirement. I know that's why I was picked. They never said it, but it was obvious that older employees were being targeted. They had a target to offshore a minimum number of jobs and if your job could be done offshore, then you made the first list. If you were close to retirement, that's all they needed to make the final decision. -anonymous x-ibmer-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Joe, you are a conceited, self-righteous prig. Moreover, you are wrong. I was cut in Nov. I moved to a small company, doing much the same thing as I did at IBM on a new software project. I am doing great, my work is appreciated, I am very productive, useful and am highly regarded. Our project and company are doing great, kicking our competitors butts. It may well be that I (and others) were not productive at IBM, but it has little (or nothing) to do with me. I was horribly managed, as was my entire 3rd-line organization. I should also say that I saw many people be laid off over the last 6 years who absolutely didn't deserve it: their co-workers, customers and team leads thought highly of them. They were just marked by management for any of several reasons unrelated to their performance and out they went. -Glad to be gone-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Joe IBM - Your message sounds typical of the arrogant old-school IBMer from whence people outside the company learned to despise. You sound like an overpaid, insensitive, self-righteous exec who has gotten by via the political machinery of IBM for too long. I would love for you to go try your own skill set on the outside and see how far YOU manage to get. How dare you speak for the thousands of qualified, exploited IBMers who have been continuing their educations and keeping up their skills only to be told they are being outsourced. You need to get down in the trenches with the real workers and see what is truly happening. It doesn't appear that you have been keeping up your own skills - you are certainly lacking in the soft skills arena especially emotional intelligence. Maybe you can take some on-line classes on diversity. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/09/07: In response to Joe IBM: my skills and my level of education were generally higher than many of my managers, including some of the executives. The only skill in which I was lacking but possibly the one that gets the most promotions these days is the one that you are most obviously good at--kissing ass! And by the way, pretty soon it will be YOU who needs to move out of the US. If you want to stay with IBM, you ought to start checking out real estate prices in Bangalore or Beijing! -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/09/07: The Incentives and Commissions Organization has been notified that jobs are going to be redeployed to Brazil this year. At least one hundred or more people impacted. The CSO organization have been notified that their jobs are going to be redeployed to Brazil this year. They have not given us a time-table as to how much time we have to look for a job or if we will get packages. -Anonymous-
• From the General Visitor's Comment page:
  • Comment 03/02/07: I received the settlement letter as well for the OT lawsuit. I am not qualified though because I already received a settlement back in 2003 from the OT lawsuit at that time and was rebanded below band 6. If you qualify for this settlement I suggest you fill out the form and send it in. IBM was already required to provide your name and information... that's how you got the letter to begin with. The 65 million is a set amount of money IBM is paying to whoever claims it whether there are 5 or 5000 claims sent in. Just make sure you meet all the criteria and collect what is yours! It's against the law for them to retaliate....but then again...IBM is not shy about breaking the law. Good luck! -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/03/07: In talking with my former co-workers in the service division everyone has their resumes out, they have no confidence in having jobs at IBM in the next year. One is leaving this week for another firm and three 30+ year veterans have taken their retirement while they still can. Who's going to handle mainframe and server problems, $8.00/Hr contractors from India? Will the last person leaving IBM please turn out the lights?!!? Sam, do you have your resume out? You should, maybe Burger King needs a fryer chef. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/06/07: It used to be that if you identified yourself as an IBM lifer, the message sent was that you expect to work for IBM for around 20-30 more years. Today, it means you work for IBM and you don't expect to be alive much longer. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Also as a white woman at IBM, I experienced male leads or team mates who refused to recognize my contributions to the team. I found myself cleaning up their messes from their incompetencies and being the first on the team to come up with practices. All of my achievements and contributions were ignored. I found my male manager lying about my accomplishments and protecting the incompetencies of my male teammates. If this is NOT discrimination then what is discrimination.
    IBM has not made one shining star company list (Top 100 companies in US, Top 20 companies in New York, etc.) IBM NEEDS a union. A union will put IBM back in order and clean up the bad management. There is only so much IBM execs can do to cover up IBM's failures with sales man talk. IBM can boost its own horn in magazines, but if the employees and other companies and Wall Street are not speaking IBM's praises, then IBM's perspective of itself is worthless. IBM may think it is hot shit, but if no one else does, then what good is it?
    IBM is NOT the only US computer based company, and HP and EMC are better. Do you hear their employees ranting and raving on websites about layoffs and poor management? IBM needs a union; this is the only thing that will save the company. IBM management scares its employees to not registering with the union; it uses tactics to remain private. Management does NOT know best..bring in the union! -Can relate to the white woman-
  • Comment 03/07/07: I don't mean to be negative but I think we are not connecting with the majority of current employees. Recently IBM was bragging about how new its workforce in America is. 45% have less than 5 years service, another 26% have less than 10 years. So 71% are new or short timers. They are mostly young, often unmarried or childless, don't yet own homes, and many are recent immigrants. They are not attached to homes or families yet, expect to move jobs and cities, and are not motivated to think long term in that they have no expectation of staying with one employer for more than a few years. So we are not reaching them.
    Ironically IBM is always worrying about how to retain them since there is such a high turnover rate. So how do we reach these people. The reason we got the old pension plan back some years ago was that there was enough outrage that management was scared of a union movement. Now they can get away with the freeze because there just aren't enough of us left to have any leverage. Unless we come up with a message that appeals to these newer and younger employees we will never make progress towards having a union. -Ironman-
    Alliance reply: Your statistics and comments are thought provoking. Maybe some IBM'ers out there have some ideas? If so, they need to share them with their co-workers and with us. You could share the knowledge of these comments with your co-workers too. The only way we can reach anyone is to start dialogue with them.
  • Comment 03/08/07: To white female: Perhaps it's the area you work in or the location that factors in....I'm a white woman who has been working in RTP for 25 years and have been fortunate to have not ever felt disadvantaged by being female. The teams I have worked on, have usually had a strong mix of male and female. We've had multiple levels of female management. So it's not all bad news. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Just wondering if any IGS deskside support has read the articles on the new pension. If you are in same boat as me and have gone from a band 7 to a 3 in the last 5 years...this is just another smack in the face. If I read it correctly the amount IBM will put in your 401k is based on your salary...well don't know about all you other DSR's but I haven't seen a raise in 5 years! Needless to say I'm posting for every job out of IGS I can find -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/08/07: So IBM is offering financial services to it's employees as a"benefit". Hah! This is just so IBM can say they are offering help to those employees who have had their pension plan slashed from 1999, to all employees that have a pension will have to make do with a frozen pension in 2008, to all employees that have increasing medical and prescription plan co-pays and deductibles, to most employees who will have no retirement medical or will have to try to make due with the measly Future Health Account, to those who get measly less than cost of living, if any, raises as well as lower yearly bonus payouts, and to some employees even pay cuts. Yes, IBM knows full well we are getting financially screwed by them and will continue to get screwed unless we speak up and take action and do something about it!. How is this financial planning a real added "benefit" to us? -sby_willie-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Guess again. I'm a band 8 engineer with 26 years at IBM. I actually enjoy working at IBM, even in the current working environment. The pay and benefits are not an issue for me. -IBM Lifer-
  • Comment 03/08/07: The real deal with IBM's new, "manager your own retirement scheme" is, pass the problem of fund management to employees, shed the expense of managing a pension fund and pass the savings and bonus money onto the few elite execs, that hatched the raw deal... Who has the time to put in the hours wants, the time to educate yourself more for IBM's sake, for the same or less pay, family and now to be a stock market fund manager... Which is very time consuming! IBM invests $50 million for employees to learn how to manage their own funds and bows out... If it is so easy, why can't iBM hire a few people to manage a traditional retirement fund, rather than have 1000's of US iBM give it a try? Doesn't iBM have faith in the market? Maybe iBM wants to bail out, because they don't have faith in the market... something to wonder about. -RealDeal-
  • Comment 03/08/07: I just read another article about that "emerging superpower" India and it made me angry as usual. Until recently India's most well-known feature was its immense poverty. Now they are the fourth largest economy in the World, poised to surpass the US around 2050. China will become the largest economy within years. All this is brought to you by greedy corporations and a corrupt American government. China is increasing its military expenditures again, US worried and all. If they are worried, why are they propping them up? Both emerging superpowers, our future rivals, were made by US money. Can you imagine what all that money could do in the United States? Can you imagine millions of well paying jobs coming back? This country could have it all. Instead, it’s collapsing. Globalization is a tool to steal America’s massive wealth and impoverish the American people. If corporations are not stopped, the US won’t be a superpower much longer. What we are witnessing here is a school book example of corruption and treason. -globalised-
  • Comment 03/09/07: I was laid off 3.5 years ago as a Tech in engineering at Burlington Vermont at age 42 with 17 years of service. I just missed at age 39 staying with the traditional plan and they forced us to go on the cash balance plan. Well when I was laid off in 2004 the cash balance plan was basically 1 year of pay to rollover. With 17 years of service IBM gave us the wet noodle. What kind of pension was that after 17 years. My salary at the time was $42K. I wasn't a band 8 or 9 making 5 figures. A person is better off maxing out their 401K deduction rather than counting on a lousy retirement plan such as the cash balance plan. What a screw job! -ron-
  • Comment 03/09/07: So IBM is going to put away 50Mil to help us all learn to manage our pensions. First, why wont they go back to giving us money to work with our current financial planners. Also did it cost so much to manage the plan that 50Mil wont cover it? Must be Randy and Sam skimming the top again -just have to wonder-
• Pension Comments page
  • Comment 03/07/07: Hearing that a pension buy out will occur by year end 2007. It won't affect current retirees. Anyone hearing similar? -screwedbyIBM- . -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/08/07: RE: -And I thought I lost out- 03/05/2007 --- You are assuming incorrectly. If you read up on Netbenefits, you will see that although the retirement plan benefits are frozen on 12/31/2007 that you can continue to count additional time to make 30 years. That would make you eligible for whatever "medical" benefits are available at that time; if that was your retirement date. Remember that RETIREMENT DATE is the date you officially LEAVE IBM, NOT the date you start to collect your retirement check. -NO-KY-
  • Comment 03/09/07: I'm an old planner. All I see when I review the 'new plan' after Jan 2008 is that I lose on my retirement by about $750 per month. -I'veBeenMugged-
• Raise and Salary Comments
  • Comment 03/02/07: Anyone willing to disclose their latest IBM bonus pay %'s here? -Anonymous- Alliance reply: We have installed fields for that in the PBC comments section, where you requested it.
  • Comment 03/02/07: this week, i was in a team room and i overheard a mgr. conducting a phone eval and he went on to say what a great job, good project skills, people skills ...etc. and then you could hear the big sucking sound ... but ...our group did not make our profit outlook ... and so we can only give you a ham sandwich ... are you kidding me ... IBM was all about profit in 2006 ... and this poor guy on the phone had swallowed the whole cup of kool aid !!! some honesty would help the morale meter and so would some scratch for the working class ... -justlistening-
  • Comment 03/03/07: If you make at or above your midpoint pay for band in IBM then consider yourself quite fortunate. Those that are at the low end of the pay scale for band, and way below midpoint, even with consistently getting PBC "1" or "2+" appraisals, are stratified and have no chance to catch up with their peers! Particularly with the lousy raises now given out for those that might even get one those lowest paid have no chance. That article in this website and in ThinkTwice is absolutely correct in IBM treatment of pay for many of it's employees! Everyone visiting this site or seeing this post should give it a read. IBM is unfair in pay practice. Can we get a wage and labor lawyer to start a case against this cheap and unfair corporation??? -low_paid_IBM_grunt-
  • Comment 03/04/07: Salary = 61K; Band Level = 7; Job Title = Sr. IT Specialist; Years Service = 7; Hours/Week = 55-60; Div Name = STG; Location = East Coast; Message = Have never had below a 2+ rating. Have been rated 1 the past two years. Yet IBM continues to hire new people that work under me and are trained by me but make more money than I do. While I do work a ton of hours now, I am done, its just not worth it to me anymore. Time to be with my family. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/05/07: Salary = 190,000; Band Level = 10; Job Title = Consultant; Years Service = 25; Hours/Week = 50; Div Name = Software; Location = mobile; Message = Last week IBM took all the software div consultants off the commission plan. That's a huge pay cut. They gave band 6-9 a one time increase of 6% and band 10 a 10% but it doesn't come close to making up the cuts. BTW.. there are multiple pay scales for the bands. In band 10 there is an A and a B scale. A scale is for lab people (higher pay) and B for field people. Top pay for Band 10B was 218,000 as of two years ago. I don't think its moved
  • Comment 03/06/07: Wow, unbelievable! You're concerned about this? 'In band 10 there is an A and a B scale. A scale is for lab people (higher pay) and B for field people. Top pay for Band 10B was 218,000 as of two years ago. I don't think its moved much' -wow-
  • Comment 03/07/07: I'm concerned about any pay cut. I know the pay sounds high, but I travel 75% to 80% of the time. I live in hotels and am lucky to get home 2-5 days a month. The pay partly compensates for that. My pension has been cut by around 30% due to many changes over the years. I lost my retirement medical benefits with the rest of you. I can't go back in time and save more now due to what are really retroactive pay cuts. I put the salary info in the comment since one guy here was collecting data. BTW.. IBM expects a LOT in exchange for that salary. -ironman-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Salary = 65K; Band Level = 7; Job Title = 1st Line Manage; Years Service = 40; Message = $2200 performance bonus to be paid out next week. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/08/07: Salary = $84k + bonus; Band Level = 8; Job Title = Advisory Software Engineer; Years Service = 8; Hours/Week = 40; Div Name = Lenovo; Location = RTP; Message = recent raises have barely kept pace with inflation -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/09/07: Salary = 9.50 hourly; Job Title = Security Officer; Years Service = 1 and half years; Hours/Week = 40 hours weekly; Div Name = Allied-Barton; Location = Stamford, Ct. Message = Are companies mandated to give raises after a year of employment? -Can u help me understand- Alliance reply: There is no law that mandates a raise after a year. The only things that could come into play are the company handbook and written policies or a union contract that stipulates a raise.
• PBC Comments
  • Comment 03/05/07: Why "2 plus"? Isn't that absurd? Are we to think that 2+ is a half-step above a 2? Quarter step? Looks like the intended perception is to be "almost like a 2", but the employee impact is very different. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/05/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 2; This Yr Bonus = 2190; Prior Yr Bonus = 3450; Message = 50-60 hours a week for this pittance. -PO'd-
  • Comment 03/05/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr PBC = 2; This Yr Bonus = 3.1%; Prior Yr Bonus = 6%; Message = Lower rating despite putting in more effort than last year. Guess I'll go back to doing less :-) -Abdullah
  • Comment 03/06/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr Bonus = 5.5%; Prior Yr Bonus = 3%; Message = Salary has been significantly behind after 9 years with the company. No sign of improvement on the horizon.-Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/06/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr PBC = 1; This Yr Bonus = 8%; Prior Yr Bonus = 6%; Message = Worked my butt off to get a 1 and a whopping 2% higher bonus. The extra time I put in to get the 1 isn't worth it. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/06/07: My bonus was in the three percent range this year, and last year. That's against the stated (or imaginary) twelve percent target for bands up to nine. And then, the target is twenty-four percent for band ten. Yes, my business unit did meet their objectives for the year. I'll look forward to reading about the executive bonus schedule, this time next year. I'm also interested to see other posts here, with a higher bonus. Good news! -clearly not an executive-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 2; This Yr Bonus = 4.5%; Prior Yr Bonus = 3%; Message = I try to work hard but no appreciation shown for years. Worked for a manager last year from an acquisition. Impossible job and no appreciation. Bus unit met all their goals in 2006. Pitiful. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr PBC = 1; This Yr Bonus = 5.1%; Prior Yr Bonus = 4.12%; Message = The pay-for-performance is a joke. Need I say more -whyamihere-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2; This Yr PBC = 2; This Yr Bonus = 3.3% Prior Yr Bonus = 1.7 % Message = for PBC 1 5.7 % for PBC 2+ 3.9 % For PBC 2 3.3 % Big Joke -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/07/07: Prior Yr PBC = 2+; This Yr PBC = 2; This Yr Bonus = 2200; Prior Yr Bonus = ?; Message = can't recall what last years PB was - think it was $3500. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 03/09/07: Prior Yr PBC = 1; This Yr PBC = 1; This Yr Bonus = 4000; Prior Yr Bonus = 4000; Message = As management puts it, another bad year. Worse than last year actually. -Anonymous-