Shame on IBM

Off to the Wall of Shame with IBM and New York City

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 2033 -- 6/30/2009

"New York City hired IBM for a large contract. IBM in turn outsourced parts of the work to Mumbai, India......"

Do not let IBM spokespeople fool you into believing that IBM is transferring jobs to the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries because that is where the work is. No. The work is here, the clients are here, in the United States. The work is being sent to foreign countries. When the work needs to be done here, IBM is physically importing cheap labor by the use of H1B visas.

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Outsourcing the American dream

From AC360, Outsourcing the American dream

"Consider IBM. The global technology company began American layoffs in early 2009, dropping more than 5,000 workers. To make up the slack, according to the Wall Street Journal, many of those jobs were created in India. "IBM can pay an engineer in the U.S. $120,000 or an engineer in India $25,000, like the Indian providers do," says Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner."

Job Destruction

RPI President On Innovation - CNBC.com

RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson was on CNBC Tuesday, Dec. 1, to talk about innovation and job creation in the United States. Jackson is on President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the board of directors at IBM among other accomplishments.


I watched the interview on Tuesday, and I would like to know why Caruso-Cabrera did not ask this question: IBM has laid off 10,000 employees so far this year, while hiring 50,000 overseas. What can you do to get IBM to participate in job growth, and not job destruction, in the United States ?

The more I think about this, the more disturbed and angry I become. The topic of the day on Power Lunch was job creation. So they have on a woman who is on the board of directors at IBM. IBM has done as much as any company in the United States to destroy U.S. jobs in 2009. Not only are they offshoring jobs (10,000 U.S. jobs shed, 50,000 foreign workers hired, net gain 40,000), but they help other companies outsource (read: offshore) jobs too. Heck, they even applied for a patent for software to help companies offshore jobs !!! I'd be willing to bet that IBM is directly or indirectly involved in 50,000 to 100,000 (or more) U.S. employees becoming unemployed this year. As I've said before, IBM and other companies are using this recession as a smoke screen to shed older, expensive U.S. workers and replace them with young, foreign, cheap labor.

They bring on this credentialed, super-intelligent academic woman who probably has VERY LITTLE notion about the U.S. job losses at IBM. She waxes eloquently about "investing in human capital" and "innovation" and so forth, but she puts forth no concrete (read: executable) plans or ideas.

I can picture Shirley arriving back home in Rhode Island, and receiving the phone call from Sam P:

Sam: "Hi Shirley, saw you on CNBC. Well done. You didn't once mention jobs at IBM. I have to thank you for that."
Shirley: "Yes, I floated the usual eloquent baffle and as usual the host tossed me softball questions."
Sam: "You hit a home run. Keep up the good work."
Shirley: "Thanks. Hey, the stock is doing great. My 4,000 IBM shares are now worth half a million !!! Combined with my $250,000 annual IBM compensation, plus fees, I'm really raking it in !! And all for just a few hours of work per year."
Sam: "Glad to make sure you are well compensated - as long as you return the favor ! Nudge nudge wink wink."

Rick in the News again

I just can't seem to stay out of the news... the photo is from today's Times Herald-Record. That is me in the center of the photo with the hat. The signs say: "Keep IBM jobs in the USA" and "S.O.S. Stop Off-Shoring."



I spoke with reporter Christine Young and she got the quote exactly correct. It's nice when the media posts an accurate quote and I thank Christine for that. The job I mention was offered to me in November of 2007, working for The Hartford Insurance Company. It would have been a promotion for me into management, I would have had a team of Project Managers working for me, and it included a 25% pay increase. It took me close to a month to negotiate for this new position. I gave notice at IBM that I would be leaving, and although Hartford wanted me right away, I told them I wanted to give IBM 4 weeks notice so I could finish my projects.

My manager at that time in East Fishkill told me that I was too valuable for IBM to lose. He asked me if there was anything IBM could do to get me to stay. He offered me a pay increase. I told him that the most important thing to me was career development and opportunities at IBM, and after many hours of discussion with my manager I decided to stay at IBM. My manager came thru. I did get the pay increase, and he transfered me to the Strategic Planning Department, where I worked on long term planning, gave presentations to site executives (the site employs about 3,000 people), and I had very good performance reviews (2+ for those of you who know the IBM ratings - 1 is the highest and 4 is the lowest. 1's are rare.)

For that reason, and the fact that I had a unique job in the Strategic Planning Department (I was the only one that did space planning), I was confident that a layoff would not affect me. I was shocked when I was given notice.