The Demise of the Great IBM

IBM is going the way of American itself. . . At one time it was the icon of business.  The blue shirt and tie became the IBM Uniform and set a standard for all IT companies to follow.  They were the greatest - no they are becoming a self-serving, profit hungry shell of it's once great business model.

They are selling out America for profit.  They were one of the few companies that showed a profit in 2009.  Why?  Not because of their good business practices, great product or superior service.  Because they were off-shoring American jobs to India and South America where the labor force is cheaper. 

Thousand of American's have lost their jobs with IBM.  Not only full-time IBMers, but the contractors that they hire have suffered monthly notices of layoffs, hour reductions, wage reductions and reductions in benefits.  All to bolster IBM's bottom line.

My husband is a contractor to IBM (hired through a third party vendor to work for IBM).  In December of 08, a week before Christmas he was notified that the company he worked for would no longer be working with IBM and therefore his job was being eliminated.  They gave him the name of another company that would be contracting to IBM and said there would be no restrictions if he went with them.  With no other choice, he hired on with this company.  To keep a job, he took a $5,000 cut in pay, the loss of his accrued senority for vacation time (5 weeks) and kept his fingers crossed that it would work out. 

Since January 2009 - he has been laid off twice, and had over 5 hour reductions and mandatory time off without pay.  Luckily, because of what he does for IBM his supervisors have been able to keep him from being laid off and up until this last reduction were able to keep his hours.  But this last round of reductions have not been avoided.  He now has been reduced to 34 hours a week, absolutelty no overtime and he has to take 4 non-paid days off before July 2.  So basically they cut his pay 15%.  But the projects he works on are dependent upon him.  So he has a choice - work and not get paid, or let the projects he has created fail because he can't put the time in they need.

That's bad, but there's more.  In January 2009 they were notified, with 2 weeks to make the decision, that their benefits would be increasing.  For medical it went from approximately $700 monthly to $1300.00.  Who the hell can afford to pay $1300 a month for medical benefits?????  Not when you're making $60,000 a year.

So IBM cuts their own people and makes their contractors do the same all for a bottom line profit.  Beware customers of IBM if your servers break or you need support you will be talking to India.  What used to be repaired in 24 hours now will take days because the knowledge base of IBM has been destroyed.  What used to have 15 on-site technicians now will have 3, with all other support coming from off-shore.

Why has our government allowed the off-shoring of our jobs to continue.  Our unemployment rate increases, not only because business have stopped growing or gone out of business - because the money hungry giants are off-shoring good paying jobs to other countries.  Also, IBM not only is off-shoring the jobs, they are bringing in cheap labor on H1B1 Visas.  This is totally WRONG!!!  To qualify for one of these Visas the company must indicate that they have tried to find qualified American workers, but were unable to and that is why they are brining in foreigners.  You can't tell me that IBM can't find 20 qualified AMERICANS for each position they have available.  But Americans are paid more, so I guess that makes them unqualified.