IBM Workers in Europe May Strike over Offshoring

["Steve Landess" <sjl_abc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=161502292

IBM Workers In Europe May Strike Over Offshoring
April 25, 2005

Shareholders at IBM's annual meeting this week will vote on an 
anti-offshoring resolution.
By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek

IBM workers in Europe may strike this week over what they say is the 
company's ongoing movement of jobs to low-cost countries such as India and 
China, according to union sources. Meanwhile, a U.S. employee group is 
asking IBM stock owners to vote on an anti-offshoring resolution at the 
company's annual meeting Tuesday.

Trade unions representing IBM workers in Germany have called for protests at 
IBM locations countrywide on Tuesday. Employee groups at IBM France have 
voted to strike at facilities in Toulouse and Marseille on Wednesday. IBM 
workers are unionized in parts of Europe but not in the United States, 
though some U.S. workers belong to a loosely knit employee association.

IBM union leaders in Europe blame recent layoffs and facility closings on 
the company's shifting of jobs to low-cost countries in Asia and Eastern 
Europe. In an E-mail distributed over the weekend to IBM's European workers, 
union officials outlined their position succinctly: "Our main slogans are no 
offshoring, no layoffs!" IBM employs about 100,000 workers in Europe. The 
company recently said it might close German offices in Hannover and 
Schweinfurt.

An IBM spokesman in France says he's unaware of the impending job actions, 
but adds he doesn't expect any disruptions to customer service or other IBM 
operations. "We would expect any labor action to be held responsibly," he 
says.

Meanwhile, the offshoring controversy is hitting IBM closer to home. Members 
of a U.S.-based employee group have succeeded in placing several pro-labor 
resolutions on IBM shareholder ballots. One resolution requests that IBM's 
board of directors establish an independent committee to study the effects 
of offshoring on the company's "brand name and reputation." Another 
resolution calls for "an end to age discrimination in retirement policies." 
Stockholders will vote on the resolutions Tuesday in Charleston, S.C., at 
IBM's annual meeting.

Rick White, a staffer at Alliance At IBM, which is affiliated with the 
Communications Workers of America, says he doesn't think the offshoring 
resolution will pass, "but we nonetheless want to raise public awareness of 
this issue."