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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."
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