Tuesday, June 22, 2004
IBM labor group sees growth, challenges
Organizers say interest increasingBy Craig
Wolf
Poughkeepsie Journal
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Spencer Ainsley/Journal
file
In 2000, IBM employees
Peter Plavchan, left, and Bill Costine held a banner
backing the IBM union on IBM Road in the Town of
Poughkeepsie. | Some say it's a
union; some say it's not. Whatever it is or isn't, the labor
movement that popped up five years ago among workers at IBM
Corp. is still there.
IBM's downsizing of its U.S. pension plan lit a fuse of
frustration among many of the company's American employees,
who totaled about 145,000 at the time, after years of massive
job eliminations and benefits cuts.
One consequence was that red T-shirts began appearing in
the halls of Big Blue. The shirts touted the Communications
Workers of America. It was an unlikely sight, given IBMers had
never gone for the communications workers' union nor any other
union to represent them in collective bargaining.
They still haven't done that, but the alliance hasn't quit.
Nor has it limited itself to that classic model of the
bargaining unit.
''We are, even without a union contract, a voice for IBM
employees inside the company,'' said Lee Conrad, a national
organizer for the mailto:Alliance@IBM
''Our membership continues to grow,'' said Linda Guyer,
president of Alliance@ IBM, and an IBMer at the Endicott site
in Broome County. ''We've got over 6,000 members now. The good
thing this year is we're starting to open new chapters,''
including one in Arizona.
Alliance organizer Bill Costine, an employee of IBM East
Fishkill, said interest picked up this year.
''At the beginning of the year, there was interest when
medical costs were shifted to
employees in a big way,'' he said. ''One person's costs
went up in the ballpark of $500 a month.'' Many with family
plans saw boosts in the $300 range, he said.
''That generated a lot of sign-ups,'' Costine said. ''We
had the biggest jump this year that we've had in a long time
because of the jump in the cost of the benefits.''
To call an election, the communications union would need to
find enough committed members to form a potential bargaining
unit.
Organizers say that usually is more readily done within a
site than across a wide geography and typically involves
people who have similar sorts of jobs. IBM's jobs run the
gamut from factory line workers to scientists with doctoral
degrees.
So IBM remains a tough one, Guyer acknowledges. ''I think
we're doing well. I think it's slow and it's difficult. IBM's
such a big company with so many sites.''
Organizer Tom Steed of the Communications Workers of
America's Poughkeepsie office said, ''What I find at IBM is
that people, basically, they're hyperindividuals. ... They
don't understand what unions are. They say, here I am with my
master's degree and I'm not suitable for a union.''
An IBM spokeswoman de-clined to comment on the state of
union activities. The management's consistent stance has
formerly been that they don't think unions would serve the
interests of the company and that competitors are mostly
non-union.
A sign of management's stance emerged last week with news
the National Labor Relations Board upheld the company in a 3-2
vote on whether a nonunionized employee enjoys the right to
have someone come along to a meeting with management where
disciplinary action may be discussed.
Fired workers complain
This ''Weingarten right," IBM argued, doesn't apply to
three employees at its Raleigh, N.C., site, who tried to
invoke it for investigatory interviews. They were later fired,
and complained to the board.
They were not involved with a union, the board said, and
thus lacked the rule's protection.
Ironically, the decision is being turned by organized labor
to its advantage.
''Weingarten will remind people even more, that without a
union, you don't have a voice in the workplace,'' said Candace
Johnson, a Communications Workers of America spokeswoman in
Washington.
The alliance has found other things to do while it tries to
build its ranks. It publishes "Thinktwice!", a newsletter with
a name that is a takeoff on founder Thomas Watson's motto,
''Think.''
It backs stockholder resolutions at IBM's annual meetings.
One, by Donald Parry of Florida, called for excluding
accounting gains in the pension funds from executive
compensation. It got 37.5 percent of the votes, the alliance
said.
Another consequence of that move by IBM to shift to a
cash-balance pension in the summer of 1999 was a federal
lawsuit against IBM by workers -- who have prevailed so far.
Plaintiffs proposed a formula for how IBM should pay the
thousands of workers affected. The sum of $6 billion was
provided by IBM as an interpretation of the plaintiffs'
remedy.
''We will appeal once the judge rules,'' IBM spokeswoman
Kendra Collins said.
The case wasn't brought by the alliance, but it claims a
piece of the credit for IBM's partial rollback of the 1999
pension plan changes to let more workers keep the old plan.
''IBM would never have done that if there wasn't a lot of
mobilizing around the pension issue and bringing it here to
Capitol Hill,'' said Johnson, the communications union
spokeswoman in Washington.
New wrinkles keep popping up. The alliance is mobilizing
politically on the issue of offshoring, or moving work from
American workers to people overseas.
A campaign is developing nationally with a mid-Hudson
contingent among retirees, many of whom now face higher
payments for health benefits they still get from IBM. A new
group, Benefits Restoration Inc., formed of IBM retirees, is
organizing and pressing IBM for mercy and government for legal
reform. A flyer from the group accuses IBM of breaking its
promises of cradle-to-grave coverage.
Dutchess County Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, has
picked up that issue and is sponsoring a public meeting at
5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Rhinebeck Town Hall, with Art Richter
of Benefits Restoration as speaker.
''We're working jointly with them on retiree issues,'' said
the alliance's Conrad. ''We're separate organizations but we
have the same concerns.''
Craig Wolf can be reached at mailto:cwolf@poughkeepsiejournal.com
On the Web
- Alliance@IBM, Communications Workers of America: http://www.allianceibm.org/
- Retiree benefits organization, Benefits Restoration Inc.:
http://www.benefitsrestoration.org/
- IBM Corp.: http://www.ibm.com/
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