IBM Employees being downgraded
2 to 3 job levels

March 7, 2003

Employees at several IBM locations are reporting to us that management is lowering their job band 2-3 levels and reclassifying them from exempt to non-exempt. We hear that at least 400 jobs are affected at sites such as Fishkill, Burlington, Endicott, Poughkeepsie, and Atlanta.

IGS Deskside Support is moving some employees from band 7 to band 4 and changing them to job family "Customer Engineer". Managers are asking employees to carry pagers 24x7 but do not consider this "Standby" and are thus making people ineligible for standby pay.

We are getting conflicting reports about whether salary reductions are taking place with this change.

If you have further information, please contact us.