Pioneer of the technology industry, the American giant IBM was famous also for launching innovations in the human resources area. An example recognized for job stability and for its advanced labor policies, the company surprised the market in middle of the decade of 1980 when it launched in Brazil a wave of voluntary resignation programs. At the time, it seemed like a revolution, an advantageous solution for the Big Blue as well for the employees who adhered to the idea of quitting the company in exchange for financial compensation. The plan was nicknamed “Sopão”, a play on the English acronym for Special Opportunity Programs, and offered a benefit from 0.5 up to 2.5 monthly wages for each year worked in the corporation. However, 15 years later, the first Brazilian PDV (voluntary layoff program) became rocks in the shoes of the main executives of the company: about 500 former employees looked to the courts to receive benefits of the Employment Foundation of IBM, that they hadn’t received when they left the company. Nothing less than 144 law suits are running in Labor Courts of Rio de Janeiro, and all of these total indemnities that could surpass the amount of R$ 75 million (N.T. 25 million dollars).

All the lawsuits contain the same complaint: while the former-employees still punched the timeclock, the company contributed with 12% of the payroll to the Employment Foundation and, in exchange, IBM deducted the values from its income tax returns. For the lawyers who represent the former employees, the company, when deciding to defray the contributions by making the calculation on the total of the salary payments, extended the benefits to all of its professionals. “Since the option exists to deduct the value of the contributions from the declarations of tax, the accumulated capital belongs, for disposal of law, to the former employee and to the Government”, says Arnaldo Araújo, who leads the law suits of about 300 people. The value, however, was not passed back to the employees at the moment they left. It is this amount that those who resigned are requesting.

Actions: More than 500 already have filed suit in the city of Rio de Janeiro

The workers’ lawyers calculate that, on average, each one would have the right to receive, R$ 150 thousand. “It is too little if one considers that, due to the tax benefits that the company gained, the Foundation today gained a patrimony of R$ 5 billion”, says Paulo Rocha, one of the former-employees. From IBM’s point of view, such a right doesn’t exist. “The employees that left before 1996 had not contributed even a penny to the Foundation”, argues Robert Coimbra, custodian and legal director of IBM Foundation. “They cannot receive for something they never paid”.

The indemnities are not the only complaint. Some of the former employees want to be reintegrated into the pension plan, to continue contributing and to have a Foundation retirement plan, being able to use medical and dental plans. This way, they could receive an income compatible with what they used to earn while they were employees, around 20 months of minimum wages. The fight in Justice has not been easy. In two actions that made it to the last instance of the federal Superior Court the decision was favorable to the Foundation. In another one, seven former-employees were victorious and would have had to be reintegrated to the Foundation in December of the last year. IBM, however, did not give any signal to accept the Justice’s decision. Not being intimidated, those that demand their rights want to involve more than 3,000 former employees who, like them, left the company up until 1996.

Points that should have been included in the article

Besides having had a judicial decision at the terminal and highest level, we, the former employees of IBM, are permanently in contact with the Ministry of Social Security, with the support of Congressmen, showing the illegal acts involving the IBM Foundation. Observe the following factors:

1. IBM is affronting the Judiciary Power by not complying with the finding that protects 7 ex-employees;
2. IBM has acted illegally by not offering the employees, at the moment of voluntary recision, the option of continuing in the Foundation and starting to contribute to their own accounts;
3. The breaking of the connection with the Foundation was done by IBM itself and not, as it should be, by the Foundation that should comply with the laws of Social Security.

We are mobilizing ourselves in order to make our demands known to all political, private, public and juridical sectors in Brazil and in the USA.