IBM Union Calls It Quits (computerworld.com) 248
dcblogs writes: A 16-year effort by the Communication Workers of America to organize IBM employees into a union is ending. The union's local, the Alliance@IBM, is suspending 'organizing' efforts, and says its membership has been worn down by IBM's ongoing decline of its U.S. work force as it grows overseas. The union never got many dues-paying members, but its Website, a source of reports from employees on layoffs, benefit changes and restructuring, was popular with employees, a source of information for the news media, and a continuing thorn in the side of IBM.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:very resillient for a labor organization. (Score:5, Insightful)
And now today, in this foul year of our lord 2016, the fact remains. Corporations no longer operate for the greater good of a people but for shareholder value.
I won't go directly to corporations that cooperated with the Nazis for examples of corporations perfectly willing to execute innocent people (pre-reconstruction) for profit, but let's just say there isn't any reason to think the good old days were any better than today. Corporations used to have more rope and could take longer to turn a profit from investments, but profits were always the goal.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's really funny how anti-union some Americans are when they vocally support the extremist union tactics of the NRA, which can be accurately described as a very political gun owners union.
Re:very resillient for a labor organization. (Score:4, Informative)
Don't blame the unions for what trust-fund babies running daddies company did to the US car industry. If the guy on the shop floor could see the Japanese coming what could he do? Requisition a few hundred million for a new assembly line for a new model?
If he could? He'd then run into the unions sobbing about jobs lost because the new assembly line no longer needs widget adjusters & sprocket polishers and possibly also the issues involved if retooling the current factory would require an extended closure, the EPA refusing to allow the upgrades to the old factory unless it suddenly meets requirements only an entirely new building could manage (never mind that the changes would result in less total pollution), and a nice random boatload of governmental and special interest groups who don't like the idea of building a new factory from the ground up because of the environmental impact (once again, even if it reduces total pollution) and various flavors of woo.
This is roughly what people who were high enough in the companies to both see these problems coming and actually do something about it ran into in many industries, and it doesn't help that the car industry unions' upper levels basically sold out their members' long-term interests in order to secure votes for themselves when union elections came up like the politicians they are. This is a problem that isn't necessarily inherit in the system for nor intrinsic to unions in and of themselves, but it is unfortunately very business as usual for US unions once you get past the local level and probably part of why the IBM union failed to gain traction. (Why join a union if you feel you cannot trust the union's management?)
This a systemic failure, and trying to fix it by changing only one part would be like trying to fix a system error in Windows by changing the color scheme.
Re: (Score:3)
He expropriated the operations of overseas companies first thing. e.g. IBM and Ford Germany.
They got back their factories after the war. Sometimes slightly dented.
Re: (Score:2)
The entire reason they are outsourcing and moving to Asia is because they are creating jobs. The alternative is to copy Japan and build fully automated US factories. But I think these CEOs are used to running empires and employing thousands and are really against the idea of running a multi billion dollar corporation whose only employees are the CEO and some board members.
Re:very resillient for a labor organization. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be blunt the entire reason for production into Asia is because Asian are willing to roll over and can willingly accept screwed over by their bosses. Western workers just need to suck it up, move themselves and their families to a one room hovel and learned to love a minimalist diet, be proud of the $1 per hour salary and be ready to grovel at the bosses feet at any moment. Then those worthless scum workers could have kept their jobs.
What a crock. Reality is the western workers were slack, lazy and indifferent and allowed their rights to be eroded away, allowed their protections to be diminished and meekly pathetically allowed future generations of workers to pay the price for the current generations cowardice.
No matter how much you give up, the insane psychopaths running corporations will always want more, so give the fuckers nothing, fuck em. They want class conflict, give it to them.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone working in software just needs to look around at how few of their coworkers are actually from the US to figure out that there is a shortage of intelligent people willing to do software work in this country for third world salaries
FTFY
Re:very resillient for a labor organization. (Score:5, Informative)
Fact is, when comparing unions to corporations, there are no angels.
Unions are quite prone to using dues-money for self-enrichment, power-playing, politicking... and even today, some unions are not above using violence and intimidation (on the down-low of course) to get their way among their membership, 'potential' members, and basically anyone who gets in their way or frustrates them. For example, the 'scab' who dared to cross picket lines, usually because he needed the income that damned badly.
Mind, I'm not picking on either one - just providing perspective and balance here.
I know of honorable and good unions (and had once been a member of one - the Ironworkers). I know of honorable and good corporations run by honest men. Problem is, they both sit on the bright side of a very long and subtly graduated scale that runs all the way down to some downright evil shit.
People are People [Re:very resillient for a labor (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not "prone" to anything. Bad apples and jerks form in any large group of people or organization instances. It's human nature that a certain percent are jerks, or the majority of the group will act jerky at times.
Enforcement and regulation may be needed to tame organizations if they take advantage of lack of enforcement or regulation.
Unions are merely collections of people who work together for certain goals. They are not inherently better or worse than corporations, other than perhaps the enforcement and regulations they are governed under and/or external pressures from their environment of operation.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The fight over whether corporations or unions are the bigger sleazebags is a fake argument. They are made up of the same stuff: humans who follow human nature and who need some degree of governance and oversight.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Union management is usually (in theory) decided by worker votes. Since it's their dues paying union manager salaries, the workers typically don't want to pay them more than necessary. If this mini-democracy is not working right, then there's some digging and fixing to do. Some other force is mucking things up.
Corporations over unions (Score:2)
While I've never seen angels — and doubt they exist in this sorry world of ours — corporations are inherently better than unions.
Troll my tail — for a corporation to make money, it has to sell something people want. Unions far too often have a captive "customer base — one must join, if one wishes to work in a properly "unionized workplace". Such as be a public school teacher or even a New York City carpenter.
TFA
Re: (Score:2)
Even when one of the people running it had to be pardoned to be saved from execution for treason, selling weapons to the terrorists that had killed over a hundred marines less than a year earlier and embezzling money for a convertible plus house airconditioning.
So why are unions who do not do overt political manipulation devil spawn but a gun owners union in all but name is something to be praised from the rooftops? It makes no sense so I'm curious as to the answer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Through a combination of outsourcing, labor deregulation, union busting, and reductions in the US social safety net (welfare, unemployment benefits, and healthcare) corporations were able to impose longer working hours and lower pay, without the risk of strikes.
If all of the above were done, then it shouldn't be cheaper to hire from other countries. The problem is that the opposite of what you said happened and it became more cost effective to hire from outside the country.
Even now we hear cries for raising minuim wage and more vacation / health benefits - things like that are really suppose to make us more competitive to against other countries?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
And the citizens are being told to just hold on a while, trickle down is bound to happen any day now.
Re: (Score:2)
Corporations no longer operate for the greater good of a people but for shareholder value.
Hasn't it always been that way? At least, since Dodge vs. Ford Motor Co.?
Aaaaand.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporate shills claiming victory and deriding unions as evil in 3.. 2..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's a wash.
Unions do have a place and need in certain industries... it's just that tech isn't one of them. Anyone sufficiently competent in the tech industry can improve him/herself and get a better income over time - far faster than the typical Union could ever get you. There is a sufficient amount of work to be had out there for those who know what they're doing and can prove it... I think that only a brief 2-3 year period during the dot-bust was the main exception, in a field that has technica
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech is special, because we're tech workers and we're special.
Tech jobs are being outsourced faster than shit through a goose. Working conditions are suffering, job satisfaction is suffering, their work week is getting longer, pay is lagging, and we don't need to organize, dammit! Because we're special.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We're not "special" - our circumstances and mechanisms just happen to be unique. Just the way it is.
Yup - there's outsourcing, but 9/10 times, it comes back to bite the corporations that do it, and bites them right in the ass... usually in a spectacularly expensive way. Outsourcing is often touted as a big, bad boogeyman, but it has been around for what, 10-15 years now? Given that amount of time, you'd think that the entire global tech industry would be based in Mumbai or Hyderabad by now - yet it isn't. T
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So you'd rather have US technology sector look like Detroit. Union jobs ensure that the union bosses live well and the workers still get screwed as the jobs move overseas anyways. Only difference is the risk of taking the entire company down to foreign competition instead of individual roles within the company because the company gets locked-in to whatever staffing model existed when times were good.
If your job can be done cheaper elsewhere, it will be. It's only a matter of time, and protectionism and unio
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'd rather have US workers in a system more like Germany's. a country of 80 million people that exports about as much as the United States w/ 350 million.
Don't let right-wing media delude you regarding organized labor. It's the main reason workers anywhere have a decent standard of living.
Re: (Score:3)
And the US's exports are from an entire continent-sized country, not just a relatively-small country the size of Germany...
Re: (Score:2)
See, here's the thing: It's the wages at the bottom that set a floor for the wages the "high skill tech jobs" are paid. If there's a race to the bottom, you're on the short bus, boyo.
Re: (Score:2)
Tech workers see themselves as the "executive chefs at four star restaurants", when they're really just the bus boys. Even the best of them are just workers. You're not going to be on the cover of any magazine or get a reality TV show of you writing code.
Some people are still living in the '90s.
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions do have a place and need in certain industries... it's just that tech isn't one of them. Anyone sufficiently competent in the tech industry can improve him/herself and get a better income over time - far faster than the typical Union could ever get you.
You don't organize in a union for salary unless you are minimum wage earner. They have a big role in IT, but as legal assistence, being able to call on highly specialized lawyers to review your contracts, instead of paying 10s of thousands for one of your own, is worth every single fee. On top of being able to call them in as legal muscle if management is trying to screw you over.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
15 years ago I made around 40% of what I make now in IT.
I got a degree, came up with patent-able ideas, and made value for my company.
In return, I have been compensated.
Seems a fair deal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What makes you think they were 'good ideas'?
I've known a few people with 'good ideas'. I threatened one of them in comments that if they ever checked in another 'good idea' I'd break all their fingers (and toes, so they couldn't code with their feet).
'Then we have to support it' sounds like someone trying to tell you nicely that you have a very very bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Informative)
I can see why there'd be a tension between someone who can make out alright and someone on the lower rungs of the ladder, but managers are managers and workers are workers and wherever that differential exists, the former will always try and abuse the latter.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Informative)
Unions are not just about wage growth. They're also about protecting employees from abuse. Let's face it, over the last 20 years or so, abuse of tech workers has been rampant. Companies expect their tech workers to put in 50 to 60 hours a week with no overtime or comp time. Many tech companies offer their employees stock options, which are not as handsome as they used to be since the tax rules surrounding them changed a number of years ago. So tech companies often feed their employees the line "Well, the more you work and the harder you work, the more valuable your stock options will be in the long run". That rarely turns out to be the case; not every tech company turns out to be an Apple, or a Microsoft, or a Netscape, or a Facebook.
Yes, I'll agree that I don't care for other aspects of unions either, like seniority over merit, and some unions can be very corrupt as well. But if tech companies aren't careful, they may have no choice but to deal with unions in the future. Running tech employees into the ground is not a sound or sustainable strategy for remaining competitive in the world. Unions could at least help ensure that practice stops.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Running tech employees into the ground is not a sound or sustainable strategy for remaining competitive in the world. Unions could at least help ensure that practice stops.
It is sustainable if there is enough cheap labor around. Hence the corporate push for STEM and HB1 visas.
Unionizing might just make that practice stop, but basically will guarantee that you get fired and offshored.
For collective bargaining to be effective, the work delivered must be hard to replace.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We're all libertarian Uber-men while while the scales are tipped in our favor. Our skills and talents are in demand and we got to set the terms.
It won't be like that forever. "Your own wage growth" will last exactly as long as it takes for your skillset to be commodotized and turned in to an expense item on a spreadsheet.
Or until someone finds you inconvenient. Or wants your job. Or thinks you're after his job. Or doesn't like the way you looked at his wife. Or thinks you make too much money. Etc, etc, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
This. I'd add that union membership also (usually) gets you progressive discipline, as in they actually need a reason to fire you. (In at-will employment states, which are nearly all of them, you can be fired for no reason at all. I have literally been told "We don't have to tell you.") Add in health benefits secured by the union and not your employer (so that your employer doesn't find out when you start seeing a therapist, and fire you because you're "psycho"), guaranteed raises (some tool is going to
Re: (Score:2)
You won't ever get bigger raises than 2.5-3%.
If you stay at the same employer you might not... jumping ship on the other hand is hella profitable.
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions do have a place and need in certain industries... it's just that tech isn't one of them. Anyone sufficiently competent in the tech industry can improve him/herself and get a better income over time - far faster than the typical Union could ever get you.
Have you considered that it is not just about income for you but having an appropriate body to represent the political interests of the tech industry to legislators? That as a group of professionals there is no one there to represent us at a government level or lobby for or against laws that work against our individual interests as professionals. That a government or corporate level no one takes us seriously because no-one has our back.
Overall, why would I (for example) want to chain myself down to the disadvantages of a Union (seniority-over-merit, cronyism, locked/lockstep wage growth and scheduling, monthly dues, aforementioned dues going to politicians and causes I do not support, being forced to join in some states even if I didn't want to, etc)... but little-to-none of the advantages?
Because whilst you are a great tech, you probably don't read and lobby government about the laws that are going to affect your job and write to elected representatives to protect your interests and indeed, extend them. I'm reading 200-600 pages of legislation per year re technology and would gladly pay someone else to do it.
My own wage growth has far outstripped anything that any union could provide, and has done so for 20 years now. If I don't like my employer, I can have at least two job interviews scheduled by the end of the day, and interviews/screens lined up by end-of-week.
Well if it's just all about me then it's probably ok. However that attitude doesn't make it any easier for someone to get a foot in the door for who might just have less access to an opportunity because that job is overseas.
As a group of professionals I think we have to grow out of the attitude that it's all about what I can get for me. If we had professional body looking after our interests then we may not see things like the IP provisions in the TPP or the H1B visa arrangements that we do.
In all, we maybe taken a little more seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
Unions do have a place and need in certain industries... it's just that tech isn't one of them. Anyone sufficiently competent in the tech industry can improve him/herself and get a better income over time...
In your current job, do you have health insurance? Sick leave? Vacation days? Safety standards? I wonder where those came from...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone can be better than average, yes. Everyone can't, any more than everyone can be a better than average driver. But that doesn't stop them from deluding themselves, or listening to a flattering scam artist who tells them they're a special little snowflake who'd only get held back by the unions.
Just goes to demonstrate, once again, that prid
Mandatory membership is evil (Score:2)
Only if membership is voluntary. The second they are empowered to force people to join them, they become oppressors.
They also become a monopoly at this point — and corruption sets in immediately — but that's secondary.
who needs the Quickie Mart? (Score:2)
Those were the creme-d-la-creme 1% engineers [cnet.com] you're talking about there.
Just the kind of people that "don't need unions" because they're "highly skilled".
I'm sure they all approved of this fine example of unfettered markets in action and realize they deserved the treatment they got.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What is it you're talking about?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Minor detail... They didn't lose their jobs. NYT article about it. [nytimes.com]
Re:Aaaaand.. (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. The second layoff for 35 people in New York and California were cancelled after the NYT wrote an earlier article on the 250 people in Florida who were forced to train their replacements (see link below).
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
False equivalence and off topic film bashing in 3... 2...
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, Disney's IT workers had a collective bargaining agreement in place?
Oh right, guess not...
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, Disney's IT workers had a collective bargaining agreement in place?
Oh right, guess not...
Well based on the summary, neither did IBM's IT workers.
Beat the shit out of watson on the way out (Score:2)
Beat the shit out of watson on the way out.
What is "Watson" besides a marketing name... (Score:2)
It took me a long time to finally get a real hands-on demonstration of Watson, and it was such a disappointment. Your everyday Google search feels more like "AI" than Watson.
If IBM goes all-in on Watson, good night IBM!
Higher paying jobs and work hours (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Paid OT? What's that? Oh wait, I think I saw it once in a history book...
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
...if all the pressure to unionize and all the headaches that that entails might have at least early on, been part of the PROBLEM, causing more and more jobs to move overseas from the US?
It didn't have anything to do with it.
I was at IBM when they were just trying to get the union ball rolling, and for a while after that. Everyone inside IBM though they were a joke. The problem is, it was the CWA -- Communications Workers of America -- and their primary bailiwick was radio and telecom. They were desperately trying to diversify their membership base, as the jobs in that industry were drying up, and being replaced by communications over commodity infrastructure based on the Internet.
So th
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The union did not give up on IBM, IBM gave up on America. The union is just not interested in protecting foreign workers rights, or at least knows that Chinese and Indian peasants do not have enough money for it to be worth their time taking some of it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They are very interested in organizing globally, but 3rd world countries outlaw it.
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:4, Insightful)
The union did not give up on IBM, IBM gave up on America
No, America gave up on America. IBM is just doing what makes economic sense: moving labor out of uncompetitive locales to competitive ones. There's nothing "magical" about US-based workers, not factory workers (as we've seen by the wholesale transfer of factory work to China) and not knowledge workers.
When factory work was being outsourced on a mass scale to China, the drum-beat from knowledge workers was, "if you can't compete, deal with it. It's nobody else's job to support your failing business model". Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. What happened to factories can happen even easier to IT workers, because it's easier to move those jobs than to build entirely new factories to take advantage of lower labor costs.
There exists no such thing as a "right" to a job. I'm sorry that you aren't living in a competitive locale, but that's no one else's problem but yours. Your society wanted perks that other societies didn't demand, and as a result, you became more expensive. Because you were more expensive, it made less and less sense over time to employ you when others could do the work cheaper.
This is economics 101. It sucks for displaced workers, but nobody OWEs you a job. You must provide enough value to be worth your cost, or the jobs will go elsewhere. Try to pass laws to stop that? Guess what, economics doesn't care about your laws. That'll make your entire country even more uncompetitive and entire industries will uproot and move elsewhere. This has happened before. It can happen again.
The only way you can recover from this situation is to be economically competitive. That means structural changes to your society. It will mean a drastic reduction in your salary, which means you won't have that nice 3 bedroom house in the burbs and a luxury car. But you are competing with people who don't have those things and are not paying for them, so they can work for $2/hr where you demand $50/hr, because they are living 8 people to a tiny inner city apartment and own no car at all, nor big screen TV.
So go ahead. Whine, cry about how it isn't fair. You're right, it isn't! Nobody ever promised life would be fair, or kind, or care one bit about your problems. It's down to a simple reality: compete, or don't. People buying the latest plastic widget don't care if it's made in China or USA, they care if it costs $2 for the Chinese one or $65 for the American one. Same deal with IT. You are competing with people all around the world. Deal.
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess if you consider workers' rights and environmental protections to be perks, you must be happy living in a shack near a coal powerplant.
What the First World should do is tax products that are produced in factories that don't have equivalent labour and environmental protections in place, regardless of country of origin. If multinationals can export their abuse and pollution to corrupt countries, they should be charged appropriately, otherwise it's a rigged system. I'm all in favour of a competitive free market. This isn't one.
Re: (Score:3)
What the First World should do is tax products that are produced in factories that don't have equivalent labour and environmental protections in place
Then those countries will immediately retaliate with tariffs on American goods, and everybody loses.
Remind me again how many of the monumental number of televisions manufactured in the vast factories of America are exported and sold in China?
Re: (Score:3)
Remind me again how many of the monumental number of televisions manufactured in the vast factories of America are exported and sold in China?
China imports aircraft, CPUs, capital goods, movies, and billions of hours of services from America.
Re: (Score:3)
Remind me again how many of the monumental number of televisions manufactured in the vast factories of America are exported and sold in China?
China imports aircraft, CPUs, capital goods, movies, and billions of hours of services from America.
Aircraft: yes. Tariff that, and you've just killed Chinas air industry. I guess they could go AirBus instead. They don't import much in the way of capital goods. The movies, they generally just run a "third shift" and press a bunch of extra DVDs: the DVD players don't really care if it's a binary copy of a "content scrambled" DVD, as long as it's an exact duplicate. Not a lot of import there. What services do they import from the U.S.?
It's kind of entirely moot, however, as we are not permitted to tar
Re: (Score:2)
Citations would be useful here.
Re: (Score:3)
On a per-capita basis, Americans produce far more pollution than Chinese, Africans, etc.
Eh? per-capita basis? Who cares?! If your government has to close the schools in your city, and tell the old folks that they should do their morning Tai Chi at home, instead of an open park . . . your country is . . . well, let's just leave it at that.
You should try to visit China sometime . . . in a major city . . . and take a deep breath . . . I never knew that New Jersey smelled so sweet!
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, knowledge workers are still strong in America, the corporations just don't realize this. They think that just because a foreign company claims to be able to do everything they ask for that it will actually happen. IBM is expanding world wide because it is also much less technical than it used to be. It no longer needs as many real knowledge workers. They don't need the best workers anymore they just want the cheapest ones because they think that 4 workers for the price of one is a good deal.
Another
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:4, Informative)
Australian GDP growth has remained steady over the last 40 years. What are you basing your assertions on?
GDP growth [google.com] has been steady. While it may not be perfect it clearly doesn't result in what you're describing.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is that there's not enough local goods for local consumption. US used to be much more self reliant. Then we started getting cheap ass plastic goods from China. So who knows if today we can be self reliant anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Add back in tariffs (which makes free market zealots cry but we can sell those tears for a profit).
The Australians do that now. The result is not higher paying jobs for Australians, it has done little to improve their overall income.
What it has achieved there is to raise the cost of goods to 60% above what everyone else pays. Everything made in Australia is hideously expensive, but the import tariffs run 50%, or the imports are outright blocked by crooked regulations. At the end of the day, Australia is a case study in why protectionist economics is a disaster.
This.
However trade tariffs and restrictions have been slowly been eroded over the last two decades and its resulted in prices dropping from 60% or more above other developed nations to "price in Hong Kong plus shipping" for many items. Drop shipping has been a huge boon to Australians (and the retailers smart enough to figure out which way the wind was blowing... not you Dick Smith).
Cars are a huge sticking point. Whilst free trade agreements have made things like Toyota Corollas pretty cheap, manufac
Please don't just make shit up (Score:3)
The US tarriffs on sugar and steel are on the other hand a case study of unintended consequences due to protectionist economics. The first has you all getting fat on expensive corn syrup instead of very cheap cane sugar from a choice of many of your southern neighbours, the second resulted in manufacturing moving offshore to where competition has driven down the steel prices.
Australia's economic problems are due to comp
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
This is economics 101. It sucks for displaced workers, but nobody OWEs you a job. You must provide enough value to be worth your cost, or the jobs will go elsewhere. Try to pass laws to stop that? Guess what, economics doesn't care about your laws. That'll make your entire country even more uncompetitive and entire industries will uproot and move elsewhere. This has happened before. It can happen again.
You are half right. If you step back a bit and look at the situation from a different point of view, you SHOULD see that what you said is only half the reason. What would you do to make you look good in your resume if you are a CEO to come into a big corporation? Of course, just cut cost and make the company book looks good while you are in the position. How to do that? Yes, reduce the cost by moving jobs to somewhere else that cost the corporation much cheaper as long as the quality is OK. Competitive work? Yes, the cost is competitive, but that does not mean the quality is as good as it used to be but rather just good enough. Many big corporations are doing the same thing because those few CEOs jump from one job to the other.
Have you ever worked for IBM in the US lately? Do you know that they work you like a dog and expect you to work at least 60+ hours a week. If you don't show your hours high enough, they will cut you (or lay off) because they said you are being lazy. If you don't show that you are improving yourself ALL the time, you are out as well. You are in there running non stop just to keep your job. You have no time to breath. If you have a family, then prepare to kiss your family good bye if you want to keep the job. Though, if you are very high up, it may be a completely different life quality in there. Yes, you just lay off workers and get a big bonus at the end of the year.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with this like of thinking is it doesn't mean the quality is worse, either. I'm old enough to remember when US blue collar types would pooh pooh Japanese products for their low quality.
Once the jobs are in China (or India or wherever) the expertise will follow. Eventually they will be able to compete on quality.
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM offers both options to customers. US based, or offshore. Some must use US because of regulation.
Guess which one our customers take when given the option?
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm....air quality in Beijing and other parts of China are piss poor. New Delhi is blanketed by smog. Indonesia is burning their rain forests.
Last we heard, these were very competitive places to set up business. Could you please move there and let us know how you like it? Postcards will do, try to get some action photos of the pollution in these business havens, we like that sort of thing.
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that corporate officer jobs have been gaining upwards of 4,000% compared to the plebes. Are they not also subject to the same market forces? I wonder what between these two extremes is different (if you think corporate boards don't operate as protection for the wealthiest, you haven't been paying attention)?
While certainly no one owes you a job, no one owes any business a market either. The fact of the matter is that laws have been bought and sold against labor (the TPP being the latest round) while at the same time workers have been told they don't need to organize when they have labor laws. And here we are.
Slash and burn economics isn't viable either, and eventually those chickens will come to to roost as well, often with bloody results.
Re: (Score:3)
They closed down in America, a place where it is legal and you are under basically zero danger running a union, because of a drop in the dues coming in. It does not matter what laws exist in China, it never would of been a profitable enough a venture to begin with. The only reason they want a foothold in foreign soil, is to gain more leverage over companies so that they can benefit the real members who make enough to pay them. But without enough American members, they have no use for the foreign leverage.
Re: I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:2, Insightful)
"Benefit" which is to say extort the American workers. Most of unions are extortion rackets, and the employees are the victims.
Re: (Score:2)
Thinking of a union as a for-profit enterprise where the profit comes from worker dues, means you really don't understand unions at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Restricting workers rights to organize is a very communist thing to do :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately, nobody does that in the US. USSR — unlike China — was a completely different story. Union membership was mandatory. Their role was kinda-sorta like that of social services here, however. Not really, but that's the closest analogy I could find — they certainly weren't protecting workers' rights.
Re:I guess if you have IBM stock, time to sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Try to organize a union in China and see what happens to you. You go to prison ... it is illegal to unionize.
Unions are not illegal in China. Many foreign-owned factories are unionized, and unions are allowed at any private company. They are not generally tolerated at state owned factories, but, in theory, they are not needed there since the government already represents the interests of the proletariat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Restricting and filtering all internet communication is in the interest of proletariat?
It is in the interest of the communist party ruling class, and since they constitute the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and personify the interests of the workers, it is clearly in the interest of the proletariat as well. At least that is the theory [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Did they get tired of the union, or the constant pressure from management to not join or support it?
Re: (Score:2)
It really comes down to your manager.
I have had several really good managers. I have had a couple of bad ones.
Bad ones are REALLY bad. Most don't last as their key people move out of the team and they are unable to deliver.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
right or wrong, people got tired of it (especially the "union" part) and left.
Left what, exactly? The union never fully formed. The summary plainly states that, and goes on to say that the union is giving up on organizing for IBM workers.