I'm surprised....
...by now that anyone still works for IBM.
(former disgruntled IBMer)
IBMers that take voluntary redundancy ahead of a High Court ruling on the firm’s pension scheme will still benefit from any remedies set out should they leave, according to an internal document. Staffers who were refused salary increases because they railed against changes to pensions were told they are able to claim damages …
As early as the 1990's trying to get help out of anyone at IBM was impossible. Oh you have a question that is going to cost you $$, but wait we were going to by this computer to bad any questions are now billable. You mean how much is memory? Yes it is costing people to buy IBM equipment to ask questions and on top of this mess, IBM is charging for physical planning. Hey how many CPU's to you want it will cost you for the advice. Bah Humbug. IBM outsourced to 3rd parties and you no longer have any interaction the IBM experts. Simple questions get tuned into billable hours. Bah humbug
...until the check clears.
It's outrageous the way some companies treat retirees who worked all their lives to earn their pensions and then have some unscrupulous company use bankruptcy or other bogus claim to deprive these people of their due retirement or to retaliate against those who protest unfair treatment in the work place. The CEOs and some of the other execs at these companies who are reaping millions in annual compensation, should spend five or more years in the slammer and be fined five years salary so they understand they did wrong.
IBM are scumbags. I was a Sequent employee when IBM acquired us. As part of the acquisition, our length of service with Sequent was grandfathered into IBM. A while later out of the blue, our terms were changed so that length of Sequent service no longer counted. Two weeks later most of the ex-Sequent folk were downsized, with their severance pay based on (you guessed it) length of service. So instead of some long term Sequent people getting 15-20 years severance, it was reduced to around the two years we had worked for IBM. Like I said, scumbags.
Indeed they are. We "outsourced" all our mainframe developers and admins to, you guessed it...IBM. There was much said in the way of promises and they kept them for about 6 months. Then suddenly, that area of the building started getting empty... a year later there was only 2 guys left... an admin and a developer because somehow, they got the keys to the kingdom and were kept to "coach" the outsourced tech. They didn't even outsource from the US pool.. certain subcontinent types were brought in and rotated out on a monthly basis. No continuity of development or anything else. It's still pretty pathetic over in that area as by contract, we're not allowed to bring in more than "a few" permenant staff. I suspect that once this contract is over, IBM will be out the door.