IBM is engaged in another round of layoffs, this time reportedly with up to 5,000 jobs slated to be lost in this country, according to unofficial tallies, drawing calls for state hearings and federal investigations into whether the company is improperly shedding American jobs, even as it accepts tens of millions of dollars from New York tate and seeks federal government stimulus money.
Assemblyman Greg Ball, whose 99th Assembly district encompasses parts of Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties is ranking Republican member of the Assembly committee on corporations, authorities and commissions. He said the committee should hold hearings about IBM”™s agreement last summer to accept some $45 million in state funding in return for job retention in the Empire State.
“It seems IBM has a long-term approach to off-shoring a large component of their American operations to India, but meanwhile, New York state just cut them a check to keep those jobs stateside,” said Ball. He said that while the deal announced last summer between New York and IBM only guaranteed the jobs through the end of 2008, the fact IBM began cutting jobs in early 2009 “may have met the letter of the law, but it didn”™t meet the spirit.”
IBM spokesman Doug Shelton did not return a call seeking comment.
Ball said by his count, about 1,800 IBM workers in Orange, Dutchess and Westchester counties have lost their jobs. “These are outright firings,” said Ball. “The company makes no bones about it; they do not intend to rehire these workers.” He said his concern is “a bipartisan issue,” and called on committee Chairman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat, to convene hearings and investigate IBM”™s job situation.
Assemblyman Brodsky of the 92nd Assembly district in Westchester was noncommittal about whether the committee would convene hearings. But he claimed to have started looking into the matter before Ball issued his call for the committee to become involved.
“I don”™t know the facts as yet,” said Brodsky. “But we began this inquiry last week. Before Mr. Ball”™s request, the committee had begun an inquiry into the facts.”Â
Brodsky said the committee was researching issues such as how much money IBM has received from the state and under what terms regarding job retention. He said he has requested information from the Empire State Development Corporation and from IBM itself. “We are awaiting responses then we will make a determination about what the appropriate way to proceed is,” said Brodsky, adding there is no timetable for action. “I don”™t know when they are going to get back to us.”
Meanwhile, the number of lost jobs rises. “We”™ve tallied up about 3,500 workers losing their jobs as of last week,” said Lee Conrad, coordinator of Alliance @ IBM, an IBM employee organization affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. “That makes it close to 10,000 cuts this quarter.”
Under provisions of a state and federal law called WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act), companies with 50 or more employees must notify state Department of Labor officials ninety days prior to any lay offs involving more than 25 workers.
“They are small cuts spread over time and spread all over the country,” said Conrad.
“That”™s how they”™ve been getting away with keeping this stuff over the radar screen. That”™s how they get away with this.”
IBM has not officially acknowledged widespread layoffs, which have been reported in media ranging from CNN to the Wall Street Journal.
The only WARN notification in New York State thus far is a notice on the Department of Labor Web site dated March 27 stating that 54 computer software and manufacturing employees at Fishkill will be laid off as of June 24. Officials at the state Department of Labor did not return a call seeking more information on the matter.
Business Week magazine recently reported that IBM”™s workforce went up from 386,558 at the end of 2007 to 398,000 at the end of 2008. But U.S. employment fell from 121,000 to 115,000 during the same time.
And the company apparently sought to turn offshoring of jobs into literally a science. Five company employees applied for a patent that would to copyright a computer program that calculates how to move jobs to other countries while maximizing government tax breaks.
In late March the U.S. Patent and Trademark office published an application seeking to patent a “method and system for strategic global resource sourcing,” that calculates factors such as labor costs, infrastructure and “the minimum head count to qualify for incentives.” The patent application is dated September 2007 but took 18 months to be published on line. Â
Conrad calls such scheming “obviously outrageous” and said IBM should not get any state tax breaks or federal stimulus money. He noted that company has announced record-setting profits in the last three quarters even as other companies are losing literally billions of dollars.
The day after a report on the patent application appeared in the Times Herald Record newspaper, the company announced the patent application was being cancelled.
