IBM is calling for voluntary redundancies among its 25,000 UK
staff.
Employees were shocked to be told this week that the company was
looking to shed staff, although an IBM representative told
CW360.com, "There are no enforced redundancies. No one has been
earmarked for redundancy and we have not quantified the numbers to
go."
"IBM is seeking redundancies at time when everyone expects an
upswing in it services market in second half of this year. This
appears to be a short-term move to prop up its share price and they
are asking employees to pay the price," said Peter Skyte, national
secretary of the Information Technology Professionals Association,
part of Amicus MSF trade union.
"The IT services sector has a secure future," he added, warning IBM
not to "treat its employees like 19th century farm workers who are
employed on a seasonal basis, dismissed at the end of the
harvest".
The IBM redundancies follow a call for 1,500 volunteers from ICL,
now Fujitsu.
IBM said it expected the volunteers to amount to "a small
percentage" of its existing workforce. Insiders at the company have
told CW360 that up to 1,000 jobs might go and expressed fears about
what might happen if the numbers were below those required by head
office.
Meanwhile US trade unions were set to confront shareholders at
IBM's annual meeting today calling for assurances that IBM will
exclude pension fund income from the calculation of executive
bonuses, the Communications Workers of America said.
The meeting was scheduled to discuss pay packages for its
executives. In 2001, IBM's then chief executive Officer, Louis
Gerstner, was paid £7m in salary and bonuses. In separate payouts
in 2001, Gerstner received £1.75m from a long-term incentive
program payout and other compensation.
Earlier this month, IBM released a first-quarter financial report
which, it said, was "disappointing," because of falling revenue
across product lines. For the first quarter of 2002, which ended 31
March, IBM reported net income of $1.19bn (£816,779m) and revenue
of $18.6bn (£12.7bn).
According to the US union, IBM's pension plan last year produced
13.2% of overall company pre-tax earnings.