Alliance@IBM Members/Shareholders to Challenge IBM at Annual Meeting

Contact:Lee Conrad, National Coordinator, Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701, 607-427-0508, or Jeff Miller or Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, 202-434-1168  

Knoxville, Tenn. – Members of Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701 will urge shareholders at the company's annual meeting Tuesday, April 24, to support three critical proposals that will improve corporate governance and end unfair practices at IBM Corp.  

The proposals call for the exclusion of pension income in the calculation of executive compensation; the creation of an independent committee to explore the potential harm to IBM's brand due to increasing offshoring, and an end to discrimination in policies regarding employees' pension and retirement medical benefits.

Mike Saville, an IBM retiree, shareholder since 1968 and sponsor of Proposal No.10 on offshoring, said, "Offshoring of IBM jobs continues to be a serious issue. Employees face not only job loss but the indignity of training their off shore replacements. IBM faces negative press on offshoring that damages the brand name and company reputation, and the knowledge base of the United States shrinks."  He will cite those concerns as important reasons for the board of directors to establish an independent IBM committee to study the effects of IBM's offshoring on the company's brand and reputation.

IBM employee Bill McGreevy, a sponsor of Proposal No. 9, will stress that pay for performance should be the main criteria for executive pay, and that income generated from pension funds must be excluded  "Executive greed and bloated compensation need to be challenged and executives must be accountable for their performance," he said. "Executives should not be allowed to use other criteria – including pension income -- to compensate themselves, particularly when IBM employees are facing a decline in their standard of living and retirees are experiencing increases in medical retirement costs while their pensions evaporate."

James Leas, sponsor of Proposal No. 8 on pension and retirement medical benefits, will point out that "IBM instituted age discrimination in 1999 by seeking to divide employees into three groups based on age, with the intent of slashing pensions and revoking medical retirement promises. Then IBM expanded this pattern of age discrimination by terminating older employees at a much higher rate than younger employees."

Leas noted that "IBM employees resisted in 1999 with mass meetings that forced the company to partially back down" and said that employees would continue to raise this issue through stockholder resolutions, lawsuits and union organizing. "By instituting and expanding age discrimination, IBM executives have put their own personal interests ahead of our company's interest and have demolished employee morale," Leas said.