IBM Employees Forming Nationwide Organization: Alliance@IBM/CWA

Employees of IBM today announced the formation of a national organization, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, to serve as an advocacy group to address workplace concerns at IBM and to build toward full representation and collective bargaining rights.

The new Alliance@IBM/CWA has grown out of meetings this summer involving IBM employees at locations all over the country who sought CWA's help after IBM imposed drastic pension changes in July that threaten the retirement security of thousands of its workers.

Workers at IBM locations nationwide joined together to fight against IBM's abuse of employees' retirement security, and recently saw only the beginning of what collective action can accomplish. IBM employees won a major victory when the company backpedaled last week and restored some pension options to more workers, though many thousands remain the victims of IBM's unilateral pension changes.

"It's obvious that the only way to get IBM executives to truly listen to employees is through a legally-binding contract that is negotiated through collective bargaining. It's clearer than ever that a union is the only way to attain this goal," said Garrett Lanzy, an IBM employee.

An IBM employee who has regained her pension coverage said the lesson for employees is that now "you don't trust management for anything."

"Basically, I now have a choice between two non-guaranteed plans. There's a lot of confusion about the pension change," but not much information, she said, adding, "I need the help and support a union can provide."

She pointed out that IBM hasn't addressed the cuts it has made in retiree health care - the company reneged on its promise of fully paid retiree health care coverage a few years back, instituting a cap of $3,000 a year after Medicare expenses and $7,000 for retirees not yet Medicare-eligible.

IBM employee Pete Plavchan pointed out that the workers who made IBM a successful company were betrayed by the company's action. "We can't ever trust them again. We would like to prevent this from happening to employees at any other company."

Announcement of the formation of Alliance@IBM/CWA was made as IBM workers came to Washington, D.C. today to attend a Senate hearing investigating the impact of IBM's pension changes. CWA President Morton Bahr was among panelists calling for Congress to prevent employers like IBM from changing pension plans without negotiation with representatives of the employees affected.

Alliance and CWA activists will conduct a national recruitment drive to build a national network to begin immediately addressing issues such as the pension and other benefit changes, and also work toward organizing for union recognition and collective bargaining rights as membership strength grows among the various employee units and work sites. Leaders point out that IBM never could have imposed unilateral pension changes if IBM workers had union representation.

Alliance members will elect a slate of officers and develop a formal organization structure in the next few months. The group has already developed an Internet site: www.allianceibm.org).

A mission statement for Alliance@IBM/CWA now being circulated among IBM workers declares: "We formed Alliance@IBM to restore policies that value us for our contributions. We are committed to IBM's success, but we are also stakeholders in IBM and we deserve a voice in shaping policies that affect our pension, health care, benefits and livelihood."

At least 100,000 of IBM's approximately 140,000 U.S. employees are eligible for union membership and representation in collective bargaining.

CWA represents about 630,000 professional, high tech and manufacturing employees working chiefly in information-based fields for such companies as Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, AT&T, GTE, as well as the Bell telecom companies and media corporations such as ABC and NBC broadcast networks, Dow Jones, the New York Times and Washington Post. WashTech, another CWA affiliate, is organizing and representing "permatemp" employees at Microsoft and Amazon.com.