In The News: IBM Tech Workers Launch Online Protest

IBM tech workers are using their own IT skills to organize and fight back against a 15 percent pay cut imposed by management recently in what amounts to retaliation against a legal settlement that required IBM to pay them overtime.

Over 1,300 of the affected workers so far have signed on to an online protest sponsored by Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701. They are demanding that IBM roll back the pay cut for 7,600 technical support workers who were reclassified in January as being eligible for overtime. The cut affects about 6 percent of the company's workforce.

Even with overtime, the pay cut will cost many workers thousands of dollars a year. Fewer than a third of the workers are working enough on a weekly basis, estimated at 45 hours a week, to break even, Alliance@IBM coordinator Lee Conrad said.

One worker who signed the petition wrote, "After 10 years of employment with IBM this reduction places me back at my 2003 salary."

Ironically, the company's action stems from a $65 million settlement that IBM reached with workers in 2006 over a lawsuit charging that they were being denied overtime and back pay.