IBM Moving to China and India

Date: Monday, December 15, 2003 11:08 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

The late breaking news from the Wall Street Journal is that IBM is
moving they are moving their entire software department team to India
and China. IBM will be using the classic "knowledge transfer" technique
to insure that the Chinese and Indians will obtain the skills to do the
job. This technique was first publicized when Mike Emmons and fellow
co-workers were ordered to train their replacements at Siemens in
Florida.

Some workers are scheduled to be informed of the
plan for their jobs by the end of January. After
that they will be expected to train an overseas
replacement worker in the U.S. for several weeks.

IBM has spent millions of dollars to set up offices in India and China.
They needed those offices in order to be able to import L-1 visa
holders because L-1 requires that companies that use these visas must
do "intra-company" transfers from offices in the overseas location.
Unfortunately for IBM employees, it's legal to import unlimited numbers
of L-1 visa holders and companies don't have to give any preference to
U.S. citizens. There will be no recourse to IBM workers but to comply
with IBM's demand to train their replacement unless they choose to quit
and losing their severance payments.

IBM is another good example why offshoring won't stop until
nonimmigrant visas are abolished. Companies cannot transfer critical
technologies until their H-1B and L-1 visa holders learn the
technologies.

IBM is attempting to avoid bad publicity by using the classic
"redeployment" press release. To play this game, companies don't admit
they are firing their employees but instead they say that targeted
workers are given "60 days" to redeploy themselves within the company.
Of course they won't be rehired but by then the press will be focussing
on other stories. This smoke-and-mirror technique is being used
industry wide at companies such as Intel, Qwest, Sun Microsystems, and
now IBM.

The IBM workers marked for replacement have 60 days to
find another job inside the company, likely to be a
difficult task at a time when IBM is holding down hiring.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/dowjones/20031215/bs_dowjones/200312150014000006

IBM to Export Highly Paid Jobs to India, China
Mon Dec 15,12:14 AM ET

In one of the largest moves to "offshore" highly paid U.S. software
jobs, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) has told
its managers to plan on moving the work of as many as 4,730 programmers
to India, China and elsewhere, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.

The unannounced plan, outlined in company documents viewed by The Wall
Street Journal, would replace thousands of workers at IBM facilities in
Southbury, Conn., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Raleigh, N.C., Dallas, Boulder,
Colo., and elsewhere in the U.S.Already, the managers have been told,
IBM has hired 500 engineers in India to take on some of the work that
will be moved.

IBM calls its plan, first presented internally to some midlevel
managers in October, "Global Sourcing." It involves people in its
Application Management Services group, a part of IBM's giant
global-services operations, which comprise more than half IBM's 315,000
employees.

IBM's plan, still under development, will take place over a number of
months in stages. About 947 people are scheduled to be notified during
the first half of the coming year that their work will be handled
overseas in the future. It isn't yet clear how many of the other 3,700
jobs identified as "potential to move offshore" in the IBM documents
will move next year or some time later.

However, the fate of some of the targeted jobs isn't certain: IBM
managers still haven't figured out whether all of the work the jobs
represent can be performed just as well abroad. The jobs involve
updating and improving software for IBM's own business operations.

Some workers are scheduled to be informed of the plan for their jobs by
the end of January. After that they will be expected to train an
overseas replacement worker in the U.S. for several weeks. The IBM
workers marked for replacement have 60 days to find another job inside
the company, likely to be a difficult task at a time when IBM is
holding down hiring.

IBM declined to comment on what it called "internal presentations."

Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters William M. Bulkeley and Peter
Fritsch contributed to this article.

http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/12/15/rtr1180635.html

IBM to export programmer jobs to Asia - WSJ
Reuters, 12.15.03, 12:23 AM ET

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp.
(nyse: IBM - news - people), the world's largest computer company, will
move the work of as many of 4,730 U.S. software programmers to India,
China and elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The unannounced plan, which the newspaper said it viewed in company
documents, would replace thousands of workers at IBM facilities in
Southbury, Connecticut, Poughkeepsie in New York, Raleigh, North
Carolina, Dallas, Boulder in Colorado, and elsewhere in the United
States.

The Wall Street Journal said that about 947 people will be notified
during the first half of 2004 that their work will be moved overseas.
It was not yet clear how many of the other 3,700 jobs identified as
"potential to move offshore" in the IBM documents will move next year
or later, the paper said.

Armonk, New York-based IBM, which has about 315,000 employees around
the world, has been among companies that have moved traditionally
higher paid services jobs to low cost centers such as India in recent
years. The company has said it will continue to build its services
business abroad, because it makes IBM more competitive, saves its
customers money and frees up funds for other purposes.

IBM did not immediately return calls for comment on the report.

Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

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