This page pulls together some of the previous fact and comment on unions, and adds recent material on Works Councils and related opinion.  Because pensions are deferred pay, these organisations get involved in pension negotiations.  They are also examples of "consultation" mechanisms - the government intends that trusts will "consult" when changes are made to the structure of a pension scheme.

The facts of IBM UK employees prospects with respect to unions are probably not much different from when Pete Warren first put them on the message board in Oct 2000.  They are based around the Information Technology Professionals Association within Amicus.   The ITPA site has a short section devoted to IBM UK.   There are claims that ITPA has some 12,000 members and Amicus over a million.  The size of Amicus allows it to pursue legal cases, in some instances as far as the European Court.  AMIPP does not know the |ITPA membership within IBM but this is what ITPA said in 1999:

"There has been membership of MSF within IBM for many years. More recently, groups of MSF members have transferred into IBM from other companies where MSF is organised and has recognition. Now for the first time , MSF is recognised by IBM for collective and individual representation in some areas. MSF has membership at many IBM sites including Perth (ex-General Accident), Wilton (ex-ICI), Peterborough (ex-Pearl),Portsmouth, Hursley, Warwick, Greenock etc."

AMIPP message archives have a scattering of union topics - how they might or might not help us,  why IBMers voted against union recognition in the 1970's, etc.  (See "What to do" around message 1168 and 600-650, "Opinions" around 1257 and 1122.)

In general, unions have been effective in some cases where companies proposed to cheapen their pension schemes. Newsletter 13 describes the Caparo case.  While there has been union help for individuals in IBM, there does not appear to be much union influence at the negotiating level in IBM UK.

There is some collaboration with employees that IBM UK cannot legally avoid.  The UK regulations entitled the Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations which implement the European Works Council Directive came into force on 15 January 2000.  Here is a summary of how an employer organisation sees the regulations. AMIPP does not yet (Aug 2003) know the timetable for operating any IBM UK local Works Council but the equivalents in other countries are established.  There is an agreement with IBM that controls their joint participation.   Its view of "consultation" is that you have been consulted if you have been told what has been done - "The consultation process will in no way affect management's prerogatives and power to take appropriate decisions at the time required by the business and does therefore not necessarily have to take place before the decision is taken".  

It is worth noting that the government's proposals about pension scheme changes take a different view of "consultation".   Their action plan proposes a "requirement on employers to consult before making changes to pension schemes to ensure changes are developed in partnership".

You don't have to be a member of a union to be on a Works Council, but there is a correlation between countries with union influence and countries with Works Councils.  One list of worldwide IBM unions is at http://iwis.ibm.free.fr/ .  (For the UK it just gives a reference to a Yahoo discussion group.)  Works Councils alone do not appear to have much clout, although one did sign the  negotiated agreement when IBM closed its plant in Hungary.

IBM UK employees have a representative at the Works Council meetings in Europe.  Gary Glazerman was elected but there is not much in the public domain about that election.  There is one article by Gary on the ITPA site explaining the limitations of his Works Council efforts.  Gary has also recently written:

Staff in IBM's Global Services, Strategic Outsourcing and Applications Management Services divisions are about to become the latest victims in IBM's relentless pursuit of profit, at the expense of staff loyalty and morale.  Swingeing cuts resulting from capping the payments for shift, overtime, stand-by and call-out are about to come into effect on 6 September 2003.

IBM claim to have undertaken a "market rate analysis" for this type of working and is imposing massive cuts, because IBM payment rates are "out of line" with industry standards. IBM is steam-rolling through the changes by threatening staff, who fail to sign up to new and worse terms and conditions, with disciplinary action "up to and including dismissal".

Given the present state of the job market, this level of intimidation is bound to work in IBM's favour. However, Amicus have agreed to support any collective action by IBM members, including representation in any cases of "Unfair Dismissal", by IBM.

And don't think that just because your own unsocial or out of hours working payments aren't currently affected, by IBM's change in policy, that you are safe from similar action. Think again! It is IBM UK declared aim to standardise ALL rates of pay for such work and it's unlikely that this will mean anything other than further cuts.

If you are a current IBM employee (or interested IBM pensioner) and wish to express an opinion on this matter then please contact Gary Glazerman (the IBM UK European Works Council representative) at 3ukewc@uk.ibm.com  

Let us hope that Gary does not wind up as a Peter Plavchan-like victim of IBM decisions.

Home