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If you registered on the website before 17th April and HAVE NOT received this newsletter as an email, please send a note to Mike Eacott. Also check the Lost Members page to see if we have lost contact with you.
Dear C-Planner, N-Planner or E-Planner, You are receiving this e-mail because you have registered on the CPlan Web site: http://www.gpsu.co.uk/cplan/. If you do not wish to remain registered, then please visit the site and use the registration form to "unregister". If you are an "E-mail Buddy", please print this down and give it to your buddy. UK registrees may wish to be made aware of the following: Open Letter to Mr. Lou Gerstner Nine IBM employees located at the Burlington, Vermont IBM semiconductor plant have signed an open letter to Mr Gerstner (CEO of IBM). The Vermont employees are especially concerned because the new pension and limited medical insurance are particularly a problem for lower-paid workers in the US. What has happened in the US could well happen in the UK if we take no action. It's very quick and simple if you want to add your signature to the letter. Just visit: http://members.aol.com/btvpension/endorse.htm The closing date is probably 21 April. Hundreds of people already have endorsed the letter. The point of endorsing this letter is not that Mr Gerstner will be persuaded by it, but that others unfamiliar with the situation will read it, and they could be influenced by the solidarity shown in support of it. James Marc Leas who heads the list of original signatories recently replied to supporting signatories with the following attachment: Michael Eacott (Membership Secretary for the C-Planners group)
Attachment:
On Sun, 15 Apr 2001 16:41:09 -0400, James M Leas
UPDATE: 922 IBM employees and retirees have signed on to the open
letter to IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner so far.
Thank you very much for signing on. 922 employees and retirees signing on is a fantastic number. This open letter to IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner is one of the largest concerted protests IBM employees and retirees have ever mounted. The number is all the more remarkable since the open letter started circulating only nine days ago and since it has circulated to a very limited number of employees and retirees in that time. The vast majority of employees and retirees still know nothing about this open letter or the information it contains.
Therefore, I would urge everyone to forward the open letter to others so tens of thousands of IBM employees and retirees all over this country have a chance to consider it and sign on. IBM encouraged employees to share the information they had with other employees, and I believe the information in this letter is information that should be shared so employees and retirees better understand why pensions were slashed.
It is not a pretty story. Mr. Gerstner is not sacrificing tens of thousands of IBMers when they are old and most in need to benefit IBM.Rather he is sacrificing IBMers and IBM. Both employees and the company are hurt. Employees, retirees, and stockholders are being hurt. All so Mr. Gerstner and other highly paid executives can take yet more millions under IBM's executive incentive compensation program.
The open letter to Mr. Gerstner is below. There is a convenient sign up form on the web at
The letter is also on the web at
If you have difficulty getting on the web page to sign on electronically just send me a note indicating that you would like to add your name to the open letter to Lou Gerstner. Please give your name and IBM location or your last IBM location if you are retired. Please also give your home email. My email address is You can also fax your note to me at 802 864-9319. If you have already signed you are all set---but please circulate to other employees and retirees. Thanks very much.
James M. Leas
All nine original signers of the open letter are IBM employees located at the Burlington, Vermont IBM semiconductor plant. The only adverse effect organizers in Burlington have suffered during the last 21 months of activity on the pension and retirement medical issues is that one of our leaders was promoted into management! Circulating the open letter is a
protected activity under the NLRA.
Open Letter to Mr. Lou Gerstner
April 5, 2001
Dear Mr. Gerstner:
At the stockholder meeting last year you said that the massive cuts
in our retirement benefits were necessary to remain competitive in
the marketplace. We are deeply disturbed, therefore, that since
IBM slashed the pensions and revoked lifetime medical of
thousands of employees, one individual at IBM raked in $176
million. This same person has unexercised stock options that are
estimated to be worth more than $500 million. In other words,
rather than saving the company money, there has simply been an
enormous shift of resources from tens of thousands of workers to
one person. Mr. Gerstner, that person is you.
We do not write this letter lightly. We have been loyal to IBM. We
have always worked hard and long hours. Our pensions and
retirement medical are not yours to reduce, they are our earned
deferred compensation.
We are especially concerned because the new pension and limited
medical insurance are particularly a problem for lower-paid
workers.
We would like to remind you that the increase in profit IBM
reports from slashing our pensions is purely an accounting rule
treatment. By law none of the pension trust fund money can be
transferred to IBM. By law, it can only be used for retirees. Yet
IBM has found an ingenious way to use the pension trust fund, not
to help IBM, or even to help the stockholders, but exclusively to
enrich IBM executives.
Here is how the executive enrichment scheme works: (1) IBM
executive incentive compensation is determined by profit. (2) An
accounting rule requires IBM to boost the profit report to the extent
the pension fund has a surplus. (3) IBM increased that surplus by
slashing pensions with a forced cash balance plan conversion.
Thus, slashing the pensions increased the pension fund surplus, and
that increased the profit reported under the accounting rule. That
profit boost helped you meet a profit target and take millions of
dollars of company money for yourself under IBM's executive
incentive compensation program. Other executives also got
millions, as reported in the proxy booklet.
Analysts and institutional investors discount the puffed up profit
from the accounting rule, so stockholders see no rise in stock price
from these manipulations. The only ones to benefit from slashing
pensions are those, like you, who receive executive incentive
compensation. That is why all the institutional investor advisory
services urged support
for the employee-sponsored stockholder resolution last year, and
why it won 28.4% of the vote, the largest vote ever for an IBM
stockholder resolution.
You say that slashing our pensions and retirement medical was to
make the company more competitive. No one believes that. It
seriously hurt IBM. The real purpose was to give you and other
executives yet more millions.
The pension fund accounting rule profit in 2000 was a record high
of $1266 million, up 58% from the $799 million reported in 1999.
15.7% of IBM's after-tax earnings were pension fund accounting
rule profit. The pension trust fund has become IBM's fastest
growing profit center though the profit is only a vapor profit since
no money is transferred to IBM.
The pension fund is overflowing. IBM could use the $69 billion
pension trust, with its $10 billion surplus, for competitive
advantage. IBM could spend the money to provide for retirees
instead of hoarding it to boost executive compensation. This proper
use would help attract and retain talented employees.
All this money remains in the pension fund and can rightfully be
used for no other purpose than to provide retirement benefits. You
can use the surplus to restore all the benefits to IBM employees
without any cost to the IBM company because the money is already
there in the pension fund. The accounting rule manipulation game
to boost executive pay should stop now and executives should
focus attention on actual company operations. Restoring the earned
employee benefits should be an immediate priority.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look
forward to receiving your response.
Sincerely,
James Marc Leas
Sign on to the open letter to Lou Gerstner at
http://members.aol.com/btvpension/endorse.htm
To see the open letter on the web click
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