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The union Unión Informática at IBM, Argentina, affiliated with the much larger labour federation, CGT will go on strike on July 28, 2011. Workers will pacifically demonstrate in front of the firm's building in Catalinas to claim for a minimum salary of 4500$, equal pay for equal work and the payment and recognition of seniority.



The bargaining unit is only a few months old and already has a membership of 500, despite the company's threats to workers who wanted to join. Pay increases of only 0%-1% in 2009, 8% in 2010 and 14%, can't compensate for the threatening of moving work to India and the refusal of management to negotiate with the union. Especially in a country where the rate of inflation is running at 20% annually and where IBM offers an average salary of 3500$ to 80% of its employees according to Unión Informática.



Even the general country manager admitted in a video that "there is a salary problem" but doesn't explain how he will solve it. For example, an HR employee who has been hired via the temporary agency Adecco earns 2900$ after 5 years in the company. In fact, "temporary" workers that stay longer in the company are not entitled to annual pay rise for inflation or seniority that others may receive.



Newly hired employees receive on average a 20 to 70% higher wage than their more experienced counterparts but due to the salary freeze policy of IBM, this advantage vanishes after some time. On top of that, extra hours and days worked during bank holidays are not compensated! And this policy affects the 9000 IBMers working in Argentina.



Last May, the ministry of Labour called the company to start negotiations on working conditions, without any tangible result. The behavior of IBM deeply contrasts with its will to be seen by its clients as a "fully integrated company" and its regular internal emails which tells employees how fantastic it is to work for Big Blue. This is even more disappointing if one considers that the firm grew 8% last year in a market that only grew 2%.



Please find more information in Spanish here.



http://tiempo.elargentino.com/notas/trabajadores-denuncian-que-ibm-precarizacion-es-ley,



http://tiempo.elargentino.com/notas/ibm-reconoce-que-existe-retraso-salario-de-sus-trabajadores