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Several trade unions will meet at UNI’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland on 5 and 6 May 2011 to form the "IBM Global Union Alliance”. Various unions have worked together over the years, but the new organization "takes that network to another level and will include many more IBM unions”. Recently, new trade unions have been formed in Argentina, Chile and Bulgaria.

"As IBM has set itself up as a truly global company, trade unions also need to set up a truly global alliance," the group said. Doug Shelton, a spokesman for IBM, declined to comment.

The networking among unions around the globe representing IBM workers dates to the 1980s, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. If unions work in solidarity globally, Bronfenbrenner said, "I think they can get something."

The unions' objectives are to pursue agreements with IBM to improve working conditions of IBM employees worldwide and to raise levels of trade union membership at IBM. UNI is expecting participants from all over the world to come together to better coordinate trade union work in IBM globally; to reinforce cooperation and solidarity.

Some of the themes that will be addressed include industrial relations and workers' representation at IBM. Another major issue will be the transformation of the firm and its possible impacts on the workforce as illustrated by the story below.

In fact, IBM is developing an application called Liquid Portal, where freelance developers compete for one-time assignments that pay a nominal amount of cash.

Apparently, there is a huge push by executives, particularly in AMS to start running competitions on Liquid Portal. It's clear that VP/Director bonuses depend on it. This is how it works: development teams are being required to parcel out their project requirements as competitions on Liquid Portal. They must create specifications and run competitions rather than do the work themselves. The core developments are then left to try to integrate the disjointed deliverables and deal with the continuous training and inefficiency that comes with the lack of continuity. The ultimate plan will be to RA full time developers and allow them to return to compete for short-term assignments through Liquid Portal, which will eventually be an external application.

This is in line with IBM’s declaration in an interview to Personnel Today magazine that the firm’s global workforce of 399,000 permanent employees could be reduced to 100,000 by 2017. The firm would then re-hire the workers as contractors for specific projects as and when necessary. This is a new concept called “crowd sourcing”, aiming at a reduction of costs (in terms of infrastructure, pensions, and healthcares).

Please go to the meeting section of our website or the “related article” section of this article if you are looking for more information on this issue.

This interview was first published in the Poughkeepsie Journal