The Tribune carried some good news today. CWA is organizing IBM workers! Looks like the 600 new jobs bound for Columbia may be good paying jobs with union benefits. Nice.
Griggs: Many will be locals.
A union group that watches IBM employment numbers contends the company that is about to put down stakes in Columbia is simply shifting jobs, not creating them.
“To us, it’s just like musical chairs,” said Lee Conrad, national coordinator for IBM@Alliance, a chapter of the Communication Workers of America Local 1701. Conrad’s organization is seeking collective bargaining rights for IBM workers.
Conrad’s interest was peaked May 17 when IBM officials joined Gov. Jay Nixon and a collection of local economic development leaders in announcing that the company planned to locate a technical service delivery center in Columbia. With the lure of some $30 million in state and local economic incentives, IBM plans to hire as many as 600 workers by the end of 2012.
But Conrad said IBM has been cutting positions in the United States and sending those positions to India and other countries. Conrad said IBM has eliminated 14,000 jobs across the country in just the past year and a half.
“There are thousands of people losing jobs,” Conrad said, “then there’s a lot of glitter and hoopla over job creation in another location. That’s just contradictory.”
IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said this morning the company does not comment on “speculation, rumor and/or opinions. … We’ve made no announcements about total number of cuts anywhere. Numbers that are out there are not the correct numbers.”
What are the correct numbers?
“We don’t provide head count other than global head count,” Shelton said, noting that the latest IBM global head count is 399,409.
Yesterday, Conrad circulated an e-mail with the subject line “Reality Check” that contends that when IBM opened a service delivery center last year in Dubuque, Iowa, employees who were going to be displaced at other IBM facilities — in what IBM called “resource action” — had been told they could keep their jobs if they moved to Dubuque.
Other published reports and information on Conrad’s website claim that IBM has a history of pulling up stakes after meeting tax break requirements to look in other states for another hefty incentive package.
There are some requirements for IBM. For the company to get the $8.6 million in tax credits through the Missouri Build Program, it has to hire 600 workers. In order to keep the city’s $1-a-year lease, those 600 jobs have to be maintained.
Officials with Regional Economic Development, Inc., which helped broker the deal, have said offering an attractive incentive package was essential to bringing IBM to the city.
The anticipated number of jobs — possibly as many as 800 — could produce an annual payroll of some $44 million. REDI President Mike Brooks has outlined a litany of economic benefits that could result, from higher property tax collections for Columbia Public Schools to increased retail activity and sales tax collections for city and county governments.
Shelton also took exception to comments that could dampen Columbia’s excitement over IBM’s arrival.
“I would have to ask if 800 jobs in Columbia, Mo., is a good thing or not?” he asked.
“I’m not talking about turning down jobs,” Conrad said. “I’m talking about making sure there’s some kind of accountability” for IBM’s employment numbers. “Let’s put people to work, but let’s not terminate people on one hand and then hire on another. And don’t call that job creation. It’s job-shifting.”
REDI Chairman Dave Griggs said IBM plans to hire at least 90 percent of its work force from within a 60-mile radius.
“Those people do not work for the company today,” he said. “That’s going to be 720 of local Central Missourians who work for this company. That’s not job-shifting.”
Reach Jodie Jackson Jr. at 573-815-1713 or e-mail jjackson@columbiatribune.com.
This article was published on page A16 of the Wednesday, May 26, 2010 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.
No comments:
Post a Comment