'Tis the Season... For Layoffs
Over the last ten years, whether in reality or in rumor, the holiday season in my hometown was all too often marked by conversations about layoffs rather than carrols about reindeer.
Endicott is inhabited by the most honest and hardest working people I know; the type of people who Santa should seek to reward during the holidays. It has been a working-class town since the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory was built there many decades ago, and it later became the birthplace of IBM, which eventually employed thousands of workers in its microelectronics manufacturing facilities.
IBM was a phenomenal employer and a highly respected citizen of the community. When I was young, my parents, both IBM employees at one point, would take me to sit on Santa's lap at the company Christmas party in a huge cafeteria at the IBM country club, which was packed with virtually everyone from town.
Once I was older, the annual Christmas party was replaced by the annual stirrings from the rumor mill. The information technology industry, and IBM's position within it, were changing dramatically, and a huge manufacturing workforce became unsustainable. Bit by bit, that workforce has been whittled down from many thousand Endicott residents to almost none.
The holiday layoff rumors were often just that - rumors wedged between actual announcements that had come in the summer or would be coming in the spring. But in 2001, just a few days after Thanksgiving, IBM announced plans to lay off 1,000 of its workers, including 400 in town.
Most of the people I knew who were laid off from IBM at that time or another took the setback with an attitude that I would expect from my fellow Endicott natives. They saw it as a challenge and an opportunity and they worked as hard as they could with what they had to overcome it. But the inspiration to be gained from such perserverence does not diminish the difficulty of finding a pink slip in your stocking.
And that it why I am writing to send my thoughts to the workers who will be affected by the recent announcements from General Motors and Merck that their workforces will be slashed by 30,000 and 7,000 respectively. As you look for that perfect gift to give this year, do not underestimate the appreciation of a positive attitude maintained in the face of adversity.
IBM was a phenomenal employer and a highly respected citizen of the community. Josh Riley
Shame Microsoft ate its lunch, eh? Bunch of self-satisfied, unimaginative drones
November 28, 2005 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Endicott, Binghamton and the entire Southern Tier of New York have just been destroyed first by the shoe and funiture makers leaving then IBM and Link. Despite a lot of lipservice no governor has put forth a serious idea for rejuvenating the region.
November 28, 2005 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
Despite rwcox123's rating, I've got to agree with you. Look at the companies' stock prices while the battle was gpoing on:
August 1987 August 1993
IBM 175.88 40.63
MSFT 10.14(split adj.) 91.25
November 28, 2005 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 28, 2005 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that it was IBM who asked Microsoft to write PC/DOS for their entry-level IBM PC in 1980. Unlike prior IBM efforts in computing where they did EVERYTHING in-house and had proprietary hardware and software bundled together as a package, the PC was thrown together using off-the-shelf components by their Atlanta Systems Division.
Eventually, all their hardware was cloned, because nothing was proprietary, and Bill Gates released MS/DOS because he was smart enough to put that clause in the contract.
Always bet on the quick over the big.
November 28, 2005 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Microsoft has been good at exploiting it's Windows OS hairball, and what else? Bronto1
So, your argument would be that an internationally dominant technology company with huge financial resources behind it which lost out to a start-up whose sole product was a "hairball" is proof of? What?
I know. Such a history clearly bespeaks an enterprise run by smart, agressive, and innovative managers.
November 28, 2005 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Bunch of self-satisfied, unimaginative drones" ELLEN
-s that despite the 40,000 active patents worldwide?
Ah Ellen I love you playing one of us "lefties". You can continue simply trolling your way through this site as a faux lefty yet it is very clear through your hostile and fiery writting that you are an unrepentant conservative so why not play it in an honest way. Please write your first Diary so we can appreciate your overall lefty philosophy.
IBM has been a model company that has been enormously successful in almost every dimension one can think of for a corporation. They did had to retool their business model with the advent of the PC and the internet but they never resorted to predatory methods that made Microsoft well hated in their own industry. Microsoft never achieved the national and internatinal admiration and respect that IBM did despite their market valuation and huge income stream. Ask yourself why?
November 28, 2005 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there's an element in most of us that enjoys watching the big names fall. IBM, GM, US Steel, we revel in the decline of the big bad corporation. That is unless you are personally affected. Look at the statements about GM's decline, the vitriolic hatred in the blogoshere is amazing. Even progressives begrudging the pay and benefits the unions have fought long and hard to gain. "Its their fault, they make too much money" shit they could even afford to send their kids to college and retire after working for thirty years. The right wingnuts are worse, but the progressives are nearly as bad. Where is the empathy, where is the pride in the common man and woman succeeding.
Oh never mind, this day in age empathy for your fellow man is a lost cause. The right has managed to shift the debate so far that we as progressives actually cheer when the mighty fall and take our sisters and brothers, moms and dads, husbands and wives down with them.
November 28, 2005 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The autoamakers were kings in their day and the unions workedd to share in the wealth that was created.
The workers were entitled to participate in the whole enterprise. I agree with you that there was a rather odd sense of "they got their comeupance" for thinking they could live the American dream by working in a factory.
What I also find sad is there were so many signs that the management and the unions needed to work much smarter to produce more economically products that functioned to a new global standard. They just couldn't wake up from their dreams of the past. I'm not sure they have yet.
November 28, 2005 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Bunch of self-satisfied, unimaginative drones" ELLEN
-s that despite the 40,000 active patents worldwide? MariaTX
And where do you think IBM got (stole?) those patents from, hmm?
Until you learn, MariaTX, to distinguish between the corporation and its employees, don't even imagine you're qualified to talk to a real lefty.
N.B. Oh, and by the way, ask Bernie Sanders and IBM's former employees, now retirees, what they think of Lou Gerstner's and Sam Palmisano's IBM. As between Bernie Sanders' idea of a leftist and yours, I think I'll stick with Sanders'.
November 29, 2005 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen -
Please cite where you learned where they stole the 40,000 patents from?
The corporation is a product of both the leadership and the employees. The impact each has is very different depending on the corporate philosophy, governance,ownership, mission, values...many things. There are many corporations where the employees are proud to be affilaited with the company and many more where this is not the case. Corporations can be as different as people posting on this site. As different as you and me!
I in no way have supported everything that IBM has decided. My brother worked for many years for them and lost his position in one of their many downsizings under Gerstner. On the other hand they are very different animals (despite MSFT's higher present market valuation).
What is the connection between your championing MSFT and your supposed lefty leanings?
Is Bernie Sanders your lefty touch?
November 29, 2005 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink