Union movement at IBM has found little traction

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090503/BUSINESS01/905030343/Union+movement+at+IBM+has+found+little+traction

Employee activist group was formed a decade ago after the company changed its pension rules and triggered an uproar

By Julie Moran Alterio • Gannett News Service • May 3, 2009

When Earl Mongeon stood up at IBM Corp.'s annual meeting this past Tuesday in Miami Beach, Fla., to make a speech in defense of a shareholder resolution on executive pay, he was surrounded by about 200 investors, employees and retirees. But he was also alone.

Mongeon was the sole member of the Alliance@IBM employee activist group who traveled to Miami Beach for this year's annual meeting, a dramatic change from earlier this decade when dozens of workers rallied with pro-union placards bearing slogans such as "Offshore the CEO."

It's been 10 years since the Alliance was formed in the wake of IBM's May 1999 announcement it would switch most of its U.S. work force out of traditional and into cash-balance pensions effective that July.

In a traditional pension, employees accrue most of their benefits in the last years of work. In a cash-balance plan, a company contributes annually to a portable pension fund.

IBM's move sparked a whirlwind of controversy, complete with protests, congressional hearings, a class-action lawsuit and support from figures such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader. It also turned longtime employees such as Mongeon into activists.

"I was very angry to see what my lump-sum pension was going to be," Mongeon recalled. "It didn't even equal one year of salary I was making at the time. It was disheartening to think I'd have to live on this the rest of my life."

FULL 3 page story at link.