Technology

IBM Workers Protest CEO's Offer to Cooperate with Trump

Paul Ausick

Published: December 20, 2016 12:05 pm

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 4:35 pm

On November 15, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump congratulating him on his win and offering six agenda items for the incoming administration. That letter has now spawned a petition campaign among IBM employees who were disappointed that Rometty’s letter “did not reaffirm” the company’s core values.

The core values the petition refers to are “diversity, inclusiveness, and ethical business conduct” that “differentiate IBM as a company and us collectively as IBMers.”

The petition, posted at Coworker.org, cites a 1953 letter from company president Thomas Watson making clear to governors in southern U.S. states that IBM would not abide by then-legal “separate, but equal” statutes in order to build new facilities in the South. The petition also notes that “Watson sacrificed short-term business interests in order to be on the right side of history.”

The petition includes the following requests:

For our mutual aid and protection, we petition you to do what is right for IBMers, our business, and society, on the basis of equitable treatment and fairness:

(1) Respect our right to refuse participation in any U.S. contracts that violate constitutional and civil liberties.

(2) Expand our diversity recruitment programs specifically targeting women, people of color, and LGBT people with the goal of doubling recruitment of these groups in 2017 and steadily increasing the share of these groups as a proportion of new hiring in subsequent years.

(3) Prohibit perceived influence-peddling of elected officials by restricting IBM and its employees from using any Trump owned or Trump branded properties for business purposes, in accordance with the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines.

(4) Treat established workers with dignity by restoring the 2015 Individual Separation Allowance Plan that provided severance based on years of employment instead of the current one-month severance plan for all employees, regardless of time served.

(5) Make IBM retirement plan contributions equitable by restoring company 401k match contributions to regular pay cycles instead of a one-time, year-end contribution that is contingent on being employed as of December 15 of the calendar year, which is not fair to employees who are laid off before that date.

The first three of these requests are directly aimed at Rometty’s measured response to Trump’s election. Former IBM content strategist Elizabeth Wood quit her job with the company shortly after Rometty’s letter was posted on an IBM website. Wood said, in part:

The president-elect has demonstrated contempt for immigrants, veterans, people with disabilities, Black, Latinx, Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQ communities. These groups comprise a growing portion of the company you lead, Ms. Rometty. … When the president-elect follows through on his repeated threats to create a public database of Muslims, what will IBM do? Your letter neglects to mention. … It is my belief that you owe your staff and the president-elect a public clarification on IBM’s commitment to the protection and representation of all of its employees.

According to the Coworker.org website, the petition had gathered 100 signatures as of Monday. IBM employed 377,000 people worldwide at the end of 2015. The company said last week that it planned to hire 25,000 new U.S. employees by 2020.