May 7--Could IBM lay off between 100,000 to 150,000 employees this year, which would be virtually all of its employees in the United States?
That is what a popular technology columnist, Robert X. Cringely, wrote in the latest of his "I, Cringely" pieces published on the Public Broadcasting System Web site.
He cites his "many friends at Big Blue" as telling him that part of IBM's new LEAN project is to cut 100,000 to 150,000 jobs in its Global Services division. He says last week's layoff of 1,300 employees -- eight in Rochester -- was a "rehearsal" for the coming cuts.
At the end of 2006, IBM reported having 355,766 employees worldwide, 128,000 in the United States and 4,400 in Rochester.
Rochester City Council member Bob Nowicki, who retired from IBM in 1992, said the column's predictions did not really shock him.
"With the IBM of today, anything is possible," he said this morning. "With the way they have been operating today, it wouldn't surprise me."
While the theory of IBM using LEAN to gut its workforce matched his own thoughts, Lee Conrad of the union organization trying to organize IBM workers says the 150,000 number undercuts its credibility.
"150,000 is absurd. That would be virtually every IBM employee -- including management -- in the U.S.," Conrad said this morning. "Everybody is talking about it (the column)."
His group, The Alliance at IBM, did post a copy of the column on its Web site. Conrad said the part of the column about LEAN was "right on."
Cringely wrote, "LEAN is about offshoring and outsourcing at a rate never seen before at IBM. For two years Big Blue has been ramping up its operations in India and China with what I have been told is the ultimate goal of laying off at least one American worker for every overseas hire."
While Cringely's numbers are out of line, Conrad did say his group is expecting big cuts this month and in June.
This is not the first time a Cringely piece has stirred up the technology community. In a PBS documentary called Triumph of the Nerds, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told him that Microsoft makes mediocre products.
Cringely, whose real name is Mark Stephens, has called Jobs a sociopath and Microsoft founder Bill Gates a megalomaniac. He also wrote the book, "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date."
