Union and Management Relations

Synopsis

Union and management Relations

In an effort to strengthen strategically and cut costs in its application services, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) plans to outsource its programming jobs from the U.S. to China, India, and other countries. The motive to transfer programming jobs offshore is to win new contracts in high-growth areas like Business Transformation Outsourcing. IBM is striving to become the technology outsourcer of choice for global business. Their new core value is outsourcing their non-core activities and focusing on what they do best in the US. That is, innovating new technologies and providing better and more cost-effective solutions for their customers. "What we're about with this is giving customers business flexibility to do what they need to do, to do it quickly, and when they're done, to stop paying for it," said Craig Nygard, an IBM technology adviser to business executives (Dalesio, 2004) . The labor union is planning to take action against the transformation of jobs overseas and is requesting that employees refuse to train their replacement workers.

The relevancy of the IBM and Global Communications situations is that both management and Union failed to compromise their positions to benefit the welfare of the employees. In both cases Union and management did not effectively work together on a problem solving solution before announcing their outsourcing plans to the public. In a statement by IBM, they expect to hire next year in the United States to equal or increase over 2003 levels. So, although they are currently outsourcing they are hoping the outcome of this will eventually mean more jobs back in the US. IBM’s