I’ve been pretty easy on IBM since the big layoff news last year. I just kind of took their behavior toward employees (regular layoffs to ‘thin the herd’) as typical of the way business is in the US now. IBM choosing to cut 8,000 employees’ pay by 15% in response to lawsuits seems particularly callous, detached and oblivious (at first I had dastardly but it made me smile too much for this instance). Anyhow, IBM stands to save $5,000,000 by making this change. That’s million with an M. IBM has sales around the $100 Billion with a B. Admired companies don’t act this way. I get the impression that IBM is concerned only with the perception of behaving admirably, but not really being a company worthy of admiration. Before doing something like that, top brass should ask themselves if they would admire it if they saw it in another company. It’s tacky to brag about record earnings and then cut the pay for the people responsible. I understand the plight of companies like Ford who need to fix an unsustainable cost structure, but this really is a different animal. I can’t defend this.

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