Storm clouds over Essex Junction

Oh boy, here we go…

Vermont state government is preparing for the possibility of layoffs at IBM’s plant in Essex…

…the employee group Alliance@IBM says workers are girding for a reduction in force at the Essex facility following the technology giant’s unexpectedly low quarterly earnings report – and some cuts reportedly already have been made.

Last November, I brought you the prediction of a respected technology journalist that IBM — which has drastically cut its American workforce over the past several years — was planning a further 78% cut by the year 2015.

Yes, that’s seventy-eight percent. Four out of every five workers, gonzo.

In the wake of this week’s Alliance@IBM statement, Governor Shumlin is trying to stay positive, although he sounds much less sanguine than he did when he responded to my November post by asserting his belief that Essex Junction would survive. Now, he’s channeling Sergeant Schultz:

“If they’re going to do layoffs, as you know, they don’t pre-announce. I don’t know anything that I haven’t read in the paper,” he said. “We haven’t heard anything from IBM. Nothing. Not a word.”

And they won’t, either. Not until the hammer falls and the word begins to leak out, worker by worker. Because that’s how IBM rolls.

It doesn’t pre-announce layoffs; it often keeps each individual layoff below 500 to avoid triggering government reporting requirements; it doesn’t reveal the size of any individual job action. (The only numbers of any sort are Alliance@IBM’s estimates.) It won’t even tell you how many American workers it employs — or the size of its workforce at any individual location. The Burlington Freeploid tried and failed to determine how many people work at Essex Junction:

The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce’s description of the local IBM plant says it has 5,400 employees.

[Alliance@IBM’s Lee] Conrad placed the number of employees at the chip design and manufacturing facility closer to 3,600 – down from a record high of 8,500 in 2001.

Yikes. I guess that explains why IBM has stopped revealing its workforce: the numbers are too embarrassing. And they reveal the truth about IBM in Vermont. The question “Will IBM stay or go?” has already been answered; they’re 60% gone already, and that percentage will grow before the end of this month.

The Governor claims to be “ready to rock” with guidance programs for laid-off IBMers. But how prepared are we for the almost certain prospect that IBM may be completely gone in a few years’ time, or will at best be a mere shadow of its former self? How prepared is the state for the economic impact on Chittenden County, which is the driver of Vermont’s economy?  

9 thoughts on “Storm clouds over Essex Junction

  1. from the Circ highway to Vermont Yankee.

    And now they are continuing their exodus from Vermont, not because of local energy costs, not because of slow local commutes; but simply because they can.

    Bye-bye U.S. jobs.

  2. …Dean, Sanders, Douglas, Leahy, you name ’em, should have been working on a replacement for IBM.  They’ve been screwing around with Vermont for a long time.  Now they’re going totally INDIAN (or wherever they’re going) and we still have the PAY IBM TO STAY SYNDROME.  Pay ’em this year, and they’ll fuck us next year.  It would be worth some tax increases for the rich in Vermont if invested in two enterprises to replace IBM and Vermont Yankee.

  3. What’s going on locally is that the Essex Junction plant is being deliberately allowed to obsolesce: little or no new technology is installed, and the plant has become a “legacy” manufacturer, primarily serving users of older tech.

    The newer tech and the jobs are going to the big and relatively recently upgraded plant in Fishkill, NY.

    NanuqFC

    Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay. ~ John K. Galbraith

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