IBM Japan workers union protests corporate split

IBM Japan workers union on December 25 staged a protest in front of the IBM Fujisawa plant in Kanagawa Prefecture against the company's decision to transfer 800 workers of its hard disk division without their consent to a subsidiary the company established that day.

IBM Japan split the hard disk division and established the 100-percent IBM-owned subsidiary Storage Technology.

The 800 workers will work in the subsidiary under the same working conditions as in the IBM division.

But the subsidiary will give all its stocks to a holding company of Hitachi Ltd. on December 30 to become a joint venture subsidiary of IBM Japan and Hitachi.

IBM Japan's management in collective bargaining with the All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers' Union (JMIU) IBM Japan branch said that IBM Japan will have nothing to do with the management of Hitachi's holding company and its workers' working conditions.

An IBM Japan's managing director said that working conditions may be worse in the new company.

Akahata on December 26 pointed out that the reason IBM Japan established the subsidiary and will keep it in existence for only five days is that this is a lawful way of worsening the 800 workers' working conditions.

An IBM Japan worker and JMIU member blamed IBM Japan for shifting the responsibility for mismanagement onto the workers.

The JMIU branch will complain to the Yokohama District Court, calling for the 800 workers' working conditions as IBM Japan workers to be maintained even after they are transferred to another company. (end)