Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Question

What happens if somebody who was with AT&T and is now being forced to work for IBM is laid off after a year? Do they get the severance they would have been entitled to here or do they get a big, fat zero?

I'm assuming it's the second one. Which makes me think this is all a big ploy for AT&T to get rid of a bunch of employees without having to pay us severance...

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| 3444 views | | 20 replies (last July 20, 2019) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+106BsucA

20 replies (most recent on top)

People within 24 months of MR75 are getting MTP, it's the people >25 months close to retirement that are getting screwed the hardest.

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Post ID: @2hjo+106BsucA

Chump change, close to a big fat zero,

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Post ID: @2sms+106BsucA

IBM holds large defense contracts. The best thing to do is tp try and transfer into one of those, get your clearance, use that to get a better job and tell them to kiss your a– on the way out. Working for IBM in the commerical sector is no better than a temp job. They have train your replacement who is getting paid half and has at least two master’s degrees.

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Post ID: @hic+106BsucA

Dude, severance is only a small part. That’s capped at 6 months pay, top end. But so many people are being hit within a year or 2 of MR75 and thus getting a much smaller potential lump sum option. I know i’ll miss out on hundreds of thousands dollars by being separated from the company before MR75. That doesn’t affect everybody..depends on your original company. (Cingular, SBC, Ameritech, etc). But my pension loss dwarfs the severance loss..

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Post ID: @yug+106BsucA

If you refuse to transfer basically it means you quit your job and there is no severance, no unemployment, and no more pay checks !!!!

T / sbc has been doing this for many years whether it is sending people to ibm, Accenture, amdocs or others. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time

Best of luck my friend

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Post ID: @oco+106BsucA

@gmy, no.

If you get fired from IBM in the 1st 12 months, you get nothing. If you leave voluntarily, you get nothing other than the pay you got to that date. If you cruise by and don't run afoul of any PIP triggers, you get 12 months of a paid job.

After that 12 months (starting around 9 months in) you will either be offered a permanent job with IBM or not. If you are not, you get nothing.

Only if you become a permanent employee would you get the IBM ISAP offer which maxes out at 1 month of pay and get to keep your insurance for 1 year at employee cost.

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Post ID: @jxn+106BsucA

@trk, you mean we’ll but your short answer doesn’t tell us a whole lot.
Who’s question are you answering?
One month Severance..... from IBM?
Under what conditions? Before the 12 months are up?
What happens if you refuse to transfer? What is T’s responsibilities to Surplus, if any?

You created more questions than you answered. Many of us weren’t on that call so any accurate details would be nice!

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Post ID: @tsh+106BsucA

They answered this just now. You get 1 month severance

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Post ID: @trk+106BsucA

Post ID: @106BsucA-nqx Excellent points. While this leadership group doesn’t seem to know what to do with new businesses they do have years of experience with downsizing. While a lot of us seemed to brush off the announcement 5 years ago about 2020 I would bet that plans, backup plans and backup to backup plans were being formulated. Probably didn’t include some of the recent acquisitions and some of the technology that has come about the groundwork was being laid. And there will probably be some litigation that goes against them but that wouldn’t be the first time. Wouldn’t surprise me if money wasn’t set aside for that eventually.

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Post ID: @hum+106BsucA

If IBM lays you off in the first 12 months, you will get 6 months of severance as if AT&T did that. After 12 months, it's 2 weeks of severance. That's what I heard which jives with the 12 months of work that IBM is promising. So after one year and one day will be when layoffs start to occur.

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Post ID: @gmy+106BsucA

And so the plot thickens, if the ‘work in place’ statement is accurate T eliminates the 50+ miles from work excuse, as T employees would then be considered IBMers going forward working side by side with there AT&T colleagues.....at least for 12 months.

At the risk of repeating what I said in a previous thread, AT&T quietly went about their business. They knew the ATT Layoffs board complaints, the cries for severance, pay me to leave and I will leave. But they had a game plan that caught all of us off guard.....we were out maneuvered and our jaws dropped.

We were herded into CZ’s for a purpose, reason and logic seemed to take a back seat, but there definitely was a reason! It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that most WFH’s were Tech Dev, and some Tech Devs still remain that we’re not immediately impacted.

What’s T’s next move.....I won’t even venture a guess anymore, I was never good at Chess.

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Post ID: @nqx+106BsucA

@skd
Will be interesting to watch this play out. More calls today, but as of now the affected ees are being told they will not have to move...including those with a T office, for probably the next 12 months. Stay exactly where you are, with your current team, doing pretty much the same thing with same pay...just a different badge. At least for the next 12 months.

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Post ID: @zcz+106BsucA

@skd, you responded to my original post, and I hope that’s the case. I imagine we’ll get some feedback from those that will not take the offer that fit the criteria you put forward....time will reveal that story.
Thanks for the input.

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Post ID: @zfb+106BsucA

@mys
"Figure this way, as long as T is offering a job for you to go to, no matter what company or what state, you have a simple choice, make the transfer or refuse. At that juncture T has ‘fulfilled its obligation’ and is not responsible to payout severance should you refuse the transfer. "

This statement not necessarily true per the language in the current management severance plan, available for review on HR OneStop, and per precedent set with surplus events over the last couple years. When one elected to stay the additional 60 days in order to find another opportunity, if they were offered a position greater than 50 miles from their current one, if they declined it, they remained eligible for severance (within 50 miles they had to take it or lose severance eligibility).

Additionally, per the language in the plan:

"An individual is an “Eligible Employee” and is eligible for benefits under this Plan, if the individual:

  1. is selected for involuntary termination by the Participating Company, including as a direct result of force surplus, technological, operational, organizational and/or structural changes affecting the Company or a Participating Company

To me as an ATO employee...if they are telling you that you need to start reporting to a location greater than 50 miles away, and you decline, it seems clear this should be classified as "involuntary termination" per that language...as a direct result of organizational or structural changes, and you should still be entitled to severance.

Though they will not answer the question yet. Which leads me to believe they may be "revising" the severance plan. In any case I think they may be looking at some legal challenges if the end game is indeed just to cheat folks of their severance.

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Post ID: @skd+106BsucA

MAX IBM severance is one month of pay regardless of years of service. when you RA as many as 70k a year like IBM you can'y afford to give any more.

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Post ID: @vxn+106BsucA

You’ll get the severance of what an employee with one year of service at IBM would be entitled to. Maybe 2 weeks pay? Maybe?

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Post ID: @ooy+106BsucA

Figure this way, as long as T is offering a job for you to go to, no matter what company or what state, you have a simple choice, make the transfer or refuse. At that juncture T has ‘fulfilled its obligation’ and is not responsible to payout severance should you refuse the transfer.

Since I didn’t make the first wave, of what I believe to be multiple Tech Dev transfers, I would be open to alternative possibilities to my statement should I be wrong.

To those directly impacted in the call yesterday, best of luck to you.

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Post ID: @mys+106BsucA

If it were me I'd treat it as a 12 month severance and focus on looking for a new job immediately. Because that's exactly what T is doing...laying 9k people off without paying a penny of severance!

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Post ID: @hds+106BsucA

Same exact thing with forcing people to work over 50 miles from their current work location. Hoping you'll quit. A means to additional attrition.

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Post ID: @nao+106BsucA

You answered your own question. That’s the plan!

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Post ID: @msg+106BsucA

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