IBM Australia is facing industrial action at its Baulkham Hills site. The complaint was lodged to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) by the Australian Services Union (ASU) in June 2008 and heard in July 2008. IBM objected to the ASU representing the Baulkan Hills employees.

The employees want a collective agreement that guarantees pay rises, leave, allowances and other protection of entitlements. IBM has not totally ignored the workers dispute, attending a meeting with them, but has not indicated any willingness to meet their demands.

IBM refused to attend a second meeting with the Union regarding the matter.

This is the first real industrial action taken by employees in the Information Technology (IT) industry in Australia. What can the employees hope to achieve by doing this? The best outcome that I can see is an agreement to give pay increases based on inflation. The more likely result is that the employees will be ignored, fired or made redundant.

IBM is one organisation that can simply close a facility and shift the workload to one of its other local or foreign facilities.

I only hope that this action isn’t simply an attempt to flex union muscle at IBM employees expense.

(Source: ZDnet News)