SOUTH BURLINGTON — About 125 laid-off IBM workers showed up Wednesday morning at the first of four Rapid Response sessions the Vermont Department of Labor has planned to help those who lost their jobs at IBM’s Essex Junction plant last week.
Officials said it was difficult to know how many attendees to expect because they had not received firm numbers from the company. To cover their bases, 200 information packets were prepared for each of Wednesday’s two sessions. Two more meetings are scheduled for 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center on Williston Road in South Burlington.
At least 2,930 layoffs have been counted by the Alliance@IBM, an unofficial union for the corporation’s at-will workers. In 2010, IBM stopped providing a public breakdown of how many employees work at each of its locations. Federal and state thresholds requiring the company to provide firm numbers to the state have not yet been met, said Rose Lucenti, director of workforce development with the Labor Department.
The agency had been hearing rumors of potential layoffs at the microchip manufacturing plant for two to three months, Lucenti said. Officials started focusing their daily jobs inventory on high-tech manufacturing businesses and employers in Chittenden County in anticipation of the pending influx of unemployment claims as a result.
Lucenti and her assistant, David Lahr, said they are encouraged by the number and quality of employers in the state who are looking to hire, either now or soon. They are compiling a list of hiring businesses and will announce a jobs fair in the coming weeks.
The state’s Rapid Response team — primarily experts from the Workforce Development, Unemployment Insurance and Economic and Labor Market Information divisions — handed out packets of information about state resources for unemployment compensation, job placement and retraining assistance, and Vermont labor trends. Wednesday morning’s session lasted nearly three hours, including time for informal questions and answers after the presentation.
In addition to the resources currently available, Lahr said the state is preparing a petition under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program, in response to claims by workers that the layoff was sparked by movement of jobs to other countries. If successful, the petition would yield an investigation into the role foreign competition played in the layoffs. Additional resources may be added at that time to help re-employ the displaced workers.
Worker response
Many in attendance reported that July 12 is the scheduled separation date for most employees. One person said that the company issues two weeks of severance pay for each year of service.
Because this introduces variability into the timing of anticipated unemployment claims, state presenters encouraged workers to call the Labor Department for help deciding the best time to apply for unemployment benefits and file their claims.
Don Sanford and his wife, Heather, have been trying to explain Don Sanford’s layoff to their 19-year-old son, who has autism.
“We told him that it’s like when you mow the lawn,” Heather Sanford said, meaning that once the grass is cut, you can’t do the work again until the grass grows. “I’m not sure how much he understands it,” she said.
Sanford said rumors of “the next big event” are always circulating at the plant. The 43-year-old process technician has been with IBM since he graduated from Vermont Technical College in 1993. His wife attended the information session with him “for moral support,” she said. She primarily stays home to care for their son.
“I’ve been through so many layoffs as a survivor, and seen so many good people lose their jobs. No one is safe … I guess it was just my turn,” Don Sanford said.
The two are uncertain what their next step will be. The information presented was overwhelming, Don Sanford said, “like drinking from a fire hose.”
His dream career would be graphic design. The Sanfords started a graphic design business several years ago, but were discouraged by prank calls, false leads and unpaid invoices for work they had completed.
Sanford said that, of his former co-workers who were laid off previously, many moved out of state. The ones the couple are still in touch with seem happy. “It’s the turmoil and limbo that’s hard,” he said. “It does take a few years to recover.”
Jim Clairmont, 56, is optimistic for his prospects going forward. Clairmont worked his way up from manufacturing through 33 years at IBM. The company trained him as a software engineer in the 1980s, even paying him full-time wages to attend a customized IBM training program for more than half a year.
“Up until this weekend, it was a blur,” Clairmont said. His manager had called him from two aisles away on Wednesday and told him there had been a “resource action” and Clairmont had been “affected.”
“You build your career and the next thing you know, it’s over,” said Jeanne Vinson, who attended the session on behalf of her husband, Karl. She expects that he’ll start “pounding the pavement” right away to look for work, but she doubts he’ll find another opportunity in Vermont to design microchips, as he’s been doing at IBM.
Karl Vinson worked at the Essex Junction facility for 17 years. Despite the pending layoffs, he had felt secure that his position would not be cut. “It’s unsettling,” Jeanne Vinson said.
The couple decided fairly quickly after the layoff notice that they would stay in Vermont for the quality of life, rather than move out of state to pursue his career.
She works part time and said she trusts that they will make it through the jolting change. What frustrates her is the limited information the company provides to the state and the workers about the “resource actions.”
Andy Grab, a systems analyst with IBM for 29 years, said he thought the company was being downright “rude.”
Many attendees asked questions about how their severance pay, pension plans and vacation time would impact their unemployment eligibility and claims. Grab suspected the state would have been able to provide more clear and succinct information for the group if more information about the laid-off workers had been supplied from the company in advance.
“We just wasted an hour going over information that could have taken 15 minutes,” Grab said. “Multiply that hour times the 100 people who were here.” That’s a lot of lost productivity, he said, underscoring the irony of such loss related to a company very focused on worker productivity.
Some attendees were reluctant to speak with the media for fear it would negatively impact their chances of being rehired. IBM provided many workers a 30-day “grace period” during which a laid-off employee can apply for another job within the company — although prospects for new hiring are slim to none, they say.
Worker resources
Workers who have been given notice that they’ll be laid off are encouraged to call the Labor Department as soon as possible to discuss the best timing for their unemployment application and claims.
Lahr emphasized that the state’s resources are appropriate for workers at all levels of employment, whether manufacturing or executive. He also stressed that much of the hiring interest his office is hearing from businesses reveals the “hidden” job market — employers who may not be ready to hire yet, or who have not publicly posted positions.
