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| schestowitz[TR2] | "Management’s hope for business as usual in 2027 | Nov 07 07:00 |
|---|---|---|
| schestowitz[TR2] | Dear Colleagues, | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | At the Budget and Finance Committee meeting of 28 and 29 October, the Office tabled a draft budget for 2027 hoping for a return to business as usual: “In 2027, the Office expects productivity to increase to 121 products per FTE, an increase of 5.4% compared to 2026, a year in which productivity was suppressed as a consequence of industrial action.” In addition, the document boasts “a decrease of expenses related to the accru | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | al of pension rights […] driven by the introduction of the new salary adjustment procedure as of 2027 and the associated reduction in the expect long-term salary evolution from eurozone +0.2% to eurozone inflation +0.0%”. Conversely, the document features an increased budget for cooperation activities with the Member States. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | In the meeting, the administration presented the solid financial position of the Office, including a liability coverage increasing at an impressively rapid pace, with the pension funding reaching 120.5% at the end of 2025, well above the target of 105%. The Office never presented beforehand the corresponding report from the actuaries, and their attempt to avoid discussions on the subject comes as no surprise since staff representat | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | ion have repeatedly expressed their position that the increase in pension contributions was excessive and unjustified. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Some delegations took the floor to highlight that the pension schemes are fully funded and to request that the Council discuss the distribution of the surpluses to Member States at its next meeting on 9 and 10 December. During the same meeting, delegates will also vote in a confidential session on Mr Campinos’ re-election for a third term, which requires a three-quarters majority. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Staff representation reminded delegates that, since 2005, total staff costs had consistently accounted for between 65% and 72% of operational income, but are now projected to fall to around 50% by 2031. This reflects the Office’s decision to invest less in its most valuable asset: its staff. In 2018, the Office introduced the 5+5 year fixed-term contract employment system, relying on its immunity from national labour laws and jus | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | tifying the measure on the grounds of an allegedly precarious financial situation. Today, however, the Organisation is generating substantial surpluses. In this context, staff representation called on delegates to abolish the 5+5 system as a measure to share the stability achieved with the workforce who secured it. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | As in previous meetings, the administration maintained its dismissive stance, seeking to downplay the impact of industrial action rather than address its underlying causes. The administration also expressed the hope that this year’s salary adjustment would bring industrial action to an end. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Staff representation reiterated that financial sustainability must go hand in hand with social stability, underpinned by meaningful social dialogue, which is currently sorely lacking. Ultimately, it will be EPO staff who decide what 2027 will look like. | Nov 07 07:00 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | The interventions of the staff representation annexed to this PDF version." | Nov 07 07:00 |
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| schestowitz[TR2] | Nov 07 09:13 | |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <li> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <h5><a href="https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/onlyoffice-desktop-editors-10.html">OnlyOffice Desktop Editors 10 - Very close to a ten</a></h5> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <blockquote> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <p>For me, the world of software is binary. There's an ecosystem in which you can easily open Word documents, and the one where you can't. That's all there is to being able to break one's dependency on Windows, if a person wishes to explore foreign pastures. Or rather, it comes down to where and how you can Microsoft Office, so you can use its ubiquitous file formats and share them with whoev | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | er you work or collaborate with. This de-facto monopoly remains. The likes of LibreOffice, my favorite office suite, hasn't solved it. </p> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </blockquote> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </li> | Nov 07 09:13 |
| -TechBytesBot/#techbytes-www.dedoimedo.com | OnlyOffice Desktop Editors 10 - Very close to a ten | Nov 07 09:13 | |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <li> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <h5><a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/aaron-swartzs-legacy-lives-on-but-who-profits-from-it">Aaron Swartz's legacy lives on, but who profits from it?M.</a></h5> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <blockquote> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <p>One of Swartz's most important technical contributions was his collaboration with John Gruber on Markdown, the simple text formatting system introduced in 2004. Markdown allows users to create structured documents using ordinary text, without requiring proprietary software. More than twenty years later, Markdown has become one of the most popular formats for documentation and publishing, a | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | nd is widely used in community websites such as forums and wikis. </p> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </blockquote> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </li> | Nov 07 09:16 |
| -TechBytesBot/#techbytes-www.fsf.org | Aaron Swartz's legacy lives on, but who profits from it? — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software | Nov 07 09:16 | |
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| schestowitz[TR2] | <li> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <h5><a href="https://carlschwan.eu/2026/11/06/renovate-for-kde/">Renovate for KDE</a></h5> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <blockquote> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <p>Renovate is a helpful tool that updates your dependencies automatically. This is cool, because it means you don’t have to track updates to your dependencies manually, which let’s be honest never really work. Renovate will just create a new merge request as soon as it detects an update. </p> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | <p> This is particularly relevant now, with more and more vulnerabilities being detected in our software supply chain every day. </p> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </blockquote> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | </li> | Nov 07 15:24 |
| -TechBytesBot/#techbytes-carlschwan.eu | Renovate for KDE | Nov 07 15:24 | |
| schestowitz[TR2] | https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1m6rt0e9d | Nov 07 17:59 |
| -TechBytesBot/#techbytes- ( status 403 @ https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1m6rt0e9d ) | Nov 07 17:59 | |
| schestowitz[TR2] | " | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | The Scrutiny of Anti-American Employment Practices Must Include IBM | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | The U.S. government has put employers on notice over practices that disadvantage American workers. Microsoft has faced prominent federal scrutiny and publicly defended its visa practices. Instacart has settled allegations that its recruitment favored temporary-visa workers over U.S. and American applicants. The same scrutiny must reach IBM. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | IBM has made its commitment to American workers part of its public pitch. In an April 28, 2025 announcement, Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna declared: “We have been focused on American jobs and manufacturing since our founding 114 years ago.” That carefully polished story collides with the company’s employment record. American factories do not erase years of discrimination disputes or IBM’s efforts to keep employment record | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | s out of public view. A company that trades on American jobs should have to answer for how it treats the Americans doing them. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | American workers must not become the default casualties of global restructuring simply because their jobs are easier to eliminate. Where stronger protections abroad require employers to justify cuts against local business conditions, multinationals should not exploit weaker U.S. protections by loading the reductions onto Americans. The revenue they generate and the performance of the American business must count. Weaker employment | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | protections should never become a license to make American workers pay for problems elsewhere. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | IBM’s employment history is more troubling than its patriotic marketing suggests. The Second Circuit’s August 4, 2023 opinion records a 2020 EEOC finding of reasonable cause to believe IBM discriminated against older workers in the United States because of their age. These were workers in the very country whose jobs and manufacturing IBM now invokes to burnish its image. The court also upheld IBM’s request to keep certain doc | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | uments from confidential employment arbitrations sealed. It enforced the confidentiality arrangements, leaving those records outside public view. That history belongs alongside the speeches about American jobs. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Another pending EEOC case concerns Kenneth McTigue, a U.S. IBM employee with nearly 30 years of service. A retention order issued by IBM’s legal department expressly records allegations of age discrimination, national origin discrimination, and retaliation by IBM. It identifies the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as the investigating US government agency. It also explicitly names IBM programs: Project Falcon, the r | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | esource action Sandstone, and the Transform to Grow (T2G) committee. It specifies records concerning those project objectives, benchmarking, headcount-reduction targets, workforce strategy and the planning and execution of workforce actions. It also identifies records concerning compensation and McTigue’s demotion and forced international relocation. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | IBM’s own preservation instruction scope raises the prospect of something much larger than one employee’s treatment. Those records could help establish whether the decisions challenged by McTigue reflected common practices affecting other employees. The question is whether his case exposes a wider, systemic problem in how IBM decides whose jobs and careers are expendable. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | The emails use stark, controlling language: “Do not forward this document for any reason.” The directive also instructs recipients not to communicate with McTigue about the matter. Its confidentiality provision includes the qualification “unless otherwise directed by an IBM attorney or as permitted by law.” Even with that qualification, the message reads like a warning: keep the document contained, keep discussion constrain | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | ed, and do not speak to the employee whose allegations are at issue. This is language that can stifle discussion by making silence feel like the safest choice even where speaking is legally permitted. That silence serves IBM. The less information circulates, the harder it becomes for employees to connect experiences, for outsiders to ask informed questions, and for the public to challenge the company’s carefully managed image. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Control the information. Protect the brand. American workers should not have to fight through a wall of controlled communication to get discrimination allegations taken seriously. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Put IBM’s workforce decisions under a public spotlight. Demand to know who was targeted, who was protected, and whether business performance or the ease of dismissal drove those choices. Make the executives responsible answer those questions publicly. IBM’s brand gets no free pass. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | The quantum investment makes that demand more urgent. On September 16, 2026, the Commerce Department announced a final CHIPS research and development award of up to $1 billion to Anderon, an IBM subsidiary, to advance a quantum semiconductor foundry. Public backing for America’s technological future should bring stronger expectations of accountability. A company entrusted with helping build America’s future should have to answe | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | r hard questions about its treatment of America’s workers. IBM’s quantum ambitions should intensify scrutiny of its employment practices. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | No more taxpayer backing for IBM without a public accounting of its treatment of American workers. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Free republication permitted and encouraged. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | " | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | "While I may disagree with many of the current administration’s policies and positions, I nonetheless appreciate its emphasis on advocating for and protecting the American worker. For decades, the system has been exploited in ways that have disproportionately disadvantaged American workers, often placing corporate and institutional interests ahead of those who sustain the economy through their labor. | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Although I welcome and celebrate the results of this week’s midterm elections, I sincerely hope that the momentum toward greater accountability, economic fairness, and meaningful protections for American workers will continue under the incoming government. Political differences aside, safeguarding the interests, livelihoods, and dignity of the American workforce should remain a shared national priority." | Nov 07 17:59 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1m6rsbf7n | Nov 07 18:02 |
| -TechBytesBot/#techbytes- ( status 403 @ https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1m6rsbf7n ) | Nov 07 18:02 | |
| schestowitz[TR2] | " | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Yeah, IBM doesn't even plan that far in advance. IBM is run quarter to quarter by Finance. Whether or not there is a "massive RA beginning of 2027" will 100% depend on what the Q4 results look like and it will be calculated based on what is needed to hit a particular Q1 number. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | 4 hours ago by Anonymous | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | | 4 reactions (+4/-0) | Reply | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Post ID: @e1+1m6rsbf7n | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | @OP, either you’re plugged into a Bob Moffat-like Sr VP , CEO, or board member who’s committing securities fraud or you’re delusional. I spent a quarter century in IBM management (and am still there as a targeted older individual contributor they keep trying to push out for $) | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | As a manager, I participated in many rounds of layoffs. I also helped plan a few RA’s that got cancelled at the last minute. In management circles there are always rumors flying. But nobody below band B (usually band A) knows about layoffs this far in advance. It would be shocking if finance hadn’t run hundreds of what-if models for that scenario to answer executive questions when the day comes. But that’s like US military pl | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | anners constantly revising battle plans for conflicts and invasions of almost every country, even though most of those will never occur. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | I read the newspapers too and see the public financial disclosures. Sure, early 2027 layoffs seem likely. But if you actually know and have told us then lawyer up, because you’re either going to be subpoenaed as a witness in a brutal criminal case or possibly facing an indictment yourself. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | 5 hours ago by Anonymous | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | | 2 reactions (+2/-0) | Reply | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Post ID: @ds+1m6rsbf7n | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | @aj Let's exclude the cash cow (Z Z Z) The only Crown Jewel left is Red Hat. Nothing that Red Hat has belongs anywhere near Z. But, so far even IBM has realized that (other than around the edges) you better not Blue Wash this. I think we paid $34B for it. Unlike Softlayer and and Tivoli and Lotus and OTI and countless others, IBM has allowed it to keep its own identity and ethos. (They get to work from home!) If you merge them with | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | IBM, that $34B turns to dust. And I will be sad because I can't live without cygwin which is just a side project. OpenShift will die if it has to live in a pure IBM ecosystem. Eventually, HCL or Broadcom will buy what is left. If it's Broadcom, OpenShift will be merged into Tanzu. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | As unbelievably stupid as IBM is, even they must realize that they will destroy the value of their $34B purchase if they force a merge into the main company. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | 19 hours ago by Anonymous | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | | 3 reactions (+2/-1) | Reply | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Post ID: @b7+1m6rsbf7n | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | How is Canada affected? | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | 20 hours ago by Anonymous | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | | 5 reactions (+5/-0) | Reply | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Post ID: @b3+1m6rsbf7n | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | My my, hey hey. It seems the most pathetic person in the world today is the Republican IBMer. So glad I'm neither. | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | " | Nov 07 18:02 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | "On Monday 9 November 2026 at 08:00, you will receive an email from BigPulse with a secure link to vote in the SUEPO elections. Use this link to cast your vote electronically, as paper voting is no longer available. | Nov 07 18:07 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Voting Period: | Nov 07 18:07 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Opens: Monday 9 November 2026, 08:00 | Nov 07 18:07 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Closes: Thursday 12 November 2026, 12:00 midday | Nov 07 18:07 |
| schestowitz[TR2] | Seven Committee seats are up for election, and ten candidates are standing. If you don't receive the email by noon on Monday, check your spam folder or contact us a" | Nov 07 18:07 |
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