With the boom of the 1990s, companies once again have been learning to use the huge surpluses that have built up in their pension funds, this time mainly for their own accounts. Linda Guyer reports on the stockholders' meeting and subsequent rally . Nothing was different this year. He still talks down to employees and retirees while wooing and soothing the 'real' stockholders. Somewhere near the end of the video, tears started forming in my eyes and a few drops fell to the floor.
Company puts on a new face while sing the blues .
Gerstner was dodging and parrying more than blocking and tackling. Talk of a failed employee bid to reinstall IBM's old pension plan dominated this part of the meeting. If we wanted to manipulate compensation at the price of employees, we could reduce salaries. We could cut variable pay. Shareholders uphold IBM pension plan .