WRALTechWire asked a native of China and fluent Mandarin speaker to review websites and videos that were documenting the eruption of worker protests in that country over IBM layoffs and the sale of its x86 server business to Lenovo.

“It’s sad,” the translator said in summing up the stories, posts and videos.

Indeed.

But workers in the U.S. aren’t expressing much sympathy for IBMers in China who are protesting layoffs and the sale of Big Blue’s x86 server business to Lenovo.

Why?

If your job was off-shored, how would you feel?

The U.S. website Free Republic, which is a conservative site, picked up WRALTechWire’s report about China, and the comments it triggered ranged from IBM bashing to some praise for Lenovo.

But here’s a review of comments focusing on the workers:

  • “I just can’t muster much compassion to care about these workers who took our jobs.”
  • “IBM used to make those servers in Rochester Mn. Welcome to the club boys and girls.”
  • “Imagine my position as a tech guy here in the USA. The Chinese are feeling the pain I have dodged for 32 years.”
  •  ….”The Chinese are feeling the pain I have dodged for 32 years…. That was my first thought…they’re learning no such thing as job security…10 yrs. @ IBM is a good run for a job in today’s world…especially when here in the USA they say you should be looking for work after three years in order to advance.”
  • “Chinese workers in China protesting sweat shop conditions, against an American corporation?”
  • “It is the American way and the old way.”

Published with the remarks is a cartoon of a red-haired man with a mustache at a podium flanked by U.S. flags declaring: “They took our jobs!”

Some posters online via the Alliance@IBM union website have expressed similar feelings – and not just about China. But also about layoffs in India, which have been described as a “slaughter.”

Criticism for U.S. Workers, too

However, isn’t it ironic that workers in China of all places are in the streets about lost jobs when in the U.S. IBMers clean out their cubicles, say good-bye and won’t lift a finger in protest.

“Americans are sheep,” is how one poster at WRALTechWire reacted.

That triggered a response:

“Americans get a month of severance for every year of service. These people got $1K, which is at best 1 month’s severance for a decade of service. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. IBM has just done a number on its reputation in China. Obviously the CEO has to make her numbers, but this is a bit much.”

There can be no doubt the workers’ anger in China is going to hurt IBM’s reputation there.

Interestingly, when protests broke out against plants contracted to produce Apple goods, Apple stepped in and demanded changes.

What will IBM’s response?

Or are those server plants in China that Lenovo is buying going to be Lenovo’s headache?