Posted on 04/19/2016 2:50:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
IT employees at EmblemHealth are organizing to stop the New York-based employer from outsourcing their jobs to offshore provider Cognizant.
Employees say the insurer is on the verge of signing a contract with Cognizant, an IT services firm and one of the largest users of H-1B workers. They say the contract may be signed as early as this week.
m.2 SSD shootout: PCI Express blows away SATA and M.2 in throughput testing For the better part of a decade now, the traditional interface for hard drives has been Serial ATA READ NOW They fear what a contract with an IT services offshore firm may mean: Humiliation as part of the "knowledge transfer" process, loss of their jobs or a "rebadging" to Cognizant, which they see as little more than temporary employment. Many of the workers, about 200 they estimate, are older, with 15-plus-year tenures. This means a hard job search for them.
The IT employees have decided not go quietly.
"We're organizing," said one IT employee, who requested anonymity. "We're communicating with one another. They need the knowledge that we have. They can't transition [to Cognizant] without the information that we have. That puts us in a position of strength -- they can't fire us for organizing; we're protected by the law," she said.
Computerworld interviewed two of the IT employees on Sunday; the interviews were arranged by Sara Blackwell, a Florida labor attorney who is helping the workers. She has held two conference calls with employees.
"The people at EmblemHealth have seen this happen to their other friends in the tech field, and they know what's happening," said Blackwell. "They are standing up not only for their rights" but "for the future of America."
The employees say there are about 60 IT employees involved in their organizing effort
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
“We’re organizing,” said one IT employee, who requested anonymity. “We’re communicating with one another. They need the knowledge that we have. They can’t transition [to Cognizant] without the information that we have. That puts us in a position of strength — they can’t fire us for organizing; we’re protected by the law,” she said.
This is Happening in New York , I hope Mr Trump is watching.
someone will come along and say this is free trade blah blah blah. Live with it. I talked to 2 people in India today and I didn’t understand anything they were saying. That’s great business. The companies that use American workers are the ones I use from now on
SUMMARY OF WHAT’s HAPPENING THERE:
EmblemHealth is reportedly preparing to sign a contract with Cognizant to offshore many of its IT jobs, according to a report by ComputerWorld.
EmblemHealth IT workers have been organizing to try to stop EmblemHealth from proceeding with the deal.
The company may be working with Cognizant, one of the largest users of H-1B workers, to outsource more than just the IT department, employees said.
About 60 EmblemHealth IT employees are organizing to fight the contract, but it’s unclear at this point what actions they could take to prevent the company from signing with Cognizant.
Right now, the contract with Cognizant sounds like it is a done deal, according to statement from the company. EmblemHealth is facing financial challenges, and Cognizant employees have reportedly recently been seen on-site meeting with EmblemHealth executives.
The debate over moving IT jobs offshore and companies using H-1B visas has grown increasingly heated over the last year. Last summer, Southern California Edison workers complained that more than 500 of them were laid off so the company could bring in cheaper H-1B workers from other countries. Former Disney workers say the same thing happened to them when 250 employees were laid off in late 2014 and replaced by workers from an outsourcing company in India.
Companies continue to show strong interest for bringing in foreign workers. The agency that handles H1-B requests recently said it hit its cap of 85,000 petitions in just five days and will award visas using a lottery system.
bfl
85k Great.
Talk about outsourcing and H-1B visas to the average person but nobody gives a damn about this until it directly affects them, then it’s usually too late.
The jerks we send to congress only make it worse for the person in the workforce.
There’s an irony to your statement about people’s awareness of this. I remember tech types laughing at blue collar Americans as they were outsourced left and right back in the 90s. Now it is the white collar employee’s turn to learn that, if your job does not require your physical presence in America, either it or you are are probably leaving. Engineers and programmers are now nearly as disposable as the guy turning a nut on an assembly line. It just keeps moving further up the pay scale.
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