Southern California Edison IT workers 'beyond furious' over H-1B replacements

Computerworld ^ | Feb 4, 2015 12:06 PM PT | Patrick Thibodeau

[Bill_o'Rights]

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.
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The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill.

"Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said.
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SCE employees said that since August, when the layoffs began, the composition of the IT workplace began to change. "I see a lot of Indian people walking the halls, and less Americans," said a third IT worker interviewed.

[CodeToad]

H1B employment is supposed to accompanied by a statement by the employer that no American is available for the job. I think the IT industry should class action lawsuit every company that has failed to do that.

[familyop]

You said that you hadn’t heard complaints from construction workers about H1-Bs. That’s because they live in fear and have no voice. Construction work is one of the many jobs taken from American men and given to slaves of foreign nations with centralized governments (communist, etc.). I don’t blame the slaves who enjoy temporary luxuries and support their families.

The establishment continues to honor and protect employee unions for government employment and government-linked employment (politically correct contractors), because they enforce policies against new, small production starts (local regulations everywhere). I refuse to call those “labor” unions, because there’s no real labor in such work, and it’s not private sector.

I did some construction work in some wealthy communities several years ago. All employees except me were citizens of countries south of our southern border. There were many. They told me about the current trend worldwide slavery. They were respectful toward my age, because they are more respectful to their elders than people of higher castes. As a matter of fact, they are more conservative in all ways than their masters who collude with foreign communist governments for slave labor.

[familyop]

"Bullcrap. In the area of manufacturing the union participation rate is only 10% and it is falling. So any off shored manufacturing job has a 90% chance of being a non union job lost. So try again."

True. And furthermore, labor unions in manufacturing in communist countries are administered by the communist governments.

And there's the fact that the current U.S. bipartisan establishment supports unions for employees of the various levels of government while continuing to rant against dead private sector unions that served men in men's jobs in the past.

It's a social disease--a broader kind of venereal disease that has crept into philosophy, business, politics, religion and all other institutions.

[familyop]

"I have a friend who was bought out from his IT position with a major Aerospace company, then hired by a consultant at three times the pay to do the same job for the same manufacturer. He makes $110 per hr. I cannot understand how that is possible in today’s climate."

Recirculating debt and bond investments based on foreign slave production. That's how.

[familyop]

"This program needs to be stopped!"

The whole trend has been going on for over four decades, while neighbors cheer the demise of their neighbors, and families, their own family members. Maybe it should rather continue to its conclusion.

[Bill_o'Rights]

Welcome to the FreeRepublic newbie

[flamberge]

H1B employment is supposed to accompanied by a statement by the employer that no American is available for the job

This is the central lie used to confuse and distract the opponents (and victims) of the H1-B system.

There are always qualified people available for any job - if the employer will pay a free-market wage. Business executives simply do not want to pay free-market wages, and they don't want a free market for labor either.

Executives find it much more rewarding to import captive labor from foreign countries, and rent legislators who will make these arrangements "legal".

Such polices are not in the best interests of the native or immigrant population, so it is necessary to lie relentlessly about them.

[King Moonracer]

Eat the bonus infatuated executives.

[CodeToad]

Not entirely. I have seen many, many, many times in the 1990’s where advertised jobs for good money went unanswered.

[flamberge]

I have seen many, many, many times in the 1990’s where advertised jobs for good money went unanswered.

YMMV as they say in the car commercials.

I have never seen "advertised jobs for good money" go unanswered. Not in the 90's or any other decade. And I have worked a lot of decades both in staff and management roles.

What I have seen in every decade is managers and executives whinging about how they cannot enough "qualified" (e.g. desirable) staff at rates they can afford in their departmental budgets.

I am actually sympathetic, up to a point. I can't get everything I want on my budget either.

Lacking the capability to rent favorable legislation, most of them finally suck it up and hire lesser mortals to do the work that absolutely must be done for the organization to survive. It is amazing what many supposedly unqualified individuals can actually do.

At least 50% of "advertised jobs for good money" are management fantasies anyway. No one will actually be hired for those positions in the next 6-12 months because the employer does not really have funding for the jobs. The managers are just window-shopping - and posturing to boost their egos.

It's all just harmless fun and games, until somebody gets the Government to step in and "help businesses find qualified workers".

[Freedom56v2]

Welcome to the FreeRepublic newbie

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LOL~Thanks~but I came one week after you :)

[Gritty]

The guy ought to stop bitching and go on welfare and food stamps and all the other benefits available.

Oh, and to keep himself fed, he should also vote for Obama and the Liberals who are allowing him an extended "vacation" and paying him with said "benefits" at the same time. After all, they are making it possible for him to pursue his other interests, no?

[kearnyirish2]

That isn’t true that there are so many jobs for which companies can’t find qualified people; they are simply skirting the laws of supply & demand to pay less. You yourself are saying there is an abundant supply of white collar professionals; if that is the case, then why traffic more from Asia?

Our way of life is being destroyed and like Red China, India will find out there is even cheaper labor out there. Red China is now losing manufacturing to countries south of them; when India costs too much expect more of the same.

[grey_whiskers]

Nice troll.

[grey_whiskers]

Yep, I figured you were Indian by your shifting the blame to the US.
This started with the bag of excrement Jack Welch at GE, then McKinsey starting a management fad.

The point is that all the savings from H1B are eaten up by schedule slippage, re-working of shoddy product, additional meetings and management overhead; but since those things do not have individual line items...

I suspect collusion between the behind the scenes powers-that-be (retired influential pols and autofellatory “deep thinkers” who when to the ‘right’ schools) : based on the knowledge that the US population has been facing a demographic bust, and looking for new markets. The Third World countries basically said, “If you want us to open our markets, you need to create a viable middle class in our countries”...

I wrote vanities about this ten years ago.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1463179/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1590266/posts

[grey_whiskers]

It’s because managers get promoted for their social skills and their ability to sell ideas, not for their IQ (which is generally in the low 20s).

The answer is corporate accounting: wages are a fixed cost and look b-a-a-a-a-a-d to bean counters and stock analysts; costs paid to contractors are fluctuating and don’t set off the same red flags, even if on a per capita basis they are much higher.

[grey_whiskers]

May be the American computer programmers should learn a different skill. There are just too many programmers floating around the world. And corporations will exploit that source relentlessly.

Or maybe America should be protectionistic about its jobs, the way the rest of the world is.

(Bill Gates is worth 80 BILLION. I know he's no longer CEO, nor is Ballmer, in fact, the new CEO is ...Indian...) ...but -- microsoft has has cash dividends on the stock of TENS of BILLIONS of dollars: meaning, management is so incompetent, they didn't know how to re-invest that money to grow the business further, so they gave it back.

But if that money had been kept, the interest on it would have paid for all American programmers without a need for a single foreigner; without touching the principal; or affecting continuing cash flow from ongoing operations.

Therefore, it can't be the money.

Unless these people are driven by inhuman, unspeakable GREED, in a way that the robber barons of lore can only dream about. Or it could be that they are guilt-ridden liberals, overcome by Marxist programming when young...

[grey_whiskers]

Only if jobs are fungible across borders; and you’re a damn liar if you pretend most other countries are not protectionist about productive, worthwhile jobs within their own country.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I guess my puzzlement is why don’t those same low IQ managers hire H1B visa workers at an even lower contractor rate and look even better?

[gleeaikin]

Of course it is just possible that women invented such minor fundamentals of civilization as cooking, sewing, pottery, and weaving. There are also a number of more recent things invented by women, to a degree that is surprising considering that white men until the most recent centuries treated women almost as well as they are currently treated in Muslim societies. See below if you have any fair interest in what women have accomplished in spite of almost universal barriers and discrimination. In fact, a main benefit for women has been the willingness of businesses to hire them because they will work for less money.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Inventions+by+women