Posted on 11/09/2015 11:39:23 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
The IT workers at Cengage Learning in the company's Mason, Ohio offices learned of their fates game-show style. First, they were told to gather in a large conference room. There were vague remarks from an IT executive about a "transition." Slides were shown that listed employee names, directing them to one of three rooms where they would be told specifically what was happening to them. Some employees were cold with worry.
The biggest group, those getting pink slips, were told to remain in the large conference room. Workers directed to go through what we'll call Door No. 2, were offered employment with IT offshore outsourcing firm Cognizant. That was the smallest group. And those sent through Door No. 3 remained employed in Cengage's IT department. This happened in mid-October.
[...] The employees were warned that speaking to the news media meant loss of severance. Despite their fears, they want their story told. They want people to know what's happening to IT jobs in the heartland. They don't want the offshoring of their livelihoods to pass in silence.
[...] Offshore outsourcing is having "a fairly strong impact" on IT employment, said Janulaitis. Students coming out of college are facing trouble starting a career "and a lot of that is driven by jobs that are taken by non-U.S. nationals in our economy, and a lot of that is H-1B [visa holders]," he said.
"Why are we talking about more H-1B visas for people when we have people who are unemployed?" said Janulaitis.
The IT offshore industry relies heavily on H-1B workers to deliver services, and large offshore firms, both in the U.S. and in India, are the largest users of this temporary, non-immigrant, work visa. [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
Ohio ping
The IT workers at Cengage Learning in the company’s Mason, Ohio offices learned of their fates game-show style.
Training replacements describes a variety of functions including everything from the procedures for production, testing, turnover, data dictionaries, file structure and overall systems knowledge and other information traditionally found in documentation but not always kept up to date. Training is likely not simply programming/configuring. There’s also the possibility that the company needs to update/upgrade systems/environment/languages and to do so will require retraining in the new software or environment. This can be very expensive and frankly not all workers are good candidates for retraining. IT involves frequent changes to technology and, as surprising as it is, many in IT don’t keep up on these advancements.
Workers may have degrees in IT, but that does not mean they have the skills employers need. In my experience recent college graduates generally are poorly trained and need, on the average, 6 months to a year of training before they can be of much value to the employer. There was a very good industry article about this about a year ago. As I’m on a tablet atm I can’t easily search for it, but if you’re interested, it shouldn’t be too tough to find.
I have a friend who's an independent, that does exactly this - code remediation for companies that have outsourced.
He's very well off, has more work than what he knows to do with.
Agreed - with the understanding that setting immigration policy to benefit the majority of working Americans is not "interference" but a core responsibility.
You are right. That’s what happened in 2004 to the company I worked for.
so is this really an H1B issue ?
Some of the better places I've worked, IT people are seen as nice pets.
Others look at IT as office furniture, a necessary expense, but something no one pays any attention to until it breaks out from underneath them.
The two most successful places I worked, recognized IT as a force-multiplier and integrated it closely into the business. One of these was only temporary - management changed, and we were back to "office furniture" status. Strangely enough, the company's growth went sideways shortly thereafter.
Yup, I went through the same fiasco about 15 years ago. Had to suffer through 6 weeks of living in that hell hole (Bangalore) as well. We took our severance pay a few months later and most of us saw the writing on the walls and set off on new career paths.
*If*, and that’s a big if, employers can’t find candidates with the skills they need finding foreign workers has its benefits. Forcing employers to spend more money to retrain US workers rather than to hire less expensive foreign workers is not beneficial.
You stated that college grads coming into tech don’t do so well. Would you fare better getting HS graduates from the top quarter (or so) of their graduating classes and training them?
The trend toward offshoring can be blamed on crippling federal regulations. Offshore (non-citizen employees in a foreign country) generally are not subject to:
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII),
- the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA),
- the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA),
- the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),
- the Equal Pay Act (EPA), or
- the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Employers understand the cost associated with such compliance. Unfortunately, they do not understand the costs associated with employing foreign workers. Until they do, offshoring will continue.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
My husband lost his job with an IT firm in Ohio in 2008. He learned while training his replacement that when an Indian said “Yes” he or she knew that language, or how to code a specific item, it meant they were going to go learn it! This particular group has since brought it’s coding back locally, after forcing my 60 year old husband to retire.
This happened to me 5 years ago as a medical transcriptionist with over 25 years of experience. The hospital shut down our entire department and sent our jobs to India. This was all accomplished with the help of Dictaphone and Nuance, who then farmed the work to Focus Informatics, an Indian company. Oh, they offered us jobs at Nuance but I’d be making about 50% less but paying twice as much for benefits and getting a week of vacation instead of four.
The hospital wasn’t going to give us any severance either because technically we were offered new jobs with Nuance, but when they heard we were going to see an attorney, they changed their minds and gave us up to six weeks of severance.
The way Disney got around that, they told the employees, "We might have other, even better jobs for you after you train your replacements." The hope of those other jobs kept the employees obedient and in line. Of course, the "other, better jobs" never materialized.
I'd agree that definitely comes with a Barry Bonds-sized if, but only if one acknowledges the majority being fraud/abuse. Three entities within that corner of Ohio in less than 10 years have been involved with some sort of H1-b hijinks, 2 of them doing the forced knowledge transfer.
Forcing employers to spend more money to retrain US workers rather than to hire less expensive foreign workers is not beneficial.
Not sure that this is the case. In the case of this, Lexis-Nexis, California Edison, Disney, and other retraining-or-else, the displaced are forced to silently train people under threat of severance and/or UI eligibility. That's not a case of qualifications, that's just a shell game to favor the non-citizen.
This can be very expensive and frankly not all workers are good candidates for retraining. IT involves frequent changes to technology and, as surprising as it is, many in IT don't keep up on these advancements.
Which should underscore the continuous training of the existing workforce and the acquisition of US-side help - not to undermine it with individuals worse off than college graduates.
Workers may have degrees in IT, but that does not mean they have the skills employers need. In my experience recent college graduates generally are poorly trained and need, on the average, 6 months to a year of training before they can be of much value to the employer. There was a very good industry article about this about a year ago. As I'm on a tablet atm I can’t easily search for it, but if you’re interested, it shouldn’t be too tough to find.
First of all, where would the graduates do well to start if you're not wanting them to get up to speed? Not all are set for startups or can land internships. This leaves a good set of people that would do well in a conventional, direct-hire environment - where they get that training and deliver value.
Given how much has to be fixed by consultants, what makes college graduates less prepared and unworthy of training versus individuals that are easier to manage with deportation threats? What is 6 months to a year for a citizen versus all the costs related to guest workers (preparation costs, PR, legal, and the endless amount of consultants to fix the inevitable errors)?
Finally, if employers want the best prepared individuals, how about making the investment worthwhile - instead of pulling stunts like this? In the case of the graduate or existing citizen, they get someone that speaks English, is familiar with US standards, and is more likely to have actual competency behind their papers.
So he told them to shove it, dropped his badge on the counter and gave them until the end of the week to mail his final paycheck.
I do favor a model of companies taking the helm of training IT workers. Private enterprise knows what it needs in terms of workers’ skill sets much better than academics.
I don’t put much credence, though, in the rating system of government schools as far as who are the “top” students. No doubt someone’s done research into how to measure the personality traits needed to make a good IT worker. Airline companies have used these type of tests to identify if applicants have the make up to be good airline pilots.
At the rate some of these entities are going, that might not be an excuse people will believe. They would have to put it in writing as to what conditions would have to happen for them to get those jobs as well as the chances of actually landing them.
I’d think that it won’t be too long until they give up on the “don’t talk to media” excuse, given that there’s nothing for them to really lose. It’s a losing statement to make, and ends up in the media *anyway*.
H1B visas will increase tremendously if TPP passes. And all the candidates are for it. There is too much money for the big donors to make for it to be otherwise.
Yes Senator Cruz, I think this is an excellent question:
“Why are we talking about more H-1B visas for people when we have people who are unemployed?” said Janulaitis.
Are you sure, Senator, you want to go FIVE X on H1-Bs?
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