Suit: Sun fired US workers to hire lower-paid Indians

Boston Globe ^ | March 18, 2003 | Hiawatha Bray

[waterstraat]

Kmart and Chrysler did the same thing. Probably hundreds of american companies did the same thing.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Chakinaw.

[notdownwidems]

I hope this suit bankrupts Sun...never met a more arrogant band of pinkos in my life!

[NEWwoman]

Great, timeless advice.

[Natural Law]

In know many unemployed and under-employed Silicon Valley people with exemplary qualifications and experience who have responded to Sun's advertised jobs without ever getting so much as a response. If this isn't the explanation what is?

[dfwgator]

I would add learning JBoss to your list.

[mabelkitty]

But that's impossible. He's a huge DNC doner, and he would never exploit Clinton into raising the quotas on H1-Bs for his own selfish benefit.

(sar/off)

[dfwgator]

The bottom line is that to make a good living as a programmer, you need to in essence to become an entrepreneur. That means choosing the technology you believe is going to succeed and then going out and actively marketing yourself and constantly networking with others. Normally these are precisely the kinds of things programmers avoided like the plague. But now it is a matter of survival for the American Programmer.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"Add Python, PHP, and Apache, and you'll be prosperous. Learn how to do Java MIDP too, and you'll be stylin'."

So basically I spend my life either writing code or learning new code so that I am never obsolete. I guess I can have my check deposited automatically, have all my bills payed electronically, buy a cot for my cube, and take showers in the company restroom.

Then I'll be TOTALLY stylin'!

[goody2shooz]

Ping.

[mabelkitty]

Dig deep. I can identify several Fortune 100 companies who do the same.

If they win this lawsuit, engineers and IT workers better scream for elimination of H1-Bs in the face of rising unemployment.

[skeeter]

Sun's boss Scott McNealy is truly a corporate punk. His reflection is on the whole company.

Y'got that right.

Too bad he's not specifically named in the suit. The charge itself has his name all over it.

[Poohbah]

What alternative do you recommend?

Technology comes and goes with breathtaking rapidity.

Either stay in front of the technology curve, or get used to the idea that your pet niche is going to go away.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"to make a good living as a programmer, you need to in essence to become an entrepreneur"

But what if a programmer is VERY good at generating clean, concise, and maintainable code but not so good at networking?

Is the US supposed to deprive itself of this worker's skills and abilities because he doesn't know how to gladhand or he's too busy becoming a super C expert to become a jerk-of-all-trades in JAVA, Python, XML, etc.?

I thought is was the job of managers to identify these folks and put them into situations where they can thrive without having to do a mass rework on their personalities.

I think the real problem is that we have gotten to a place where maybe we have so much more technology than we need to survive that managers can get away with hiring inferior programmers to generate mediocre applications.

There's so much slack in the rope that noone will hang for what they are doing.

[Jhoffa_]

Then there's too many H1-B visas..

But I don't know if eliminating them is the answer.. The nature of data makes it transferrable.

Therefore, even if the visas were eliminated.. the work could simply be farmed out to Indian firms.

Correct?

[waterstraat]

Then there's too many H1-B visas.. But I don't know if eliminating them is the answer.. The nature of data makes it transferrable. Therefore, even if the visas were eliminated.. the work could simply be farmed out to Indian firms.

End the H1-B visas , now.

The work would not be "farmed out" if the republicans adopted their old ways:

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PLATFORM, ADOPTED AT MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., JUNE 9, 1892 We reaffirm the American doctrine of protection. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress. We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except for luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that upon all imports coming into the United States coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home.

[Poohbah]

But what if a programmer is VERY good at generating clean, concise, and maintainable code but not so good at networking?

If he's REALLY that good, the jobs will be there.

However, most programmers vastly overestimate the quality of their own code.

I thought is was the job of managers to identify these folks and put them into situations where they can thrive without having to do a mass rework on their personalities.

Gosh, I thought that managers were supposed to ensure that projects met their performance targets on time and within budget.

[mabelkitty]

There was NEVER a worker shortage. Only a CHEAP worker shortage.

How many H1-Bs were working at Global Crossing? Need to keep the labor costs down so Terry McAuliffe could make his $10 Million.

Same with Sun. How could he give so much to the DNC if his labor costs were cutting into his revenues.

Follow the money, my friends.