Posted on 05/26/2003 3:51:30 PM PDT by Lessismore
WASHINGTON: On a recent April afternoon in Silicon Valley, moments after he was told he had been laid off from his computer programming job at a Bank of America training centre, Kevin Flanagan stepped into the parking lot and shot himself dead.
Some of America's technology workers, who like Flanagan have also had to collect pink slips over the last several months, think they know why Flanagan took his life: Bank of America not only outsourced his job to India, but forced him to train Indian workers to do the job he had to give up.
In the weeks since his death, the techies have used the incident as fuel to fire a campaign against outsourcing to India, an issue that now seems poised to become a major sticking point between the two countries. Several US states are already considering legislation to ban or limit outsourcing.
Bank of America is one of several major US corporations – General Electric, Microsoft, Intel are among others - under scrutiny for outsourcing jobs to India. The Bank created what is called a "Global Delivery centre" in 2000 to identify projects that could be sent offshore.
Since then it has signed agreements with Infosys and Tata Consulting Services (TCS) to provide solutions and services.
In an e-mail exchange with this correspondent, Kevin's father Tom Flanagan said "a significant reason for which my son took his life was indeed as a result of his job being outsourced."
"Did he blame India for his job loss? No. He blamed the "system." He couldn't understand why Americans are losing jobs. Rather I should say he understood it economically, but not emotionally," Flanagan said.
Bank officials, who did not return calls relating to Flanagan's death, have said in the past that the deal with Indian companies would effect no more than 5 per cent of the bank's 21,000 employees, or about 1,100 jobs, in its technology and operations division.
According to some surveys, the US has lost at least 800,000 jobs in the past year and some 3.3 million jobs will move overseas over the next few years because of outsourcing, mostly to India.
The Bank has also acknowledged that it had asked local workers to train foreigners because such knowledge transfer was essential. According to Tom Flanagan, his son was "totally disgusted" with the fact that he and his fellow-workers had to train foreigners to do his job so they could take over. "That sir is a travesty," he said in one e-mail.
US tech workers are challenging the corporate world's claim that it is outsourcing work to improve bottomlines and efficiency. Some analysts have also pointed out that US corporations were being forced to tighten up by the same people who are moaning about outsourcing, and who, heavily invested in the stock market, demand better performance.
But on one website that discussed the Flanagan case, a tech worker pointed out that data processing consumed only a small per cent of revenues and was hardly a drain on the Bank's profit.
"(It is) a prosperous bank which has let greed trump any sense of patriotism or social responsibility," he fumed.
Cool! I guess outsourcing is really about having more options! Kick ass.
You weren't competing on price. Nor, since only US citizens can be officers in the US military, were you competing against foreigners.
But then the Japanese used predatory pricing on their chips and sold them (flooded the market) to the United States below cost, which is illegal here. The US used trade sanctions against the Japanese to force them to stop.
Now it seems that US corporations are using predatory labor rates to drive down the market of labor in the US.
-PJ
Did I say that? I don't think I did. I just said that those are good jobs, and you can make a good living doing them, and they will be the last to go. They are also honorable and honest work. You can do English lit, art appreciation, etc in your spare time, of which you'll probably have more of than the average engineer, scientist or lawyer.
What a shame to see so many intelligent people getting sucked into the tunnel world that our computer programming needs have created. Before 1975, there was no option to study computer programming as a career. It was a by-product of computer engineering or information management. It certainly wasn't considered a "profession".
Or engineering and science in general. I wrote my first line of code (FORTRAN) in 1969, believe me, I know that. I still don't consider generic programming, especially business applications, to be a professional occupation, although you can make decent money at it (or could) without a 4 year degrees, two of my 4 siblings in law do just that. A 3rd has an engineering degree, but makes really good money writing software, of all sorts, but not "business" type per se. The 4th is a medical technition. My brother has a BS in "Business" and sells specialty foods to grocery stores.
I do think the demand for programers has sucked some signifigent number of good people, especially women, from the teaching field.
We need to encourage our young people to study science, math, philosophy, history and language(s). Our economy thrives on innovation, but if our children do not become physicists and engineers, there will be no more industry bursts to drive our next "golden period".
Not much there to diagree with, although the utlity of Aramaic is limited, and polictically correct history is worse than useless. Don't leave out the chemists, the biochemists the geneticists and so forth.
Even people who have done nothing but program all their lives are missing a great opportunity. Good creative programmers are in serious demand in the gaming industry. Try some of the games that are out there: Some are great, but most of them are limited or flawed. Can't get that creative urge?
Go back to college. Get a degree in engineering or teaching or law. If you want to move on, you will find a way.
I've got an MSEE, albeit from 1977, plus about 25-30 additional hours, mostly in EE, but also in math, a couple/three new (to me) programing languages, and other miscelaneous stuff. My wife is a PhD (educational research) and the Chair of a teacher ed department. My older daughter studied history, international relations and then graduated from U Texas law school. Youger daughter has a BS in psychology and will start her teaching career (elementry) in the fall, and will receive her master's degree in December.
You misread me rather badly I think.
But do you have a binding job offer???
Being a pilot just isn't what it used to be
Nearly 8,300 of the nation's 95,000 pilots are furloughed, and that number is bound to rise. Pilots at United Airlines and US Airways, both in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, are taking pay cuts of 30%, 40% or more, and other airlines are expected to follow.
I presume he was talking about training the people from India and other asian countries that come here on H1B (?)visas and work for $50-60,000 when Americans want $120,000 for the same jobs.
Its my understanding that the jobs that are getting outsourced are primarily low level coding jobs, data entry, and customer service (24x7).
16x6x52x.17 = $848.64 per year. You might wish to check your math. It undermines the credibility of your argument.
Much of a relatively recent issue of Business Week went to a discussion of that topic. Sometime in the last two months. Check it out on line if interested.
QA inspection for Northrup Grumman..the #2 defense contractor in the US (after Lockheed Martin).
Don't forget manufacturing..
I get a laugh every time I hear some techie say: "But, I went to college, I have a degree!"
So ******* what?
If it's good for manufacturing, then it's good for everybody, imo.. If it's not, then perhaps we should re-think it.
But I don't want to hear any more complaints from those who were all for sending jobs overseas till their ox got gored.
In a democracy many folks think they are and will insist that the government "do something" to ensure that they have one.
In a constitutional republic, the government has no powers and thus no responsibilities, to ensure anyone much of anything, other than security from outside threats and very little else. They can "regulate" commerce, but the meaning of "regulate" is not to tie up in knots with rules, but rather to facilitate or make funciton properly, such as by overriding state level protectionist schemes. (such as the granting of tax preferances for businesses relocating from other states. Fortunatley what we have is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy, unfortunatley we've been acting as if we had one for about 70 years now. Other than the mini rant about "democracy" I agree with most everything you wrote.
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