U.S. companies are forcing workers to train their own foreign replacements

Axios ^ | Dec 29, 2019 | Stef W. Kight

[NobleFree]

Opponents of job outsourcing are making a holiday-season appeal to President Trump: Stop U.S. companies from forcing American workers to train the very same cheaper foreign laborers who will soon replace them.

Why it matters: Trump promised voters he'd end abuses of worker visa programs and save U.S. jobs — but as he campaigns for re-election, advocates say he hasn't done enough.

Driving the news: AT&T is poised to send thousands into the new year hunting for new jobs after assigning them to train their own foreign replacements, according to conversations with current and former workers and documents obtained by Axios.

• Many have worked for the company for over a decade. They aren't being offered severance or early retirement, and may not easily find a comparable job elsewhere with similar pay.

What they're saying: Sara Blackwell, a Florida-based lawyer who represents Americans displaced by workers on visas or overseas, told Axios: "American workers are tired of waiting for President Trump to do something on this issue."

• "They’ve gone from great hope in President Trump's administration, to great discouragement."
• She sent letters to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas.), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, as AT&T is headquartered in Dallas.
• She also met this month to discuss the problem with White House officials.
• The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Details: Despite receiving a $3 billion tax cut last year, AT&T announced new and expanded alliances with big outsourcing companies to replace workers with foreign or cheaper domestic talent.

• Like many major U.S. companies, AT&T has been shifting jobs for years now — but 2019 was especially noteworthy, as workers claimed that as many as 3,000 finance jobs were being outsourced to Accenture. AT&T denied the 3,000 figure, but declined to provide Axios with its own number.
• AT&T also signed multi-year deals with IBM, Tech Mahindra and Amdocs this year. Accenture, IBM and Tech Mahindra were in the top 10 companies to request H-1B high-skilled worker visas this year.
• "We are continuously working to be more efficient in our operations," AT&T's Jim Kimberly told Axios. When possible, AT&T is "helping employees find other positions within the company,” he said.

Current and former Department of Homeland Security officials who spoke to Axios expressed frustration that more isn't being done to keep foreign worker visa programs from undercutting U.S. workers.

• Lawmakers have signaled bipartisan support for reforms to high-skilled immigrant visas that could help.
• For years now, the Trump administration has talked about policy changes such as ending work authorization for the spouses of certain H-1B visa holders. But the proposal prompted outrage from tech giants, and it has yet to be finalized.

By the numbers: There are few comprehensive studies and little agreement on the scope of the phenomenon, experts told Axios, because contracts and outsourcing processes are typically kept quiet.

• Blackwell said past contracts she's seen lead her to believe that as many as nine in 10 of those impacted by AT&T's outsourcing may end up training foreign replacements.
• It's a common business model that's been used by other U.S. companies, including Disney, Verizon, Bank of America, Toys 'R' Us and Southern California Edison.

What they're saying: Axios spoke with workers who have already transitioned or will switch in January to working for outsourcing companies.

• Three current or recently-fired AT&T employees broke down in tears during telephone interviews.
• Typically, workers are guaranteed 12 months at the outsourcing company, after which they will likely be let go.
• Only a handful are offered severance or early retirement.
• "Folks aren't going on vacation, they're cutting back on their Christmas shopping," one person said. "If you know that you're going to be losing your job, you don't want to spend the money."

How it works: Workers may be assured their job will not change when they are "rebadged" to work for a contractor. "The sad reality is you’ve just been terminated without your severance," said one worker Axios interviewed. "You’re at the mercy of a company that doesn’t really want you."

• Workers described shock and confusion when they were told during a scripted phone call that after a decade or longer at AT&T, they'd have to work for a contractor or resign. Some were told they could not apply for other jobs inside AT&T.
• Some were told they were needed for a "knowledge transfer" — then tapped to train people on work visas or overseas who would replace them.
• A presentation obtained by Axios outlining the knowledge transfer process for AT&T and Accenture includes a slide on how to interact with Indian workers.

[NobleFree]

The latter - as the article body explains.

Have anything to contribute besides picking at headline nits?

[MinuteGal]

My friend, a computer genius and family man, was let go from his Tampa corporation and forced to train his replacement in India before he left....as were a number of others in his company.

Cold-blooded, anti-American executives.

Leni

[usconservative]

Four years ago the large multi-national bank I work for announced they were offshoring and outsourcing damn' near everything in IT. The only IT functions we retained were App and Infrastructure Engineering. Everything else went to a combination of WiPro, IBM and TCS.

On December 2nd, my employer announced a huge about-face. Contracts with two of our outsourcing and offshoring vendors weren't being renewed. Our business partners were fed up with the lack of support and the focus on simply "closing tickets."

We'll be hiring almost 1,000 IT app and infrastructure people in the next two years. Our focus will be on cloud enabled apps and maintaining our global data centers at the same time.

Not only did the bank NOT save money, our expense rate actually went up -- WAY UP -- when we were supposed to be flat. Two of the three offshore vendors consistently blew SLA's, the number of major incidents we had per month went way up and we had several high profile and very long term customers of the bank leave.

In my career I've been through three offshoring attempts "to save money and improve service" and none has ever worked. Two of those employers I left when I saw the writing on the wall. This is the first time I've been through an offshoring effort and survived long enough to see an employer admit they f'ed up and re-shore jobs back to America. 1,000 very good paying jobs I might add.

I never thought I'd see the day.

[NobleFree]

Good to hear. I don't suppose any higher ups who pushed for offshoring lost their jobs?

[Right Wing Assault]

Just say no, and walk.

It happened to a relative. It was written in his contract that he never thought would happen.

They hold out some pay that you don't get if you walk out. There were some other details, but I don't remember.

Walk if you want to lose money.

[oldbill]

Simple fix:
Passa law that requires in the case os any outsourcing of jobs all executive and senior management positions must be replaced by foreign workers before the first non management employee is replaced by a foreign worker.

In addition, H-1B visas shall be limited to executive positions.

[StolarStorm]

Rinse. Repeat. I worked for a company that did it a second time... cause somehow it would work that time. Kind of like socialism. They keep trying it, but it just doesn't work.

The offshoring crap is put in place by execs who are stupid or bribed (or both). I know for a fact they get bribed. Not only do they get a bribe they get a promotion and bonus for "saving costs." They make sure to move on to another company before the implosion occurs. Vampires. Scum. Criminals and Traitors.

[Prince of Space]

Happened to my son in 2006.

Then it happened to me in 2010 when the hospital shut down their medical transcription department and sent our jobs to India. They said we could continue working for Nuance, the Dictaphone subsidiary that’s taking over almost all MT jobs in the US.

Because we were technically offered jobs with Nuance, they refused to give us severance pay. We then let them know we would be pursuing legal action as a group and suddenly they changed their tune. We got 1 week of severance pay for every year we worked there up to 7 years. They also tried to block our application for retraining through the Dept. of Labor, something our liason said she’d never seen a company do.

They had money problems a few years later and had to merge with another healthcare company so Karma got them in the end. 🤣

[minnesota_bound]

My company has started to hire many people from India.
I am waiting for someone to take my job. They starting to come up with a point system now. I bet it is designed to fire the older more costly employee and they will be replaced by Bob from Kansas. Bangalore, Kansas that is.....

[ldish]

‘I am glad for ATT that they found a cheaper way to provide their services to Americans. America will benefit.’

Your comment is so funny, naive, and simply wrong in so many ways...AT&T has regressed into such a pitiful skeleton of the company it once was it that is so disheartening to think about...it’s lack of leadership and direction has totally destroyed it on every level!

I was a third level manager there and worked there for thirty years! It is very sad!

[impimp]

Learn some history - governments who intervene in economies too much tend to fail. You want to penalize companies for outsourcing? How would you structure that?

[Regulator]

Dear All

ATT depends on spectrum rights in the United States granted by the FCC to them as an “American” corporation.

These rights are so valuable, they will pay tens of billions for the bandwidth.

We need only petition the FCC vehemently to revoke the rights and give them to a non-outsourcing company and ATT will run screaming from their craven mistake.

From ATT’s own site:”Spectrum: Lifeblood of the Wireless Industry”

https://policyforum.att.com/issue/spectrum/

We can burn them down.

[usconservative]

Good to hear. I don't suppose any higher ups who pushed for offshoring lost their jobs?

Funny you should ask. When the offshoring deals were announced, the CTO who fought against doing them was summarily fired one day and escorted from the building.

The CEO of the bank took a cushy job on the board of IBM and left the bank.

WiPro and TCS are being shown the door over the next year as we ramp up hiring. IBM manages our data center facilities and mainframes (for now.) I imagine IBM's contract won't be renewed, at least I hope it won't. They are absolutely horrible to deal with.

[Starcitizen]

There is a particular Indian on free republic. Best to ignore that trash. He makes money on bringing his countrymen in to the US to steal American jobs. only words I have for him is for him to get the F back to his slum in India.

[minnesota_bound]

#103 We have now been restricted to the amount of time we can spend with the caller. I work at a dept that does internal support. We have to pass along tickets to other groups that we could have easily resolved if given 10 minutes more. The other groups do not have time limits and as there are fewer people in those groups they will get to the ticket later that day or tomorrow, maybe later then that. The caller is left frustrated as they use to get their issues fixed right away.

[jurroppi1]

The major problem is that the IT replacement people in India are sub par and have such a shallow amount of actual knowledge that it ends up costing more than it saves almost invariably. We have had to re-shore IT and tech support at the 50K or so worldwide employee base company I work at because of this very issue.

I personally do not work in IT, but I might as well due to the myriad items I have had to research and become knowledgeable of due to poor offshore IT support.

[CJ Wolf]

That’s part of the support contract. If first tier cant fix it in x amount of minutes it goes to second tier and so on until it gets escalated way up vp and CEO level In a certain paramount of time depending on the pull (size of the customer and then they get the best team they have on the issue until its resolved. Typically a good team will keep the level one team in place as a anchor to assist the more advanced team. Sounds like your upper tier level is off shore.

[PigRigger]

I’ve been through it... after almost 30 years I trained my replacement so I could get my severance...

At that point it’s no longer about pride.

I worked hard to the bitter end... working as if working for God as He asks... They could take what they wished... but they could never take who I am... a child of God...

In the end God provided...

[Truthoverpower]

This is bull shiite. Just say fu and leave

As an engineer I’m Smarter stronger and faster than dem foreigners !

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

U.S. companies are forcing workers to train their own foreign replacements

Been going on for several decades now.

They tie your severance package to how well you train your "replacement". Of course the reason those people work cheap is because they can't do what you can do in the first place.

You are actually better off emotionally just telling them where to shove their package. And you will beat the rush. While your former co-workers are spending their time trying to train the untrainable you can be job hunting.