Posted on 05/12/2002 1:37:07 AM PDT by sarcasm
The number of foreign technology workers hired by Qwest Communications -- estimated at nearly 2,000 since 1999 -- increasingly is a sore spot for Qwest employees laid off or whose jobs are at risk.
In addition, the Denver telecommunications company in recently began giving computer software work to WebTek, a British-based company with operations in India and past ties to Qwest's current information technology director.
The developments have sparked fears that Qwest is taking steps to move most of its IT functions offshore to save costs.
Some employees think Qwest is taking advantage of the H-1B visa program -- designed to help U.S. companies fill technology jobs with foreign workers during labor shortages -- to replace American workers with foreigners.
As Qwest lays off workers, "they are virtually one-on-one replacing them with (WebTek) contractors," one employee recently complained to Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., in a letter copied to Gov. Bill Owens. Tancredo has been an outspoken critic of U.S. immigration policies.
The emotionally charged atmosphere these days around foreign workers and layoffs at U.S. technology companies isn't surprising to experts who track the field.
"During a down economy, immigration is picked on," said Kimberley Chandler, a Denver immigration attorney with 20 years' experience in the field. "When there's a boom, immigration is seen as the greatest thing in the world."
The situation at Qwest seems particularly divisive. Qwest spokesman Michael Tarpey maintained Friday that "we've been reducing the number of contractors and the amount of work offshore to preserve jobs in the U.S." But he said he knows the company won't win that argument when there are American employees who have been laid off.
"Yes (we've explained this to employees), but there's a lot of emotionalism associated with people who lose their jobs," Tarpey said. "Nobody wants to be told that their skills aren't needed."
Tarpey said there are times "the work can be done faster and more cost effectively by people outside the company, whether they're U.S. citizens or Indian."
Tarpey confirmed that Qwest has recently provided short-term software work to WebTek and other companies in India.
Qwest's information technology director since mid-2001, Al-Noor Ramji, at one time was WebTek's vice chairman. But Tarpey said there's no conflict of interest.
"He resigned from the board before WebTek got business from us," Tarpey said. "The reason they got business from us is that they're very competent to do IT work. The fact is that there's no conflict there."
As for the possibility Qwest could outsource its IT department, which employs about 5,000: "We still haven't made a decision," Tarpey said.
Employees and company officials agree foreign workers have played an important role at Qwest and its predecessor U S West over the years. U S West signed a contract in 1995 with India-based TCS Consultancy, also known as TATA, at a time of a severe shortage of tech workers.
"India became the country of choice for most of these workers because of the great deal of training (there) and their capability," Tarpey said.
Qwest still contracts some work to TATA, Tarpey said.
By the late 1990s, U.S. technology companies were intensely lobbying the foreign government to increase the number of H-1B visas so they could bring in workers for as many as six years.
Immigration records show Qwest applied to bring in nearly 2,000 foreign workers under H-1B to fill various technology positions nationwide since 1999, although it is not known how many visas were issued.
A look at Qwest's IT organizational charts shows a preponderance of foreign workers in many areas. Tarpey said Qwest is paying the prevailing wage to the workers.
Ramji has brought in his own people to "populate all the key positions . . . which means that the whole organization is cloaked in secrecy . . . virtually all of IT is horrendously demoralized," said one employee, who said she feared for her job.
Curtis Kennedy, a Denver attorney who recently filed a lawsuit against Qwest alleging a pattern of discriminatory layoffs, said he expects the IT department to be an integral part of his case.
"They want to dismantle it," Kennedy said, and move the jobs offshore. "We're going to get a complete picture of the destructive mess of Qwest's downsizing. It's nothing but an example of corporate greed, shattered lives, shattered communities."
Actually, work can be done more cost effectively by exploiting prisoners or slaves as in China. There are times when corporate executives seeking more "cost effective" labor betray their own country -the United States - for a dollar and defecate on American citizens who built the greatest country in the world, only to have it sold out from under them.
The personal economic well-being of working citizens of the United States is not "beside the point." The working American does not quickly desert his/her country to save a buck as can a corporation. There will always be poor people in the world whose poverty and political impotency can be exploited by American corporations at the expense of the working citizens of the United States.
"Free trade" is not fair trade when other countries providing labor have little regard for the basic rights of their own citizens and manufacturing based outside the United States does not have to meet strict standards of childhood labor, human dignity or safety of workers.
I may not agree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to pay artificially-inflated prices?
Woe to anyone who has Qwest stock in their portfolio - I'd suggest putting all of it on a roll and mounting it next to your toilet. Probably cheaper than Cottonelle.
Offshore outsourcing has been occurring for ten years. IBM, Dell, Delta Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, and hundreds of other companies whose names you would recognize utilize Indian, Phillipine, and even Chinese IT and telemarketing resources.
As to India, the quality of and productivity of Indian programmers and project managers are equal to American workers; in the telemarketing arena, 90% of those hired have college degrees. India has the highest number of college graduates per capita of any country in the world.
You may as well get used to outsourcing. If anything, the pace will only accelerate in this decade.
You make the same mistake a union thug makes. He assumes that businesses exist for workers. They don't; they exist for the benefit of stockholders.
If you force businesses in America to be non-competitive with foreign businesses, you will drive them out of the country.
Would you rather have a business in the United States, paying taxes here, or would you rather they move lock, stock, and barrel to a more competitive business environment?
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