After Uproar, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs 229
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times previously reported that Disney made laid-off workers train their foreign replacements. The Times now reports that Disney has reversed its decision to lay off the workers and canceled training of the replacements. This follows public uproar, two investigations by the Department of Labor into outsourcing firms, complaints to the Justice Department, and calls for an investigation into the H-1B Visa program by Senator Bill Nelson. One of the workers said, "We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice." A former Disney employee who was forced to take an early retirement shared his personal thoughts on the matter in a Google+ post.
Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the workers said, "We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice."
Yeah, that notice will be updated employment terms to try to aggressive prevent people from leaking out the details when they attempt to do the H1-B swap the next time.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, no shit .... Disney will just do it more gradually after the uproar dies down.
This is PR damage control, nothing more.
Give it six months, and they'll probably still be out of a job.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust, it takes a long time to build and just a few seconds to destroy
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust, it takes a long time to build and just a few seconds to destroy
Well, that's giving Disney too much credit I think. This was a long time in the works with several different departments and at least a dozen people involved. You have to have meetings with the outside contractor, draft a contract, get approvals, arrange payment methods, etc etc. You need to have meetings with HR, and they have to get all the preparations in place to fire the American workers. Somebody has to coordinate employee orientations and reassign assets from all the terminated employees to the replacement workers.
This was a carefully planned operation with many people involved. It was deliberately done, step by step, over the course of months or even years. The only mistake is that people found out about it.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Informative)
THAT is the "seconds to destroy" part, that the parent referred to.
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Disney / ABC is pretty smart. The 35 people are sure to keep looking around the job market (which is much better in NY and CA than in FL from the last round of ~250 layoffs) and eventually leave anyway. If they leave voluntarily, Disney doesn't have to pay them the severance package at all, which is likely equivalent to an extra few months' salary. A small price to pay for the goodwill from this "Hey, maybe Disney does have a heart" headlines.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
honestly, if you're going to bribe congress to let you pillage the country's copyright system getting it extended every 25 years so that your financial conglomerate can continue leaching off the IP of one creative man who died 50 years ago, the least you can do is keep some Americans employed.
fuckers.
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Like trees. Smokey the HR bear. "Only you can prevent fire fires".
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
So anyone working there with any common sense at all should be interviewing NOW!.
If you aren't interviewing then you should be updating your certifications and such.
This isn't some kind of "oops we made a mistake" error. Upper management wants to replace you with cheaper options. Get out on your terms instead of their terms.
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So anyone working there with any common sense at all should have been interviewing weeks ago.
FTFY.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just interviewing, unionizing. If I was told me and my coworkers were being fired in 90 days and were to train our replacements, I'd gather up my coworkers and tell them we want a year's salary as a bonus now or we all walk that afternoon. Especially if they later try to pull this shit- I'd be demanding huge raises/bonuses to stick around for any time at all.
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But unions are evil and communistic. How dare you!
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
In the late 90's there was talk about unionizing IT, but in Silicon Valley at the time, people who could barely boot up Windows 95 were getting 90K a year to start. No one thought we'd ever need unions.
For a bunch of allegedly smart people, we were shortsighted and dumb.
Being on call 24/7 for years, including ALL holiday's, because companies don't want to hire shift workers, working 70 hours a week on salary, and then moving into management and being told to outsource my entire admin/engineer staff.... hindsight is a bitch.
Unionize now.
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It'll take "canaries" inside of the system though to draw attention to it.
Next up: NDAs integrated into contracts that prevent disclosure of this kind of termination/outsourcing, on penalty of immediate termination for cause and no severance.
The next time Disney does this, it'll take more than a canary: it'll take a whistle-blower willing to eat the personal consequences. Because in Disney management's mind, they "would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!"*
*yeah, I know, t
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
My father was fired from a job (decades ago) and received a severance package. He was made to sign a contract that said that merely talking to a lawyer about why he was fired would be cause for the company to revoke his severance. Could a decent lawyer have ripped this to shreds? Probably. However, my father needed the money and couldn't risk losing his severance - much less spending time/money on a lawsuit instead of finding a new job.
What "is legal to do" and "what is done" are often two different things and companies will often bank on people not having the resources of a big company to fight back legally.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:4, Insightful)
Intel did something as much evil and it went through undisturbed. Everyone there was invited to move to Portland if they wished to keep their jobs. Those who didn't accept moving were considered as having resigned, so without any right to severance packages. After all, Intel didn't fire anyone, right? It's the employee who "unreasonably" didn't "want" to move to the other side of the country. And the sociopaths who thought of this plan undoubtedly earned huge bonuses thanks to the "economy" they caused the company.
Americans, it seems, love their corporate overlords. That's the only explanation I can think of for something so absurd to be allowed to happen.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Walt Dickme (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a suspicion that a lot of Disney employees are like people that get jobs in the AAA game industry: They think that because they love the product that is produced, the job and working conditions will somehow be good.
Open message to anyone working for or thinking about it Disney: Research the companies history before you take a job These are shitty, shitty people that are in charge of making all these lovable characters.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I've been through this sort of thing before. Tell the people all is well, even though the boots on the ground know that what's going on doesn't pass the smell test.
The layoffs will happen, but they will be done more quietly and more gradually. Count on it.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they'll likely try to slap an onerous non-compete and NDA into the employment terms as the first wave to weed people out. Then all the people who were too scared of losing their job not to agree will then get silently laid off later.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Disney management will simply wait for the uproar to die down and then start setting vague and aggressive performance objectives for the U.S. workers. They'll then get rid of people via performance review.
They probably don't even need to worry about getting rid of their existing workforce. If your boss spends a lot of time loudly whining about how he can't afford to keep all these IT people; about how he wishes he could replace them all with H1B's, but then tells you not to worry about your job, you'd be an idiot not to fire up the resume printer. Before long, the only people left will be the ones who can't get work elsewhere.
Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that notice will be updated employment terms to try to aggressive prevent people from leaking out the details when they attempt to do the H1-B swap the next time.
Key part of the phrase: "until further notice." My guess is they're going to train all of these H1-B's at a different place, then lay off all the regular workers at the same time without notice. Either that, or they will find excuses to fire them one at a time, gradually replacing them.
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Re:Don't worry, they'll try again (Score:5, Informative)
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Consider it as if nothing had happened...until the fuss dies down, and they're all quietly shown the door.
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There's nothing crap in my post. One would be an idiot to think that Disney won't try again to layoff these workers in the future. Your entire rant seems predicated on something I never explicitly stated or even implied.
McLoving Mickey (Score:3)
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Re:McLoving Mickey (Score:5, Interesting)
A company I used to work for in Orlando needed animators.
We got 300 applications from people at Disney. They referred to it as Mauschwitz.
Re:McLoving Mickey (Score:4, Funny)
EVERYBODY who's worked at Disney invariably refers to it as Mauschwitz (or Mouseswitz). The only other internal company name I've come across that's more universal is ex G.E. employees referring to it as "Generous Electric".
In my industry (steam and gas turbines), GE stands for "Good Enough".
Re:McLoving Mickey (Score:4, Informative)
The only other internal company name I've come across that's more universal is ex G.E. employees referring to it as "Generous Electric".
When I worked at TI (Texas Instruments) in the 90's, it was pretty universally referred to as "Training Institute" because so many people would work there for a few years after college before going somewhere else. Some people also called it "Tiny Income". There's some truth to both. :)
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Re:McLoving Mickey (Score:5, Funny)
Not only that, think of what kind of effect it has on morale......
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"The happiest place on earth."
Yeah, not so much.
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It likely is if you're a C-level.
Update the resume (Score:5, Informative)
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Which ironically will give them the exact justification to bring in the contractors -
What does quitting do other than fulfilling what management wanted all along??
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Re:Update the resume (Score:5, Insightful)
Which ironically will give them the exact justification to bring in the contractors -
Which is no reason to stick around working for a company that clearly wants to fire you.
What does quitting do other than fulfilling what management wanted all along??
It gives you a chance to get a job at a company that might actually value you? It's not like staying around is somehow sticking it to Disney or any of the boneheads pushing the H1-B plans. So why stick around at a place that doesn't even pretend to have loyalty to you?
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It gives you a chance to get a job at a company that might actually value you?
There is no such company. We are all "resources" to be used up and cast away. They will use you for 60+ hours a week "to get the project done!" - total horseshit. It's done because they're getting 50%+ of free overtime out of your stupid ass. They get younger people who haven't been around long enough to notice that pay hasn't gone anywhere in over 15 years.
In public, companies bitch and moan how they can't get "qualified" people, but behind closed doors, all of you are considered easily replaced commoditie
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Likely, but at least they will pretend to want to keep you around. Disney has clearly stated in public that they don't want these people around.
Re:Update the resume (Score:5, Informative)
Quitting allows you to leave on your own terms rather than being humiliated into training your low-pay replacements and then being fired. Are you really saying that workers should stick around at a company that was just days before trying to lay them off?
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Depends on the cost/benefits ratio. Do the math. You might at least be able to sue for a nice severance check.
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Might, but you'll probably lose a substantial amount to your legal costs.
Re:Update the resume (Score:4, Insightful)
Quitting allows you to leave on your own terms rather than being humiliated into training your low-pay replacements and then being fired. Are you really saying that workers should stick around at a company that was just days before trying to lay them off?
I don't think you understand something at play here. In my career of 28 years in IT, I have noticed that some people will just not leave - ever - under any circumstances until you turn out the lights and close the doors. What I mean is, no matter how bad the job is, some people will not ever leave it until they get thrown out the door or the company goes out of business. Not always, but usually it's the people who are just barely getting by. Some years ago we hired a guy who used to work for a local bank and his local bank got bought out by a much bigger bank out of state. They planned to shut down all their IT work in our city for this bank they bought, but they needed this guy and his co-workers to stay to help out with the transition. At first they were told 6 months and they'd be done. 6 months came and they got offered another 6 month extension. Then came another 6 month extension. The guy looked for another job and we hired him, but he left a co-worker behind who just didn't want to leave. Eventually after maybe 3 years, they finally closed down the IT work in our city and co-worker guy now for real has to find a job. The guy we hired asked us to hire his co-worker and we couldn't. No more openings. Even though this guy knew his job was going to end sooner rather than later, and the bank did not want to keep him on after it closed down all the local IT work they had, he refused to leave or even start looking for a job until they told him "Your job is over. Thanks. We'll send your final paycheck to you. Today is your last day." My previous employer, a European company, did some really reprehensible things to us before I left. They changed our terms of employment to favor them and enable them to cheat us out of severance pay they promised us and told us we had to either accept the new terms that let them do it or quit. Then they gave my small department 6 months notice that they were moving our jobs to another lower cost country (not India though). I was the only person in my office to find another job before the deadline. Nobody else would leave. One of the things you see at Disney is a lot of employees are big Disney fans, so they want to work there and they will put up with a lot of bs to do so. Even with these workers temporarily getting their jobs back, and yes we here all know this likely won't have a happy ending for them, more like a temporary reprieve, I guarantee you that many will still happily go back and refuse to look elsewhere for a job until they get this job taken away from them.
Re:Update the resume (Score:4)
Except that management will have nobody to train the newbies. Hilarity ensues!
Re:Update the resume (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse than that, if everybody sends a big "fuck you" and leaves all at once, they don't have people to keep doing the job.
And then they'll pretend like their employees owe them something and act like victims.
These people have already lost their jobs. The only difference is how much longer they collect the checks, and how much Disney forces them to shut up next time.
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Re:Update the resume (Score:4, Informative)
But, that doesn't mean a group of workers, who aren't in a legal "Union", can't just walk out anyway. If they're being abused, they should walk out and make their complaints known.
Although a non-union group of worker can "just-walk-out", the company can just replace them in most states. This generally isn't true with a company with a union contract (which covers allowed strikes and work stoppages/slowdowns). Also in the united states at least, there is a distinction between an economic demands strike and an unfair labor practices strike (basically company attempts to subvert collective bargaining, e.g., selective firing, refusal to bargain with a certified union). Any job protections in the case of an economic strike are basically non-existent, unless covered by a union contract.
So if your goal is attempt to walk-out as a group to protest being replaced by cheaper labor, unless you are unionized, you have pretty much just resigned as a group. A better strategy if not unionized is to raise a stink so that the company backs off (hey, sounds familiar)...
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What rights exactly. At least in a "right to work" state you don't have a lot of recourse unless you are being discriminated against. If an entire department is being laid off it would be hard to show that you were laid off for anything but legitimate reasons. Under what circumstances is a worker really going to end up better off turning down the money (plus the ability to collect unemployment right away, at least here in Mass).
I coukd see delaying signing to consult a lawyer maybe but I suspect in most ca
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Which ironically will give them the exact justification to bring in the contractors -
What does quitting do other than fulfilling what management wanted all along??
Because you get to do it on your terms, not theirs.
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They should have already been looking for a job when the layoff was first announced. Unless they have no other job prospects, none of those IT people should be wanting to stay with Disney after this.
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That would be good. Unfortunately not ever is financially secure enough to just up and quit their job at a moment's notice. Disney knows this and will use this fear as a way to screw these people over at some point in the future.
Oh, okay! (Score:5, Funny)
I'll totally just go back to my job now, with no loss in enthusiasm or loyalty. It's like nothing happened! Everything is okay. I will continue working for Disney and we'll be best friends forever.
See, I told you we're all family here at Disney! (Score:3)
Manson family but family, still.
Re:See, I told you we're all family here at Disney (Score:4, Funny)
Summary's wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Disney completed the layoffs of the Florida IT division (Walt Disney World)
This was ANOTHER set of layoffs for ABC Broadcasting comprising about 35 workers that were going to undergo the same process. ABC's has been halted but, AFAIK, the Florida IT division is still SOL.
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well at least now they can get out of Florida. Silver linings man, silver linings.
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They can go work for EA :)
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out of the frying pan..
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They can go work for EA :)
out of the frying pan..
...into the Battlefield 5?
Some guy posted his thoughts on Google+? (Score:5, Funny)
What, was his MySpace account unavailable or something?
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Sorry, some people want to have real discussions about things that matter instead of being bombarded with mail chains from Mom and Aunt Betsy.
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Aren't all discussions on Google+ monologues?
I'd like to see a permanet disney 'evil counter' (Score:5, Interesting)
like a doomesday counter or a count that shows the number of accident free days at work.
but this would be a constant reminder and a bloody nose to disney, how evil this h1b policy is and how evil DISNEY is.
'its been X days since disney last laid off US workers'. and when they do more evil shit, that counter gets reset (or, rather, its timestamp does).
too many ignorant americans have NO IDEA how fucked up disney is. they believe the hype and drink the koolaid and continue to buy their crotchfruit more and more disney merch.
people need to realize how evil this company is and that they are NOT worth giving your money to under any circumstances at all.
a public counter that stays up (yeah, disney has lots of lawyers so not sure how you can keep it running under pressure of lawsuit, even though it would be fair to have this be told about them) would really keep this issue alive, long after disney has buried it in the news.
disney should be the poster child of what is wrong with h1b. no one but us techies realize the h1b problem. the world needs to see this (at least the US does). disney might be the proper wake-up call to finally make people realize how badly we have sold our own people out ;(
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Perhaps you could site some articles so the rest of us can be educated as to why they are evil?
I'm not in the habit of taking people's word for it.
Re:I'd like to see a permanet disney 'evil counter (Score:5, Informative)
The most obvious one is the Disney Copyright Extension Act [wikipedia.org]
After making piles of money on stuff from the public domain, Disney has fought to have copyrights almost perpetually extended. Almost every major film title Disney released for several decades was co-opting stuff in the public domain.
Di$ney is a ruthless corporation, always has been. They'll steam roll over anybody who gets in their way.
start here [wikipedia.org].
Honestly, if you've never heard any of this, you've been living under a rock for decades.
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That article needs to be updated with this H1-B situation.
I would do it myself, at least add a section with a few references and get it started, but every time I edit an article on Wikipedia my contributions are automatically reverted for some reason I cannot fathom. The Encyclopedia anyone can edit... Yeah right. I apparently need to be in some special club or something.
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Re:I'd like to see a permanet disney 'evil counter (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for another company that has been doing this sort of thing for a long time. But instead of laying off employees and bringing on H1B's, they are bringing on recent college graduates that are also only H!B's and then making working conditions unbearable until the old timers here just leave out of frustration. There is such a high turn over rate here that we have all but stopped acknowledging when people leave. I am currently training 2 people and an expecting a third and I have to do this in addition to all other tasks that are assigned to me.
I miss the days when I could go to a first round in-person interview and get the job before walking out of the door. I am looking, but I am not having so much luck.
I think the problem is that many silicon Valley companies are employing these same sorts of strategies. Driving down wages by bringing in H1B's. Its like the management team reads in a business journal how all their competitors are doing this and they think that they have to do it too to keep up with the jones'. I think this is unethical and at worst, probably of questionable legality. theH1b program was designed to provide workers to supplement the workforce here because there weren't enough engineers to fill available positions. Now, the system is being used to replace engineers here with cheaper labor. This is not consistent with the intent of the provisions of H1b.
Happiest place on earth! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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what is this supposed to accomplish? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so you thoroughly demotivate your workers. You insult them. You treat them like idiots. Yeah, we think so little of your jobs that we're going to import untrained minimum wage foreigners to replace you, and oh, by the way, before you leave, you have to train them which button to push when the light comes on.
You even complete the layoffs of one division. (Florida.)
And then, responding to Bad Press, as part of damage control, you tell the remaining employees that they get to keep their jobs. At least, for now, until the news cycle passes.
What employee in their right mind would *not* spend every moment looking for a new job at that point? What responsible individual (financially responsible to self and family) would *not* use this opportunity as paid job search?
So, Disney may have quieted down some small portion of the uproar. But they're still going to lose all of that tribal knowledge, guaranteed. And they're going to have the most disgruntled, (old workers) and nonfunctional (imported workers with no training or support) IT department of any company still in business.
I foresee a time when the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is populated with live H1-B actors, because nobody can figure out how to make the animatronics work anymore. Might be an improvement, except the guests will have to swim through the moat.
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This saga illustrates exactly what the H1-B program is designed to accomplish: disenfranchise highly skilled US workers and replace them with cheaper foreign workers.
If corporations still treated employees as value-adding assets rather than cost liabilities, crap like H1-B wouldn't exist.
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Corporations never treated employees that way. I suggest you re-read about how corporations used to treat workers in the late 1800s through the mid 1900s. Almost no one was being treated as value-adding assets. If H1-Bs existed in the 50s and 60s they would have used them just as much as they try to today.
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> If corporations still treated employees as value-adding assets rather than cost liabilities, crap like H1-B wouldn't exist.
I would say, if corporations recognized that employees are value-adding assets rather than cost liabilities. Because we are. We're not asking corporations to "spread the wealth", we're asking them to recognize the reality that what we do is important to the company.
Every outsource disaster points up the fact that management really had no idea what contribution their employees wer
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John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
Give it time....
In other words.. (Score:3)
You have a bit more time to polish up your resumes. Don't treat it as anything else.
They'll try again (Score:2)
"Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always." -- IRA after the Brighton bombing failed to kill Margaret Thatcher.
I sent Disney a mail.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I sent Disney a mail to the office of the CEO and complained about the terrible treatment of those American workers (I am not American BTW) but I did get a reply and I like to think that everyone who did the same helped with the cause.
People laughed when I said I had done it, but it proves I did a tiny bit to help some jobs and I feel good, damnit :)
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They're still going to get laid off. Disney has just delayed it a little bit.
Doubt that will last long. (Score:3)
I'm guessing this will continue until the public eye is no longer on them all the time. I've posted previously about this - Disney is not a low-margin business with a need to reduce IT spending. Just their theme parks alone must generate millions per day. To use a Disney analogy, they probably store all their free cash in Uncle Scrooge's money bin. They're very similar to the way Apple is right now -- Apple is immune to market forces; they take 30% of every purchase people make with their ultra high margin iPhones, and their margin on laptop and desktop PCs is stratospheric. Disney is immune to market forces simply because they have so many rabid fans.
The fact that companies like this are resorting to H1-Bing their IT departments is very disturbing. Just because they're not doing this particular exercise doesn't mean they're not looking to do it when the heat is off later on. Again, I would expect this from a traditional retailer or similar low-margin business...not Disney.
Unfortunately, I'm dealing with this now - a product manager in charge of one of the medium-margin products I do design/engineering work for has the offshoring, low cost country bug in their head right now. I can't hire anyone to supplement our staff locally, but I can have all the foreign contractors I want because "they're so cheap." I'm sure there's lots of success stories for the outsourcers to cite, but I've never had good luck. Basically, anything we hand over to an offshore team to implement has to be documented as if we were sitting there doing it, and they still come back with questions. The problem is this -- you will never convince an MBA that it's worth it to have a few people making more money than 50 people making 20% of what you're paying the onshore staff.
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" Just their theme parks alone must generate millions per day."
No doubt. I wonder how much it costs to keep those parks open and functioning as expected.
I'm pretty sure you meant " Just their theme parks alone must generate millions in profits per day."
Which is the primary reason Disney operates them... And I'm sure you think Disney makes more than enough profit, and should reduce ticket prices, rehire employees previously laid off, and of course keep their IT staff in house and on shore, US Citizens, and
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" Like me, are you sucking it up, getting along, and and fighting the important fights, or do you give your management the same complaints you voice here?"
Yes, and just like you, I am luckily in a place where I can at least complain and be heard without getting kicked out. Our group just keeps moving along, continuing to turn out good work even if we have to clean up messes. The naive hope is that decision makers will eventually see how much mess cleaning we've been doing (all of which has been reported in
Where have I heard this before? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?
Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.
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Well, it is a paragraph that Disney owns...
Quick pro-tip (Score:2)
"We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice."
Pro-tip: act as if something did happen and get another job quickly. In their eyes the problem is that they were exposed, not that they did this in the first place. They will almost certainly still do it.
Y'all are acting like this is all new (Score:3)
HP did the exact same thing, but rather than using H1B people here in the US, they just completely outsourced everything to Foxconn, Lite-on, etc. Many of us in the PC/software industry have been training replacements since the end of the 20th century. Interestingly enough, it's the small shops where our skills are still valued. I suspect that's because small shops are still dynamic environments where the ability to think outside of the box and make qualitative judgements on a daily basis is valued, as opposed to entrenched organizations that have well-documented tools and processes that anyone with sufficient reading comprehension skills can follow step-by-step and get some work done.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled outrage.
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That depends. How much do you value your freedom?
Re:Job security (Score:5, Insightful)
Important enough that they couldn't "just" be replaced by H-1B workers that were supposed to have skills that were unavailable in the US, the current employees were being required to train the H-1B workers in order to give them the skills and knowledge they needed to perform the job.
BTW, importance of the job has fuck-all to do with the boss getting their quarterly bonus for cutting payroll.
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The "temporary" part of the H-1 visa was eliminated decades ago.
Re:Why would anybody do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they offer you severance pay and other benefits which you forfeit if you don't.
Disney is also a special case in Florida because it's THE major employer in the Orlando area. If you burn your bridges there, it's unlikely you'll work in that town again. (Not that it mattered because they were blocking people from coming back as contractors anyway but I think that's a legal issue issue, not a personal one - EG Contractors who worked at a company long term were found to be defacto employees by a court ruling against Microsoft several years ago - To get around that ruling contractors have to have a "rest" period of more than a year or else they might get to sue the company. I suspect Disney's actions for not hiring back the employees as contractors right away is probably to get around that.)
Re:for 1099ers W2 contractors working for a firm / (Score:5, Informative)
for 1099ers W2 contractors working for a firm / outsource don't fail under that rule.
That's an unfortunately common misunderstanding.
There are a lot of things bunched into the "contractor" name in recent years:
A. Working for a company under a 1099 tax reporting system, the person operates under their own business independent of the company. This is a real "independent contractor".
B. Working for a company under a W2 tax reporting system, the regular employee loses their job at the end of the temporary employment. This is a temporary worker or contingent employment.
C. Working for a company under a W2 tax reporting system, but that company is closely working with another company and the individual is assigned to work under their purview. This has many different names.
The guidelines they are supposed to use, which Microsoft and many others have gotten in trouble with, is when they bring in people in group A -- independent contractors under the 1099 tax system -- and treat them as though they are group B or C -- regular employees under the W2 tax system whose employment contract may or may not have a built-in termination date. This is mostly about tax differences, since the government generally gets less revenue from option A.
Many companies will bring in people through contracting companies like Deloitte or SAP. That is case C. These people are employed by one company as regular employees, and the two businesses have a working agreement. The individual is a regular worker and needs to have all the regular labor laws followed. This arrangement can happen for many years. Giving non-technical examples, you may have a car rental company with a single worker at an auto repair facility, or have building security hired through one company where the individuals report to work at the facility yet are hired, paid, and given other benefits by another business.
To confuse things, many times the companies involved in option C will hire their workers under option B. The workers are brought in from a separate company like Deloitte (option C), and those workers are hired by Deloitte as W2 workers with a temporary employment agreement (option B).
Unfortunately for workers, big companies often confuse the rules for them, calling them all "contractors" and dumping them under the same rules. Workers who were hired under option A must be able to work for additional groups. Companies get in trouble with option A when they keep the person too long since they stop looking like independent contractors and start looking like regular employees. When companies lay off lots of "contractors", usually they are laying off people under option B or C, but then refuse to hire them again because that is a rule for those under option A.
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It's a small world after all
Oppose us and we will crush you
It's a small small small small world
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