Newspaper Chain CEO 'Pleased' To Announce IT Plan, Then Fires Tech Staff (computerworld.com) 474
dcblogs writes from a report on Computerworld: The McClatchy Company, which operates a major chain of newspapers in the U.S., is moving IT work overseas. The number of affected jobs, based on employee estimates, range from 120 to 150. The chain owns about 30 newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, where McClatchy is based; The Fresno Bee, The News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The State in Columbia, S.C. and the Miami Herald. In a letter sent to the chain's IT employees in late March, McClatchy CEO Patrick Talamantes detailed all the improvements a contract with the outsourcing firm, India-based Wipro, will bring, but buries, well down in the letter what should have been in its lead paragraph: There will be cutbacks of U.S. staff. The letter received by McClatchy's IT employees from Talamantes begins by telling them [the company] is "pleased to unveil our new IT Transformational Program, a program designed to provide improved service to all technology users, accelerated development and delivery of technology solutions and products, variable demand-based technology resources and access to modern and cutting-edge skills and platforms." Seven paragraphs down in the letter, he lowers the boom: "As we embark on the implementation phase, there will be a realignment of resources requiring a reduction in McClatchy technology staff." IT employees thought they were part of the solution to McClatchy's tech direction, not the problem. Said one IT employee: "This has taken us all by surprise. I'm not saying that we felt untouchable as they have been doing layoffs for the past 10 years, but being part of IT we felt that we had a big part in what happens" in the company. Employees are now training their replacements.
Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:5, Insightful)
And when the replacements are H1B's they are breaking the law.
If we just had a union!
They wouldn't be paying for an H1-b (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And there are plenty of European countries with strong IT job markets.
IT salaries in America are higher than in most European countries, and tech unemployment, at about 3%, is lower.
They also protect their working class.
The best route to prosperity for working people is a thriving economy. You don't get that with rigid labor markets.
Re:They wouldn't be paying for an H1-b (Score:5, Interesting)
"You don't get that with rigid labor markets"
Let's try something more flexible like outsourcing the management.
No golden parachutes for fuckups.
Free Trade (Score:2)
Free Trade: Where the 1% are free to trade your income and living for enterprises here, for profit derived from a lower standard of living elsewhere.
Yessir. Protectionism is bad. cuz the 1% really, really CARES about you. Got that? Thought so. Now all you need is a rectal probe to remove it.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Informative)
The Obama administration sued Boeing for moving jobs from Seattle to South Carolina. So yes, some people believe that moving jobs from higher costs areas to lower cost areas, even within America, is wrong.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
The Obama administration sued Boeing for moving jobs from Seattle to South Carolina. So yes, some people believe that moving jobs from higher costs areas to lower cost areas, even within America, is wrong.
The problem is that if you don't allow existing companies to hire employees in lower cost areas then they will eventually go out of business when their new competitors open shop in the lower cost area and offers a cheaper product.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that if you don't allow existing companies to hire employees in lower cost areas then they will eventually go out of business when their new competitors open shop in the lower cost area and offers a cheaper product.
"Lower cost areas" which is double-speak for "right-to-work states", where unions are much less powerful....
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IIRC that suit was because it was seen as breaking the Union - was it not? I don't think it had to do with the employees being less expensive, in particular, so much as it was about Union regulations and moving to "break" a union is illegal.
That's the gist that I got from it when it was on NPR when it was still news.
Re: (Score:3)
That had nothing to do with moving labour to cheaper areas. The complaint was that it was done in retaliation for union activities, which is illegal.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Interesting)
NY and Kentucky still must adhere to national labor laws.
Bumfuck India does not.
Lot's of talk going around about leveling the playing field, but offshoring of any jobs is definitely not a level playing field.
Even though I can be pretty Right Wong on stuff, I don't it's unreasonable to say if you are going to enjoy US distributions systems, regulations, and misc infrastructure, and most of all a consumer market that pays the prices you are asking for, then you need to make your stuff or support your services here. Feel free to build shit in China or India...but sell it there for the prices you can get there.
THAT, is a level playing field.
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Shit...Right Wing.
Maybe Slashdot can outsource to Kentucky and get a fucking Edit button added to this site.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an interesting opinion.
Let's face it, though: The same technology that allows me to work from home also allows someone in a place with an extremely low cost-of-living to compete with me, whether that location is Murrieta, CA or Memphis, TN, or Mumbai, India. If someone has the skills that I have and will work for half the price, why wouldn't a company take advantage of that?
Frankly, I have no problem with this. I don't like it, sure, but it's something I can compete against. I can move to a less expensive area. I can boost my skills. And if a company is looking for the cheapest workers, I'm not sure that's the kind of company I want to work for, anyway.
Where I have the problem is the, "Oh, we need H1B Visas so these people can come to the US and can be trained to do the work you do now." Uh, no. The idea behind H1Bs is that these people have skills that American workers don't have. If I have to train my replacement, then he obviously does not have skills that I, as an American worker, have.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an interesting opinion.
Let's face it, though: The same technology that allows me to work from home also allows someone in a place with an extremely low cost-of-living to compete with me, whether that location is Murrieta, CA or Memphis, TN, or Mumbai, India. If someone has the skills that I have and will work for half the price, why wouldn't a company take advantage of that?
And then you can move there, and work for less money.
Altogether too many people seem to thing that American workers are a black hole that you put money into and they never do a thing with it. Well paid people have a tendency to pay well.
There is a tipping point, and we might be right abou there, where the overpaid Americans who "deservedly" lose their good paying jobs, and have to work for a lot less, simply won't have teh money to continue to buy the stuff that the job creaters expect them to buy.
People have to have money to buy the things that people build to sell to make money on. And gaming the world's economies to accumulate greater wealth will only work for so long.
The very best possible outcome of this game is that eventually everyone in the world will be paid the same. Then everyone will be lazy privileged takers. Then weirdworld might happen - a total reversal - where the job creators have to figure out ways for the rest of us to make enough money to buy more and more of their stuff every quarter. I kinda doubt that the days of people having several maxed out credit cards are going to return, so wages might have to increase, not decrease.
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Remote working from half a world away only really works for simple, low skill jobs. Administrating a company network is about more than just configuring a few things and monitoring for low disk space. The IT has to support the business. The admin has to understand the business and its needs, and be responsive to what people are telling them.
In theory someone in India with Skype can fix a lot of low level issues, but it's always going to be a trade-off between frustration and slow, barely adequate response a
Daft.. (Score:3)
Why not petition the Government to do what they are supposed to do instead of saying your only option is to fuck over your neighbors? Are you really that much of a sociopath that you can't grasp another option? Don't even try that shit about you being a job creator, because if you are defending off shoring jobs you are not a creator but a destroyer. Anyone can look at Henry Ford's business model and understand why it worked and built a huge middle class economy, you sending money overseas destroys that v
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the worker is considered a commodity. Not the foundation of the business, which is what they actually are.
Ah, I can see you've never actually founded anything. I've started businesses, and believe me, I am the foundation of those businesses. And I've worked with PLENTY of (topically, here) IT people who consider employers to be commodities, exhibiting exactly zero loyalty as soon as a recruiter drops them an email with a slightly better offer. The foundation of the business is the person or group of people who conceived of it, came up with the funding for it, and deal with the crushing load of tax, compliance,
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
No what we're saying is that if you're benefiting from the generous US tax structure that favors business taxation over individual taxation(if you're doing it right and not doing a sole proprietorship) then you should be employing those people whom allow for that to happen, not abusing the H1B system to create a system of indentured servitude in the US. The tax structure in the US is so out of whack that a tiny sliver are not paying the percentages that they used to,which were...punitive to say the least,and that has swing so far to the other direction that those at the top of the wealth pyramid are essential transferring wealth to themselves and setting the country up for another great depression. We're basically at 1920s levels for income disparity and that's a problem for a functioning capitalist society as well as a functioning democracy and with the advent of the internet news cycle we've seen a huge swing away from journalism to yellow journalism. Your business may be (hopefully) doing well now, but if this trend keeps happening you're mortgaging against your future for short term profits on the backs of the American worker and no one wants to see your business fail, America go into depression, or a jobless economy.
Re:Free Trade (Score:4, Insightful)
You wouldn't have such a hard time retaining personnel if you paid better than market rate(if your shop is a shit show and/or bad culture you need golden handcuff level pay) and offered raises as their experience working for you grew their resume. It's called "retention" it is as much your job as a business owner as paying your taxes. Did you think the employee OWES you loyalty as their flat wage salary was eroded by inflation? Lack of loyalty is a two way street, and employees' willingness to forego self-interest is limited to the history of similar acts of good will they've received in kind). Loyalty/obligation also has a "time-value of money" sort of relationship to time, so a nice thing a long time ago isn't as meaningful as a broken promise recently.
Bottom line: cry me a river.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
I get it. You think that everyone who starts a business is suddenly a slave to the state, and to anyone that wants a paycheck from them. You're exactly the sort of entitled, lazy bum that's chasing businesses and jobs out of the country.
Actually, I believe fervently that business owners should leave the country as they outsource.
Tell me - and try not to go hyperbolic like you did with the other guy. Should Americans be paid the same as the people that you outsource to? How about making a universal non management pay of 1 dollar a day. At that point, I suspect you mimght consider keeping jobs in America?
So now, you are making the money you deserve as a founder, and a job creator, and those American takers will be making what "entitled, lazy bums" deserve. And should thank you for it while they are at it.
So when all of us lazy bums are unemployed or making third world wages, you better be selling food, because that's where most of their money goes to. Because we'll be doing the same thing. And as "entitled lazy bums" it will be well deserved to only have money foro the most basic of life's needs.
Because you appear to willingly see only one side of the equation. In the world of money matters, there are two, and they should be balanced
1. People need to make shit and make money selling it.
2. People need to make money to buy shit that people who make shit to mke money so that people who make shit can make money.
And in parting, you really should move to wherever you outsource the jobs to - they'll buy your stuff as we takers assume our well deserved collapse. And you won't have to deal with all of us "entitled lazy bums." that you very obviously hate with a white hot passion. Let us know - we'll have a party for you.
The day after you leave, because if you can't hire us "entitled lazy bums' - you are no job creator - you're a parasite.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, actually starting a business from the ground up is tough unless you've got some angel investors propping you up. However, the CEO of most Fortune 500 companies are not the founders. It is an all-to-common tale that once the original founder/CEO is out of the picture, the PHBs take over.
Jobs and Wozniak were the foundation of Apple. Jobs was kicked out and then the company nearly went bankrupt. It took his return to save the company, and it is already apparent that Cook isn't up to the task that Jobs left behind. Similarly, HP used to make kick ass stuff, because it was a company that actually valued engineering talent. That went out the door when the founders were out of the picture. Now I wouldn't touch HP goods and services with a ten foot pole. They've driven all of the competent workers out of the organization.
Ultimately, loyalty is a two way street. If your IT guys consistently leave the moment a "slightly" better offer shows up, then there are probably additional factors at play that make you an undesirable employer. My employer is not the best, but I would be hesitant to simply pick up and leave for merely a "slightly" better offer. I've invested many years with my current team and you'd probably have to offer me at least 10k more a year for me to seriously consider bailing.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like you're the person that is disloyal if your employees jump ship the second that a *sightly* better offer comes around. Did you ever ask yourself why they were jumping ship? Or did you just file it under "worthless disloyal PoS", not bother with figuring out why they left in such a hurry, and start working to correct that so that the next time an offer comes around the "worthless disloyal PoS" might consider their current job more stable and worthwhile?
Most people, whether they are an employee or an employer, will not suddenly change their current arrangements unless they feel that provides a better long term solution. An employee that knows that their work is important to their employer and that the employer is appreciative of their work is a lot less likely to jump at the first offer given to them than the employee that knows their work is just a line item on an expense sheet and that they are replaceable meatsacks as far as their job is concerned. Conversely, an employer that treats their employees as valuable assets and actually cares about the well-being of their employees is more likely to keep them than an employer that treats the employee like a subhuman inanimate object and pays them less than what they need to pay their bills at the end of the month.
In short, both sides must respect and trust one another for the employment relationship to work long term.
Another aspect since you brought it up, (the entitlements), is justified. Why? Because if the damn employer would pay their employees enough to pay their bills, the "entitlements" wouldn't need to be enforced by the government. If you as an employer think that an uninsured, one missed paycheck away from bankruptcy, employee that constantly works an ever-changing number of hours on different days at different times, in an unsafe environment, while being afforded no chance to socialize (at work or at home), have anytime to themselves, or even have a lunch that doesn't involve inhaling their food, is a good business decision then you are:
A. Insane if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof would not break the employee's will to continue working.
B. A sociopath if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof would inspire ANY form of trust with the employee or the job market in general.
C. Corrupt if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof is fair working conditions for your employees.
D. Beyond hope if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof wouldn't harm society as a whole or that the employees wouldn't want to jump for greener pastures given their current conditions.
If you as an employer don't want to be forced by the government to pay for all of this, then clean up your own workplace and keep it clean of your own accord, treat your employees like human beings, and pay your employees enough so they can buy the services they need and pay their bills themselves. Otherwise, if you want to run a skeleton crew sweatshop and pad the profit margin as much as possible to the determent of your workforce, then yes the government will need to step in to protect the workforce from you.
Also "at will" employment is just code for "we can fire you for any reason, deal with it." Typically, an employee that gets fired without warning, winds up spending 6+ months looking for another job. (Especially if they have no real special skill set.) 6+ months that unless their former employer payed the unemployment taxes on their former position, (there are those "entitlements" again!), and they can qualify for them, (government likes tightening it's belt too, in addition to fudging the unemployment numbers), the former employee goes without a form of income and still has bills to pay. Given that situation, there shouldn't be any question as to why an employee is always on the lookout for the next job offer. They want to have something lined up in the event they get fired, so that they can continue paying their bills.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, this might seem really weird to you, but the second scenario is how it works in pretty much every country in Europe. "At will" employment contracts are largely illegal.
The employer can't get rid of you unless one of these is the case:
Note that in the last case, you won't be required to train your replacement, because it's your position which is being made redundant, not you.
For their part, employees have to work their notice period, which for some difficult-to-recruit positions can be as long as six months.
Note that Germany has some of the strongest laws on employee rights, and also is one of the most productive countries in Europe. Germany is also the third largest exporter in the world, only slightly behind the USA (not bad for a country with a quarter of the population and a fraction of the natural resources). I'm not saying there's a cause and effect, but I am saying that productivity and employee rights can co-exist.
No, it's the ruthless and uncontrolled search for profits that are chasing businesses and jobs out of the country. Businesses are not motivated by enforcing some idealist "protestant work ethic". It's all about the money. US workers cannot compete with Indian workers: they don't have access to their cost of living, for one thing.
If an employer wants loyalty from employees, they only need pay them a fair rate for the job and provide decent conditions and the employees will stay.
If an employee wants loyalty from an employer in the US, they're shit out of luck.
Re:Free Trade (Score:5, Interesting)
My father was like that. He started as a young man in 1973 in a large bank, and he did have a really nice career. Granted, I never saw him. He was always at work, always. He did it for us, I know that. He earned well, and could provide us with a good life and my mother stayed home for us.
Then something changed in the early nineties, I don't know what, but I suspect company culture, because my father worked hard. One day, end 1992, he came home and he told us he "had been let go". Basically, "on the spot", because due to his responsibilities he could do way too much damage. I was also superbly timed: a few months more, and he'd have worked there for 20 years instead of 19, which would have doubled his legal severance package.
My mother and my father were shocked. Both expected him to stay with the same company as had both my grandfathers. My father, was -by then- 45 years old. Try getting a job at that age. It took ages before he found anything again, and then it were basically consulting gigs that kept us afloat until he retired.
I was a teenager, when that all happened. It made a profound impact on me, never to trust your employer ever. I'm not going to give you all my time, I'm not going to continue to work for you if you refuse to give me raises. I will leave you.
I doubt, it's the employees that stopped being loyal... I believe that the employee-employer trust has been broken, and I doubt it was the employees doing the first step.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Should Americans be paid the same as the people that you outsource to
Why should they? Cost of living in the US is substantially higher than it is in, say, India. A person who wants a decent living in the US needs to be offering an employer something they can't get from someone in India - something worth so much more that the employer is willing to write a much, much larger check for that person's time than he's willing to write to someone in India. For some employers, having a staff that's part of the local culture, speaking comfortably in the local style and able to commun
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
IT salaries in America are higher than in most European countries, and tech unemployment, at about 3%, is lower.
So are the cost of living. I doubt bottom line is a big difference.
Re: They wouldn't be paying for an H1-b (Score:5, Funny)
Americans generally don't travel much and seldom bother to learn a foreign language.
Many tech companies in Sweden use English as their working language. In Britain, English is even more common, although they don't speak it as well as the Swedes.
Re: (Score:3)
As for IT salaries, are they higher or lower relative to the cost of living? I think you'll find that it's actually about equal. I am an IT guy in Norway and I make a lot more than Americans but my cost of living is higher... it balances.
I think that there's somewhere in-between. America is the biggest and wealthiest socialist country in the world. Has been for a long time. When the unemploymen
Re:Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget, at one time unions forced massive reforms that were taken for granted decades later and to some extent still are. Things like the 8 hour day, workplace safety, better pay. I have no doubt some unions have become corrupt over time, but that doesn't mean a newly formed union can't be effective today.
For example, what do you suppose the management would do if nobody was willing to train their replacement or answer any questions? Two choices, cancel the layoff or go down in flames.
Re: (Score:2)
But why should teachers be forced to pay union dues if they don't WANT to be part of the union?
Re: (Score:2)
Because, due to the union, they end up with more money even after paying the dues than they would have otherwise.
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Then, by that argument, EVERY employee should be forced to pay union dues due to the 40 hour workweek, etc., mentioned elsewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Because, due to the union, they end up with more money even after paying the dues than they would have otherwise.
This is the argument that people try to make all the time but I don't buy it. Unions are designed to negotiate on your behalf. What if I don't want a union to negotiate on my behalf? What if I think I can negotiate a better deal? If I'm an above average employee there is no reason to think that I couldn't negotiate a better deal than a union that is having to negotiate the same deal for everyone which includes both above average and below average employees. Sure unions are fairer for the underdog but t
Re:Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:4, Insightful)
If I'm an above average employee there is no reason to think that I couldn't negotiate a better deal than a union
This is the fallacy that is used to keep your wages down. Maybe you are a little above average, but how does that help you earn more than your co-workers? You don't know how much they are getting, so you can't say "I'm worth 10% more than John". You don't know if John joined at a time when the company had more money for staff, or needed to get someone in quickly or with a specific skill to finish a product and paid over the odds. All you have is some vague idea of what the "going rate" is and how much more you are worth than that.
And everything things they are above average. No-one goes into a negotiation thinking "I'm worth 20% less than average", or if they do they certainly don't negotiate on that basis. The company knows this so starts low and makes you feel good by conceding a few extra $k, but you have little way of knowing if that final figure was above or below what they expected to pay. And if it was above, maybe they will try to claw it back by not giving you much of a raise.
I'm not saying unions negotiating salary are the best solution, especially in IT. The best option would be to publish everyone's salaries, to make direct comparison possible. Even that has its down-sides, like making it harder to bullshit your way to a much higher salary when moving company.
Re:Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget, at one time unions forced massive reforms that were taken for granted decades later and to some extent still are. Things like the 8 hour day, workplace safety, better pay. I have no doubt some unions have become corrupt over time, but that doesn't mean a newly formed union can't be effective today.
I think one of the biggest issues is that there is no organization that lobbies for Technologists at a political level to maintain their interests. This is why it is easy to pit technology professionals from one country against another country and old against young. If it is us vs us then technologists can never be acting in our own interests because we are to busy competing with each other instead of co-operating to promote our interests. It should be the other way around, organizations should be competing for us to work for *them*. As a consequence all or our salaries are lower and it's all our own fault. We have no power because we are individuals saying *unions are bad* then whining when these sorts of things happen.
Call it what you will, a union, association, organization whatever. We have nothing representing our political interests. We have been naive and we now face the consequences of those many years of naivety. We have to face it before we can fix it. We have to own what we have done to ourselves.
For example, what do you suppose the management would do if nobody was willing to train their replacement or answer any questions?
This happened to me over 10 years ago. I was more than willing to train my replacement however everyone of them gave up because it was too difficult. I'm not saying that the work can't be learned but there is more than one way to comply with contractual terms. Mistakes happen and replacements sometimes cause downtime unintentionally whilst they learn, it's just an unfortunate consequence.
Sometimes people can't learn the easy way and there is certainly no obligation for you to teach it. Sometimes business processes require 2 or 3 times more steps to be certain they will work. If the ineffectualness of the replacement, combined with the "certainty", combined with the inability to innovate (people just surviving cannot innovate) will rapidly make such a plan cost ineffective and rapidly make any board member who suggests it look like a buffoon to the board and shareholders. There needs to be a track record of these failures and failures of the C level careers who suggest it.
Get creative people, it's what got you here and what will keep you here.
Two choices, cancel the layoff or go down in flames.
If I am reading you correctly I think that this is probably the time. Technologists don't need to picket. A passive protest could mean that any infrastructure attack on a company doing this is simply not resisted and no data is recorded, out of hours work is unsuccessful, incorrect commands, don't respond to outages.
It should only take about 12 days of downtime for any business to be completely on it's knees and willing to negotiate with those who have worked hard to make that business function. 14 days and they will be offering pay rises for you to stay. This is what a technologist's protest should look like. Just because we don't *want* to work in management doesn't mean we don't know what makes business function when threatened. Disney paved the way, and make no mistake *every* technologist here is being threatened and this will happen more and more.
We either control our own destinies or it will be controlled for us. In the 21st century anyone arguing against us organizing ourselves is effectively saying we should be slaves.
Re:Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:5, Funny)
> Slave or master, choose now ...
False dichotomy! I choose "cable select."
(No, I'm not too proud of that but it was there and I had to. I'm sort of sorry but not sorry enough to not post this.)
Re:Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget, at one time unions forced massive reforms that were taken for granted decades later and to some extent still are. Things like the 8 hour day, workplace safety, better pay.
People DIED so that we could have a 40-hour work-week. Why, every country but the US just celebrated these protests that gave workers' rights – "May Day." This movement occurred about 120 years ago. The US chose instead to create "Labor Day", which takes place in the Fall, partly to obscure references to the bloody genesis of workers' rights. People DIED for your rights.
For those in the US, start by reading Wikipedia's entry on the Haymarket Affair [wikipedia.org]. Educate yourself further from there.
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Are you sure [wikipedia.org]?
I'm going to need a citation for that claim.
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It's not quite that simple....and this is straight from the source you provided.
"On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit."
Ford wasn't unionized until 1941.
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Ford is well known for enlightened self-interest. If the management in other companies had bee likewise enlightened, the unions might not have had to apply as much pressure as they did. But even in the case of Ford, the decision to try it wasn't made in a vacuum. Unions had been advocating first for 10 hours, then for 8.
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It sounds to me like the old employees could have been able to wield those cutting-edge skills without needing to pass them on to the outsourcing company replacing them. Oh well.
Too bad they chose not to, thus making them part of the problem.
"Employees are now training their replacements." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Employees are now training their replacements. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd train them.
Poorly.
Yeah, rm -rf / –
That's how you fix it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"We just set all passwords to qwerty to save time."
"Just set the permissions to read/write access for all."
"Updates just slow you down."
Re: "Employees are now training their replacements (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not sabotage and you could never prove it without documentary evidence of a deliberate conspiracy.
I'm not a trainer or an educator. I have no background in training. Presumably any reasonable job in IT involves a lot of fairly complex skills which I am not competent to instruct others on doing in anything but an informal manner, especially under the duress of a looming and forced period of unemployment.
I did a shitty job of training? Probably at least as shitty as I do plumbing, haircuts, landing an airplane or any other skilled task which I am not specifically trained to do. You have to have a college degree and a license to teach children to count to 10, and you expect perfection when I train someone, particularly from a foreign country less skilled in English, in how to do my job?
Fuck you. Fuck you for importing people to do a job so you can get rich(er), fuck you for treating my career keeping your under-capitalized IT system running as if it was a cookie recipe. How about you train me to do your job asshole? Oh, that's right, executives have innate magical skills that warrant six figure salaries and incentives.
If your 6 rupees for a dozen replacements do a terrible job, don't blame my training for being inadequate.
Re: "Employees are now training their replacements (Score:5, Interesting)
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"There's nothing whatsoever in them that says that you can't train your replacement badly."
This never works, because replacements usually start doing some part of your job while you are training them. if they start doing part of your job while you are training them badly, the folks you report to will likely notice. It's rare that you train folks to do stuff in IT without them actually doing some of it under your watch. it's rare that there's a cutoff date where, you train them, and you quit and they star
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I wouldn't train a single one of these dipshits.
Generally soon-to-be-ex employees do this because they receive a larger severance payment for doing so.
It's easy to be high-and-mighty, but when you have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed it's hard to turn down that free cash, as you're going to be fired either way.
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you don't get it. let me explain.
when you are training your replacment, this is not usually the first time for you. which means, you have been on and off jobs (I have and I'm not in the area that this story is about) and you probably NEED the severance that they bribe you with, so that you do their bidding for the final few weeks.
no one willingly does this. we do it because we have a need to eat and they have us.
I don't love this idea. I'm not happy about admitting it, but I have lived it and its a real
If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: If only... (Score:2)
These guys are assholes (Score:2)
I'm in Cary NC ... and these assholes refuse to stop dropping 'The Cary News' in my drive way.
You know what the Cary News is? A front page with some fake BS story on it, and 5-10 pages of ads. They distribute it FOR FREE ... because no one wants the fucking thing.
Its awesome that they throw a bunch of dead tree in my drive way ... in an area known as 'the silicon valley of the east coast' ... where we have so many techies that you can't spit without hitting a geek ... and not a fucking one of us use dead
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Take pictures and then sue them for littering. A man in Atlanta did that successfully IIRC.
This is why Trump is popular. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws. They see both current parties as out of touch and not fighting for their needs. IMHO we can't blame these companies as they are operating to maximize shareholder value within the current set of rules (laws, regulations). We should be blaming the government for propagating a set of rules that encourage practices that cause loss of jobs. While I'm no protectionist, we DO need some balance. I find it reprehensible that people have to train their own lower-cost and offshore replacements.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed. I'm for Trump because he might fight for American citizens. Maybe. Sure, he might be lying, but no one else running even bothered to lie about fighting for actual Americans.
The current crop of Republicans in power are useful only for immediately dropping to their knees and gently sucking Obama's cock whenever he looks at them sternly. (Ryan swallows and asks piteously for more.)
Trump probably won't be able to accomplish much even if he gets elected, but at least he might fight.
Re:This is why Trump is popular. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm for Trump because he might fight for American citizens. Maybe. Sure, he might be lying, but no one else running even bothered to lie about fighting for actual Americans.
I don't believe he will do this because he's shown no evidence of this in the businesses he ran previously.
His Trump shirts are made in China. The steel in his buildings comes from the lowest bidder, not American suppliers.
His employees are not treated well either.
If he wants to help American workers why can't be point to his own enterprises?
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Trump has succeeded in the system as it was written
If going bankrupt a bunch and losing a bunch of daddy's wealth counts as success in your eyes, I hate to think of what counts a failure.
But sure, vote for a pathological liar who can't even keep a business afloat reliably.
Re: (Score:2)
trump? that mega MEGA rich asswipe?
you are delusional if you think he could give one shit about you or me or even america. he's all ego and all in it for self glorification. he says what his crowd wants to hear.
don't buy one word of it.
I wish someone would speak up for us. but believe me, he's not it.
Re:This is why Trump is popular. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws.
This, a thousand times this...
Maybe Trump will do something, maybe he won't. I have no idea. But I know for darn sure Clinton won't, she is bought and paid for...
Re: This is why Trump is popular. (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump may be describing real problems, but his proposed solutions are hopelessly flawed and naÃve, not to mention dangerously divisive. Assuming you can trust anything he says anyway, since three quarters of his claims are provably wrong, and half his opinions change the next week. There's a reason even his own party want nothing to do with him, and it's not because he's been winning.
The status quo may be crap in a great many ways, but go ahead and elect him if you want to see how much worse it could get. At the least it'll provide entertainment for us non-Americans.
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There's a reason even his own party want nothing to do with him, and it's not because he's been winning.
Yea, they are afraid he'll upset their gravy train...
The two parties are more interested in making sure it stays the way it is, than actually doing anything useful. Trump is a threat to that.
Many Republicans would rather see a Democrat elected who is bought and paid for and will do what she is told, rather than see someone actually change anything.
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Thought the same until I read a comment above: "You know what the Cary News is? A front page with some fake BS story on it, and 5-10 pages of ads. They distribute it FOR FREE ... because no one wants the fucking thing."
The problem is deeper than the trade agreements. It's what we make and what we do.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws.
This, a thousand times this...
Maybe Trump will do something, maybe he won't. I have no idea. But I know for darn sure Clinton won't, she is bought and paid for...
Sanders does not appear to have been bought.
Re: (Score:3)
Soy why not Bernie? You get all the concern for U.S. workers without the misogyny, bigotry, racism, and sheer idiocy and infantile behavior?
Re: This is why Trump is popular. (Score:2)
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic
Seriously? Question for everyone: When most of the rest of you watch Trump, Billary or Sanders (yeah, he talks a good line), are you truly unable to see the complete and utter lack of empathy and sincerity in their eyes or are you all just indulging in the most desperate of delusions?
He's being opportunistic (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
> corporate behavior
Trump is famous for corporate behavior. From his business past I would say he would have been the first to suggest outsourcing. Maybe we will hear about actual events in the past where he did just that in the coming months.
After all, most of his buildings were built by illegal immigrants...
Trump is just saying shit he thinks will get him elected. Most of them are the opposite of what he did and usually does. Remember the "birther" campaign? He was the head of that. How dumb do you hav
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws.
Wow. Just. Wow.
It is absolutely idiotic to think that Trump is going to fight for American workers.
Absolutely.
Idiotic.
Trump is a businessman, and business almost always look for the cheapest means to accomplish a goal. Trump and Clinton will both try to accelerate H1B replacements for American workers.
Anyone who votes for either Clinton or Trump is a raging moron, and is wasting a vote for actual beneficial change.
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I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws.
Donald Trump uses slave labor.
Trump is building a giant condo–hotel–golf courses development in Dubai. They, like all Dubai developments, use what is effectively indentured servitude – turned into slavery by not upholding the agreement.
When asked by reporters, Trump said that he does not engage in such employment practices. Well, technically, he doesn't. There are a couple of shell companies that Donald Trump contracts-out the work to, and those companies import the (usually Bangladesh
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That is when he worked for himself...
If he works for us, and takes it seriously, then he would stop doing that.
But you have to hire him to get him to work for you. :) If you don't hire him, why would he care?
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Right. Which is why when he's solicited investors for his various businesses, he's always done his best to do right by them.
Oh, no, wait... what he's actually done is designed to corporations from inception to go bankrupt while putting as much money in his own pocket as possible. But hey, I'm sure *this* time he's turned over a new leaf...
Re: (Score:2)
500+ companies... half with his name on them...
4 bankrupties out of all of that...
How sure are you of your information?
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Trump is popular because people think protectionism will make things better?
Yes, polling has shown that protectionism is favored by the majority in both parties. Most people are ignorant of economics in general, and the ugly history of protectionism in particular. As we throw up barriers, other countries will retaliate, and everyone will be dragged down. Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong. Most voters understand that protectionism is simple and obvious. Fewer understand why it is wrong.
which side? (Score:5, Insightful)
In India, "Hooray! We're getting jobs!"
Who are we to side with more?
Re: (Score:2)
Who are we to side with more?
We'll see how long the self-righteous anti-trumpers keep calling him and everyone else racist bigots as their jobs go overseas.
Remember: neither the suits, nor the government, give a damn about your well being or a third-worlder's well being. You're just a cog to a g-man or to a suit. So don't act high-and-mighty about how poor third-worlders are being given a hand up. The Man doesn't care at all and they'll flush us all down the toilet the instant they can make a buck or grab more power for themselves.
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>“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Poppycock. It's like hiking in bear or mountain lion country - you don't need to run faster than them - just faster than the people you're hiking with. Everything beyond that is just showing off for the ladies.
Re: which side? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On the winning side of course!
Erm? That was not the question?
Re: which side? (Score:2)
From a global perspective, most Americans are the 1%, and off-shored jobs are simply reducing global inequality.
Doesn't make it suck any less when you get laid off, and if your replacements have insufficient skills to do the job well then the company will (deservedly) suffer, but OTOH it's likely a huge opportunity for the new workers to get a crack at the big time.
How many more examples do we need ? (Score:3)
How is this unsustainable? (Score:3)
But how long can this last ? It is unsustainable.
Why do you consider it un-sustainable?
If anything what was unsustainable is keeping jobs in the U.S. with more and more per-employee overhead piling up.
If you make it hard to make jobs people will not have a lesser need for jobs to be done - they will find out how they can get them done for a lot less if possible.
Combine that with a lower and lower birth rate in the U.S. making it hard to even find workers, much less good ones.
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Maybe the H1B drones in India, can benefit from Reading Sacramento Bee or Miami Herald to keep their numbers up.
This isn't about H-1B, it's about outsourcing. By definition there are no "H-1B drones" in India, because H-1B is a US immigration status.
Did they also announce to outsource readership? (Score:2)
Wait, they still print newspapers? (Score:2)
When was the last time you bought a newspaper? Answer my poll question [strawpoll.me]
But Trump is racist, misogynist, rude and clown (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, editorials of this newspaper were calling all the names for daring to touch the subject of outsourcing. But these are not the editors' and article writers' jobs that are on the chopping block.
This is the reason that most of the newspapers are doing rather badly with no profit to show.
Being politically correct has a price. Chicken came to roost. They always come. One way or another.
Trump is none of those (Score:2)
Job hunting before training replacements (Score:5, Insightful)
"Employees are training their replacements", I hear that often.
I hope they're spending all their hours at work prioritising job hunting and not training the replacements. Loyalty is two way.
"Employees are now training their replacements." (Score:2)
translation (Score:5, Insightful)
He's making an announcement to the entire company. Difficult as that may be to believe, IT staff isn't actually the most popular group of employees in many companies.
So, roughly translated, his message reads: "Rejoice, journalists, artists, writers, editors, and business people, our ornery and expensive IT staff is being replaced with more efficient and friendlier overseas staff, and we're going to save money too!"
(Whether this is going to work out as planned is, of course, another question.)
Re: (Score:3)
(Whether this is going to work out as planned is, of course, another question.)
No it's not. Outsourcing to India never works.
Re: (Score:2)
He's making an announcement to the entire company. Difficult as that may be to believe, IT staff isn't actually the most popular group of employees in many companies. So, roughly translated, his message reads: "Rejoice, journalists, artists, writers, editors, and business people, our ornery and expensive IT staff is being replaced with more efficient and friendlier overseas staff, and we're going to save money too!"
Regardless of that it's the job of any CxO to make a shit sandwich sound tasty. If they were laying off journalists he'd make that sound like some kind of strategic plan and realignment opportunity too, he wouldn't say "business has turned sour and people don't like our product anymore" any more than he'd say "those Indians work so damn cheap" even though that's the reality. Yeah I've met some dysfunctional IT organizations, but I doubt outsourcing would fix any of the because the dysfunction is usually at
Goodbye Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot, as of late, appears to discuss less technology and more of this drivel. There are too many stories about jobs being outsourced. And the usual "freedom loving" crowd is begging politicians and anybody who will listen to force companies, one way or another, to not outsource. It did not work for manufacturing jobs, but somehow it might just work for their service sector jobs
You people need to adjust your expectations. You don't need a new plan B. You need a better plan A. If you think your job is in danger of being outsourced, do not expect someone else to come in and save it.
And for crying out loud, stop with the freaking doom and gloom. You guys sound like a bunch of griefers. Every story is filled with people whining about something or trying to recycle really old jokes about Soviet Russia or some shit like that.
I have been hitting Slashdot out of habit over the years. But man, this shit is getting old.
"IT employees thought..." (Score:2)
"IT employees thought they were part of the solution to McClatchy's tech direction, not the problem."
Yeah.
It's pretty common for the people who are the problem to think that they are the solution, and then not be the solution.
There's even a term coined for people who insert themselves into a process, but have no real utility to the process itself, other than to slow it down. It's "AI", and no that doesn't mean what you think it means: it stands for "Artificial Importance". People who insert themselves int
Re: (Score:3)
I assume payroll is tax-deductible. That the money you pay your employees can be deducted from the gross that the business earns before paying corporate taxes. What if we exclude foreign payroll and expenses from being deductible? If the employees are coming physically to the U.S., perhaps a minimum salary is in order as some suggest (based upon industry). Maybe require the company to retain the employees that they're firing.
Any thoughts? Good or bad about this.
That would be great, if the 'elected' folks who would have to implement and enforce your excellent ideas, hadn't had their jobs bought and paid for by the very corporations whose policies you're trying to counter.
This shit, and so much other shit like it, is ultimately the result of a badly broken electoral system. Fix that, and everything else becomes at least possible. Until we force electoral reforms that do away with elected offices going (mostly) to the highest bidder, we'll be stuck - bent over, holdi
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You forgot:
0. Convince the "representatives" profiting from current status quo that they should work together to change the laws to be less vulnerable to corruption (i.e. less profitable for them)
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I assume payroll is tax-deductible
It is not that it is tax deductible - it is that it is a simple expense. Frankly, trying to do what you suggest is crazy complicated. Now you have to define what is a payroll expense and would count against earnings, and what it a outsourcing contract that wouldn't count, and what is an outsourcing contract that would count (I assume that is someone like IBM/HP/EDS comes in as a US company that would be Ok, right?)
Now that we have to define these things to the point where they are crystal clear - what
Re: (Score:2)
H1-B was created for the case when there really aren't enough qualified American workers. In some RARE cases there is a legitimate need to import IT staff. Making their salary not a business expense would be so costly that it would be more logical to get rid of H1-B altogether
Re: (Score:2)
Prediction: right when they get their outsourced IT working smoothly, those newspapers will be wiped out by Internet competition
They will not avoid this problem by continuing to use American workers. It is not like the volunteers and gig-workers only target companies that "deserve it". If anything, cost cutting will help them hang on longer.