then and now, at the B of A

Date: Monday, January 20, 2003 2:33 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

This is copied from Dr. Norm Matloff's newsletter.

1/17/2003

Many of you will recall that there recently has been a lot of activity
in the Bank of America involving H-1B and offshore programmers. Much
of
the story has taken place in Charlotte, NC, the location of the
headquarters of the firm. The summary is that a lot of the programming
work formerly done by bank employees is now done by a combination of
H-1Bs in the U.S. and programmers in India.

An excellent analysis of the Charlotte B of A situation is available at
http://www.colosseumbuilders.com/Guild/h1b/howtounderpay.htm, showing
in
detail how the huge loopholes in H-1B law made it possible to replace
the bank's American programmers with H-1Bs at less than half the wages.
(Again, keep in mind that this is what the H-1Bs in the U.S. are
making,
not their counterparts in India.)

Recently the B of A also laid off a number of programmers in Concord,
CA
(East San Francisco Bay Area). I was a aware of this, but until this
week I had not been aware of an excellent article on it in the San
Francisco Business Times, which I am enclosing below. For contrast, I
am enclosing another article, from the Concord local paper back in
1997,
when the bank began this program of shifting the work to H-1Bs and
programmers in India. It is especially interesting that in 1997 the
bank assured its programmers in Concord that they would NOT be laid off
as a result of this program. Of course, that was false; eventually
almost all of them were laid off, as the first article below shows.

Note by the way that the issue of the American programmers being forced
to train their H-1B replacements also shows up in both articles. (In
the first, it simply says that the B of A was training the foreign
workers, but that seems to amount to the same thing, if not the same
timing.) This of course is what we have seen in a number of other
companies. Keep that in mind next time you read Harris Miller of the
ITAA lobbying group saying that H-1Bs are hired because Americans don't
have the necessary skills.

Note also that in 1997 the bank claimed it was doing this because it
couldn't find Americans to do the job, which again is at odds with the
fact that the bank forced the Americans to train their foreign
replacements.

Below the 1997 article is presented first, then the 2002 article.

Norm

"BofA Tech Workers Fear Jobs Heading Off to India"

Michael Liedtke's column, Business section, Contra Costa Times,
April 27, 1997

Bank of America's technology center is in the early stages of an
unsettling cost-cutting experiment. The San Francisco-based bank is
asking its computer engineers in Concord to undermine their own job
security by helping to train potential replacment workers imported from
India before shipping an untold number of positions overseas.

This arrangement, euphemistically dubbed "co-sourcing" by bank
management, has unnerved workers at BofA's huge Concord tech center,
which serves as the computer hub of the nation's third largest bank.
If
everything goes according to plan, BofA will shift more of the
responsibilites for running and maintaining its computer systesm from
Concord to India after the pilot program ends in October.

The first phase of the experiment inovles an overhaul of the computer
system that processes information for BofA's consumer loan
transactions,
such as home mortgages and car loans. Much of the information
contained
in the computer files is absolutely essential and highly confidential,
so BofA needs to make sure the computer systems can be run from India
wihtou glitches or security breaches.

BofA atrributes its decsion to hire engineers on the other side of the
globe to the short supply of top-notch computer engineers in the Bay
Area, where Silicon Valley firms regularly bid against each other to
land
the elite workers in the high-tech industry.

The bank also maintains none of its Concord emloyees will be dropeed
from the payroll if the pilot program with the India workers proves to
be a success. In the worst case, BofA said some of its Concord workers
may be transferred to other technology jobs.

Some BofA workers aren't buying the official company line. They view
BofA's new relationship with the India-based Infosys as the first step
in the bank's grand plan to dramatically slash costs by contracting out
much of the work currently done in Concord.

In informal meetings with the computer workers, BofA executives have
estimated the bank can save 20 percent to 30 percent by shifting more
technical work to India. BofA has been slashing expenses over the past
year in an effort to boost its return on equity -- a key yardstick
for
sizing up how well a company is performing for shareholders.

"The handwriting is on the wall," said one of BofA's anxious computer
workers. "They are going to try to maintain as many (systems) as they
can from India."

BofA spokesman Bob Wynne branded such talk as premature speculation.
"We really don't know if we are going to go ahead with this. We are
training some (INfosys) workers so we can evaluate whether the quality
of the work will meet our standards."

So far, seven Infosys workers from India have obtained temporary visas
to receive training in Concord. If BofA likes what is sees in the
current batch of visting workers, there are plenty more available.
Infosys has about 1,200 employees at two facilities in India.

Despite the reassurances from BofA's management, some Concord engineers
aren't waiting around to find out how this experiment ends. Since the
bank first unveiled its new partnership with Infsys, several longtime
engineers have defected from BofA.

Bank insiders attribute much of the current anxiety about Infosys
to the blunt-talking executive running the pilot program, Mary
Wikstrom.

Historically, BofA has shown great empathy with employee concerns.
Wikstrom, though, is an outsider. She came to BofA from no-nonsense
Wells Fargo Bank, which has always been straightforward about its
priorities. In Wells' pecking order, the pursuit of profit always
comes
before employee worries.

Wikstorm harked back to the Wells' philosophy during a packed brown-bag
meeting called to discuss the Infosys program last month. According to
people who attended the gathering, Wikstrom descibed the experiment
with
workers from India as a business decision and, in so many words, said,
"If you don't like it, go work someplace else."

Doesn't it seem like that phrase is becoming the motto of corporate
America?

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2002/11/25/tidbits.html

San Francisco Business Times
From the November 22, 2002 print edition

Bank job: You're fired, now go train your replacement

Compiled By Jim Gardner

Spreading some pre-holiday cheer, Bank of America this week

announced that it

is cutting 900 tech positions -- with the twist that some layoff

victims have

to help train replacements if they want to get severance pay.

The job cuts, 232 of them in the Bay Area, come as BofA is

outsourcing an

increasing amount of tech work abroad, particularly to India. That

has earned

the Charlotte, N.C.-based institution the nickname of Bank of

India among

disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-employees.

Sure enough, dozens of Indian tech workers have been visiting

BofA's major

tech centers in Concord, Jacksonville, Fla., and other cities

around the

country recently. They're getting training on work they'll do

back at home

for about half what departing employees are paid. The bank confirms

that some

laid-off workers are being required to help train new ones (and not

speak to

the media) as a condition of receiving severance.

The fact that BofA is simultaneously cutting jobs here,

outsourcing similar

work and requiring old job-holders to train new ones shouldn't lead

anyone to

assume these moves are in any way related, a spokeswoman insisted.

"Our sourcing strategy and these job cuts in response to economic

conditions

are completely separate," said BofA spokeswoman Juliet Don in San

Francisco.

As to why the bank is requiring some to train replacements or

forfeit their

severance packages, she said, "The bank needs to make sure their

skill-set is

retained."

Curiously, some of those laid off see it differently.

"It's like digging your own grave," groused one employee to the

Business

Journal of Jacksonville, Fla., an affiliated newspaper.

Just give 'em code

Forget food, drink, warmth and the rest of that

hierarchy-of-need

mumbo-jumbo. Programmers are prepared to survive on code alone.

So it seemed from a 350-plus group of Java and C++ programmers, who

displayed

an iron ability to forego creature comforts and focus on the

task at hand

during a prolonged debate between Sun Microsys-tems and

Microsoft at the

Hotel Sofitel in Redwood Shores last week.

Perhaps lured by the title ("Smackdown: Sun ONE J2EE vs.

Microsoft's .NET")

programmers started lining up an hour early for the 7 p.m. event.

Despite a

pronounced absence of sustenance -- refreshments extended solely

to three

pitchers of ice water, and just at the judges' table -- the group

couldn't

get enough.

In fact, at 9:30, when the moderator attempted to end the event,

the packed

room began chanting and clapping in unison. They demanded the

three-person

panel of technologists from both companies debate additional

questions on

benchmarking. At 10 p.m., they agreed to leave. Grudgingly.

As for warmth, when a jacket giveaway produced two apparent

winners, a Sun

programmer took matters into her own hands: She peeled off her

jacket and

gave it to the empty-handed but surprised winner, and was last

seen hugging

herself for warmth as she headed for the parking lot.

Got a tip for Talk of the Town? Email jgardner@bizjournals.com.

Contributors:

Mark Calvey, Lizette Wilson.
) 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.
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