Training your replacement
Training your replacement
Date: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 2:36 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
Intel spokeswoman Gail Dundas acknowledged that they use Americans to
train L-1 workers who staff the company's offices in Russia, India,
China and other high-growth markets. But she says the Intel training
program does not result in American layoffs - and many Americans are
stupid enough to believe her!
I know I will be pilloried for not being sensitive to the plight of
ignorant Americans that are training their replacements so that they
can stay on a job long enough to pay off their purchase of a big-screen
TV, or secure a meager severance package, but how sorry should any of
us feel for people that insist on putting a noose around their own
necks? There was a time that Americans fought for their rights, now
they are nothing but a bunch of sheeple.
Besides being a documentary of the suicidal behavior of Americans that
can't seem to stand up for their jobs, this article perpetuates the
myth that H-1B visas have tight controls that force employers to pay a
prevailing wage. Harris Miller of the ITAA even claims that he wrote
guidelines to suggest that companies pay the prevailing U.S. wage. Of
course as we all know the ITAA is one of the shills of H-1B
exploitation so any guidelines they write should be viewed with
skepticism. Read the loophole they provide in their own guidelines:
"[companies] should only import those foreigners who have skills
lacking in America." Harris Miller constantly says Americans don't have
the skills or education to work in modern workplaces, so that sort of
opens the limit to anybody who wants to use his "guidelines".
Sunil Mehta, vice president of NASSCOM, the New Delhi-based lobbyist
for American Job Destruction, said that visas exist for 20 to 25 other
countries so he doesn't think "we should throw the baby out with the
bath water because of a few loopholes." That's easy for him to say
since he is being paid by Indian companies to destroy our jobs. Until
the baby has clean bath water let's just through it down the sewer!
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/offshoring08242003.htm
Training your replacement
By Susan Tordella / CNC Staff Writer and Rachel Konrad / Associated
Press
Sunday, August 24, 2003
System engineer Maria Kehn anticipated her job might be in jeopardy
when Hewlett-Packard Co. bought Compaq Computer Corp. last year.
But she didn't expect to train her replacement, who then moved back to
India and assumed Kehn's job in one of the latest cost-savings moves by
international corporations called "offshoring."
Although it was an awkward position, Kehn and her fellow engineers at
HP's facility in Littleton did not resign. They stayed on to train
about a dozen people who would replace them and join a growing work
force in India that serves U.S. consumers and companies by performing
so-called back office jobs.
When Kehn and her co-workers asked supervisors, "Where's our incentive
to do this?" Kehn said they were told, "We don't have to keep you. We
could fire you and you could have no severance package at all."
So the Americans taught the Indians about a software system for the
telecommunications industry and how to execute quality assurance
release tests on the product.
"They were all basically the same as we were," said Kehn, who lives in
Clinton. "They all have bachelor's degrees in computer science. They
weren't any smarter. They weren't any faster."
Kehn is among what appears to be a growing number of American
technology workers training their foreign replacements -- a humiliating
assignment many say they assume unwittingly or reluctantly, simply to
stay on the job longer or secure a meager severance package.
Their plight can be seen as an unintended consequence of the nation's
non-immigrant visa program -- particularly the L-1 classification. The
L-1 allows companies to transfer workers from overseas offices to the
United States for up to seven years -- ostensibly to familiarize them
with corporate culture or to import workers with "specialized
knowledge."
It also lets companies continue paying workers their home country wage.
Indian workers receive roughly one-sixth the hourly wage of the average
American programmer, who makes about $60 per hour in wages and
benefits.
Large technology companies say the L-1 helps them staff offices in
less-developed countries with workers who understand the needs of a
global corporation.
Tom Wilmott, CEO of Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based consulting firm that
specializes in the information technology industry, said the offshoring
trend has contributed to what's being called a jobless recovery.
"Not only have we lost 500,000 in high-tech" manufacturing and
development, "but an uncountable number of jobs in call service and
call centers because we don't have the unions" to count them, Wilmott
said.
For example, when American Express customers call with a question on
their bill, they will likely hear a person with a slight British
accent, based in India, said Wilmott. They have replaced an American
who might have earned $12 and hour, and get paid $2.50 an hour in
India.
Companies have discovered Indians have the education and ability to
assume computer engineering jobs, such as the type held by Kehn, who
earned more than $12 an hour.
Ed Pignone of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, reports the Boston area
has lost about 11,000 high-tech jobs in the past year. Like many, he
can't give an exact figure of how many jobs have been exported.
However, Pignone has an optimistic outlook on the situation.
"This is not like the mills in Lowell. The mills went away," first
going South, then overseas, said Pignone. "An entire industry left a
region."
Greater Boston retains its position as "one of the great technology
centers of the world," with corporate headquarters, industry leaders,
thinkers and universities situated within Interstate 495, Pignone said.
Some labor experts say out-of-work programmers should stop complaining,
and focus on their own re-training, just like the Rust Belt assembly
line workers whose factory jobs migrated to Mexico and Asia in the
1980s.
But unemployed tech workers contend that so many good jobs are going to
places like Bombay, Bangalore and Beijing that honing their technical
skills is futile. According to the research firm Gartner Inc., one out
of 10 technology jobs in the United States will move overseas by the
end of next year.
"Once I figured out what was going on, I was disgusted," said Kevin
Sherman, a 47-year-old programmer and technical author from
Worthington, Ohio, who was working for Manifest Corp., an information
systems consulting firm in Upper Arlington, Ohio.
Sherman held onto his $62,000-per-year contract job while he taught
several dozen Indian workers how to build and maintain computer
databases in 1999 and 2000. He quit rather than take on his next
assignment: fixing the newly trained foreigners' broken PCs. He's been
unemployed for two years.
Nancy Matijasich, Manifest president and CEO, said she no longer
employs L-1 workers like those Sherman trained, because the Y2K threat
has passed and the company has less need for programmers.
"There was a shortage of skills in the '90s," Matijasich said. "But we
haven't processed visas in a long time."
The State Department issued 28,098 L-1 visas from October to March, the
first half of fiscal 2003. That's an increase of nearly 7 percent from
the same period in 2002.
But the number of L-1 workers in the United States is likely much
higher, said Charlie Oppenheim, the State Department's chief of
immigrant visa control. Each L-1 lets a worker enter the United States
multiple times over several years.
There is no limit on the number of L-1 workers companies may import
each year. Legislation introduced last month by Rep. Rosa DeLauro,
D-Conn., seeks an annual limit of 35,000 L-1 workers nationwide.
By contrast, tight controls govern the H-1B visa, which requires
companies to pay workers the prevailing American wage. The H-1B cap is
scheduled to be reduced from 195,000 workers to 65,000 per year on Oct.
1.
Tech bellwethers including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Cisco Systems, Oracle
and Microsoft use L-1 workers but won't disclose how many they import.
Many bring in workers through consulting firms, usually Indian
companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and
Wipro Technologies.
Intel spokeswoman Gail Dundas acknowledged that the world's largest
chipmaker relies on Americans to train L-1 workers who staff the
company's offices in Russia, India, China and other high-growth
markets. But she says the Intel training program does not result in
American layoffs.
"If someone does something really well, we want the person who's going
to perform a similar function abroad to learn from the master. Then the
person in the United States will continue to do their job just as
before," Dundas said.
Intel provides L-1 workers a cost-of-living adjustment if they work at
the Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters or elsewhere in the United
States. Intel pays for housing, cars, return trips to the workers' home
countries and full medical benefits -- a package that ends up costing
significantly more than hiring an American, she said.
Dallas-based Texas Instruments also imports L-1 electrical engineers.
With U.S. colleges graduating fewer U.S.-born engineers and the
population of foreign-born science graduates mushrooming, TI has to
look overseas for talent, spokesman Dan Larson said.
"You have a declining pool from which to draw, and more of those people
are foreign nationals," Larson said. "If you're a company looking to
hire electrical engineers, you're obliged to hire the best and
brightest from wherever."
Sunil Mehta, vice president of NASSCOM, a New Delhi-based trade
association for Indian software companies, claims the L-1 program has
created about 1.5 million jobs in the United States since it began in
1970.
Still, NASSCOM and a U.S. counterpart, the Information Technology
Association of America, acknowledge that some companies exploit
loopholes. ITAA published guidelines for members on July 29, suggesting
that companies pay the prevailing U.S. wage and import only those
foreigners who have skills lacking in America.
"Similar visas exist in 20 to 25 other countries, including India,"
Mehta said. "I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath
water because of a few loopholes."
Michael Emmons says he's already become an L-1 casualty. The
41-year-old software developer moved from California to Florida in 2001
after Siemens, his contract employer, merged with another company. He
was supposed to help migrate disparate software into a single system,
but he and a dozen co-workers ended up training Indian replacements to
connect systems using IBM software.
Emmons, who quit the Siemens job after being told his position would be
terminated, is now lobbying politicians to abolish the L-1. He's also
considering a career in politics -- running on an "American Workers
First" campaign.
"I'm not saying offshoring can be stopped, but it does not have to be
like this," he said.
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