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Age Discrimination, Indian-Style
theodp writes "In April, IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano told investors Big Blue hopes to dodge an estimated $6 billion in liability stemming from a judge's ruling that IBM violated U.S. federal age discrimination laws. In May, IBM closes on its $150-$200MM purchase of Indian outsourcer Daksh, whose age requirements for job applicants make Logan's Run seem progressive. On its Opportunities page, Daksh states that Customer Care Specialists should be between 21-25 years of age and Team Leaders should be no older than 27. Early Daksh investors included Citigroup and we-don't-need-no-stinking-unions Amazon."
IBM has discrimiated against older workers in the past, and they're buying a company that discrimiates against aged works now, but other than sharing the common feature of discrimination by big blue, these two events are unrelated.
You could be a team leader for 2 years before the famine.
01100010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101
Almost every job listed will have some sort of min/max age requirement. You could even be denied a job based on your blood type! Having type B blood puts you at a disadvantage from the start when looking for a job in Japan.
This is why we outsource to India. Less government regulation, fewer worker protection laws, fewer environmental regulations...
While you could make a case for this in some industries, like textiles, it isn't the major factor in most cases of outsourcing. The main reason that companies outsource is because people are willing to work for less elsewhere, and this is overwelmingly because the standard of living is lower in their country.
As someone else pointed out India does have unions and wage laws, and if they think they need more they are a democracy and can pass more, just like the US did. So no this is not a problem at all.
Every country has worker protection laws, even China. Does that mean they're enforced or are strong? No. American companies would never be allowed to list age limitations, yet Indian companies have no qualms. So, in this context, the protection laws in America ar stronger.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Better in this case equates to "same capability for less cost". Lower wages do not necessarily mean worse working conditions. In fact, from talking to Indian friends who have worked both in the US and in India the actual working conditions are equivalent. So why are you mad exactly?
And, I was "traveling a bit": I was observing an accent training class at Daksh in Mumbai two weeks ago.
Know of what ye speak.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
At the factories I worked at in one of the southern 'special economic districts', it seemed like they just provided crowded dormitories and food for the teenage girls working the lines. I guess they could have been paid in addition, but certainly not enough to allow for any kind of 'upwardly mobile' trend or savings.
Of course, on the other hand, it was sometimes hard to be too angry at the western companies, since it looked like the farmers in the surrounding areas in China had it a lot worse than those who worked in the factories. At least the girls working the lines got steady meals, a clean place to sleep, and some basic education (reading and writing abilities help productivity in high-tech factories quite a bit).
Being a wage-slave for a multinational corp must have looked like the best option to the many peasants as well, considering that I was told - when watching peasants being beaten by the side of the road by police and I asked one of our reps what was going on - that people without the right papers aren't allowed into the special economic regions but that they come anyway in hopes of slipping in and finding a job.
I write code.
life expectancy != Life span
If you double life expectancy you end up with a lot of 100 year olds.
If you double life span, you end up with a smaller bunch of 200 year olds.
Assuming all other variables are held static (yeah, right) you would end up with the same increase in average age for the population.
The folks getting these jobs are doing much better, health wise, than the mass of poor people.
Averages for the country don't really describe these people - they are pulling up the average lifespan, and expectancy.