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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."
When are they going to state that the workers have to speak english? That'd be nice..
If it's not legal in one country, just outsource to another where it is legal.
The only reasons companies discriminate based on age is that younger people are easier to persuade to work harder, longer hours, and that they usually doesn't require as high pay as older, more experienced applicants.
It is NOT because younger people are smarter or brighter than older people. And who says they are, anyway? IMO, any supposed loss in thinking quickly is easily made up by the experience and better problem solving skills of older people.
Age discrimination and Indian-style in the same sentence? Did anyone else picture a class of kindergardners sitting around indian style? Heck, I'd think they were unsuited to be "Customer Care Specialists" too.
This is why we outsource to India. Less government regulation, fewer worker protection laws, fewer environmental regulations... I mean, are we to enforce our minimum wage laws on India? No.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Cool. It looks like I'd be up for retirement on my 26th birthday (10 weeks from now) if I worked there. I'm sure the pension plan includes all the starvation I can eat. Famine. mmm....
Why do they want to make the age requirement public? This can be discretely discussed with the HR department and just filter anyone over xx age out automatically.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
1] People start to work and have kids at an earlier age in India, by ensuring people are between certain ages, you ensure they will be with the company a long time.
2] More resources on age descrimination
Im 32 years old (in a couple days), thankfully i run a small buisness network of 60 systems spread out across a city. But if my job ever went south again i always thought i could fall back into computer/networking phone support once again. But unlike 10 years ago it seems there are little oportunities for someone my age to work in such a field, first because most of those jobs got shipped off to malaysia and india (fuck you dell), and now because im over the hill. Seems to be yet another reason to hang onto my current job with a iron griop.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
...there's a simple reason call centers want young people: they have to retrain them to use American accents (actually, they teach a neutral accent they call "Global English") and older learners have a harder time changing their accents. Old dog/new tricks and all. Judging by the posters selection of links, I'd say he is grasping for ways to bad-mouth the Indians in order to keep the jobs here.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
This poses a problem if they want younger crowds as the life expectancy in India is less compared to other countries See here
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Wow, this should get a gold metal for such a high number of mostly unrelated information given in a single article summary.
The age discrimination IBM was hit with was related to pensioners having their benefits plan changed; it had nothing to do with hiring.
The stuff on the Indian side of things, well, isn't really all that strange. The same thing happens informally in the US and in fact even the government has minimum ages for many elected representatives.
But of course this will just turn into another "Oh, woe is me, I can't believe that skilled people in other countries are getting jobs too." (Nevermind that it's still much harder for an Indian with strong tech skills to find a job than an American.)
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.
I've heard a lot of arguments against this in my time (many of them on Slashdot), and most of them boiled down to this: IT workers, as professionals, shouldn't unionize. Unions are for blue-collar workers. While I suppose this is a nice way to think about your job and make you feel better about paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for a degree in Information Studies, it's ignoring reality. Perhaps the best way I've seen someone put it is, in reply to someone complaining about needing a buzzword-compliant resume, that such requirements should be a clue that IT workers are now a commodity. Like it or not, IT is the new factory worker of the 21st century, and if IT workers don't wake up and unionize, they'll get screwed so fast their heads will spin.
Maybe the AFL-CIO or UAW would be up to the task? They're only a postage stamp or a phone call away.
The best age group for IT related tasks will, at the moment be between around 28 to 35..... Why?
Well, people in this group grew up with the likes of the VIC 20, the ZX81, The Oric, The 80's 8 bit computers that we learnt and understood like riding a bike. No qualification, or degree will ever match what we know, and understand. Where students now learn computing in Uni, or secondary school, get taught IT skills, we learnt it through love of it, at 10 years of age, or earlier.
We are the David Beckhams of the industry, The Tiger Woods. Understand that in this era, we are kings, and our ability will never be surpassed by anyone just getting a degree, however young. I am 31, and the my best work (so far) has been in the last year or so. In my workplace, we have had people younger, but, though they can code well, they seam to just miss the point... They just analyze any problem, and apply it to what they've learnt at school or uni, they do not truly understand that problem, or how to realize the best solution.... and there solution is, well, ok, but never shows any innovation or 'Wow factor'
.... Tony.
In contrast to many of the other potential outsopurcing candidates, India is a Democracy and HAS Unions and Wage Laws.
It's simply cheaper. Competition for Jobs is as hard there as it is in the USA, so the extra hours aren't really objected against.
- 1337poll.tk - check it out!
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.
Who let you in here anywhay?
Renewel on carousel!!
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
Yes, this all sounds great but personally I would prefer not to have a bunch of kids who have no clue about the real world and no concept of responsibility be selecting who will run this country.
The problem with 14-17 year olds is not in their lack of intelligence, but in their lack of common sense. I think the main issue is that the majority of kids do not support themselves and until they do the really shouldn't have much of a say in how things should go.
I suppose I could possibly support a measure for them voting if they were not claimed as a dependent on anyone's tax return.
Hmm??
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Yes, you're right, no one younger than 28 has any love of computing, we're all just out to make a quick buck with our fancy university degrees.
With good salaries, adequate benefits (including environmental protections), and growth opportunities, the American workforce leads the world. Merely taxing foreign products produced without those costs hurts American workers when we buy those products. How can we structure global trade (in products, services, and labor) to *raise* the standards of workers abroad? That will equalize not only the price competition, but also the worker abuse that translates into so many other problems that inevitably attack Americans wealth and health: war, famine, plague. Then we'll be left to compete on productivity, innovation and market appeal - where Americans will continue to lead. But we'll all be in it together.
--
make install -not war
There is something rotten in the State of Denmark
Ok, no matter what the issue is: please consider your national pride, your national dignity! Do you really value representatives that let themselves be shoved around, and give an easy yes, rather than defending your country's best interests?
But the good news is, there is still a way out. Yes, changing your vote now may be viewed as an admission that you (you're representative) screwed up, or didn't know the subject matter. But it also shows courage and the willingness to correct errors once they become known.
Ok, as a Luxembourg I must admit that I sit in a glasshouse here. I hereby encourage my countrypeople to do something about it, and contact our ministry of economy about the matter, and encourage them to review their vote.
Remember: we are only two votes short of winning, and every country, no matter how small can make a difference, be it Denmark, Luxembourg, or even Malta!
Say no to software patents.
They can legally discriminate based on race, age, gender, religion, or anything they want. So companies can limit their applicants by flagrantly advertising age, gender, and other requirements that would be illegal in the US.
Businesses have much less regulations and worker protections than in the US and other industrialized countries, so they often collude to set artificially high prices for goods (although those prices may be still lower than in the US, due to the limited income of third-world consumers) and artificially low wages and working conditions for labor. And a handful of families control the majority of the wealth in the country.
US companies that outsource should realize that the countries and companies that have a blatant disregard for worker's rights and fair competition also aren't going to give damn about less tangible ideas like intellectual property and privacy.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
There is plenty of fodder in the above comments that could be remarked upon. (Bashing of US companies outsourcing jobs to India) But I think the current state of the economy shows that in the long run, the outsourcing of low wage/skill jobs to India and China is a good thing.
"we-don't-need-no-stinking-unions Amazon."
Unions are dead. Japanese car makers, Walmart, and many other business have show us this time and time again. Unions kill creativity, bring little benefit to workers anymore, and will only stagnate the company's growth.
Always be looking for another one. Your'e employer knows in his bones that you would dump him the minute something better comes along and he has to be willing to do the same to you. Your best defense is to be continuously aware and in the path of other opportunities.
Yes, there are a lot more "I did IT because it pays well" kids out there these days. But there are also plenty of kids who cut their teeth at age 10 on 386s and 486s and even Pentiums just for the love of it.
If your employer is hiring more of the former, I agree they are getting less capable people. But that's the fault of your employer because I know plenty of kids out there who love computers and understand them as well as I understood my Apple IIe. A lot of them are reading your post now...
Back in the days of the industrial age, older workers' experience was an asset. Hence the higher pay. Today, age means obsolescence, especially in hi-tech fields. The material taught in college cs classes changes almost every year. Why keep 30-year olds around when the kids out of college are better trained, better motivated, and will work for less?
umm so at age 18 you magically get common sense? It would be nice if there were a test that required you to demonstrate you had the basic sense to mark the right box... unfortunately like everything else it could be used for evil
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I didn't know why they consider blood type as a hiring factor, so I found this:
Personality assessment through blood type analysis has been prevalent in Japan sine the early 1970's. The Japanese term for this theory is 'ketsu-eki-gata', and is taken surprisingly seriously by the people from that part of the world. Books have been published on the topic, selling very well. In fact, Toshitaka Nomi has published over twenty-five books, and is considered the worlds leading expert on the topic. The blood type categories are used in a similar way to astrology in the west, focusing mostly on relationship aspects of life. Nomi goes further in his books though, even using blood type make up within a country as a theory for that nationality's general national traits.
Japanese companies often take blood type into consideration when hiring employees, to ensure harmony throughout the staff. All the major car companies in Japan have reorganised themselves in order to attain positive blood type combinations in different working sectors. Surveys have been carried out to try and determine the preferences of different blood types, be it for food, clothes or any recreational activity. It is also a popular topic of conversation in social settings.
More can be found here.
If a company doens't hire someone because they're too old, then let them suffer the natural consequences of not getting the most effective people for the job. If a company hires a young person because they can pay them cheap and exploit them - make your own company, hire tham away, pay them more and pick the cream of the crop at will.
Of course, sometimes companies take advantage of the system to expolit people, like communisim. Other times they take advantage of phoney property rights like copyright and patnet monopolies, other times they take advantage of false barriers to entry - like excessive regulation of the railroad industry, or RF frequencies. Not to mention our centralized monitary/tax system routinely rips people off, and locks people into the system when it comes to credit or money. - But from my experience, these problems have more to do with the publics poor belief systems than free markets.
Moral: societies that have more libertarian values have more economic prosperity for the little guy.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic. In India, while the cubicle may look the same, the employment conditions are not equivalent. There is no Social Security (although that may not be here for us either, based on current short-sighted administration and Congressional policy), Medicare, OSHA, and a host of other government mandates/programs.
These programs do make a difference in employees' quality of life. Many were instituted in response to problems in the workplace (safety, child labor laws) that were not addressed by the all-powerful market, that totem of faith for the GOPers. In India, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and other outsourcing destinations, salaries are less due in part to lower costs of living. Standards of living are not the same, particularly when you consider public utilities (such as water), the health care system, and the hidden costs of environmental degradation. Employers' non-personnel costs are also less as labor and employment standards are not comparable, tax avoidance is endemic, and current tariff regimes allow, even encourage, movement of production and services.
The unemployment rate in India is huge and the young workers comprise the bulk of the population, as they age, the laws will catch up. Remember america was built by immigrants and returning WWII soldiers who didn't have much of the same protections.. as these workers age the social constructs will catch up with them as well.
Offtopic? Uh, hellloo, Logans Run was mentioned in the freaking article!!
Wonder if they could speak ebonics for the rapper demographic.
Actually it is quite common in India and Pakistan . You see job ads that explicitly list an age and that require you to furnish a recent picture!!!!. I mean imagine this "ABC Ltd. require a developer with skills in X, Y, and Z. The applicant must be below the age of 30. Please send your resume with two recent photographs to XXXX".
One of the most hilarious things that I saw was when a research institute that is "...committed to organising professional research, policy studies, and seminars in the area of human development." placed a job ad on their website stating that the applicant needs to be below the age of 25 . If a body that does research in human development and should know better engages in such practices, what is to be expected of others. Oh well, I am glad I am out of that mess.
I think that would work better than age discrimination in general.
As someone said, while you could introduce a minimum criteria or "standarized" testing as a requirement for voting, it could be "used for evil"... it would never pass because of the dangers of class discrimination, or if it passed, it would very likely be used for such things... unintentionally, even. Hence most democratic countries lack a literacy restriction on the vote.
Even a substantial amount of intelligence is no guarantee of common sense either: overspecialization can lead a very intelligent and/or talented person to be politically clueless (and easy to manipulate as a political symbol too).
The fact is that even a college degree these days is not guarantee of common sense, or even of a modicum of intelligence.
On the other hand, if you were not a dependant and filed your own taxes for a couple of years (or filed a joint-return with a spouse/partner), you are a self-sustained individual (and went through the bureaucratic hazing).
Whatever common sense you were going to get in the first years of your life, you're probably getting it now. Introduce a 1-2 year buffer from the first return, if you want.
If you are a 37-year old maintained by your family, you are not yet responsible for your actions, and you should let someone else in the household vote.
This would have been a horrible solution in a purely patriarchal society with single-household income. But considering that female labor is not substantially blocked anymore (even if proper compensation can be), tying the vote to economic independence would make sense.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Frankly, in some industries, you're too young. I cut my teeth (as a teenager) on a KIM-1 and what I remember about the VIC20/ZX80 crowd is you're afraid of hardware.
We use to refer to you lot as the "appliance computer users".
I've found my familiarty with hardware/electronics to be an EXTREME asset in the embedded market.
plurvert
Age is not a clear indicator of intelligence. I purchased my house at the age of 20 (w/o any help) and that blows most people away. I've worked 40+hrs/wk since I was 16 (and I'm not talking fast food) and don't regret it at all, but it really ticks me off when people discount my intelligence because of my age, or because of the stupidity of some of my peers.
The lack of common sense you speak of is in no way restricted to the 14-17 age bracket. There are plenty of *adults* who lack common sense.
I agree with you, and say we should drop the age discrimination we have here in the states, and let those that care to prove themselves worthy do so, and those that don't care do nothing.
If an individual is responsible, there is no reason their signature should not be legal, no reason they should not be able to vote, no reason they should not be able to have a checking account, or a credit card, and no reason they shouldn't be able to buy a house (if they can).
Not in skilled labor sectors like auto assembly and IT.
I think that anyone who went through school with a calculator is mentally unprepared. I've seen far too many people unable to do simple arithmetic without having to dig out a calculator.
To be honest I haven't found age discrimination to be a problem - I'm 54 and recently found myself unemployed through the failure of the company I was working for. I was able to get a series of pretty good offers as a senior level Java programmer within a couple of months. Pretty much all anyone asked about was my skillset. If you keep yourself up to date you should be able to find work.
Actually, child labor laws were put into place to keep young people from screwing around with dangerous machinery that was being built at the time. The concept of children is a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
... only *indivuduals* do. Countries have duties to their citizens, the extent of those can vary, but at least should include military protection and keeping "law and order" and (I personally very much agree with Libertarins on this one) not too much else.
When you start saying that "countries" have rights of their own it is pretty much a start on a slippery slope to Communist/Nazi regimes. (BTW, I've lived unter the former one).
Paul B.
If you work next to nothing you wont be fired.
Also mexicans with H1B1 Visa's will happily take over the trucking then for a fraction of the cost. They could save even more money!
Globalism is here and it wont go away. Union shops go under first or outsource first. They have to our the shareholders will fire the CEO. If we all worked for 25-40k a year without complaining they would not look at India. We need to compete with them and they offer a better service for a cheaper price.
Right now I live at home with my parents and go to school again since no IT shop will hire me anyway. I make 5k a year working part time to pay for school. 12/hr is a huge amount of money for me. As people become unemployed and the value of the dollar falls, so does demand. It will equal itself out and I hate to bother your standard of living but right now many like me have nothing. Whats to lose?
http://saveie6.com/
Hate to break it to you, but Dubya is a conservative. he'd be a NeoCon then.
It is not a god that would do evil biddings, but only a mortal and its limited knowledge would let such atrocities exist
In the Philippines, it is customary to include on your resume: age, religion, marital status, weight, height, a recent photograph, and if female, "measurements". If you don't, you probably won't be considered. The age of being "past your prime" is about age 25, professionally and maritally. You can be summarily rejected for employment for any of the above parameter values - being muslim as always been a strike against in the Catholic Philippines. Not being of the right sex or not being "pretty enough" to "decorate" the office is pretty common.
I'm sure other countries are similar. USian companies are required to follow the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; I wonder if it could apply to foreign age discrimination of subcontractors and subsidiaries?
any country has the right and the duty to attempt to avoid the circumvention of its employment laws
Well yes, if the alleged circumvention happens in above hypotetical country.
No if it happens elsewhere, like India, where it may not be illegal to discriminate based on age.
The historical circumstances of each place are different, and your country does not have any rigth to make others conform to your own standards (which regarding worker protection are substantially lower to many other places, India included, where unions are very powerful).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...you post:
Neoliberalism is a political philosophy and movement beginning in the 1960s that de-emphasizes traditional liberal doctrines to achieve progress and social justice by more pragmatic methods, especially an emphasis on economic growth. Because of close association between this philosophy and neoclassical economics, and confusion with the overloaded term "liberal", the term neoclassical philosophy is advocated by some.
Either term is primarily used by critics of neoliberalism rather than proponents, thus most discussion and description of neoliberalism is written from a critical point of view. Supporters of concepts found in neoliberalism, such as free trade and capitalism, view many of the descriptions of neoliberalism as straw man arguments.
As described by Berkeley economic historian Bradford DeLong, neoliberalism has two main tenets:
"The first is that close economic contact between the industrial core and the developing periphery is the best way to accelerate the transfer of technology which is the sine qua non for making poor economies rich (hence all barriers to international trade should be eliminated as fast as possible). The second is that governments in general lack the capacity to run large industrial and commercial enterprises. Hence, [except] for core missions of income distribution, public-good infrastructure, administration of justice, and a few others, governments should shrink and privatize)."
Neoliberalism is often identified with a number of global organizations, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The concept of neoliberalism arose as economists at the World Bank and IMF found that post-World War II development strategies for poor countries were not having the intended effects. In particular, funding for mega-projects left poor countries with high debts but little growth to show for it.
The neoliberal doctrine is also a subset of the so-called "Washington consensus": a set of specific policy goals designed for Latin American countries to help them recover from the "lost decade" of the 1980s. This period not only saw a rise in dictatorships in the region, but also disastrous financial mismanagement resulting in rapidly rising prices for basic products, which inevitably caused an increase in poverty. In addition to the tenets of neoliberalism, the Washington consensus stipulated that a country should have stable exchange rates and a government budget in balance.
Neoliberalism has drawn its share of critics due, in part, to some catastrophic failures. In particular, Nobel prize winner and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that the IMF is guilty of forcing neoliberal and Washington consensus policy goals on countries at times when it was not appropriate (i.e., the Asian Economic Crisis), with devastating results. Neoliberalism has also been criticised by the anti-capitalist movement, who argue that market forces inevitably increase inequality in wealth and hence power.
While some use the terms neoliberal and libertarian or classical liberalism interchangeably there is a difference between the two philosophies. While both share a belief in market economics and free trade, neoliberal economics theory shares with neoliberal international relations theory (and liberal internationalism) a belief in international regimes and a degree of global governance as a means of negotiating and administering international agreements. Neoliberals believe that greater economic and political interdependence will lead to progress and a reduction of international tensions or at least divert states from utilizing military means to resolve conflict. Libertarians reject the neoliberal belief that global governance bodies or state negotiated treaty regimes that bind the individual are desirable.
The term derives, not from the "Liberalism" of the modern period - that is Dewey, Woodrow Wilson and the
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I'm 21, and the computers I grew up with, starting from the BBC Master, taught me how to build powerful software from the outset, rather than spending all my time working around the limitations of the hardware and the tools. I didn't have to be taught things like object-oriented design - it was obvious.
When I went to university, I learned how all these things *worked*, all the way down to flip-flops, and to mathematical analysis of complex programs.
I've seen people who've been working with computers for longer than me, but they seem to just miss the point. They spent years learning only how to work around computers, and when they went to university (if they went at all) they were taught nothing useful. They can find a solution to most problems they are faced with, but it's rarely the best one; they don't understand how to make computers work for them, instead of the other way around.
Just when you thought it was safe, a different perspective comes up and kicks you in the nuts.
Seriously though, I think having a solid understanding of how computers work at a hardware level is extremely useful in helping one understand 'the big picture'. But I don't really see how gaining that by hacking in assembler on a G4 or K7 processor is any different than gaining that hacking on a 6809 OR 8088, and I question the usefulness of having 'POKE 65495,0' stuck in my head as a way to double the speed of my computer.
From what I've seen, it's the hands-on use and the love of the technology that makes a difference - not the age. Experience counts - I've definitely learned a lot over the decades (*sigh*) - but so much of what one learns is obsoleted by the next year that it's predominately the underlying truths that are useful. Stick a bright, interested kid with a passion for computers with a good mentor that makes them do complex real-world stuff, and I bet the kid would equal or often surpass most veterans within a few years.
It's just too bad that in most universities that's not what happens - especially for the first four wasted years. I honestly think apprenticeships would work quite a bit better in IT and software development.
I write code.
IT people of all ages very often say the same urban legend.
The truth is that at any age you find people that know little and people with loads of skill and talent.
If people are not learning to program in assembly language an obscure microprocessor is because it is a skill no longer needed, computing has moved one or two abstraction levels and most profesionals do not need to trouble themseleves with such topics.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
actually work age laws where put in place by Unions to limit new entry into the work place and put upward pressure on wages at the time.
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
The important thing is to understand the concept. your fingers, an abacus or a calculator are the right tool for the job depending on your social context.
In a society where even mobile phones have calculators and where every single computer (an article obiquituous in most societies nowadays) pops up a calclculator with one or two clicks, the calculator seems like the obvious, necessary too to perform arithmetic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Federal law prohibits age discrimination against those 40 and older in companies with 20 or more employees. Don't fit in those categories? Then age discrimination is legal, unless state law (or case law) says otherwise.
Never forget that there are a lot of "exceptions" in federal laws. So while everyone states age discrimination is illegal in the US, the reality is a little more complex. Not to mention the fact that it is very difficult fact to prove if the employer has at least a few brain cells firing (gee, we didn't hire him/her because too qualified, not the right skills, didn't seem to fit in, not enough skills or the fact that most of the US is at will employment-you can quit or be fired without cause).
Their are not stamped "For US citizens only".
The wasteful way of life in the US society is contributing to it becoming less competitive (but not so much that you are too bad off. Stop whining, the US has it good, people normally have food and a roof on the top of their heads).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This strategy is less likely to work if all your staff look like Alice Cooper.
Intelligence isn't dependant on age, no. Experience is. The rate experience is acquired varies from person to person, but nobody is born with it. Part of the reason for the magical number 18 may be that that is when you're supposed to finish public school, and therefore you should have a minimum knowledge of history, civics, economics, etc.
In the seven years since I finished college, if anything I have forgotten a lot of what I learned. But, I have learned a whole lot of things about how the real world works. Am I more or less intelligent now? No. But I am more worldly, and can vote much more intelligently, and make more intelligent decisions otherwise, because of experience.
As for testing whether people are "ready", do you really want the government to start up another beurocracy to manage that? More money, more arbitrary decision making, more government control.
The other problem is fairness. In the current system, everyone is treated equally ("all men are created equal..."). What criterion do you use to decide when someone is ready? Intelligence? Knowledge? Income? It'd be nice to say "maturity", but that can't be tested directly. Any criteria you choose will slant towards some people, and not others. It will then be manipulated to slant towards those in power.
It may not be ideal, but at least the current system is fair.
Just as well I use metric then :-)
Now, I agree that minors get a bum deal on the issue of being tried as adults. I do not think it is appropriate to give someone responsibilities without privileges. If you're old enough to go die in the desert somewhere, you're old enough to drink. If you can be tried as an adult, you should at least be able to own property, for fuck's sake. You can't sign a contract by yourself until you are 18 which means you cannot own anything, how pathetic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Excellent points about fairness being more important (and enduring) than the 'ideal' scenario.
... and no, I don't want the govt to decide if I am responsible :o)
I think, in general, my complaints are more towards minor things, like not being able to get a rental car even if i am willing to pay insurance (or even extra in insurance) because of my age (when i'm, clearly old enough to drive).
NPR did a good story on it in December. If you don't like using ears, Fortune covered it too.
Paying offshore workers much less than American workers would make for the same job isn't necessarily exploitation. The "low" salaries really depend on perspective. For example, a call center worker in India makes more money than a doctor does.
You kids don't know what you want. That's why you're still kids: because you're stupid!
This deserves a 5:Funny. Either that or I need to re-learn all I know about India.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
That explains it. All of the Indian employees from India that are arriving at my company for "replacment training" seem quite young. Yet the resident Indian employees seem to have a normal age distribution. I thought this was because my company got into the outsourcing fad late, and was only able to hire very recent college grads. Now I am starting to realize that over-30 is but another caste over there.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
my personal opinion is that if a corperation is based in the US, and shielded by US laws, US taxes, US interest, then that corperation must also abide by the US laws that include pollution regulation, descrimination etc.
companies that have the majority of their labor based in other countries--they benifit no one except upper management and their top stockholders.
I'm sure this opinion has some flaws.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
I guess everyone else doesn't have too worry about your group. David Beckham is an overhyped soccer player who is above average but not spectacular when compared to other superstar players. On real madrid, he's probably the 4 or 5th best player.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
which isn't much- econ is to real science what an mcse is to a real engineer.
Corrected Example 3: Product costs $X to make, company charges $Y + 50 * (some fraction of 1 whose value is derived from the price elasticity: ie the degree to which demand for the product shifts according to changes in price. Small change in demand relative to price increase == bend over consumer)
When there's a tax, the producer eats some of it, the consumer eats some. What proportion each eats depends on the elasticity. If the producer could charge the whole amount of the tax, they'd have charged it before the tax was imposed and just kept the profits.
The info on the models includes blood type. I always wondered if they were marketing to vampires as well.
Weird.
Oh, I just *heard* that the info on japanese porn models includes blood type. No direct personal experience, nosirree.
I never understood age descrimination. I've always sort of assumed that even in fast changing fields like high tech that experience would be a good thing.
If its because the older workers get paid more and won't work for less money then its a pay issue and not really an age discrimination issue. If you wan't the job that badly work for less; nobody owes you anything.
And before you think its just so much easier for us youngsters...
Age descrimination works both ways. I worked for a couple years in California at an orgization that would match 12% (Yes, 12) of your pay and put it in a 401K for you but they wouldn't do this for you if you were under 21. Thats age discrimination and apperently its perfectly legal.
Oh...Yeah, did I mention how much more us youngsters have to pay for our car insurance even if we have a clean record?
Or that the cost of college compared to the average income has skyrocketed making it much more expensive for us to get an education.
Or that the cost of a house compared to the average income has also been steadily increasing making it more expensive to get a foot in the door and buy a house.
Or that even with all of the above those of us starting out have to pay a higher percentage of our income in taxes making it harder for us to save up enough to put a down payment on a house.
Or how we have to pay tons of money into social security (a much higher percentage than previous generations) even though its possible (probable?) that we'll never see any of that back.
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
This is what regulations do - they drive business away to places which are more business friendly. Companies exist to make profit, not to employ old people.
Of course this has nothing to do with the unwritten policies that many IT Departments have of not hiring anyone above the age of 45, right? ;)
I know of people above that age that are actually discriminated against in the IT field. Usually the employer makes up some excuse, like overqualified, to avoid hiring someone of this age. Then they turn around a hire a youngster fresh out of college aged 21 to 30. Since I passed 30, my job offers went down as well. The closer you are to retirement, the less likely they will want to hire you.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
is still an accent be it midwestern, bbc or a brand new one not sounding like any of the current ones. You cannot speak without an accent.
You say that regulations "Drive businesses away," however, who said that nations need companies?
A company is just a group of people who are trying to make the most amount of money possible. Regulations merely say "This is what it takes to earn money legally in this country."
Therefore, for maximum profits, a company would need to function in the maxiumum number of countries, while following their regulations, and keeping production in the cheapest possible country.
The nation does not owe the corporations that dwell within a profit.
Well I was 17 9 years ago. I though I was "hot" then and I think myself of then as "hot" now as well. In any case many people are good then and many people are bad when they are older. You show me 100 people and I'll point to several dozen that shouldn't have all the privileges they do have.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
You think Age is bad? If you can read Chinese, have a looksy at the job listings in the newspaper here.
Requirements I've seen:
* Woman
* Man
* Age range
* Pretty
* Weight restrictions
* Skin color (tone, really)
* etc.
Not all in one job, but scattered between different areas.
Whatever you call it, the fact remains that paid maternity leave does cost money for the employer, and this makes it more expensive to hire a woman than a man, all other things being equal.
This, if enacted by law at least, makes women dependent on the good will and charitable nature of employers to get similar working conditions as men.
With the planet's population increasing at it's fastest rate in history, it doesn't seem likely that one individual company's hiring policy will affect the survival of the species enough to make any specific hiring policy self defeating.
(quoting with corrections)
[Step] 1: Company hires local experts, fairly high regulations yadda yadda. Product cost $X to make. Company charges $Y for product.
[Step] 2: Company decides to cut costs to become "more competitive." They outsource entire operation to a less regulated/expensive part of the world. Product cost $X - 50 to make. Company charges $Y for product.
[Step] 3: Government gets pissed off that Company is avoiding local income taxes etc and tax company out the wazoo for their offshore operations. Product again costs $X to make. Company charges [$Y + 50] for product.
Step 4: Other Company starts making product. Product still costs $X to make. Other Company charges $Y for product.
Step 5: Company (the first one) goes out of business.
As an Indian I am happy to see this topic being discussed.
When I worked in India 10 years ago, it was common to see such ads. Some companies also asked for your marital status, the number of kids you have, and your driver's license number. There was no option but to provide this information.
Some pressure on them to discontinue such practices would be good.
But you've not yet had it bad enough to legally purchase a beer.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
When you have so *much* talent to draw from, from a pool of a billion, it must become very easy to just treat them like a commodity... to use them for what they're worth and then toss them aside when you're done with them... sort of the "low wage" syndrome (like call centers) here in the states - they work for nothing and there are a 100 people who will replace them - in fact there are 5 people being trained right now for when you get sick of it and quit, do you honestly give a crap about them as a manager? no. Humans are notoriously bad at managing surplus. Scarcity, we do pretty good with.. we even invent whole bodies of knowledge to manage it (economics).. Surplus? We have no idea what to do with it, and so we waste it. Now, I'm not exactly happy about offshoring, but I feel that, from the world-level-view, this sort of behavior is counter productive.
meh
Palmisano is more than 27 years old!
Lay him off! See how he likes it.
Just make sure that the medical insurance costs more than the parachute.
Somebody with the class and educational background to get this sort of job in India speaks English well enough. Your problem is not that the foreign workers speak bad English, but rather that you're intolerant of anybody who speaks it with a foreign accent, and undisposed to listen to them in the first place. (Of course you're not going to understand what somebody says if you don't listen to them.)
Are you adequate?
I always wondered why Japanese video games made such a big damned deal out the characters blood types. Doubly curious becausee blood typing as it applies to science and biochemistry has NEVER FEATURED IN A SINGLE GAME I'VE PLAYED.
This sheds some light on it. O_o
Talk about discrimination! O.O
I have worked in a few IBM shops over the years at Fortune 100 companies.
They all had some sort of "vendor ethics" policy that stated that vendors (ie: such as IBM) had to have similar policies. These would include items such as harassment, ethical standards, EPA standards, age discrimination, etc. Mainly due to the contracting companies own liability.
Any contractor of IBM's that we would haven been exposed to would have to have the same standards.
Many large companies have these policies. There also seems to exist camps in these same companies that always want to throw IBM out for one reason or another.
This, IBM does business with contractors that engage in age discrimination, is exactly the sort of canon fodder that these people pray for. It does not matter if India allows this to happen, large US companies don't want to deal with this stuff.
Here.
I'm not a pure libertarian, I do accept the neccesary evil of government.
Actually any modern libertarian (as opposed to "pure anarchist") would completely agree with what you said here. The "necessary evil" with a mandate to use force against people, thus better limited to using the force (i.e., military, police and courts) and NOT distracted by doing "nice" things (like, everything else liberals would want it to do).
Paul B.
Actually, child labor laws were put into place to keep young people from screwing around with dangerous machinery that was being built at the time. The concept of children is a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution.
Child labor laws were also put in place to prevent them from competing with adult workers.
The problem was that big families used to count on children helping to support the family through their work on the family farm. This was especially true of many immigrant families.
Child labor laws to some extent actually made things much tougher for these families.
21-25 year olds are a minority group, so this is called 'affirmative action', which means its discrimination, but it's good discrimination. Nothing to see here folks, move along...
???
Have 12 children, fake their salaries, for 12 votes? Sure! That sounds efficient!
It would be cheaper to just bribe (or threaten) your workers to vote for who you want...
I) Having your children earn artificial income leads to very real artificial losses, both in terms of lost deductions, and taxes that you have to pay for your artificial income.
Remember, dependants are deductions: it's the way the state tries to encourage producing more taxpayers... er, citizens.
Now, you would have 12 single individuals, each one paying taxes for their artificial salaries with the minimal deductions... and the family business paying their own share of taxes as employer. Plus the legal and accounting expenses of making this work.
Granted. You WILL have members of wealthy family with this kind of "artificial independence", but it will not be any worse than it is now: they will be adults, and it will be done to give them a work history and something to do after their expensive college is over.
II)12 children? Wealthy family?
In the Modern Western Society, a wealthy family rarely goes through the trouble of having 12 children: that's a very expensive way to breed political power these days.
Children are only an efficient way to maximize power when their total expense does not include the training, education and social behavior that is expected, and demanded, from the upper classes to keep the same social level across generations.
Raising children is expensive in money, time and other resources. Particularly if they are entitled to a bright, wealthy future of privilege because of their parents.
When expectations are lower, and/or the state pays for most of the bills (basic education), it is more efficient to have more children as resources.
Even in societies where the education bill is fully paid for by the state, having more than 2 or 3 children is not rentable for the upper-middle class, or higher.
Not unless there are more subtle forces at work, that promise a different kind of political influence: social reputation, respect, tradition, religious belief, etc.
Not to mention that there are a LARGE number of reasons your wealthy family ambitious for more power will NOT do such a thing out of the same ambition: dependants lead to tax deductions, government programs, etc.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
-zipping up his trousers-
When is the interview?
That was the interview, your hired.
"I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel."
- Pee Wee Herman
We have also seen untold numbers of progects get stuffed, and remember why it happened.
However, it does not give us a job with companies who think hours_at_work==productive_hours, and we still need to earn a living.
As to all these young people in call centres, do you want your company's image to be one that appearance matters more than substance? If the call centre staff can't grasp the issue, they do not provide a service to the caller, they are just an irritant. Rember the Malibu advert where the guy is slapped round the face with a wet fish? Would a slap round the face with a wet fish make you buy MY products? [if yes, please e-mail Michael Dell, he needs your business.]
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I'll turn 25 shortly. You know, it'd be extremely nice if within an year, I'd be officially too old to be a tech support person. Because every time I'm asked to do some technically challenging thing (like install something...) by a friend or relative, I get a serious headache.
"Could you get this thing working?" "Sorry dad, I'm too old to do tech support, I can only do it if the doctor says it's okay."
"Could you get this working?" "Why sure, little sister, if you let the me, the senile install guy, play a little bit of that OSX chess. You know, back when I was a kid, the Macintoshes all looked like bird nesting boxes, and these computer chess boards were really black-and-white (Blah blah blah...)"
China is a communist state slavery country, the cheapest labor there is....
Their government could care less if some company killed a few thousand people, they'd probably like that.
Most of them learn English in school... Sure, you won't be able to understand them, but I can't understand the Indians we have to deal with now.
Corporatism != Free Market
I think the age discrimination is in place at Daksh because the management believes that the younger employees are not responsible enough to handle customers and business.
Most younger (16-21) employees, typically, are studying and take up working in call centres just to add some more rupees to their pocket money. They don't care a damn about the customer or the business they are supposed to be answering calls for.
The result, as I found out, is that customer care people are indifferent to customers' rants. Even the threat of withdrawing business from the company doesn't seem to ring a bell in their brains.
I guess older employees are supposed to be more responsible as working at a call centre is their primary source of income and they wouldn't want to be fired.
Btw, India has firm minimum wage laws in place. And as far as I know, call centre employees are paid well above the minimum wage level.
I could probably deal with accents a lot better if two things would happen:
1. Slow down. The performance metric that says that the faster you handle a call is done without consideration for the customer
2. Stop that infernal beeping. I don't know what that is - something telling me they're recording the conversation or something, but when a conversation has every fourth word bleeped out it's hard to understand, especially if they're asking important questions I may have to pay for.
Josh
This is just silly logic. Most coders of ANY age aren't good hackers. Just because the toys you learned to hack on had less bits than the ones I did doesn't make you a king with a deeper innate understanding of technology. Giving a kid a degree doesn't make them a hacker, but learning in a different environment than you did doesn't mean the younger hackers didn't learn the same lessons. Make no mistake about it, the younger you is out there, and he was taking apart his own toys at 10, they were just different than the ones you grew up with. You can turn out better code today because of your experience, but it's pretty assinine to think anyone who had different toys than you will never catch up.
Yep, it sure would. Oh, it's funny you should mention the Teamsters and the trucking industry this morning:
> Don't rely on professional organizations like the IEEE and ACM to help you with your career. These are international organizations, and don't give a rat's ass about IT in the USA.
Don't rely on a bunch of political hacks like the Teamsters to help you with your career. They're a bunch of ignorant thugs, and don't give a rat's ass about your job -- only their ability to extract union dues from you to prop up their political power.
The law is written the way it is because it would be impossible to police minors on a case by case basis.
However the loophole built into most of these laws is that you are allowed these activities with the support of a parent or guardian.
Therefore, if you are ready your parent can take you driving or to an R rated movie.
Go tell that to the grocery store chains who have to compete agianst walmart in so california. The economist has quite a few articles on it.
Do I want to make good money? Hell yes! Will it happen? I am very skeptical after being outsourced already. Fact of the matter is during the 1990's we were heavily overcompensated. Businesses have a right to their shareholders to look for the lowest cost. Yes unions brought down the steel industry. My father worked for American steel for years. He loved his union job which paid for school but it led to their demise. The Chinesse could make it for a fraction of the cost and they undercut them!
Walmart and Target are also undermining unions in the food and retail sector. WIth globalism you just can't win. Its designed to help the top 2% at the expensive of the rest. If we vote for politicians with anti trade policies, all the companies will move their whole operations offshore. You can't win.
Considering competition was limited in our fields now its time for a reverse. Also with stock prices rising thanks for paying employee's less wealth for those in the top middle class and upper class has been created. The economist says for every job lost 2 are created! I will plainly offer my services to any company to compete with an Indian. Its time you did hte same for permanent job security. No businesses are not bullying. Just looking for value. If you give in what they want they will like you. Remember busineses dont like laying people off and firing them unless they have to.
http://saveie6.com/
You can have the project manager that is fresh out of school. I will take the 50+ year old who flew attack helicopters for the army and was a divisional training officer, with 10+ years IT experiance, an MBA, and having ran his own successful business.
Let's see who's project will fail first. I can train techical know-how.
In God we trust, all others require data.
I was running a used book sale in college when an indian student asked me if we had any "Debs. gah-zed debs?" We went around a minute before I realized he was saying 'cassette tapes.' The biggest difficulty in my mind of listening to the Hindustani accent is the tendency to voice all consonants instead of making them merely aspirant.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Now its more money for marketing agencies and more managers. They are expensive and programmers and call centers soaked up all the money before.
Now they have more money in their pockets to do other things.
http://saveie6.com/