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Nielsen Collects FL Tax Breaks, Then Outsources Jobs
theodp writes "The poop is hitting the fan over tax breaks given to ratings giant Nielsen Co., which pocketed millions in Florida jobs-creation tax concessions but has turned around and dismissed hundreds of local workers after inking a $1.2B outsourcing deal with Tata Consultancy Services of Mumbai. Lou Dobbs is on the case. Lou may go even more ballistic once he sees the Nielsen-Tata pact, which assures Nielsen that OT worries are a thing of the past ('there shall be no additional charge for overtime work'), allows Nielsen to have unsatisfactory Tata hires replaced within 4 weeks of starting with no charge for the original or re-performed work, gives Nielsen up to 6 man-weeks of free labor when a Tata worker is replaced, and allows Nielsen to make 'any TCS Resource' disappear with no more than 5 days notice if their presence 'is not in the best interests of Nielsen.' Nielsen execs have launched a PR counter-attack, pledging not to bully 85 year-old ladies in future layoffs. In a Letter to the Citizens, Nielsen CEO David L. Calhoun explained that Tata won a 'rigorous competition' to get the job, failing to mention that Tata was also tapped by Nielsen EVP Mitchell Habib in his CIO roles at both GE and Citigroup."
This is what happens when a apathetic populace lets fascism or corporatism slide. Florida is well used to letting megacorps and others who let their money talk for them get their way. Accordingly, they're the first to be taken advantage of.
Florida's not the only one, certainly. The attitude of letting money talk is endemic all over the country. It's over the entire country. Corporations want cheap labor and will do what it takes to get it. They'd prefer slave labor, but compared to Americans, Indians are cheap enough to make the bottom line look good. Human rights mean NOTHING to them.
Unless the American people stop this, it's going to get worse. WE allowed this to happen. WE allow companies like Neilsen and Citigroup to take advantage of us like this. Accordingly, WE get reamed.
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Do you propose banning or highly taxing all imported goods? Even just sticking to software, that'd have a lot of consequences. For example, Ubisoft is a large French videogame company, with additional offices in Canada, which sells a lot of games to the American market (as well as elsewhere). Would you support protectionist measures that aimed to increase the market share of EA at the expense of Ubisoft? If not, how do you distinguish this case?
Does that mean we also kick out everyone who has offshored to the US? When someone like, say, Toyota, wants to open up a plant in the US (who has 5 currently) do we tell them to fuck off because we are against offshoring? Or are we hypocrites about it and we are ok with offhsoring so long as the jobs come here. If that's the case, why should foreign countries allow that? Why not mirror image our policies against us?
Also how do you define it? Is it only offshoring when a US company moves jobs overseas? How about if they just stop producing something themselves and instead buy it from a foreign vendor? How about imports in general (where something is designed and produced in another country)? What about US companies that are owned by foreign conglomerates (like Blizzard, who is owned by Vevendi Universal)?
This is not a simple issue. We are well past the days where something was made by one guy and sold in one town. Global trade is incredibly complex. So if you are anti-globalism first you need to decide what precisely it is you are against. What things are ok and what aren't and at what levels (by levels I mean is it ok for something to happen inter state but not inter nationally). Once you've done that, you need to look and see what the consequences of that are. There is no action without cost. Make sure you understand what the downsides (direct and indirect) of such a thing would be, don't pretend like it's all roses.
Finally, doesn't it seem a bit supremest to tell everyone else "Well we got ours, we aren't going to help you get yours,"? I mean you seem to be all down on the rich in the US hording wealth, but yet you seem to be suggesting the US as a whole should do the same thing.
This isn't a simple issue, and thus if you think a simple solution works, you are probably wrong. I'm not saying what is going on now is right, I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying that you need to take the time to understand the whole picture. It isn't a simple case of jobs leaving the US, it is a complex case of trade becoming more and more global and more intertwined.
Karma be damned. Do you honestly think you are inherently superior to the Indian companies, just because you are American? I've worked with a few Indians, and they were just as good as some of the Americans I've worked with. Articles like this never cease to piss me off, because they never fail to paint the Indians as a group of imbeciles who can't code their way out of a paper bag. Your post really does not help.
What country they come from is irrelevant. Nielsen is exploiting a tax credit and in my opinion that constitutes fraud.
Karma be damned. Do you honestly think you are inherently superior to the Indian companies, just because you are American?
These firms derive their characteristic competitive advantage from their ability to exploit their workforce in ways that would not be legal in the United States, and this is what most people object to with outsourcing. Nobody's "inherently superior".
Yeah, call me protectionist, and queue all the rebuttals, but it's time to just knock this offshoring stuff off. I honestly think it should be made illegal at this point. Banned. For good.
The rebuttal is trivial actually, there are 6 billion people in the world and 300 million Americans. 6 billion will almost always innovate and progress better than 300 million, and protectionism goes both ways. In other words in 50 years the US would be a backwards nation running on outdated technology and subject to, for example, disease the rest of the world had cured decades ago. The same argument then extends to natural resources or rather their lack of for certain resources (ie: diamonds from Africa, oil from the middle east and so on). Remember that if you ban outsourcing then you need to logically ban foreign companies that outsource (unfair competition) so you essentially need to close off the US from the rest of the world.
We are gutting good jobs from our economy at a time when we truly can't afford it.
Sure we can afford it, we're in a mild recession at worst and are generally doing quite well.
We are watching CEOs and other greedy executives make off with literally millions of dollars by making these decisions that take food off the table for countless US families. The people who lose their jobs to crap like this then cannot buy goods and services in America. Guess what that does to the economy? But hey, those CEOs have their mansions and BMWs! They definitely have the mansions and BMWs!
What about the poor Indian who'd be ecstatic if they could eat as much as a homeless person in the US? Are their lives worth less than that american family you mention?
My cell phone company uses an offshore support center. Recently, I spent 50 minutes trying to get two simple questions answered about my calling plan. .... This experience, by the way, has happened repeatedly with this provider's customer service. Note that my cell provider didn't lose anything - I'm locked into my plan, just like most other people who suffer from the cellphone cartels.
You're not locked into anything, you CHOSE to get yoruself locked into it because you're greedy. You and only you chose to take the cheaper option to save some bucks instead of considering the long term problems. I, for example, am paying more for my dsl access than my neighbor but unlike him I made sure beforehand that my provider isn't a stingy ass pos company.
I wish I could have spoken to someone in the US - someone who would then have money to buy stuff here, and who would have answered my question in perhaps only 10 minutes.
Why do you assume that they'd be as stupid as you and buy products from their own obviously stingy and inferior company?
Some people here would love to have those call center jobs (or those programming jobs, or whatever). Trust me, some people would really like to have them, especially now.
I doubt anyone would want a call center job unless they were masochistic or desperate beyond measure.
Darn it! Companies that made their fortunes on US ingenuity turn their backs on the US for a quick buck, and we continue to allow it to happen. It makes me sick and enough is enough. We are stupid, especially in the face of growing trade deficits, to send good jobs somewhere else. Wait, we peons are not stupid, it's the bigwig decision makers who AREN'T ACTUALLY HURT by the decisions. We should stop them. Congress should stop them. Which would be easy, if Congress wasn't attached to them at their wallet.
Interesting, yet you continue to buy services from companies that engage in these behaviors. It seems you're want lots of things as long as you don't have to spend a penny more as a result. Typical.
so, the 'free market' is not good enough when you lose your job but it's just fine when a bunch of canadians or mexicans lose theirs ? Where was the outrage over the beef and timber tarrifs ?
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