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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."
Has anyone done an audit of EVP Mitchell Habib's bank accounts and lifestyle????
It might be nothing, but then again, it might not....
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
I was at Citigroup when Habib brought in Tata for a 2nd time. Initially, he brought them in for the credit card division. He was then promoted to CIO of North America and by then it was obvious to everyone that after what happened at GE and in our credit card division that there existed a quid pro quo arrangement between Habib and Tata. So there was no suprise when Tata was awarded the contract for all of North America, even though there was a 'competition' with at least 5 Indian outsourcing companies. I've got no idea if Habib thought that this move was really in the best interests of our company, I only know that he promptly left Citi for Nielsen right smack in the middle of all the resulting layoffs that he initiated. And anyone paying attention knew at the time that Tata and Nielsen would soon be working together, and every IT worker at Nielsen needed to get their resumes polished up in a big hurry.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
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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I was under the impression that H1B-type visas were for skilled workers of which there was a shortage in the US. It goes against the entire purpose of the program to say 'We can't find people to fill these positions domestically, we have to import them.', and when these are jobs that are only available because the Americans currently doing them are being fired. This sounds less like a job for the Oldsmar city council and more like a job for Congress, to address this complete abuse of the visa program. Sounds like everyone should call their Congressperson and ask them to inquire with the INS about just how and why these visas were granted and continue to be granted to Tata Consultancy.
No private company should ever receive special tax breaks or subsidies for any reason. Instead, just lower business taxes so everyone has a chance to profit equally. Then these sorts of things wouldn't happen. It would also radically reduce the cope for corruption.
(The only necessary exception I can see to this rule is for National Security-specific products and research, since protection the citizenry is the primary function of government, and in many cases (nuclear weapons development comes to mind) that nature of the product produce precludes recoupment if R&D costs in the private sector.)
You won't get money out of politics until you get politics out of money.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Ratings Giant Nielsen Outsourcing Workers...
In other news: ratings indicate that television shows with a strong patriotic theme experiencing a marked decline in popularity.
Back to you Rob.
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.
We are gutting good jobs from our economy at a time when we truly can't afford it. 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!
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. The rep would "put me on hold while my issue was researched". We're talking REAL EASY questions, but they weren't addressed on the website (which was probably also offshored). 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. They saved money by offshoring. But I lost 50 minutes of my life, because some bean counting boogerface decided to get himself a big bonus with his "cost saving offshoring" plan. 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. I am a consultant who is paid by the hour. Should I bill my provider for the extra 40 minutes?
Some people think that offshoring will just raise the level of jobs we have here, and make more room for higher-level salaries. BULL! Where is the evidence? Sure, a select few get to play project manager or supervisor or offshore liaison, and the rest get to go home and wonder what to do with skills they have spent years honing. By the way, I know this might surprise some of you, but NOT EVERYONE wants to be a manager. 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.
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.
By the way, I have nothing against the folks in other nations to which we offshore this work. They are doing what I would be doing in their shoes - making their best play for these attractive jobs. If you walk up and hand someone an opportunity, you can't blame them for taking it. It's not their fault. It's OUR FAULT!
Not wanting to see our own economy gutted is not the same as being protectionist. This offshoring thing was a bad idea, ill-conceived and unethically promoted. Worse, it's been shamelessly allowed by our do-nothing Congress, and even condoned by brainwashed people who drink the "it'll free us up for more high-level jobs" kool-aid. If you run a business in the US, run it in the US. Employ people here. Between inexpensive overseas goods, offshoring of services, and oil, we seem absolutely hellbent to send every bit of value we can somewhere other than here. ENOUGH!!!
Admittedly, I need to relax a bit. My typing fingers hurt.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Parent is not a troll. He's just telling the truth. When an Indian man always hires the same Indian company to do his work for 3 different American firms, it's ethnic/racial favoritism plain and simple.
Yes, but it is time that India starts to play fair. The west has created many open trade policies. India is doing a china action back at all the other countries. They have total protectionism in place. For example, we can not sell there, unless there is company created there. That company must be 51% owned by Indian. When I go to India, I am charged a ridiculous rate because I am white. My SO is Indian, though british born, so we put things in her name. That way, we get charged 1/50th of the price.
Yes, I agree that India needs the jobs. So do we. But if there is to be real competition, then open your borders. And at this time, I say that we really should change our policies to match the countries that we deal with. The west has pretty open borders WRT business. Yes, there are still barriors there. But shortly, EU will throw up tariffs based on pollution as well as openness to trade. Before that time, America will have changed our attitude WRT to CO2 emissions (new president), as well to jobs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
How much can you save outsourcing a call center operator - $30k per year ?
How about saving some real money and outsourcing the board of directors.
Nullius in verba
"A free market is an unregulated market, with no government subsidies, bailouts, handouts, or funding, where the customers ultimately are responsible for the successes or failures for business based on whether they patronize them."
Sorry but there is no such thing as an unregulated market, "the market" is a system and by definition a system has rules. The 'free' part in 'free market' does not mean free from interference/change/rules, in fact the "free" part is a reference to a rule of the market that says everyone is free to participate in the market. Without rules to determine who owns what and who can/can't use force to uphold the rules, the 'market' part of "free market" is meaningless.
Some things work well under your definition of the "free market" but some such as transport and health don't. After all there is a vast difference between running an airport/hospital and swapping home grown vegtables with the neighbours. I'm not suggesting you personally adhrere to a rigid ideology, but to assume regulation and government interference is always a bad thing is to deny the importance of things as trans-US railroads, the Panama canal, the moon landings, equal pay for women & blacks, etc.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
1) the firm I work with, we went through a turn around of 10+ coworker out of Mumbai
2) 8 out of 10 could not code out of a paper bag, making obvious error that anybody having more than 1 week of experience should not do, and NEVER EVER testing what they produced before delivering (sometimes it did not even COMPILE).
3) after years of saying "everything is fine" management finally admitted they did not get from outsourcing the benefit they waited for (hint : it costs them 2 millions more in operation instead of the waited 10 millions money spare)
4) that was not an isolated case, the problem is that just like in the boom of the internet bubble anybody was calling themselves coder when in reality they had no idea on really developping software. The result was that there were a lot of people could not code out of paper bag in my own country either. I think the same is happening locally in India where the one which can code get better paid job / develop stuff,whereas the cheap guy which NEED to learn is put out to outsourcing departement.
I am sure there are many case where outsourcing was successful (who knows maybe a majority), but after seeing my firm declaring it was a success to the outside world, and only after 4 years admitting internally it was failed for the main objective, I begin to suspect many of the success touted by consulting firm are not that successful in reality.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
So, yes it is exploitation.
You have a very curious version of exploitation. By that scale, you could complain about the midwest. On average the midwest has lower wages than the coasts, but proportionally lower living expenses as well.
By your comments, you seem to prefer that the worker in india NOT get that $1k/month job. Honestly enough, this is an educated Indian, so he's likely to get another job. Maybe one at $600/month. That means he can't afford as much to pay for other trinkets - and the collective effect is more people stay at the suckiest subsidence levels.
You can of course say that it isn't exploitation, but helping them by funneling money into their society. But the truth is, that as long as there is a huge salary difference for the same amount and type of job, there is exploitation going on.
In my mind, your exploitation = willing trade. We benefit, they benefit, we're both happy. Realistically speaking, this will also result in a downward push on our wages(I think we're lucky we've been merely stagnant), and an upward pressure on theirs. If you look at the mean/median for India and China, you'll find that their wages have been increasing at far above inflation. Which is to be expected. This will continue until China/India have modernized and pretty much eliminated the subsidence farmer class. If shipping costs remain high, that will relax the pressure to outsource jobs long before that, but by then they'll have enough internal economy to keep the process up.
And the grandparent was correct. These companies are employing workforce at below minimum wage salaries. Why are they allowed to sell products in the US?
Free trade laws, they're being paid well above minimum wage in their country, and the cost of living is such that paying them US minimum wage would be somewhat silly in that you'd have telemarketers and tech support people making more than the local doctors?
globalization is of net benefit to everyone. It's just that, as we were the top dogs, it's of the least benefit to us.
I don't read AC A human right