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IBM Offers to Send Laid-Off Staff to Other Countries
TheAmit writes to tell us that many recently laid off IBM employees have been offered jobs if they will only move somewhere it is cheap to employ them. IBM's new Project Match program offers some financial assistance for moving and immigration help for visas. "However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States. "
on low pay and see how long that idea will last.
that this is going to go well for IBM. Management is openly admitting that their present American workforce has the skills they need; it is just a question of cheap labor. This is not the time for a company to be picking this sort of fight.
Americans workers would like to work in America for American wages. However, are they also willing to pay the prices of American made products?
I have a few tech friends from India and it's funny because one of them said that on a yearly salary in the US, they could retire comfortably back home. Fact is, a dollar goes really far in other countries and companies could probably provide an even better standard of living for their employees if they were located in other countries. Now, I'm not saying that this is the ideal situation. Just that the reality for some companies is that they cannot or will have trouble surviving/remaining competitive when another company, based in a cheaper location, can undercut them by a significant amount. It's not simply a matter of CEOs fattening their profit margins but that eventually, efficiency will take over. What I believe will happen, is that an economic homeostasis will occur (over several decades) whether we like it or not.
Ah, pay me no heed as I'm just ranting.
Other companies have done it in the past. Told all their visa employees that they could either stay and risk getting laid off, or go back to their home countries for a fraction of the wages.
You know, that went well with everyone but the visa employees.
Americans felt that 'go home you towelhead' feeling swell up within them and were happy, partly because they were not the ones being touched. Managers felt happy because they could lay someone off this way and show some savings they were required to.
Govt had gotten the full taxes (including social security and medicare ) out of them, so the system was happy. They were liable for lease breakage fees, so the apartment owners were happy. They had bought stuff here and spent their salary here so the shops were happy.
The visa employees did not have any rights or votes, so no one really cared about them or their plans or inconveniences. Afterall, how dare they live any more comfortably than out of a suitcase? Who told them to lease an apartment? Who told them to buy a car? a home?
all the comany is required to do is buy them a return ticket on the slaveship (or return flight).
Our culture has put such a premium on the price of goods, at the expense of quality, that it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when (like all other resources), labor also finds itself subjugated to this rule. You are now on the dollar menu, Citizen. Ah, but let us rail against our evil corporate overlords instead--it's so much easier to blame anyone but ourselves for this. Labor is dead in this country. You've got "at will" employment, anti-union legislation, and did you know we are the only industrialized country on the planet without a Labor party? Our entire culture has been split up and sold off piece by piece thanks to "intellectual property". You don't own your car, your home, or anything that costs more than about $5,000 these days, stuck paying student loans for the next thirty years, with debt-collection law changes now on the books that make starting over an impossible proposition. We call ourselves a "capitalist" society where the individual has the power and the choice, but tell me dear reader, when was the last time you bought something that didn't come with a contract or a legal document stating what you could and could not do? Want to watch a movie? Read the FBI warning. Use a computer? Read the End User Licensing Agreement. Drive a car? You'll need insurance and a car loan for that. Live in a house? An apartment? Sign here please. You can't even enter a building without "giving consent to search", no cameras or recording devices please (except for us, see the black globes?). Freedom? Where, pray tell, is your freedom?
One Nation, Under Contract. Please sign on the dotted line.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
why does that instinct require moral validation?
that is an instinct which has driven the entire history of human innovation and technological progress
the guy who goes "say, i could make a mechanical loom powered by a waterwheel, and sell yarn at $1/ yard rather than $10/ yard" does you a service. of course, he also puts 5 human yarnspinners out of work
but based on some sort of "moral validation" argument, we should not pursue technological progress. we shouldn't, in order to continue employing the human yarnspinners, and to continue paying $10/ yard for yarn
no, sorry, not going to happen
this "moral validation" argument is hollow, and is really just an argument for luddites, and an absurd one at that, since we are both sitting at computer keyboards, arguing over fiber optic cables: innovations that would otherwise be impossible, innovations that, ironically, some of which happened at ibm
innovation is something that flows directly from human laziness and cheapness. we want more for less. and our minds are such that we can actually dream up ways to make that happen with novel organizational structures, energy sources, and bizarre new materials
so i say, fuck "moral validation", fuck the yarnspinners, and fuck the out of work american ibmers
progress isn't all fun and games, and is often cruel. but one of those laid off ibmers will innovate the next big thing that will employ the children of those laid off ibmers, and none of them will question the principle of creative destruction, and they will look at their father's mode of employment the way we look at blacksmithing jobs and chimney sweeping
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The downside is that you cannot simply demand that a company create jobs or bow to your demands that they pay for your society.
Yes we can. The privilege of a corporate charter, and all the benefits that come from that are granted by the people of the United States. It is NOT a RIGHT. The trend over the past hundred years has been for corporations to take more and more while giving less. The expectation that a corporation will exist to serve the public good is all but gone now and pretty much anyone with the requisite fees can become incorporated.
Maybe allowing that to happen was a mistake, but, the ultimate authority in this country, the People, have been misinformed, lied to, and manipulated by the same people who own and run these corporations. It is not impossible in these 'connected' times that enough people will become fed up and start revoking charters.
The wage earners of this country are the engine that drives everything in our present economy, not the stock market, not the capitalists. A strong and healthy middle class is needed to support YOUR standard of living. Take care of it or you too will suffer.
Regarding your insult to the poor and uneducated in this country (der takin oar jorbs): Your place in society is not at all secure, and if you continue to speak and behave as if it is, you will be the one responsible for your children or grandchildren becoming one of the same people you ridicule. The number of upper middle class 'slots' is becoming fewer and fewer every year and there might not be a chair for you the next time the music stops. The way things are going, it could even happen in your lifetime -people don't always get what they deserve, but you just might.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.