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Volt Asks Temps To 'Vote" For Microsoft Pay Cut
theodp writes "In an email sent Friday evening to its Microsoft temp workers, Volt Workforce Solutions asked the techies to 'vote' to agree to a 10% pay cut. From the email: 'We want to support you in continuing your assignment at Microsoft and respectfully ask that you respond by going to the upper left hand corner of this email under the "Vote" response option and select, "Accept'" by close of business Tuesday, March 3, 2009. By accepting you agree to the [-10%] pay adjustment in your pay rate.' Microsoft managed to keep the Feb. 20 email detailing plans to slash rates from leaking while it pitched its Elevate America initiative at the 2009 Winter Meeting of the National Governors Association, touting Microsoft skills as just the ticket to economic recovery."
not 10% but 15%. Microsoft is cutting how much is paid for current contracted hires by 10% but future contract hires will be hired at a 15% decrease in amount paid to the contracting company.
Companies are being forced into it by Microsoft saying sign the paperwork for this change in contract or we will not hire from you when your current contracts are up. Contracting companies can then push the decrease by telling the employee to sign the agreement or you are fired. Most employees are probably hired under the standard right to work so they can be fired for any reason, however most companies have an employee handbook which prevent firing for any reason, so could be a legal fight.
GM doesn't pay much more than Toyota. In 2005 GM paid on average $31.35/hr vs Toyota paying $27/hr.
The big cost difference comes from GM paying people who aren't working (Job banks and retirees[460,000 vs 1,600]) as well as taking more man-hours (34.2 hrs vs 27.9) to build a vehicle than Toyota. Some Toyota plants actually pay more than some GM plants.
HP / EDS pulled the same stunt. Oh, except that the CEO's taking a 20% cut in his basic (but pulled a $40,000,000 bonus last year), and there's no vote involved.
http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/19/hp_pay_cuts/
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
A large portion of their contractors are really contracted through temp companies. For example, I install computers in the Microsoft offices through one company while testing Xbox 360 hardware/functionality through another. I never received one of these letters, it was answered for me. I would also like to note I have barely had work for the last couple months, and it is terrible. Microsoft is a corporation which uses its contractors as fodder in order that it doesn't get the media that is normally involved with laying off employees.
Only a handful of contracting firms are considered "approved suppliers". If you are on your own your out of luck, at least as far as big companies like Microsoft are concerned.
All "a-" (contract employes) were told to take a 10% pay cut. Those of us at Aquent weren't even asked to "vote".
We're trying to get the word out on this site: http://www.msratecuts.org/
There's no headcount for permanent hires now, and I don't think any Blue Badges are getting raises, but that's different than taking a 10% pay *cut*. However, at least on my team, they're still hiring contractors.
On the Aces (Flight Sim) team, they fired the whole team and then asked about 3/4 to come back as contractors, forgoing their severance.
IMHO: This is an excellent catalyst for unionizing.
I've heard that benefits for employees are also vastly in big 3 workers favor.
I found one 'for example'
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/pers-n13.shtml
[i] Like Friedman, he writes indignantly of decades (now ended) during which Big Three workers received "gold-plated medical benefits that virtually no one else had," under which United Auto Workers members had "no deductibles, copays or other facts of life in these United States."[/i] opinions of the validity of the argument aside, such benefits add a lot to the bottom line....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Most big companies will not deal with individual LLCs. They have a "panel" of agencies (say between 3 and 10) that you have to go through.
That's because management deserves it. We make the big decisions and take the risks that enable the company to succeed. Once upon a time that may have been true. High level people who believed in the company might have actually put some money into it. These days, management is brought in, paid high salaries, and given stake in the company without having to front any money. They have only the risk of the shares they were given going down. The people who take the real risk are the people who do the work. They get paid less, and if there is a downsize, they are the ones cut, not management. Even if management were cut, they get paid enough that they could live comfortably off of the excess until they found another job, not to mention their golden parachute. Plus, if they REALLY screwed up, then they will probably get another job pretty quickly. A colossal failure is better than a mediocre success.
No, there is no risk at all in management these days.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I also have a friend who's an ASC certified master mechanic who says he sees A LOT of Toyotas in the shop vs. GM vehicles for more than trivial matters.
Its a pity, because you get the American Built Toyotas. In Australia, we get the Japanese built Toyotas, and they are consistently the most reliable car by far. The Toyota's top all of the reliability surveys and have very low failure and problem rates.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
In this case it is far worse. This is a 10% cut in the rate to the employment agency, so they have to cut the employees wage even further, on costs, insurance, profit etc, employees themselves are likely to get around double that cut.
I see that you have some problem with economics. Reduced pay for employees results in reduced spending, which generates lay-offs. A lot of people base their debt payments upon the salary level with out much gap between them. A 20% pay cut will often result in bankruptcy, as the employees can not just whip up a quick letter telling their creditors they will now be paying them 20% less and if they don't like it, they wont pay them anything.
Now is the pay cut to enable M$ to survive or is it to allow M$ to maintain it's current profit margin or even increase them. M$ has a history of having a total disregard for the costs of it's actions upon other people and companies as long their own profits keep increasing.
You're right. This is what's going to happen. This is what most people do.
That said, what kinda idiots do this? Why do so many people believe they shouldn't have any contingency plans in life? Next month, I could be hit by a bus. If I do, I live in Canada, so medical costs will be okay, I have credit card insurance to cover a year of interest payments on that (it only costs me $5/month), and I save enough money that I'll be able to live, if miserably, for at least 6 months. Why don't more people do this? And don't say they can't, because the people who are going to be missing their mortgages had enough money to buy a house, apparently, so they should have gotten a cheaper one or continued to rent until they could *actually* afford a house. gah!
What pissed me off the most about the HP deal is the way they did it. They did not ask for a vote, they sent out an email (after business hours of course) informing all US employees. Then they scaled back the 401K matching to a floating scale. Then, to add insult to injury, the very next day HP sends out the financial report from the last quarter and they met their goals and barely missed their stretch objective. This has happened the last 5 quarters, but still they take away from the employees.
This seems to be the HP way..... Two years ago, we had a record quarter (Q2, I think) for sales but at the end of the year we were told we would not get bonuses because the numbers were a little lower than expected in another quarter.
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My parents went to Slashdot and all I got was this lousy sig.
Sigh
I realize the Founding Fathers were not perfect. The founding of America was a step in the right direction.
Slavery existed in Africa long before slaves were sold in the Americas. People fought, bled and died to outlaw it in the U.S. It still exists in Africa and other parts of the world and I understand it is on the rise. (For the record, I believe it was and still is despicable.)
Ever hear of a guy called John Adams? He was a founding father who didn't own slaves.
William Penn?
Japanese -- Wow! I did NOT know the founding fathers threw Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Tell me, which one of the Founding Fathers was still alive in 1942?
BTW, racism is a universal human problem -- all humans are capable of it, not just one particular ethnic group or nationality. That is, people of all colors are capable of it.
In the same way, both men and women are capable of being sexist.
And then there is a survival instinct called xenophobia.
The point of my original post was to point out that Communism and Fascism are inherently selfish and greedy. They never helped anyone except the party elite.
The Founding Fathers were unusual. They were men of wealth and power. They were NOT greedy. They gave up their time, wealth, and power to establish something better for everyone. Yes, it was not perfect. They could not agree to abolish slavery in the new country. (Many of the Founding Fathers were against it.) They still had the taint of European aristocracy. But it was a start.
How many other countries are culturally racist and sexist?