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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."
that their REAL "Elevate America" plan is to hire 10% more people but pay them 10% less?
"Voting" is a rather hilarious newspeak term for acceptance of a pay cut.
Not that I see anything particularly wrong with this approach. I find it pretty absurd that a company should be "stuck" with the contract rates it offers. And considering how big salaries in USA are, it's a small miracle that they still manage to make a profit.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
So why is Microsoft singled out? Oh, that's right, because they're number 1 in someone's twisted mind means that they can't protect their interests. They should be forced to dole out money until they go out of business so you same fucktards can caw on about how Microsoft's business model outlived it's usefulness.
Give me a break. This same bullshit is getting really old around here.
wolves, chickens, and all that
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
they start sending this email to the upper management in MS and see how many Accept replies they get.
And since when is something that's compulsory also voluntary?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I'll bet Volt isn't taking a cut on their obscene margin.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
The email stated "this is mandatory in order to continue your assignment at Microsoft ". So voting yes just means you want to keep your job.
All this Microsoft bashing, and no one takes the chance that they're giving these contractors a pretty good choice? If I had to choose between taking a pay cut and losing my job, in a market where getting a new one is shaky at the best of times, I'd take the pay cut. At least it then gives me stability till the end of my contracted time. Way to go, doomsayers.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
> since 1 in 30 employees must start on the first day of the month, assuming people's
> contracts are as likley to start on day 1 as any other day
Considering your explanation above, I doubt any contract starts on day 1, because clearly they don't want to pay, and not starting contracts on day 1 is a way for them to not pay.
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Microsoft skills are not the key to economic recovery. The key to economic recovery is open source and open standards which encourage innovation and competition. With competition, comes improved products and reliability; not this poor security/reliability record that Windows has. The keys to economic recovery come with the innovations of open source that stem from individuals, universities, and companies like Red Hat, SuSE, Vyatta, Asterisk, and others alike. It is the practice of using M$ software rather than Free/Open Source Software that has a much lower total cost of ownership that helped us get where we are today ... competition stifled and debt weary. Rather than Volt workers accepting a pay cut, why not the CEO, CIO, and CTO of that company agree to cap his salary at 100,000 and no bonus. Let him or her take one for the team for a change. They should have an option to vote down the executives. This is my own 0.02 anyhow.
Contract workers get paid by the hour.
So that would be from $50 to $40 for me. Which I'm okay with that, because I'd still be making double what anyone else in my family makes. I'm not greedy. I just want a decent job with air conditioning & a chair to sit on.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Will the US nationalists make up their collective mind? If capitalism and competition are good, then Microsoft can only be bad for stifling competition.
Successful companies are a good thing, they can help improve the industry's efficiency through reduced prices and increased quality. But monopolistic companies like Microsoft rarely do either.
If it wasn't for the monopoly, Microsoft would have been dead between XP and Vista. Six years between incremental product releases? Instant death in any *normal* industry. Fast-paced competitors like Apple and Linux would have eaten it for breakfast. And the economy would benefit. So does the US still need more Microsofts?
Sam ty sig.
I'm starting to think the economy is just an excuse for pay cuts. Last I'd heard Microsoft was still making a very healthy profit.
I've been through the forced reductions myself, but it was while I was contracting for JPMC, and our cuts were based on the post-Y2K "economy." The only ones who should have been hit with the cuts were the mainframe COBOL programmers who no longer had Y2K work to do, but everyone got hit. A couple contractors quit rather than take the pay cut, but they were by far in the minority. (JPMC was a good gig -- worth taking a few bucks cut compared to hellhole client sites.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
FedEx did it too, about two months ago. CEO took a 20% cut, various levels of management took 7.5-10%, and everybody else (well, everybody salaried, aka me) took 5%. The bigger hurt was the suspension of the 401k match.
Still, honestly given the economy, I'd rather see this than layoffs. Not that there aren't people I'd like to see gone, but that needs to come as part of the normal, "You're a moron/sloth, go pursue other career opportunities" methods. Layoffs always seem to get 75% of those people, and another 25% that were invaluable but pissed off the wrong person.
The more layoffs we get, the further down the bottom of this thing is going to be. So, given that a company's options are lay some people off or just make everybody take a little pain for the collective good, I'll take the collective pain right now. I think it's better for the economy as a whole.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that contractors can stand to make a lot more money than regular employees, when they are in work?
The downside is that your job's temporary and you have fewer rights, as this article shows. That's the risk they choose to take.
If insufficient numbers of people vote for a pay-cut, they _will_ be in the position of having to do layoffs, and in all likelihood, the people who will get laid off in such a case are the people who the company best figures it can replace with a more cost efficient alternative (read as: new graduate willing to accept a lower rate of pay). They can get away with this quite legally as long as they pay adequate severance packages.
How a person votes would likely not affect whether or not they got laid off, should a mass layoff occur, and it would really bite for the individual who voted that they would take a pay cut to get laid off anyways because not enough people voted that way, but hey.... nobody ever said life was fair.
But by all rights, Microsoft _should_ be conducting this vote anonymously... so that they have no means of knowing which employees voted no and which voted yes, because if they don't and they only lay off people who voted "no", then they could be setting themselves up for a large number of constructive dismissal lawsuits... (and what's worse for them is that the employees would have an official paper trail to prove it!). Further, by conducting the vote anonymously, Microsoft would be publicly presenting the notion that they are genuinely trying to come up with methods of retaining their employees in hard economic times because they value them all, rather than simply terminating the ones who don't vote the way they want.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's one thing to cut salaries when you're hemorrhaging. It's another to cut salaries when everyone else is hemorrhaging, and you have a stable, monopoly-protected revenue base, just because your workers have no alternative.
The temp's employer is Volt Workforce Solutions.
Volt joins most but not all firms in deciding to pass some or all of the impact of the [Microsoft] cuts on to their workers. Temp giant Volt informs workers it will make Microsoft pay cuts
How surprising is it when a wholesale supplier cuts his prices and costs to remain competitive in a recession?
--- but is not so quick to dial back his own profits?
Microsoft is bleeding to death when kdawson's theme is FOSS and Linux. Microsoft is rich, strong and stable when the talk turns to pay cuts and layoffs.
The well-run company survives a deep recession - a depression - by making changes before the situation turns desperate.
The 10% pay cut now is at least a better outcome for the temp than the 100% cut he'd take later if his job is outsourced to India.
It's useful to remember now and again that the median household income in the states is $50,000 -
keeps things in perspective, when you ask yourself how much your job is worth.
In this case it is far worse. This is a 10% cut in the rate to the employment agency, so they have to cut the employees wage even further, on costs, insurance, profit etc, employees themselves are likely to get around double that cut.
I see that you have some problem with economics. Reduced pay for employees results in reduced spending, which generates lay-offs. A lot of people base their debt payments upon the salary level with out much gap between them. A 20% pay cut will often result in bankruptcy, as the employees can not just whip up a quick letter telling their creditors they will now be paying them 20% less and if they don't like it, they wont pay them anything.
Now is the pay cut to enable M$ 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.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Well, for starters, autoworkers union != bank executives. The two situations aren't even similar. On one hand, you have a union that's doing nothing more than bleeding a corporation dry. On the other, you have a situation where the free market should really be determining things like salaries and bonuses*.
The auto workers negotiated in just as much a free market as those bank executives did. SO they are the same in that regard.
Truth be told, it would be better for the US Automakers if they went bankrupt. That would dissolve all union contracts, forcing them to restructure. While there are certainly other factors like demand and quality, the benefits alone received by members of the UAW make it almost impossible for American car companies to compete with non-union car manufacturers in the US.
While it may be better if US auto manufacturers did go bankrupt, you're either discounting, ignoring, or don't know something. Even foreign auto makers what Detroit bailed out, "Why Toyota wants GM to be saved". This is because of the reason mentioned above, they all depend on the same suppliers. If Chrysler goes bankrupt it's suppliers, who also supply Japanese makers in the US may go bankrupt as well. Secondly those foreign owned factories received a lot of government subsidies. State governments have given out billions in subsidies. "Alabama offered a stunning $253 million incentive package to Mercedes ." And one of Alabama's senators, Sen. Richard Shelby was one of those who opposed bailing out US auto companies.
Its great when a company can afford to treat their people well, but when they can't, something's gotta give. Unfortunately, the UAW doesn't see it that way.
Neither do company executives. Even Carl Icahn says executive pay needs to change.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Collectivism and Marxism already failed. We don't need to try that again.
Don't recall anyone advocating that. Put that straw man away before it falls apart!
Though expecting 100% free-market capitalism to work without people taking advantage and/or subverting it for their own ends (even through the "legitimate" use of markets to- e.g.- get a monopoly) is just as flawed and dependent on a grossly over-idealised view of human nature as communism is.
Remember that though many will proclaim the merits of a free market, they really want it to be free for themselves... and will certainly seek to shut out competition given the chance.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
If insufficient numbers of people vote for a pay-cut, they _will_ be in the position of having to do layoffs,
Nowhere did I see that this was a binding vote. I'd say it's more of a straw poll for Volt to see if they can get away with this. For instance, where did they come up with 10%?
Hell, if enough people vote yes, why not increase the cut to 15%? From the other posters comments I'd guess Volt doesn't really care about their employees and will try to squeeze them as much as possible. The "vote" is merely a means to figure out how hard to squeeze.
AccountKiller
A lot of people base their debt payments upon the salary level with out much gap between them.
If that's true, then a lot of people are complete idiots. It really doesn't seem logical that employers should factor in their employees' overspending when making these kinds of decisions.
sic transit gloria mundi
I am a contractor at Microsoft right now subject to this pay rate decrease. Although I have my opinions about why it is happening, and what should be happening instead, I think more interesting is what the immediate effect of this will be. In my case, I cancelled several services I pay for in order to absorb the hit to my income and will be increasing my W-4 deductions to maximize my current income (up to my allowed amount) in favor of decreasing my tax return next year (here's to hope).
But, I cancelled Netflix who licenses Microsoft's streaming video technology. I cancelled Gamefly who previously rented me Xbox 360 games. I will be providing less revenue through withholding to the federal government. There will be less discretionary spending and less revenue provided to my local and state government, all of whom need it just as bad as we do right now. All of those organizations rely on Microsoft products for their dwindling operations. In a very real way (since I live in northwest Washington) there will be less money for police to protect Microsoft's physical assets.
Don't these circular relationships represent the defintion of a "downward spiral"? Are we sure we understand the impact of these actions?
In the meantime I will buckle under and keep working my ass off. My kid's doctor doesn't accept righteousness as a form of payment.
Nope. The longer someone avoids paying off their debits, the bigger the debt becomes (thanks to the wonder of compound interest). Then, when their interest rate goes up (as it must, since rather than reduce debt, they've increased it and become a higher risk), you get a second whammy.
If nobody had debt, all earnings could be spent on direct consumption, without some (a lot, in many cases) being bled off by interest payments.
We've just come to the end of a very unnatural cycle - one where people not just continually rolled over debt, but also threw in additional debt with every roll-over, to the point where they were using new debt as their chief way of making debt payments (that's what average spending of 103% of income really means - people are using their credit cards to make payments on their cars and mortgages).
Deflation? After a decade of overinflated housing, we NEED a decade of housing deflation, just to get back to historic norms.
Bail-outs? Why bother - this just rewards the greedy, penalizes the prudent, and shows that nobody in government knows the meaning of "keep your powder dry". All the bailout money is not just a waste - it also carries the hidden cost of missed opportunities to both rationalize the car and banking industries, and to invest elsewhere. Every dollar spent out bailing crooks is a buck taken away from schools and infrastructure and retraining - money that could BUILD the economy.
For those who eschewed debt, delaying gratification, deflating prices back down to historic norms brings the reward of buying at proper value, not bubble prices. Call the bailouts what they are, a global "tax on stupdiity and greed."
I agree, but the cap gains tax should only be on real profits over $500 per year taken as income and not reinvested. Now you pay on purely nominal gains caused by inflation, fill out onerous paperwork over tiny amounts of savings account interest, usually can't deduct all investment losses from profits, and usually take a tax penalty for rebalancing your portfolio. Investment companies don't have most of these burdens, but individuals do. Getting around the ridiculous rules is a big part of why the market is dominated by mutual funds, hedge funds, IRA money-jailers and other parasites.
Inflation-adjusting nominal capital gains using the government's numbers isn't good enough. The have been fiddled with so much over the years that they are 3 to 6 percentage points lower than they would be when calculated using the methods of 15 to 30 years ago. This fiddling has also inflated GDP growth and screwed Social Security recipients by a similar percentage compounded over many years.
Also, capital gains shouldn't be taxed if the underlying capital is intellectual property. Ireland got that right; it really paid off for them. (I know this is Slashdot, but individual authors and inventors would be more viable if their product weren't taxed out of existence.)
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
This sort of thing is going on everywhere. That's why it's a recession. I think it's a little unfair to say that right now it's all Microsoft's fault that they have to cut wages because consumers can't afford their products (not that I'd shill out $150 for Office even in a good economy). It's not like companies can just say, "Wait a minute... if we don't lay people off and/or cut wages... this recession will end!" If that were possible we wouldn't have recessions at all.
The prices of ALOT of things jumped up after 9/11 on fear and during the gasoline crisis. They also take advantage of every weather crisis or flood to publish how it will cause a shortage and a price hike.
Ever notice -- when these things clear up, they don't go back down.
Everything needs to go through some deflation. The price of many things is just ridiculous.
Things going from 25-50 cents in the 70's to 6-10 bucks... That's a hell of alot of inflation -- alot more than the
supposed 2-4% reported by government figures each year. Over 3 decades, 4% would be a 324% price inflation.
Instead, I commonly see things more in line with 20x (2000%). It's not just housing.
$2.99 for a corrupted version of a song (a ringtone). vs. $4-6 for an album in the early 80's. The incremental cost
to produce that ringtone: 0. An album might have ~10 songs... so as ring tones, that'd be $30. That's 7.5-5x and those aren't for the real song. The incremental profit margins are nearly incalculable. Piracy has hurt music companies sooooo much.....
But contrary to what 'should' happen -- the government is just manufacturing more money backed by nothing. It's like stock dilution -- but on a massive scale -- dollar dilution. Soon street bums will be begging $20's for a cup of joe.
Theoretically, we are so screwed...but for what really will happen? Good luck guessing!
These are CONTRACTORS not employees. The whole reason a company uses contract labor is so they can adjust the number of bodies to the workload without having to later layoff their own employees. In other works these a TEMPORARY jobs. Everyone understood they were temporary and would not last. I don't even count not renewing a contract with a layoff
I was a contractor once too. And sure enough we were the first to go. With all of about 20 minutes notice at that. Cutting your pay is just a very nice way to say "Find another job, soon." The more normal way to say that to a contractors is "Find another job."
Read the story "Volt" is a "temp agency". Our company uses Volt too. For thing like when a normal emplyee is on extended sick leave, they might hire someone on a 6 month contract.
The bottom line difference between Fascism and Communism is labels. Both are murderous tyrants. Bandits.
The historic clash between Communism and Fascists was about who would get credit for the creating a worldwide utopian society. Mostly it was over which set of elite get the power and money.
Contrast that to people like the Founding Fathers. George Washington could have been king, but gave up his power and wealth to create something greater. They never advocated a Utopian society. They just wanted a place where WHITE MALES were allowed to live a life without without tyranny.
There, fixed that for you.
A man who wants nothing is invincible
That's the kind of language that puts you on the same side as the employer, sounds like to me. "Do whatever you want as long as you're not going to take away my job!" No thanks.
Funny how the statement falls apart when you replace personal with Bank and companies with Taxpayers
I'm not sure there are two sets of elite involved in communism and fascism. To govern sheep you need dogs on both sides.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol