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US Justice Dept. Investigates IT Hiring Practices
Zecheus writes "The Wall Street Journal (no paywall on this story) reports that the Justice Department is 'stepping up' an investigation of hiring practices of US technology firms, such as Google, Intel, IBM, and Apple. From the article: 'The inquiry is focused on whether companies, particularly in the technology sector, have agreed not to recruit each other's employees in ways that violate antitrust law. Specifically, the probe is looking into whether the companies' hiring practices are costing skilled computer engineers and other workers opportunities to change jobs for higher pay or better benefits.'"
As a 49 yo grandmother, C programmer and techie, I'd say sexism is a major problem in IT hiring. Its offensive.
How does one even verify whether or not a companies have agreed not to poach from one another in a way that cannot otherwise be explained as 'not the right fit'?
A "gentlemen's agreement" between companies not to pilfer employees isn't a bad thing ... unless you're not one of those companies.
Or unless you're employed by one of those companies. Artificially limiting an Engineer's ability to get another job which could offer better compensation or more interesting technical challenges is wrong.
A crack team of shadowrunners can't fix.
Emotions! In your brain!
I thought this was going to be about them calling you redundant and then hiring someone in India or China to do your job.
-Xen
It isn't bad for the company's, but it sure sucks for the employees. That is the point of the investigation. Several years ago when I was working for a major telecom billing system vendor in Saint Louis I was trying to find work elsewhere. Every head hunter in the city told me the same thing: they wouldn't talk to me while I still worked for that vendor. It seems that vendor was a major client of all of the head hunters as they were doing a lot of hiring at the time, and told the head hunters they would not deal with them again if they ever found out that they had helped one of their employees (like me) find a job somewhere else. So it made it that much more difficult to find other work. I did eventually, but this is very much like the situation in the article. In fact I think this is likely way more prevalent and is what the government should be looking at. But it is also very difficult to combat, so they will likely only go after the low hanging fruit; as in cases like Google, MS, IBM, etc.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This would be very hard to prove. Even if it is real, how is this really different than other arbitrary hiring practices like "google only hires kids that have degrees from MIT and Stanford" or whatever they do. You could say that just about anything that limits who you will hire in any way unfairly limits someone's potential to get higher pay and benefits. This may be helpful for start-up companies because they know if they want to get a googler or IBMer they only have to beat out one company.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I think no one should have the right to tell you were you work, but, you shouldn't be allowed leave and take you current employers clients with you over to another firm. if you allow that kind of bullshit, employee's would hold employers to ransom.
things like having agreement not to hire engineers and coders so you don't have to compete for the talent pool is bullshit, i hope they get dragged over the coals.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I work for a really big (20+ Billion dollars in revenues) company's IT department.
Of late, they have become enamored with one of the big Indian outsourcing companies. I'm sure their folks are wonderful - indeed, of the ones I've worked with, it's about the same breakdown of wonderful/OK/awful as everyone else.
Based on job listings recently found on one of the internet job sites, they appear to have asked the outsourcer to find someone to work in my area as a technical manager of sorts. The job listing is full of internal lingo and acronyms - nobody from outside the company would know what it's talking about; indeed, some of the acronyms are commonly thought of as something else. (For example, suppose IBM stood for, internally, the "Internet Bandwidth Management" system but it says in the job listing "must be familiar with IBM computer technologies.")
I'm usually one to attribute stuff to stupidity before malice or deviousness.
But is the crap job listing a devious attempt to prove that nobody with US work rights already is suitable, thereby making it OK to bring in someone on a visa - and totally ignoring the fact that the visa guy won't be suitable either?
Or is it just stupidity? After all, HR folks mess up technical job listings all the time.
I don't know, but I do know that the H1B bull shit needs to be cleaned up. Given the employment turmoil of the last year, why would you possibly, honestly, need to bring someone in from overseas?
It sounds more like a "hiqhwaymen's agreement" to me.
I'm guessing this this really only applies to the high-level, superstar tech talent, right? Especially with firms like Microsoft and IBM, what could they possibly be losing when IBM hires someone who's been working on the grammar checker for the Norwegian version of Word? Or the lower-level code monkey keeping an obscure feature of WebSphere MQ up to date?
These kinds of agreements would work in environments where talent tends to stay put. Unfortunately, the invisible hand seems to think that job stability is a stupid, backward 20th Century concept. After all, who doesn't like looking for a new job every 2 to 6 years?? In an environment like this, even the big guys are going to have trouble holding onto employees.
I think a much better investigation would deal with the well-publicized claims of IBM laying off senior US techs, replacing them with Indians or Brazillians, and forcing the laid off person to train the n00b to get their severance package. I'd also like to see the H-1B program users under some scrutiny for things like not paying prevailing wages, or employers intentionally not pursuing the hiring of US workers so they can get their work cheaper.
All of these things would be less of an issue with some kind of professional standards body in the IT realm. Unfortunately, too many people I know think this is evil and doesn't allow the full brilliance of their talent to shine. I don't think that's valid...lawyers sure like the Bar Association and doctors like the AMA. These organizations give them the power to influence laws and maintain educational standards...exactly what we need.
These are two really high profile examples, I'm sure there are a lot more... If anything, competition between Google and Apple is really heating up (as shown on many a slashdot discussion board), so poaching employees is probably not out of the realm of possibility.
There is a difference.
Legal: "We won't have our recruiters stake out the Starbucks in Redmond."
Grey area, probably what the Feds are looking into: "We'll draw up a short list of industry experts and constantly headhunt them, but once we find out they work for Microsoft we'll stop actively pursuing them. If they contact us, fine."
Illegal: "If we find out you are a Microsoft employee we will not hire you until you quit."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Your sig: "The upset over a missed deadline goes away much faster than the terrible taste of a bad product."
Mod +5 insightful.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That would seem to be the biggest problem for would be switchers. Essentially, their legalese translates into:
"You must be subjected to a complete mind-wipe before going to work at one of our potential competitors, because if you use any of the specific expertise you developed while working here, you're screwed."
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
A partial solution to the problem of foreign laborers is to tax it. A 20% payroll tax on people with employment-based visas in addition to current requirements such as prevailing wages would reduce the incentive to use guest labor. If you applied this to illegal aliens as well, then you have yet another stick to go after people who hire illegal alien labor. The downside risk is that even more jobs will go overseas, where companies are subject to weaker safety, pollution, and other good-for-mankind laws and consequently much lower costs of doing business.
Personally, I don't mind competing with foreign workers who work under American work rules - if they are willing to come to this country and flood the market and drive me out of a job or drive my paycheck down, it's just one more incentive for me to keep my skills sharp. However, I realize most Americans are more "America for Americans" than that.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think they should investigate the sending of IT jobs off-shore...It should be considered unethical if a company lays off an IT person, then ship their job to China, for example. Nothing against China, or any other country, but when you ship all of that expertise elsewhere, you handicap innovation in your country. That's stupid.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I know plenty of people who've moved between Google and Apple. There's certainly no reluctance on the part of either company to hire staff away from the other.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Jon Rubenstein, was hired away from Apple
Incorrect. Rubenstein retired from Apple. Palm convinced him to come out of retirement.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's a good start. They should also urgently look into widespread H1B fraud and blatant age discrimination in computer industry to name a few.
MS and Google famously pooch from each other all the time....
Here, boy! Good programmer! There's a yummy treat!
It would also be helpful if they put some time into investigating permalancing, unpaid internships, and the unethical practice of performing credit checks on applicants.
Luckily, 16 states are looking into banning credit checks, and unpaid internships are being looked at as well.
meep
More likely it's a consequence of the non-competes most large companies require employees to sign as a condition of employment, and the risk of getting entangled in litigation if a company hires someone who was subject to such a non-compete. Even if the company can't be liable, it costs money to deal with the matter and extract the company from the litigation. And the employees themselves are probably also touchy about the matter, they can't get themselves out of the mess if a previous employer decides to sue them for violating a non-compete. All they can do is fight it out and hope they win, and even if they win they probably can't recover the cost of winning.
If the DoJ thinks the situation is a problem, they need to address non-competes.
I'm not sure you understood the article or what the investigation is for. The justice department is investigation whether or not top IT companies have agreements to NOT hire each others employees.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
which is a ploy to avoid hiring American workers in favor of H1B & green card temp workers? It's only "old news" if you have already been replaced by an H-1B.
I read one ad for Qt4 programmers which required 5 years experience, but tool had only been released in the prior year!
The most infamous quote by immigration lawyer Larry Lebowitz during the Cohen & Grigsby seminar on employment visas, May 15th, 2007 in Pittsburgh. Lebowitz coached immigration attorneys and employers how to avoid hiring US workers in order to hire foreign workers on green cards:
"Our goal is clearly NOT TO FIND a qualified and interested US worker."
http://www.programmersguild.org/rir/
Or, HERE
How U.S. Employers Can Avoid The H1B Cap
Under the present scenario, U.S. employers can only file H1B petitions for new bachelor-level or master-level H1B workers on one day each year, or on April 1 of each year.
However, there are some other options available to U.S. employers.
Alternatives To The H1B Visa
o Hire U.S. workers.
o Hire foreign nationals who already have an H1B visa under the H1B "portability" rules.
o Hire recently graduated students on the USCIS' extended "optional practical training" (OPT) program for certain foreign graduates of U.S. universities.
o Hire H1B1 workers from Chile or Singapore.
o Hire E-3 workers from Australia.
o Hire TN workers from Canada or Mexico.
o Hire E-2 foreign nationals who own and operate their own companies within the United States.
o For multinational companies, transfer employees from overseas to the United States under the L-1 visa category.
o Utilize the U.S. State Department's J-1 visa program to hire foreign "trainees" and "interns".
o Utilize the H2B "temporary worker" nonimmigrant visa category.
A TN visa process is an "objective" process in which the USCIS officer determines whether an applicant's credentials meet those listed in NAFTA.
There is no requirement that a sponsoring employer pay at least the prevailing wage (or actual wage, if higher) for the position being sponsored for the geographic location where the foreign national will work.
A year ago it was reported that H-1B workers OUTNUMBERED unemployed techies!
H1B and other quotas are set in the Free Trade Agreements with the various countries. Despite the fact that these job ad s
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Yes, when I saw this, I thought there are many more and worse problems than that in IT hiring.
There's the H1B stuff. Then there is stuff that I suspect is not confined to IT, though maybe it is more common there. For instance, putting out "resume bait" on job websites, practiced by the shadier sorts of head hunting firms. Jobs that don't actually exist. Another of this variety is the one they have no intention of filling, as they've made it impossible for anyone to qualify, or are demanding so much or offering so little pay that only a desperate sucker would bite. This is so they can cry that they can't find talented people, and hypocritically demand more H1Bs or other government intervention. Or there's the cooked job posting. There really is a job, but they've already chosen their hire, perhaps a friend or a relative, and are merely going through the motions to give it the appearance of complying with EEOC requirements. These have the mile long list of requirements, some very obscure and questionable, that just happen to exactly fit the resume of the person they're hiring. Then there's the real job that is already filled. Another common practice is pushing people to perform the work of more than one job, or of categorizing a job as a lower pay, less skilled position than the work they actually want done. And of course discrimination based on age, race, sex, marital status.
The noise level has been bad for years now. It would help everyone if all these sorts of deceit were tamped down, if HR was served notice that, no, such corrupt dealings are not acceptable, no matter how common and "standard" they may be. Well, this investigation is a start.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
This is bullshit invented by journalists. I bet you can probably trace a single journalist who originated this. I mean:
I don't know if there's been an agreement in the past, but there definitely isn't one right now.
"Basically, everyone is a victim of corporate crime before they finish booting up"
...from innocent users all around the world.
...that's not a developers conference, it's a crime scene.
But these guys at Google, Intel, IBM, and Apple, they stole hundreds of millions of dollars...
..showed that white guys in suits getting together...
All the other companies weren't there.
No one clicked the word 'agreement.'
The scripts for US corporate crime movies from the 1980's, 90s and beyond just write themselves.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'm not kidding about this. Rubinstein retired in March, 2006. Palm got him to join their R&D group the following year, and he didn't become their CEO until 2009.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
When cold war tech warriors drifted out of US and UK gov jobs into the private sector we had a tech boom. Govs around the world enjoyed a flow from a new tax source. ...
When quality developers drift out of US and UK companies into the private sector and compete with their former masters we have
a gentlemen's agreement to keep them techcropping.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You're free to apply for any job at any company you like; what this is about are the players in the game agreeing not to actively seek out their competition's talent. If you want to jump from Apple to Google, or Google to Microsoft, you're free (and probably welcome) to do so. But don't expect Google to actively court you while you work at Apple...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It's still illegal.
Its bad enough with NDAs that keep you from working in your field of expertise ... even if you're totally honourable and have ZERO intent of using the insider knowledge you gained.
I could not agree with you more. The problems you stated go back many years, perhaps 10 years or more.
I find this idea a little puzzling. How can the J.D. investigate what companies do to their employees when the events discussed are in other sovereign states? India is clearly out of the J.D.'s Jurisdiction. But calling "Hiring Practices" a Trade Secret, to me, is analogous to Economic Slavery; am I the only one that finds this disturbing? It also insults the intelligence of those who are victimized by hearing it.
Why are credit checks even needed in the first place?
Hell, of course you're going to have a few problems. That's why you're, I dunno, looking for work?
If this investigation leads to making it easter for employees to switch companies for higher benefits/pay etc it may eventually backfire on employees. Here in Australia and I suspect in US as well there is already a tedency for many IT positions reaching pay levels that are really not paying business the returns, and some companies solution to ever increasing salary demands has been redundancies and in some cases offshore the majority of work to India or China.
Yeah it's not bad for the company, but it's bad for the people who would like their wages to be set by "the competitive market." This is harmful for anyone who hopes to be paid what they are worth. It harms not only employees at any company engaged in such practices, it harms everyone else who uses these large firms as a measurement by which wage expectations are set.
Before it starts. Slashdot article:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/10/1454250
And i have posted a number of times about it on this and other forums. I'm getting tired of posting it.
RAND institute, Stanford, Duke, and one other reputable institution I can't remeber have all posted studies on this. There is *no* shortage in SMET fields.
There is no excuse for the companies, actions.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Price fixing is still price fixing.
The good in this case, is labor.
It doesn't matter which side of the cash register you are on, if you agree with others to fix prices at which you will buy something, you are violating anti-trust law.
Another thing to investigate is non-competes, and non-solicits. They're illegal in CA, but perfectly legal in most other states. Basically it is illegal for you to use your knowledge in the area where you have the most expertise at the moment. WTF?
"It should be considered unethical if a company lays off an IT person, then ship their job to China, for example."
How goes the old saying? You can't have the cake and eat it too, isn't it?
Didn't you want free market and capitalism? Well, there you have it.
"when you ship all of that expertise elsewhere, you handicap innovation in your country. That's stupid."
Maybe it is, but then you are telling capitalism and free market are stupid. For capitalism is not about long term planning and global-wise decisions. It is about here and now and you can bet laying you off and hiring at China is a local optimum for the one taking the decision: the CEO and his bonuses and that's all about.
Also, there is a bill in committee, HR 3149 that would ban the practice of credit checks for hiring. Contact your congressperson and tell them you want them to sponsor this and vote for it!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Put it in economic terms. Appeals to intelligence or fairness don't work in this "me, me, me" society. For example, US companies enjoy the infrastructure, the laws and legal system, (all too often) the direct protection of the US military for their overseas assets, and the benefit of existing in a society where you generally don't have a lot of the issues prevalent in some other parts of the world. Those things cost money--your tax money specifically. If a company is going to take advantage of the benefits of our society, then we the people have every right to force them to operate for the benefit of our society. That includes employing people who live and work here unless there's a damned good reason otherwise. To allow your society to operate otherwise is to be taken advantage of economically, as you are paying for something for which you get no benefit. Appeals to reason and fairness are not going to work here--legal force is necessary. It is the one thing these predatory corporations fear and the one thing that must be used.
Very true! I remember this one job posting asking for 10 years experience with JAVA, when it had only existed as a product for 5 years! I think part of the problem is that IT people don't hire IT people in large companies, its the HR people. And HR people game the system to make themselves look the best, not hire the best people for the job.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
And anyone working for them today outside of system administration will have a ton of trouble getting a new job, if just because the work the rest of them do is not all that useful anywhere else. Spending years dealing with very large amounts of bad code that you can't edit, and doing a lot of work by editing proprietary XML configuration files is not exactly a good reference. The environment is toxic enough that even local companies that they have acquired recently have been losing employees in droves.
That said, networking will get you far further in the St Louis market than head hunters: Some nice places to work in the area already expect that what most head hunters will give them is rarely good material.
It feels good for the justice dept. to start an investigation to stand up for workers' rights for once!
My story and a very close friend of mine story is opposite. We were working for a research arm of Proctor and Gamble as contractors on their Linux High Performance Computing Cluster. Someone in upper management at P&G decided a managed contract would be a better way to do business, what they did not realize (and they did not care) was that we would have to leave because of non compete law. In fact, our users (primarily PhDs) wanted us to stay and maintain the current systems because we delivered great service. We had to leave and that is that. Sure, my friend and I are fine (I mean with that on our resume, it is kind of hard not to be) but we really enjoyed our work and did not want to leave. We tried to stay, we tried to find a way to even work for the new managed services company but it just could not happen.
Thanks for the link n/t
meep
It's common practice for companies to hire head hunting firms on retainer just so they won't poach their staff, even if they never use them for head hunting services. It's been this way since the 90's.
This does not bode well for Activision, who are counter-suing the former executives of Infinity Ward for being "insubordinate [...] self-serving schemers."
Their supposed crime? Interviewing with EA for a job.
The "supposed" part should be doubly emphasized. First of all, because so far at least Activision hasn't actually provided any proof that the studio heads were actually doing that. Second of all, because if the Justice Department thinks refusing to hire people because the worked for a competitor is illegal, how are they going to respond to a policy of firing any employees that are suspected of talking to a competitor about a job? Presuming no actual trade secrets were being shared Activision my be setting _themselves_ up for further lawsuits or investigations. Everyone knows that if your current company finds out that you're shopping around for a new job that there might be consequences, but most companies aren't stupid enough to announce in a legal document that it was a direct response intended as a punishment for "misbehaving" employees.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
You mean that not everyone was 100% nice to you all the time. Which, or course, is how male techs treat each other.
Yes, there's sexism, but more often than not it's simply that not everyone is nice.
Fuck Yes.
The same goes for AT&T, Verizon, Quest, and any other telecommunication company who do the same things to network engineers.
While they're at it, do something about their ways of keeping contractors on the payroll for years with a promise of a job that never materializes.
After a few minutes of googling, I reaffirm my claim:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/21349/
That's not to say parent was not correct, but that my comment was taken out of context.
I don't really understand, why would a credit check matter at all? Nearly every prospective employee expects to get paid and is not going to put their own money into the company.
It's not information my employer ever will actually need for anything other than pointless paper shuffling. It's just an irrelevant way for some clueless grandma or recent graduate in HR to say "tut tut, here's a bad boy" and throw out your application before anyone with a clue sees it.
Maybe if the Justice Department really cared about the American IT workers, they would do more to stop the rampant corruption and indentured servitude in the outsourced employee business. Instead, they want to go after non-competes, as if they companies won't figure out some other way to prevent mobility of workers. If they think that by investigating a few cases where people are claiming they are not getting job offers from competitors, they are going to come up empty.
First of all, there are plenty of moves of people between companies at the highest levels. How many people have gone from Microsoft to Google over the last few years. I'm sure there are some people who interviewed, and didn't get jobs -- was that because they were prevented, or because they weren't good enough?
Further -- I'm sure that there are people that apply for positions at a competitor, and someone -- either at the board level or some other level -- gets asked "Did you know so-and-so? Were they any good?" First, if the respondent doesn't want to lose the person -- they answer that maybe the person wasn't really that good. Or if they do want to lose them, they give glowing recommendations.
We can always count on federal investigators to make the worst choices when it comes to investigating something.
Where I work a large contract was let to several LARGE companies - they shared it (Lockmart, BAE - you get the idea). They each had an agreement that if someone left the others wouldn't hire them. No big deal until this contract gobbled up 90+% of the tech slots - many hundreds of them. It extended to all of the subs too. People were actually ASKING to be fired in order to switch companies! The federal folks who these people worked for knew about it and encouraged it actually. Finally that person was replaced and the new person coming in told the companies that it wasn't kosher and that they didn't support it. But... the companies continued the practice among themselves! Once you get on this contract it's the kiss of death - you cannot find work elsewhere if your company screws you or they cannot place you elsewhere and you want to move. thankfully I've nto gotten stuck on this thing and work elsewhere but many others haven't been so lucky. It was years before anyone in the Govt. stepped up and did anything but even after saying they didn't support it (and they did for a VERY long time) the companies continued it. Hopefully the next re-compete dumps these turkeys....
Very true! I remember this one job posting asking for 10 years experience with JAVA, when it had only existed as a product for 5 years! I think part of the problem is that IT people don't hire IT people in large companies, its the HR people. And HR people game the system to make themselves look the best, not hire the best people for the job.
hey, I heard about that too! ...in a dilbert book.
I saw it, and wrote about it...maybe even here on Slashdot...I have been around here a while...considering I am user number 563....so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
This is just a way for those companies to keep the bright minds (and the information retained there) for 'reasonable' costs. Just imagine what you could get paid should you job hop to every better deal, each year. You're worth it, but they just won't hire you for that pay. imho this is a disgusting technique to keep wages down, also seen in The Netherlands. There is almost no recruiting among tech companies here, its even hard to get a job at a 'partner of your current employer'.
...IBM is about to go to national court about this.
This is isn't just two companies saying "if you won't hire ours, we won't hire yours".
The directors are forced to sign contracts that requires them to not hire people from IBM.
So when they quit their positions at IBM, and work for a different company, they're not allowed to hire IBM employees. Even indirectly.
You would think that since these contracts are illegal, they could just ignore them at a new employee without repercussions, but then they'd have to battle with IBM to get their bonus/wage/whatever. It's not payed out immediately, for obvious, tricky reasons.
On H1B you'll get a highly skilled wage slave.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Oh, those are still out there. I saw one the other day that wanted 3 years in Windows 2008, Exchange 2010, and Windows 7. I 'settled' for my last job, a job with a start-up company because I thought I could grow with the company. BZZZT. Instead of promoting someone internally, they hired 3-4 people for positions I tried for (who all left or were asked to leave while I was there) and then hired for a couple more positions that were never advertised internally. I'm currently contracting to a "managed services" company (ie, outsourced IT) while they ship this job to India. Literally, we have 3 americans and 6 indians working "together". Until we're not. Even outsourcing is outsourcing!
It's a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable. It's a lot wrong to say it's a suspension bridge.
H1-B is broken by design (i.e. the law that establishes rules for them). You have a skilled worker visa that practically invites companies to screw over foreign workers - if they're fired, laid off, or if they leave of their own desire, they have to start packing literally next minute - no opportunity given to look for a new job in U.S. - thus allowing them to exercise insane pressure on them, in particular with respect to working conditions, hours and pay. And you expect companies not to abuse it as much as they can?
You can't fix this by merely going after the companies. You can reduce the amount of abuse that way somewhat, but you cannot get rid of it. The only way to do the latter is to fix the system on legal level. You have to make sure that foreign workers on worker visas have the same leverage vis-a-vis employers on the job market as any member of the local workforce - so that companies have to truly compete for employees, no matter where they come from.
It is anti-competitive and not really a free-market move. It should be illegal because it limits worthy employees the ability to freely move around.
If your job somehow involves access to financial mechanisms, such as being a programmer of a bank's financial processes, then I'd say the credit check is important, much as it is for a bank teller or bank financial officer. Similarly, if your job involves access to information that could be sold on the black market, to scammers, or to enemy foreign governments, this, too, needs at least a credit check (and in some cases a security clearance). If you are deep in debt, your risk of selling out goes up.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you are going to hire unsuitable people, you might as well hire them cheaper.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Sounds like we should all be starting up a side business doing head hunting :-)
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Outsourcing has been going strong for 10 years now. There's a whole generation who've been permanent software developers since they started their careers. They're better educated on average, and are now there's a good pool of experienced developers out there.
The biggest difference from 10 years ago is that now North American and European management know how to work with Indian management.
That's not remotely a free market; it's arbitrage of labor.
95% of the world doesn't live in the US of A.
Plus, even in the examples you gave, if you've been following this sort of thing on /., you've heard of people who have been sued - even if you're in the right, it still means $$$, which, if you're unemployed, sux double.
Yes, in a big general sense I agree. There are always some good people in every place you go. Note that I left them five years ago. :) When I was there I was fortunate enough to work on R&D coding for a new feature set which used code beyond what most of the production line coders were capable of. We would constantly find mistakes in the existing code base (whenever we had to interface to it) and the people responsible for them never wanted to know about it (e.g. opening a cursor on every fetch in pro-C because they couldn't figure out how to keep it open when they committed before the next fetch from the same big result set). Too 'droid-like. We were left alone so we avoided the toxic atmosphere for the most part. The one thing the XML interface (new code base) does if one cares to use it to learn is describes very well a telecom's business model. They all work generally the same, so if you work in the business you can go to most telecom companies. Especially if you work as a business analyst. Most telcos follow a similar model for orders and billing so it is a leg up to learn the business sector. And if you work on a project (I contract now) with docs, you also have the added benefit of being able to show your client how a company may want to charge for a modification for something that is already there. ;) But I personally don't know of any billing system vendor that would do that... cough cough... but then again, all billing system vendors are honest that way in my experience (I've worked with a few)... cough cough cough... I think I herniated myself.
The thing is, this situation is not unusual. Take that big medical system company in K.C. (rhymes with 'berner'). From what I saw, their code base uses even more proprietary features that can almost be considered a proprietary precompiled scripting language (kind of like a pro-C for that particular company). I worked for a company that was bought out by them and we were going to have to learn how to become even more trapped by the company than docs can do to you. I hit the eject button. In my opinion, it is not a good place if you want to be able to work elsewhere at some point in the future.
Anyway, the practice of finding ways to trap your employees is common, even if it wears sheep's clothing and is said to be in the name of providing a transparent interface to the DB by using a proprietary internal 'language'. Then there are practices that are used by both 'high tech' and 'low tech' companies of building in small out of the way locations, say in the corner of Arizona or Oregon where there might be a low employment rate. Then the company is the biggest fish around and if you don't work for them you are screwed. Then they can dictate all sorts of shit to the employees. The point is, the BIG companies are always trying to find ways to legally leverage more for less from their employees. Once decisions are made by committees and not by individual humans, the humanity leaves. In this case less is more, as more humans mean less humanity. I am happy that the JD is doing what it can to stop at least some of this bad behaviour by companies.
Unfortunately organizing programmers and 'high tech' people is like herding cats. We are all independent thinkers by nature. As much as I hate unions this is one sector where it would be nice, if only to stop this kind of behaviour and the ridiculous hours asked of us because of poor project management. The Y2K issue was solved 10 years ago, we need to be governed by the same rules as the rest of the white collar work force and not lumped in with emergency workers still. There is no reason a company should need to ask employees to work crazy hours just because some manager made an unrealistic deadline in some death march project.
I like Saint Louis. I'd like to move back, but since I just had back surgery last summer, I'll have to wait till the 'no preexisting system' clause in the new health care law kicks in, in 2014. I'd like to settle there. A very under-rated city, e
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Please take an "intro to practical law" class. You only have a right to a court-appointed attorney in CRIMINAL cases.
"That's not remotely a free market; it's arbitrage of labor."
And what do you think "free market" means but that the strongers are not tied by any regulations? Free market means that when you have some hundred of millions you are stronger than individuals and untied to make it your way upon them and when you have some tens of billions then you are stronger than governments and untied to make it your way upon them.
Free market means the strongest rules and that's exactly what's happening.
I'm all for Free Markets and Capitalism, but the US doesn't have that. It has a system where those who have the most amount of money seek to make even more money, and those who are not in that financial class get screwed. That would not happen in a truly free market. All the potential employees would not work for that company. But as I said, the US doesn't have a free market...so unless we totally change the society, the government has to create laws to make it the system work fairly for everyone.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
"the US doesn't have that. It has a system where those who have the most amount of money seek to make even more money, and those who are not in that financial class get screwed."
Which is exactly what free market means: money is the measure of power. In free market those with money smash those without it as much as in free fight the 1000 pound gorillaz smash tiny guys.
What else did you expect free market to be? Those without the power being more powerful than those with it?
"That would not happen in a truly free market."
Yeah, well... and in a truly comunist regime all would be happy and with all our needs covered, but comunism tends to give us Stalin, not Arcadia.
"so unless we totally change the society, the government has to create laws to make it the system work fairly for everyone."
So you somehow think to be fair that the 1000 pound gorilla should fight with a hand tied to the back to level the ground? That might be fair but certainly would not be free.
A totally free system is like perfection...nice idea, but you never quite can reach it. Just like your communism. Nice idea on paper, doesn't work in practice.
Like it or not, until we all become Angels, we are going to need government to mediate commerce, medical care, and just about everything else in life. When most of America gets it through their thick heads that you can't have 0% Taxation, and still provide roads, schools, a military to defend us, health care for all of us and all of the wonderful things that only work as Government, but not as a Corporation, will we stop idolizing airheads like Bush and Palin.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
That's not the same scenario - those headhunters didn't want to anger their biggest client, hence they wouldn't work with you. Of course, getting a job != calling a headhunter.