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Is Setting Up an Offshore IT Help Desk Ethical?
theodp writes "Except for a few odd jobs,' wrote an advice seeker to The Ethicist (NYT, reg. may be required), 'I had been out of work for nine months when I was offered a job setting up an [IT] offshore help desk. Would it be ethical to accept the offer?' Randy Cohen, who pens The Ethicist column for the Times, not only advised the job seeker that it was indeed okay to help co-workers lose their jobs, but also seemed to suggest that it would be unethical for him not to offshore the jobs, saying: 'Some people feel we have a greater ethical duty to those closest to us — our neighbors — but in an era of global trade and travel, that is a recipe for tribalism and its attendant ills.' The job seeker, who noted his father's auto-industry job was outsourced, chose to ignore Cohen's ethics advice — as well as his own wife's — and declined the job out of principle. He continues to seek work. Comments?"
...then the answer is no.
I saw that movie. You'll get to nail a really beautiful Indian girl. Ethics smethics.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Of course it's not "ethical", but that's not the point. It's legal, and that's all that matters.
And this "Randy Cohen" individual is an ass, or a shill, and I hope he gets outsourced by his employer at the earliest opportunity.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Screw everyone else.. Get yours!
It is the american way.
at least he has principles. I wish there were more people like him in IT.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
The more ethical thing would be to find any wrongdoing to report. Then blow the whistle on it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
How none of the Senior Directors/Managers jobs get offshored to a cheaper country isn't it
If the ethics are bothering you, perhaps you should look at practicality instead; what you see may eliminate your ethical quandary. Offshore support desks may be less expensive per call received, but the total expense difference is a smaller gap, as people have to call back when they don't receive proper care, or have to be transferred to 2nd and 3rd level techs in the US. You also have to worry about losing customers who get angry at having to deal with foreign techs. Overseas tech support quality is a long-standing joke, and the joke is firmly based on reality. I recommend you do some more due-diligence before considering this move.
If you don't do the job and get the pay for it someone else will. Despite what politicians, local community employment groups, et al say companies are going to do whatever they will or need to make the most profit. You might as well go along for the ride. Like they said in the Pirates of the Caribbean said, "Take what you can, give nothing back."
Consider this, if you don't take the job, someone else will. In the end it won't matter. If a company is set on setting up an off shore help desk, it will happen.
Well, it depends on whether you consider a good thing that your own country is getting weaker and weaker.
I can tell you that I am extremely happy for my country to receive any outsourcing jobs from overseas (hey, if you're that stupid, we're happy to take your money and provide you with the best work we can -- we'll be learning and developing our own country at your expenses), but I'd rather we never outsourced anything to overseas.
Take the money and run:) Give them the tools to cover all the basics that a business person would understand. Just enough to run at a sub-standard operational level that might work under the heroic efforts of local labor, but fail miserably given the infrastructure, cultural differences, and adversarial role of contract negotiations (e.g. contractor does what's in contractor's best interest because he's not a long-term employee). Also, do this slowly so as to extract as much money as possible. When this fails, be there to offer a "fix" with mix of on-shore help. When things improve dramatically, slowly shed the contract offshore labor or relegate it to menial crap work the local labor force doesn't want to deal with. We've been doing this rather successfully in the software world for a decade now:)
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I find it amusing that people are in favor of giving poor people in foreign countries food and money, but are horrified at the prospect of giving them jobs.
Someone is offering you money to perform legal work for them. How is this unethical?
In fact, you could make the argument that it would be unethical to turn down the job because your family would suffer due to the lack of income.
These jobs are how the developing world will develop. And not participating will not stop it.
Totally ethical.
In fact, you could make the argument that it would be unethical to turn down the job because your family would suffer due to the lack of income.
I see this tribalism is wrong argument popping up quite often but really what is this based on philosophically. I don't know them and they don't know me. I can only assume they are going to look out for their best interests, I therefore must do the same. This does not hold true for my friends and neighbors who I can expect to consider my interests, at least to a degree.
I don't turn on the even news and see a whole lot of evidence the rest of the world is filled with altruists, who only want what is best for everyone. The other issue with this argument for outsourcing is, I think its users should be required to prove its not a zero sum game. "Because they deserve to benefit from technology and have good jobs too", is only a sound argument if those jobs are not being taken from people here. Where countries like India are concerned they are competitors, it might be a mostly friendly competition right now.
I don't know what I would have done in this guys shoes, I suspect I would have been even more tribal and decided to do what is best for MY family, and taken the job. I applaud him for standing on principles though which I feel are sound.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
...it probably isn't.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
If he's doing a better job than somebody else for the same or less pay, then it is ethical.
What is NOT ethical is what the current worldwide corporate managers do. They get paid more than anybody else in the company to produce absolutely nothing. What they call "leadership" is worth nothing, do they think it requires any talent to say "hey, you! make this thing work!"
I believe in Leadership as it was in the old days, the leaders were the people who had worked in the factory floor and had showed their talent there. They understood the processes, the technical details that made the company create the products people would buy.
Today, the MBAs know nothing about that, all they do is bullshit.
One of the beautiful aspects of capitalism is that it assumes everyone is inherently greedy and therefore the system is constructed so that even the greediest of society's members cannot abuse the system.
One of the horrible aspects of capitalism is that if someone is not greedy or negatively greedy (like the man in the example) and looks out for others, they're eaten like a sheep among wolves. Of course it is not society that is harmed but merely the perceptually insane individual.
In an age where lawmakers are trying to strike down healthcare for all of your fellow citizens and Social Security is just a cookie jar to be raped by fiscally careless politicians it's unfortunately pointless to pass up this job. You're just ensuring that you're the victim instead of someone else. Sadly, in a capitalistic society, that's not a sound plan to ensure your future and survival.
I respect the man for his decision but as someone who has watched my father go on and off unemployment, I implore him to adjust his attitude to just consider legality and not ethics. We live in a world today where all politicians and businesses lead by example in this department and playing the game optimally means that capitalism rewards them.
My work here is dung.
The nationalist argument is a fallacy. Ask an economist for advice.
...or maybe not. Not ethical my arse. All the industries that are too inefficient to compete wish there were more guys like him, I suppose...
Ethics isn't an issue here. Life isn't set in stone. Things evolve and change. People who helped install electric lamps and put gaslight lighters out of work weren't unethical. People who built cars and put buggy whip makers out of work weren't unethical. Progress happens. I find off-shore call centers to be substandard. I am always having problems with them. Companies will realize the false savings in them and bring back home-based centers. Customer support is a form of sales and advertising. Savings in off-shoring them is penny-wise and pound foolish. I wouldn't give it a second thought. I trust cream to rise to the top.
Regardless of what ethical "experts" think, I'm quite impressed that the job seeker stuck to what he felt was right and refused the job. When the right job interview does come along, the fact that he refused this job could actually be a plus -- a way to show the employer that he cares about more than making money.
Wally? is that you?
FGD 135
Do this as ABSOLUTELY CHEAPLY AS POSSIBLE with regard to off-shore labor cost!!! Any business person stupid enough to do this only sees costs, not quality. This will help fail fast and dramatically, since as the saying goes: "Good work aint' cheap, & cheap work ain't good". Anyone in the offshore economy who has good skills won't be working at the cheapest rates. Offshoring any type of knowledge work is only about saving cost at the risk of sacrificing quality and dedication to the work for both the individual and the company. The more business people get burned by this, the quicker at least some of them will learn that this practice is unsustainable and hazardous to future business plans, the local economy, and job prospects of the future.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
It doesn't matter that somebody else will take the job, at the end of the day we all have to answer to ourselves. I admire somebody who knows what it takes to be able to look at himself in the mirror the next day.
and Bangladeshi. Even with illegal Visa
Your neighbors live in your community, right along with you. If you want to live in the best possible community (and who wouldn't?) then you should definitely put your neighbors ahead of people on the other side of the planet.
I think the gentleman made a bad decision. Either we adapt or fail.
On the other hand, I happen to be a senior IT manager in a company, where I know personally in my department we will be replacing about 30 jobs over the next 12 months that had been outsourced with direct employees of the company. We are learning that it doesn't give us the quality or the flexibility that we were really looking for. In addition, our customers services is going through a process of insourcing large parts of its contact centre, because at the end of the day, direct employees have a greater stake in the satisfaction of the customer and we manage our people better than our partners.
But eliminating yourself from the mix ensures that your views and thoughts will never be heard. If you really wanted to change things, you would jump in with both feet and see where it goes.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
Employers go offshore for one reason, the cost of hiring people and the subsequent saving in wages. Why go to the expense of hiring someone that costs $xx per hour when you could pay someone in a different country that much a month. It is the customer that ultimately loses out. Speaking to people in other countries that are simply reading a sheet of paper and not listening to the customer, often in an accent the customer can't understand makes both ends angry and in some cases the operative commits suicide. What is a life to the faceless employer? - one where the workers will never meet anyone who works for the company. The company doesn't even know how their customers feel because they have become insulated from the customer since every call is handled by the call center. Personally, I can't wait for the automated system that radically replaces call centers with a small box in the company, it means jobs will be lost but the customer will finally be happier. After all, which employer really cares about their staff and not about how much money they make?
The United States has made it illegal to create low paying jobs in the United States. How else do you create a low paying job but to take it to a country where the country allows the creation of jobs in that pay category? Or am I reading this wrong?
Ethical b:being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession: It was not considered ethical for physicians to advertise.
American Psychological Association (APA):
ethical. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 05, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical
Chicago Manual Style (CMS):
ethical. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical (accessed: February 05, 2011).
Modern Language Association (MLA):
"ethical." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 05 Feb. 2011. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical>.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE):
Dictionary.com, "ethical," in Dictionary.com Unabridged. Source location: Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com./ Accessed: February 05, 2011.
BibTeX Bibliography Style (BibTeX)
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month = {Feb},
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.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
I think the position that all human beings have the same moral value and thus ought to receive the same moral consideration is a widespread position in modern ethics. If you accept that position, then setting up an offshore operation that provides for similar or superior standard of living to the same or greater amount of workers cannot be said to be unethical according to most modern ethical theories.
The only potentially ethically relevant detail I see is that people living in a foreign country may benefit over people living in the same country as you. The only way that is ethically relevant is if you subscribe to some form of, as Cohen puts it, tribalism. OR if those people who are losing their jobs are your friends or family or someone in whom you have some increased ethical interest. Many modern ethical theories allow for you to put more moral consideration towards friends, family, etc. So if that's the case, then he did the right thing in refusing. Otherwise, I don't think that where people reside is ethically relevant. However, it may be economically relevant. If you subscribe to a more protectionist economic viewpoint, then you may want to keep the jobs locally.
At the end of the day, I don't think that this is really much of an ethics problem. It's more of an economics problem. But I know a lot of people (like the parent) will disagree, because people are inherently (biologically?) tribal to some degree.
In a world that increasingly sees corporate profit as the highest moral good, here is an individual who values human beings more than money.
God bless him, if only we had more people with his sense of ethics, our country might not be on an express train to hell right now!
To me, the answer depends quite a bit on the labor and political conditions in the country to which the work is being outsourced.
If this was a factory job being outsourced to a country that's politically repressive, then outsourcing could mean forcing US workers to compete with workers in a country where there are no child labor laws, workers put in 16 hours day and sleep in a shack on the factory grounds, or where trying to organize a labor union means that the police come, shoot you in the head, and throw you in a ditch.
However, this is an IT job, so most likely it's not going to be done by child labor or under sweatshop conditions. Is it being outsourced to Ireland or India, both of which are democracies with real labor laws? If so, then I'd agree with Cohen, with the caveat that a lot of India's problems are caused by Malthusian issues, and no matter how many jobs you send there, it won't do jack for the vast majority of the population.
In fact, a lot of the world's problems have lack of birth control as their underlying cause. Global warming is an overpopulation issue. Poverty in places like Mexico and Egypt is an overpopulation issue. Deforestation is an overpopulation issue. Air pollution in the US is an overpopulation issue. India's inability to provide education at the same level as China is an overpopulation issue.
Find free books.
I have a friend who uses an Indian company for his tech support.
Its $2000 a mo for someone to be answering tickets and fixing accounts 24/7 365
Or he could hire in the states, which would be like $3000-$4000 a mo for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, no holidays
O.o
If the people in another country are willing to do the same job for less money, that means they are using less resources than you to have basically the same life. Is it ethical to go out of your way to maintain your wasteful life?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Personally, I dont see how this could be a question of ethics. It is, however, a question of economic nationalism. We are quickly removing ourselves from economic competitiveness. Most of our industry and manufacturing jobs have already left the country, to the point where we are primarily a service economy. And now even services are beginning to be exported as well. We consume more and more, but except for our agricultural industry and military-industrial complex, we really do not produce anything. Competitive advantage says that states will inevitably focus on those industries they are best suited to (stones/minerals/oil in Africa, manufacturing in China and SE Asia). It seems what we do best is consume. The problem is, manufacturing brings in money, consuming loses it. Even if these companies are based in America, their profits are not being recirculated into the US economy. The dividends are going into the stock market, and we all know what a mess and drain that is, and what wages and infrastructure/construction they contribute to is invested not in the US, but in whatever state their suppliers are located in. While this drives the costs down and increases profits, it gets to the point where more and more people in the US are unable to afford to purchase these goods. It's a cycle. People are forced to buy cheaper and cheaper goods, so companies reduce US jobs that cost more to drive down costs to keep or improve their profit margins. This causes more people to be able to afford less, meaning an increased demand for cheaper goods. If we want to improve our economic situation, we have to bring industry back to this country, to become competitive again. There is a reason why it's called "making money". The best way to make money is to make something. Until then, more and more of our money is going to go oversees or in corporate coffers, and states like China and Saudi Arabia will have more and more control over us.
So, the question isn't is it ethical to help your fellow employees get laid off. The question is it ethical for a company to bleed a state dry all in the name of profit? We said no when it came to states bleeding dry colonies. How is it any different now, except now it's companies doing the bleeding?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
...but his premises are suspect. If one accepts that an American should have no more or less concern for the job-seeker in Mumbai than the one in Seattle, then it is certainly not wrong to help set up an offshore help desk.
However, the idea that the only reason one would have more concern for the American than the Indian is "tribalism" is suspect. Consider the end result of offshoring helpdesk jobs. We'd end up with no such jobs in America. Then where would this job-seeker be? Unemployed and with no prospect of future employment. He'd have helped fashion the rope used to hang himself. Is pursuing short-term gain at the cost of long term harm to oneself unethical? I suppose there's disagreement on that subject, but I think it's an argument worth considering, one more sophisticated than mere tribalism.
Take the money and run:) Give them the tools to cover all the basics that a business person would understand. Just enough to run at a sub-standard operational level that might work under the heroic efforts of local labor, but fail miserably given the infrastructure, cultural differences, and adversarial role of contract negotiations (e.g. contractor does what's in contractor's best interest because he's not a long-term employee). Also, do this slowly so as to extract as much money as possible. When this fails, be there to offer a "fix" with mix of on-shore help. When things improve dramatically, slowly shed the contract offshore labor or relegate it to menial crap work the local labor force doesn't want to deal with. We've been doing this rather successfully in the software world for a decade now:)
OK, that would be unethical.
You should do your best job once you accept the job. If you plan on behaving like an asshat because something about the job offends you or seems unfair, pass on the job.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I worked for years as a mechanical engineer in the automation industry. All we did was put people out of work by automating routine tasks. That is how we become more productive. Engineering is all about using your mind to improve the way things are done. This inevitably means putting some people out of work. The beauty of a free market system is that labor can move to where it is needed the most. For example.
I helped build a machine that assembled carburetors for Briggs and Stratton. Before there was an assembly line that ran 2 shifts with 12 people each shift. The machine allowed 2 technicians to build the same number of carburetors with less scrap in one shift. So 24 people were out of a job. How can this be good? Because it frees up those peoples labor so other things can be done. When someone first starts making something it usually isn't beneficial to automate because of the capital costs. But if the product is successful and the demand it there it makes sense to automate. Then free up the labor to go to where it is needed more.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
or troller of Internet forums attacking immigrants and H1B visa holders for taking American jobs?
Pretty dicey to take that job then.
You didn't do the above?
No problem, take the job if that's your best offer.
It is ethical for someone to take an offered job - if they agree that the output of the potential employer is ehtical.
In Other words, I feel it woule ethical for me to take a job in another country for a company that made low power lightbulbs, but I would not feel it ethical for me to take a job with a company in my own town that made its money from gambling. (Examples picked randomly)
There are, of course, other matters to consider. Would it be ethical for me to move my kids education to another country? Would it be ethical for me to move so far from elderly relatives?
Ethics is only part of it anyway. Would I have to learn another language? Am I going to be safe from an ignorant tax authority that feels it owns me wherever on the planet I go? And lots more.
It may actually be unethical for me to chose to withhold my potential labour from a company just because it would be in another country. Some of the biggest problems in the world today are caused by people who say "my country right or wrong". That is unethical.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Who moved my cheese? is a great story to read regarding this. While I could go a lot into my personal preferences, basically moving the job is like moving your "cheese". The article has a really good synopsis of it.
Which ethic is in question here? Nationalism is not an ethic. Perhaps loyalty is the ethic in question.
The Ethisist questions why somebody in Denver deserves my loyalty more than somebody in Delhi. I think that is a reasonable question. Without a job, the person in Denver will eat 22 decent meals this week, pay for a Netflix subscription, spend 20 hours surfing the web at home, and that home will be a 15 year old 2500 square foot job with a garage. The poor fellow in Denver will compromise by shovelling their own driveway instead of paying the service to do it. And they might go out to eat two less times this week, eating lunch at home instead.
For the same money, a company can employ two people from Delhi, rescuing two families from poverty conditions that few in Denver can appreciate.
It baffles me why so many Americans think that all Americans are entitled to a standard of living that nearly no other people on the planet enjoy. If the standard of living in the United States decreased by 25%, they would still live very comfortably. That 25% could raise the standard of living for everyone else in the world by 50%. And people in the U.S. would still live better than everyone else. I agree that is seems rather unethical not to share.
Turn the question around. Why wouldn't this job be ethical? It's not a case of "exporting the pollution". It doesn't enabling some harmful activity overseas. It doesn't meet the criteria of dumping or other "unfair" business practice since the operation is almost certainly fairly priced for the country it's getting sourced to.
And finally, it moves work that can't be done well for the price to a country where it can and is more desperately needed. The local labor can then be moved to some other need. That's how comparative advantage works.
Unlike Ireland, India looks the other way when people misrepesent themselves for work. Never mind that you gloss over the whole issue of firms that defraud people(and the people that defend them).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So globalization is ok when somebody exploits developing countries but it isn't ok when the same someone throws domestic workforce on the street?
Hm... Wait a minute... That doesn't sound right....
Come on, you really think The Big Money gives a sh**t about your nationality?
I do consulting and my last training session was with remote students in both the UK and France. Do any of you think I am being unethical because I am taking work from some consultant over there? So I think he should go for it and if the service can provide a solid value then it will grow and he will help a bunch of hard working people find jobs that they need. Does it matter that they live somewhere else? Not to me. If they make enough money they may turn around and hire me.
As background, I grew up in Flint, MI (ie "Roger and Me") and had a brother who worked for GM. He hated that every car I bought was a Honda. I bought them because they were clearly a better value - and still do.
That sort of attitude would certainly fail the "ethical test"!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Seems like this would be the business man's Karma coming back to bite him in the ass..
In all honesty, I'm mostly being a joking smart-ass about this. The sentiment towards the company who wants to do this work however...
I don't think I could honestly take the work myself...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I would do it because I have a family and taking care of my daughter is more important than anything else. Of course it would be different if I was single with no dependants but everything changes when you have kids.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
If your creed involves "allegiance to tribe" then it's probably unethical.
If your creed is "The Free Market is best" then it's perfectly ethical.
Just make sure that when the CEO has trouble with his laptop, he has to call the call center in Mumbai.
as long as it's carefully recorded and posted on the internet for posterity... and wanking!
Over seas call centers sucks for costumes!
Many of these companies that outsource are also part of your 401k and IRAs for retirement. You get upset when they lose their value. Sure, we hear about greedy CEOs in the media, but they're not the norm. Besides, some places are starting to outsource to Detroit instead of India. It comes around full circle.
for trying to hire local work to set up their offshore IT desks. All this "ethics" this, "morals" that. Outsource that job too next time.
Prison beds, prisoners,endless BULLSHIT wars, unemployed people and corrupt politicians!
USA, USA, USA...
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
The day we can hire a offshore lawyer / lawfirm is the day the American dream truly comes to a end.
Seriously though I would make certain job types that can be offshored easily qualify for exemptions that would put the US worker on equal footing vs the rest of the world.
Such as: Exempt from Social Security Tax, Medicare, Workmans Comp, Unemployment, etc.
Just add the loss of tax revenue onto the lawyer, and doctor professions by raising their tax rates.
This would keep most of the jobs still in the US, keep the taxes relatively the same.
The thing is they should either make it illegal to hire a contractor who does not adhere to our work standards and codes.
or
Tax the shit out of contractors who do not adhere to our work standards.
I don't mind jobs going offshore it makes sense in the long term.
I do mind jobs going off shore mainly for the reason they don't have to provide unemployment, Medicare, workmans comp, or any of the other benefits imposed here.
It's one of the reasons why American jobs will suffer in certain key sectors that are vital for the US down the road.
Is he collecting unemployment payments? If so, he should have taken the job.
I see nothing wrong in setting up an offshore IT shop. I fully believe in Capitalism, and that means that if another country can provide the same goods at a lower cost, then so be it.
The real question someone should as is, "do I want to set up an offshore IT office." That's more important.
No, I will not work for your startup
1) Is setting up a helpdesk in another building ethical?
2) Is setting up a helpdesk in another city ethical?
3) Is setting up a helpdesk in another state ethical? Even if they speak in funny language with words like "y'all"?
So BigInc outsources its helpdesk chores to another country to save money...
Does BigInc then retrain those workers to do other jobs within the company? Most often... No. They are just cut loose. (Feel better about the outsourcing only if the workers are going to be retrained instead of let go, which means you can stop reading here.)
Does BigInc use that money they saved to help schools train better workers for their future projects? No. They distribute it to shareholders.
Do the shareholders use that money to donate to their local public schools and improve the educations for their children? No. Most of them use it to help pay for private education for just their own children, or another BMW if they have no kids.
It's hard to consider making an ethical decision involving corporations when the only ethic they have is to improve their bottom line REGARDLESS OF WHO GETS SCREWED IN THE PROCESS.
People talk a good talk about being charitable to the poor people in other countries, but darned if they will truly give poorer countries something truly valuable -- and train those other people in other countries to make their own living. Because, darn it... it's just unethical to do that! This guy in his Utopian universe of social/political correctness just lost a good job because he preferred his dream world to real life.
People... Listen... this is not a Zero Sum Game. One job at least was created here... a high skilled training job... and one with a lot of opportunity. The guy turned down a really, really good opportunity to help people -- both people overseas, and -- believe it or not -- his friends. You see, his friends were obviously doing a job that wasn't valuable in his home country any more. The sooner they got out of that job, the better!
We in America tend to think that we should keep as many jobs as possible here, no matter how crummy. And yet we complain about the monotony of some jobs, and the poor pay of unskilled labor locally. And... the bar is being raised ever higher. Software Engineers, IT, Help Desks, and Call centers... It's tough... But we have to realize -- and quickly -- that we are "competing" in a global labor economy. If there is another group of people in the world that can do the same job for less money, and the government structure is more favorable to business... then we better be a lot more efficient, offer some tangible benefit that the overseas people can't, or be prepared to go to war. That's just life!
On the other hand, developed countries have a lot of opportunity, and people ought to learn quickly to take advantage of that. People ought to educate themselves or start a business (thus managing/directing the cheap labor overseas). If people want low skilled labor jobs, especially, the school of the world tells us that they will have to compete now with unskilled labor from other countries -- and that's tough, but that's it. Wake up, people & don't be a victim! Learn to take advantage of the cold hard facts.
For the ethics part... He should have taken the job, or he should have gotten out of the business and started another. He's got to feed himself and his family. He's got to slap himself in the face and wake up and smell the Coffee -- It's a dog-eat-dog world -- not some dream world utopia he's locked his mind in. On the other hand, he also has a responsibility to tell his peers as quickly as possible that their jobs will be outsourced so that they can plan for the future.
So substituting a global tribalism for a local tribalism is better? That doesn't fix anything, at best it just moves "unemployment" elsewhere.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
As much as we would certainly do well to have more jobs here, and as much as we may object to hiring people abroad, I don't know if this alone is enough to call it "unethical". We are a wealthier nation employing poorer ones. People living here don't like it, because it means less for them. Unethical? I guess it depends what you mean. I would not say the companies doing are doing it for pro-ethical reasons.
Assuming we are talking about "tech related" outsourcing, as opposed to things like call-centers... I cannot argue that it really is costing jobs here. I cannot find enough qualified people to fill tech jobs here. Past employers are reaching out, asking me if I can refer any friends that are decent software developers. All such friends are already gainfully employed. This "bad" economy. It's a strange one. I really do feel that it's disproportionately affecting the poor and the blue collar workers. People I know in Tech, aren't really having trouble finding work. Family members that have not been to or finished College? Forget it. It's rough.
To play as my own Devil's advocate. One might say, the exploitation of overseas workers is unethical, especially when we force them to specialize for our needs, and then jump ship when a cheaper bidder comes along. Also, I've found the quality of work with outsourced workers to be lacking. I'm talking BAD code. I'm not sure if the coders themselves are poor quality, or they are pressured to be "faster, not better". Communication is a pain, and turn-around time is poor due to time zone difference.
So unless you are prepared to bear the overheads of your favourite software company running a helpdesk in every country int he world, the question is moot.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
And not in the way that you are the cause of unemployment for many of "your" people.
I have lived most of my live and worked all of it in a country that is not "mine". My parents, my sister and myself have 4 different nationalities and live now in 3 different countries.
From all this what I have learned is that borders are artificial.
Assuming you are American, would it be ethical to take away jobs from people in NY and give it to people in Alaska? What if jobs move from Niagara Falls USA to Niagara Falls, CDN? Mexico?
What if the jobs go from Japan to the USA?
So it is all YOUR perception of how much you believe borders are important and location of the job is a given right. I believe neither, so for me there would be and is no reason I would hesitate on the ground of ethical reasons, although there probably would be many others.
If pay AND living conditions are good, I would take the job. However living conditions are not always good (although they might be luxurious).
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
My ethics indeed make the wellbeing of people geographically closer to me, especially within governmental boundaries (town, county, state, country), more important than that of distant people. Because I am more likely to have a more direct connection to them, either knowing them, or someone they know. Their wellbeing feeds back more directly to mine. The economics are similar, despite globalism: the closer they are, the more likely I'm investing in my own community, therefore in myself.
Tribalism is when arbitrary group membership that doesn't actually influence your own wellbeing (including that of people you care about) still governs your decisions.
Not to mention that all the labor being exported out of the US is propping up foreign regimes that leave their workers and other residents exploited by labor and environmental abuse, which cuts costs. That's totally unethical.
Ethicist Randy Cohen is just another NY Times writer who's so bought into globalism that he doesn't recognize the actual dynamics within globalism, and whose interests are actually served. Besides, considering the kind of global whitewashes and outright lying campaigns the NY Times manufactures every day, an ethicist with time to address any subject outside accurate, relevant journalism is probably the most obvious wrongdoer in this whole story.
--
make install -not war
But what happens when all our level 1 jobs are successfully offshored?
If we outsource/offshore all of our level 1 jobs, then eventually we won't have anybody qualified to do level 2 work (at least that is what the headhunters tell me when I apply to level 2 jobs without reaching level 1 yet)
The basic problem with any sort of ethics question is that we really don't have a good definition for ethics. Is lying unethical? Is lying unethical if it is for a greater good (such as saving someone's life)? Is depriving someone else opportunity ethical?
The best definition I have seen is based on suffering: if your actions result in more suffering than currently exists, then it's not ethical. If it reduces suffering, then it's ethical.
Thus lying, and many other behaviours don't come under the definition of ethics. Lying is perhaps dishonourable, but it can be used either for good or evil.
People use the fuzzy definition of ethics in order to make you feel guilty and so sacrifice your own well being (and that of your friends) for their agenda (read: "greater good"). In the situation at hand, setting up a foreign call center pulls more people out of suffering than keeping jobs locally.
Those poor people! Anyone who thinks that they are more deserving of a job and comfortable income than poor people are just heartless and cruel! We should outsource *all* our jobs to people who will make better use of the opportunities!
Poppycock.
Your actions can reduce the suffering of 5 people, or 50 people. If you reduce the suffering of 5 people, you are still reducing suffering and so are acting ethically. If choosing the 5 over the 50 helps you out personally, then know that you are still acting ethically despite what some people say.
Do what benefits yourself the most, so long as your actions don't cause suffering. That's all it takes to be ethical - of all the actions to take, eliminate the ones that cause suffering. From what is left, it's OK to receive a benefit.
If you don't use the best available weapon in your arsenal, you may still win, but you didn't maximize your chance of success. If you're competing with ethics in mind against companies that don't have ethics in mind, you are at a disadvantage. If you walk into a room full of people who want to fight and they all have guns, would you be the first person to drop you gun in hopes that you will inspire others to follow your lead? It would be better if nobody were allowed to have guns which would be the equivalent of legislating that nobody could use offshore IT help desks, but very powerful people benefit far too much from this to ever really allow it to happen (no it's not that Libertarians have such influence over the government, they are just used when convenient).
At the end of the day, the real question is can you do that job and look at yourself in the mirror? The guy decided that he couldn't. There are plenty of jobs I would not do, in fact I'd rather change my lifestyle than make certain compromises. Sadly lots of people have very silent consciences... For instance, how can you design weapons and sleep at night? Or more mundane I think the people that worked on the London congestion charge are unhethical :) If curses can affect your after life, I have no doubt they'll have some nasty surprises...
Look, Cohen is just a newspaper columnist, and he sure as
hell isn't any mighty arbiter of what is right or wrong. For that
a man must look within himself, if he is no longer a child. If the man
in question lacks a moral compass, then he is not a man.
I respect the guy for refusing the job.
Me, if I find out a company has offshore tech support I do everything I can not to
deal with that company. This is not because I am trying to defend my homeland
and its workers, it is because the poor quality of offshore tech support is something
I vote against WITH MY WALLET.
I'm not sure whether to see people writing to an ethicist as silly or scary. As many people have stated, ethics is something beyond just what the law says. It is the idea that some things are intrinsically right or wrong whether there is a law against it or not. It has to have a basis in something real otherwise it's just someone's opinion. Treating ethics like it's equivalent to etiquette or relational advice is just bizarre to me. Who's opinion should really matter?!?!
Morality is normally backed up by religious writings of some sort. If you don't take your ethics reasoning from something like the Bible, Torah, Koran, etc. then it doesn't even CLAIM to have the authority of God behind it. The fact that all the religious writings have conflicting teachings is another issue, but at least there is some attempt at codifying the rules and it is faith that keeps you in line with them.
Writing in to a newspaper for ethical advice is obviously just a way to try and gain support for your ethical view in an argument with someone. If the ethicist agrees with you then you read the article to your spouse/parent/friend in an attempt to convince them to see things your way. If the ethicist disagrees then you label the ethicist a charlatan/idiot and move on to someone else who will see things like you. This might be a fun way to have an argument but a truly useless way to develop any real "moral compass".
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
'I had been out of work for nine months when I was offered a job setting up an [IT] offshore help desk. Would it be ethical to accept the offer?'
Only if you foolishly think the reality of a global economy are strictly a matter of morality. It isn't.
The job seeker, who noted his father's auto-industry job was outsourced, chose to ignore Cohen's ethics advice — as well as his own wife's — and declined the job out of principle. He continues to seek work.
His moral obligation was to get the job, make money here, pay his taxes and infuse his net income back into our national economy. Instead, he chose a false high ground, on a false, absurd principle, unethically denying the realities of a global economy that, for better or worse, is here to stay, ultimately becoming, through his now willful unemployment, a burden to our economy.
The reality is that you can't put a moral label on something that exists outside of morality. For too long we have been banking our prosperity on the fact that half of the world live in the stone age.
Morality, empathy to our compatriots and feelings aside, it is unreasonable, impractical, and ultimately unethical to expect to keep one's blue collar job here when it can be done by a blue collar worker somewhere else for much less and without possessing any significant educational advantage. It harms our ability to adapt to changing realities. Ergo, by the damage that it inflicts, and by the false sense of correctness that it perpetuates, it becomes unethical.
Offshoring is an inevitability. It's been here since we lost our microchip production capabilities to the Japanese (who rightfully earned it by being capable of producing more and better for less.) The only way to stop jobs going offshore is with massive government subsidies (as in Japan subsidizing the production of rice.) The cost of subsidizing are much more enormous compared to the number of jobs being lost.
The world has changed independently of the colors in our flag, and we either adapt or sink. Morality has very little to do with it if you realize (hopefully) that you don't exist in a world of absolutes, and - more importantly - the realities of the world take place independently of how you feel about them.
Whatever jobs go out shore, they'll go independently of whether you take the job or not. And your individual obligation, your ethical obligation is to take a job, earn the money, and either save it or infuse it back through local consumption back into the economy. That in tandem with actively participating in a long-term solution - artificially keeping jobs here (and thus becoming uncompetitive against the remaining 95% of the population), that is not a long-term solution.
What is needed as a long term is to rebuild our production capabilities, and to find markets and niches on things that nobody else can do in terms of qualities or numbers. Ultimately we might also have to contemplate the possibility of our salaries might have to adjust to the realities of an ever leveling playing field as other people raise their level of industrialization (which is ultimately their God-given right.)
It is ethical to worry about offshoring. It is ethical to be concerned about your compatriots. It is also ethical to buy artifacts made with as little offshoring as possible, whenever possible and without inflicting harm to your budget.
It is not ethical, however, to refuse a job in a time of massive unemployment, on a misguided hope that such a negligible and inconsequential act as a moral value and that somehow is going to stop something that - if you believe in the right of people for pursuing competitiveness and industrialization and in our obligation to be realistically competitive - must happen.
Unethical and Illegal.
This guy might have lost his job earlier because of outsourcing, who knows. And now he won't accept a job for ethics reason. Well! He's just dumb, i would take it immediately in his position.
As Adam Smith himself wrote, ideal markets are a dynamic between the drive of selfish acts moderated by ethical behavior.
The advice seeker is - within this model - a saint. Mr. Cohen is misguided, demonstrating the truth that a little bit of knowledge (of market economics) is a dangerous things.
Luke, help me take this mask off
As your gut is telling you, something looks fishy around here: Why hire (& train) you? They should be have someone in their existing organization who knows much more about their customer service and therefore could do a better job.
It sounds like they're planning a hatchet job and are too embarrassed/worried about it to do it openly and honestly. They want you to help them swing the axe suddenly. Beware, you will be next.
As for ethics, I'm not sure what ethical duty you owe to existing employees while you are not. Once you become an employee, terms of hire govern. I see no problem with "scabbing". But even then, you might have some ethical obligations towards customers especially if you see the offshoring significantly reducing (more than an accent) the value they paid for.
Off-shoring is never done to improve service for the customer. It is always done on the basis of cost. Why is it less expensive? Because off-shored labor is so much less expensive that it is cheaper to set up the infrastructure and hire offshore workers than it is to hire workers locally. In short, it is less expensive because it allows companies to circumvent minimum wage laws.
Want to offshore labor "ethically" in your global market? Pay offshore workers the same as you would pay local ones. Suddenly off-shoring looks far less attractive.
I once worked for a company whose internal help desk was rated as being in the top 5% in quality and cost in the industry. The following year, it was off-shored, and all the local workers fired, because the company discovered it could save $1/hour per worker, on about 20 workers. Those who had to use the new "helpless desk" told horror stories about it for years - but none of that mattered. The company saved its dollar per hour (on paper), and the CIO got his bonus.
There was a time when managers and companies considered that they had a duty to treat their employees in an ethical fashion - not just the minimum required to satisfy the law. I miss those days.
(Or at least you didn't supply a principle stating why it was more moral for there to be help desk jobs in the US than offshore.)
What you supplied was an ecomonic argument. And one that's wrong, or at least short-sighted.
There is, in fact, a race to the bottom going on. Nations are presently fighting against other nations to supply the same products and services at lower cost. First, it was outsourcing to India and the Philipines. But they got expensive. So then eastern Europe, Indonesia and China started getting the jobs. Now those places are getting expensive. Over time, the low cost options are getting more and more expensive.
So this trend happens to have two implications.
First, it means that more and more countries have more and more discretionary income to purchase products that they would not have purchased previously. This means that globally there are more jobs because demand for various items is increasing. Families that were basically engaged in subsistance labor are now buying "luxuries." This increases the number of jobs total.
Second, eventually, the entire world will reach some sort of equilibrium. Even when the economy is this or that nation tanks, their wages don't get reset to the level of the Cambodias and Guatamalas of the world.
Until we stop all war and have a nominal world government in place, 1K or so years from now, we best be taking care of our own. Failure to do so will almost assuredly accelerate our slide into 3rd world status.
On a less SIFI-ish and more business model oriented note, when is the last time you heard somebody complaining about dismal offshore tech support, and how they would never buy from company X again due to it? Yesterday? Last week? Probably. As others have pointed out, near-universally sorry "low cost" offshore tech support, while it alone is not going to put you out of business tomorrow, is not a sound element of a well though out and executed customer service policy. It's an accountant's dream (today) and (six months on) a CEO's nightmare.
And "the free market is the answer to all ills" boys should consider this. We are the only industrialized country with no formalized national industrial policy, a clearly non-laissez-faire concept. Germany, not exactly a right wing free market state, indeed a place with strong craft unions and a carefully crafted and sternly enforced industrial policy, has the most successful economy in the EU, and has recovered from the recession like a champ. Could we possibly learn something from this? Quite possibly.
One of my pet peeves since Randy Cohen started the column is that he's calling himself an ethicist when he really isn't. It's like calling yourself a doctor or lawyer when you're not, and giving people medical or legal advice that gets them into trouble.
It's part of the old newspaper mindset, "A good reporter can cover X even if he doesn't know anything about it, he'll just pick it up when he goes along," when X is a country where he doesn't speak the language, technology, politics, the drug war, health care, etc.
There actually is such a thing as an ethicist. I'm most familiar with medical ethicists, who are often employed by hospitals and academic medical centers. I've taken courses and gone to lectures on medical ethics, and I learned a few important non-obvious things.
An ethicist isn't like a doctor or rabbi who tells you what's right (according to God). The job of an ethicist (at least a medical ethicist) is to get the facts, figure out the logic of the situation, clarify the problem for you, and let you make your own decision. They also have to point out to you that different people would have different values and opinions, and you have to decide for yourself.
For example, back in the 1950s, when a pregnant unmarried woman went to a doctor, depending on who she went to, the doctor would tell her (1) you have to deliver the child and give it up for adoption or (2) You have to get an abortion so you can continue with your education/career. Later on, some doctors came up with the innovative idea that you should lay out the facts and options, and let the woman make her own decision what she wanted to do.
Today, medical ethicists help people decide a lot of Terry Schiavo-type questions about when a patient is hopeless enough to let the patient die, or whether to take a dangerous, unpleasant treatment like cancer chemotherapy when there's a very low chance it will do any good.
(There are corrupt ethicists, too http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/pharma-buys-a-conscience.html.)
The job of an ethicist is to clarify ideas
But Randy Cohen was answering ethical questions usually on the basis of nothing more than his own personal opinion or gut feeling. Up to the point where I stopped reading his column, I never saw a thoughtful consideration of the different viewpoints and options. Cohen just delivered his own opinion, as if he had a direct line to God.
What really annoyed me about Cohen was that he was taking a field with a lot of good, thoughtful logical and even scientific analysis behind it (for example, doctors did studies of how patients felt a year after deciding to let relatives die; for example, doctors recorded conversations between doctors and patients about fatal diseases and found out that the patients didn't usually appreciate the seriousness of their condition) and treating it as if it were just a matter of opinion, and entertainment, and his opinion was better than yours. It's like applying creationism to ethics. He's just a liberal version of those conservative Christians (or extremists of every religion) who think that they have all the answers and everybody should do what they say because they have a direct line to God. It's scientific ignorance applied to ethics.
So, helping set up an offshore call center is unethical. What about patronizing companies that have recently offshored a lot of their capabilities? Try going a day without giving business to such a company...pass up on the cheaper prices at Walmart, Target, etc. and buy only from local, American suppliers with no operations abroad that were set up as a cost savings measure. While you're at it, don't drive a car, ride a motorcycle or get on a bike.
I just find it unsettling that there's so much outcry about this on Slashdot when it comes to our jobs, but no mention of the fact that we're just the latest industry to have to face outsourcing. Where was the wailing before now?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I wonder what his response would be if the question was not about outsourcing help desk staff, but rather about outsourcing newspaper columnists.
being a true patriot is not the same as being an asshole
Because your company does it to pay less tax.
The company founded within your country, by people who worked for it day in day out.
And then see the company run a way to get some profits oversee; is a company without morals.
While people all have to pay taxes and behave, have democracy, etc.
Here we see a few shareholders counting dollars, and don't look to their community.
They act much like Chinese, or Russian governments, lay of people and setting others to do their job.
Those are not the people that make a country big, next thing they do, is fly to a tax paradise, escaping everyone who made the company big.
While at the same time this company grew upon medical care, schools, a whole society of your country; they want something in return too.
Your products and jobs
Your just a soldier, "she haben es nicht gewussen" but the leaders of your company shame on them !!!
If they would do with a little less salary and real management instead of passing through some excel sheets down below.
Then you can make profit in any country !
He's going to National Public Radio.
Instead of just flipping the page, we'll have to get up to turn off the radio.
First: the problem with outsourcing is a combination of greed and/or ignorance at the business level - the afflicted tend to think that it's the easiest way out of a tight spot with money, or (funnier still) a solid route to increasing their riches. It rarely is, and frequently ends up being quite the opposite.
Second: outsourcing makes PERFECT sense if and only if you can get the same (VERY close to, or - in rare cases - better) quality of workmanship that you would otherwise get, at a lower cost. And note that cost doesn't necessarily mean just money. You have to factor in communication difficulties, cultural rift, timezone shift, etc.
The outsourcing of a (set of) job(s) is NEVER unethical as long as the reasons are the right reasons (quality, cost-effectiveness, rare or hard-to-find skills, etc). The problem nowadays is that they rarely are, and the decisions are driven mostly by greed and/or ignorance (as noted previously) and justified by contrived excuses (poorly) disguised to appear to be solid reasons.
I've heard such nonsense as "for half the money, we can train these guys to do the same job this 12-year veteran can do", or my personal favorite "why should we care about the quality and maintainability of the work? as long as the bottom line is where it needs to be...."
no. And companies take advantage of it even though American Workers are more competitive in the global workforce if the US was to repeal giving money to companies for sending jobs overseas.
Except, counter-intuitively, getting it right first time, every time (and is there a better description of quality?) is *cheaper*. The rework of fixing poor quality is 100% waste - who wouldn't want to avoid spending that when there's no reason in the world to?
Except the stupid, the lazy of the thinking and short-sighted.
But then, American business has never been a great one for thinking - particularly for *changing* its thinking, or learning for elsewhere. Just ask GM.
Unless your company operates in multiple TZs, setting up ANYTHING offshore is a waste of money. The only reason these things flourish is because people who set them up make tons of money as brokers. I work for a large consulting house which promotes offshoreing heavily but it brings zero value to the client. The client sees paper savings, but doesn't realize how huge all the overhead and inefficiencies are. But the partners pocket a lot of cash in the process.
> being a true patriot is not the same as being an asshole
It is when you live in Buttholistan.
Are relative.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There are several things.
Personally I think people here should be able to get a better job than a help desk.
Nevertheless, it sucks when "they" take your job.
What bothers me more is the mentality "as long as I can afford it, it's ok".
Importing food from 3rd world countries for example.
Breeding 4 or more kids, so the above will be needed more and more.
World population keeps growing. Earth's surface isn't.
But back to the topic.
If you feel bad about offshoring, try to negotiate other jobs for the people here. I think that would be ethical.
Privacy is terrorism.
Realistically, that company is going to offshore jobs whether you participate or not. You have no influence in making the decision whether or not this will be done.
Given this set of circumstances, should you accept the job, you could actually have an influence in the ethical behavior of the company: do they provide adequate pay to the people hired offshore? Do they provide aid for the people whose jobs are being offshored?
The question, then, shouldn't be "is taking this job ethical?" The question should be, "am I capable of making a positive impact by taking this job?" I daresay the answer is an obvious "yes".
I salute you. Normally i don't give a damb about any one els. But consider current circumstances and the migration of power to the east. I must admit i would have done the same. (I did once turn a job down on ethics but i was in a different circumstance I had a job) I salute you.
The way I see it is capitalism is great but that is true as long as its kept with in your borders.
IMO, there's never anything unethical about improving efficiency of a process. On the contrary, *sometimes* there are ethical questions that arise if the company that just improved the process feels it's better to eliminate jobs, rather than find other places to use the labor they have. That's one of the big mistakes I think many businesses make. The simplest way to show a "cost savings" is to reduce your labor costs. But then, you're really shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to doing anything additional or new. You eliminated skilled labor that was already trained and familiar with many aspects of your workplace, and presumably got along well with their co-workers too. The next time an opportunity comes along to start manufacturing a new type of widget for somebody? You don't have enough employees to do it successfully, so you're back to square 1, trying to hire new people, spend money giving them all the H.R. handouts and processing their paperwork,etc. And it's a roll of the dice if the new hires wind up better than the people you had previously.
So in essence, penny-wise short-term but potentially pound-foolish long-term ... and meanwhile, the churn contributes to reduced morale of the people you have left!
His first ethical duty is to himself and his spouse to help support his family. His decision not to take the job did not accomplish anything yet
caused him to remain unemployed. An act is only ethical if it has a reasonable expectation that the ethical outcome outweighs the sacrifice.
no.
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
in telecommunications era, it is indeed beyond stupid to attempt to remain closed, tribalist and protectionist. these all basically mean, division, discrimination, differentiation, walls.
whats more important, these walls are the exact things that create the differences in everything in between the divisions/countries :
think - cost of living in america is TOO high. despite it uses one of the cheapest oil in the planet, the price of living is way too high. that is precisely because the corporations there charge a lot for their products and services. DESPITE they are having them produced cheaply overseas.
there is the problem. these corporations are able to sell expensively despite producing cheaply, due to the walls. while, the customers cant.
basically, the wall works only one way, for the betterment of corporations. but, what would happen if it was otherwise ? imagine that, you could order medical care from any company/source on earth, through internet, and receive it through their local providers ? or, order a car from india, at indian prices ? complete lack of walls ?
right. in due time, every kind of price would equalize, and come to global standards. then, the customers would also be able to make use of the globalization.
actually, we should totally do away with corporations, and democratize the economy. in current situation, a global organization spanning hundreds of people can render immense services and produce immense number of products, but, decision making for what gets produced, and what not, and at what price, are still at the hands of 10-15 people owning or running the entire organization.
instead what should be is, bands of people collectively providing and using services, over a vast supply/demand network over the globe, coordinated by endless collaboration tools that internet enables. then, the promise and probability of a 'free market' happening can only begin to exist. an economy, by the people, for the people.
Read radical news here
If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.- E. M. Forster
This job would have betrayed both.
Funny... I work for a small start-up company, and I'm already pushing management to set up a new offshore help desk. Why? For 2 good reasons:
1) Most of our calls are coming from overseas (UK, Australia, South Africa, etc), and we do not currently have a 24/7 staffed help desk. That means that I often get woken up in the middle of the night to fix problems. As we grow, this "solution" isn't going to be practical anymore.
2) Our customers are demanding lower prices for their ongoing support contracts, and there is no way in hell that we can afford US workers for first level tech support questions for what they're willing to pay. I can get help desk workers in India for 1/4th the hourly cost, and these workers will be able to understand the foreign accents of our customers better than our US workers can.If those first level people get stuck, they can always open a ticket with the US help desk and someone like me will look at it when I get in the office.
Best of all, no US workers are losing their job because of this. These will all be new hires as the company expands.
You guys are so right. I've heard him a few times on the radio on some NPR show (the web says it's All Things Considered) dispensing supposed ethical advice, but i've been disappointed every time. I expected him to contextualize the question: maybe describe how the law and/or different philosophical, religious , cultural traditions look at the issue and then perhaps give his personal pronouncement. Instead he didn't even necessarily seem to get the root of the questions and dispatched them with like 2 or 3 sentences and a joke. Basically the same thing as what his column seems to do but even shorter because it's on the radio. It was all really disappointing and just didn't deliver. Maybe i'd think differently if I found him funny, but making fun of people who are asking earnest questions doesn't work for me.
On the point of the ethicists job being to clarify ideas, i definitely agree, HOWEVER, i have little patience for "experts" who just won't offer an opinion because "it's not their decision to make", etc. That's a cop out. They should lay out the options AND then if they have an opinion they should give it.
After seeing this happen at my company, I recommend jumping in with both feet or leaving the company. The schmucks have already won, and are firmly in control. If you stay, you'll do a lot better playing the game their way.
Not only did Randy fail the whether outsourcing is ethical question (it's not), but in the very next question he goes on this tirade saying the US justice system is "cruel" for putting a mother in jail for 5 years for ripping off people in a large-scale Ponzi scheme because it's "punishing" her family. Really Randy Cohen? So what would your suggestion be, no jails? No incarceration? Maybe we could just whip her or cut-off a leg? She won't forget that and her family will get her back faster. Oh no I got it: tattoo her forehead CON-ARTIST!! Hm, but she might be able to remove it someday...
Seriously this Randy Cohen has a sick idea of what "ethical" is. Apparently you can ship jobs overseas and not put con-artists in jail and still be ethical.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Nobody said he couldn't torpedo the effort from within, while banking a paycheck.
When asked why he failed, he could have cited cultural differences.
Fool.
He did have fellow unemployed "whatever his skills were".
The only unethical behavior I see here is his refusal to take a job that would allow him to provide for his family. And then again, that might not be unethical, just a POS move by someone who is supposed to be looking for work while sucking the state's tit, being fed by mine and every other working person's cash.
I hate outsourcing as the next guy but if he does not do this job someone else will. It will get done and high paying jobs are going away whether we like it or not. It is just what we have to live with today.
Think about the customers and the shareholders? They do not want to pay more and you are doing a great service to them by lowering costs. The customer is king right? Grandmas and retiring old men need their 401ks up so they can retire. They too benefit and deserve a good return on their investment.
Unless we have a president who is opposed to NAFTA what can we do? Just except you will be broke and yes you need to compete with people paying $150 a month for rent for the same jobs.
Your family comes first and you need to look out for yourself first. It is not illegal nor is it immoral when everyone else does it. I will probably be flamed to death here but when you have a wife and kids who are hungry your opinion changes. Myself included
http://saveie6.com/
The question has been posed "Is setting up an off-shore IT help desk ethical?" Wouldn't that be as ethical as say, Honda or Toyota setting up an off-shore (from their native country) manufacturing plant, say in the US?
Nobody likes it, but companies, 1) aren't people, so really don't have moral or ethical base and 2) will shift resources to wherever they will result in the most profits. If you want to ask a real ethics question,then it would be better phrased as "Is it ethical to invest in a company that sets up an off-shore IT help desk?" Then you are talking about individuals making choices that basically are choosing their own personal gain vs somebody else's.
"here's a knife. Kill your coworkers, their children, and yourself. It's the globally ethical course of action. A whole village in southeast Asia will be enslaved^whired by your company as a result"
In order to have a coherent, sane definition of "us" or "our people" there must be a minimum of shared culture, values, and ethos. That happens gradually. It is happening on a global scale, but much, much slower than globalization of economy.
Most (not all) people "turn[ing] the corner" are deluded. They feel guilt for some of the bad things done on their behalf by their government and by corporations. This leads them to believe that other societies and peoples are, on average, equal or superior. They feel no need to push back against overreaching economic globalization.
What they forget is that other governments are often just as bad, or worse (especially in the "developing" world), and the worst of those evil corporations are international corporations. They'll do their evil regardless of whether it's here or abroad.
The trick is to prop them up as reasonably as we can without tearing ourselves down. The world isn't going to be a better place by weakening the economies of developed nations. The world isn't going to be a better place if local economies are over-homogenized. The world isn't a better place filled with planed obsolescence, disposability, and cut-cut-cut. I think our current path is good for foreign economies on the short scale, but not for the long haul. I know it isn't good for us over the long term.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
While there are probably star employees at even third world companies, it's unlikely people in the US will receive any helpful help from people we're talking to third world conditions.
The third world employees are there to make money and improve their lives, while screwing over both the idiot American who decided that offshore support is a good idea, AND the poor customers/employees here in the US trying to get help for real problems.
Third world engineers, programmers and support people are making our lives hell here in the US (to say nothing of us paying big bucks for stuff that will never work right).
This is what's happening in the telecom business right now:
http://www.sandman.com/ChinaFactor.html
I faced a not totally dissimilar dilemma back in the early 1980's, when I was in the Survey Research organization of a major corporation and we were about to approve the consolidation of our contracted calling centers, including eliminating the one that mostly served my branch of the company, that handled a project that I directed locally. This would mean that a couple of hundred people I knew would lose their jobs. I was required, by my job, to make certain preparations that would aid in the orderly transition of operations from that center to one hundreds of miles away, while making sure that none of the workers became aware of the impending site closure. Local management, obviously, already knew. Their company ran several of the other centers across the country.
... I strongly suspect that it was one of the contracting company supervisors, several (but not all) of whom were moving to the (expanding) location in another state. But as a result (and as feared) a significant number of the operators left the site prematurely, requiring a switch of the remaining load to the new receiving center even though they were not yet fully staffed (or expanded) to handle it.
I do not envy anybody in that position.
As it turned out, word of the closure DID leak out about two weeks before the planned announcement, but not through me. I don't know who spilled the beans
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I've thought about this recently. I don't think it's true. The road to heaven is also paved with good intentions. So what is it about the road to hell that is different? Rationalization. That is the key, I think.
The road to hell is paved with rationalization.
The only problem with it, that I see: people traveling down that road rationalize that they aren't rationalizing! That's why the unmodified statement is much more effective. It hits those that need it by hitting everyone.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
If you're listening to your Made in China MP3 player.
In your Made in Japan car.
Wearing made in Mexico clothes.
Don't be upset that your job is going overseas...
It's only ethical here if it's helping white people that you know. Not ethical if it helps brown people that live over seas, because they don't have families or anything that our white neighbors have.
Next question?
The idea of putting a business off shore and causing harm to your own people is part of an evil disease called capitalism. In addition to being disease like capitalism is irrational with a fairly large congregation of believers making it qualify as another false religion. With a bit of education people might understand that any transaction should benefit an entire society and the fact that a business makes a profit for its owners is irrelevant. The disease of greed and capitalism march hand in hand.
OK I'm an out side observer and I decide to pop up 1000000 feet to look at this statement. So I can now see all parties involved.
What I see is you trying to protect this little patch of dirt in and effort to ensure a high local standard of living.
What I also see other patches of dirt with falling income levels and standards of living drop.
You see your apparent definition of ethical only involves those that you can see. AKA those that are on your patch of dirt. But ethical the definition doesn't include geographical boundaries.
So the real question is. Is the net impact of my work negative or positive for everyone. If I off shore the work will the world be a better place? That's a tough question to answer.
-----------
Instead of ethical maybe you meant patriotic. Patriotic would suit your statement better.
Perfectly ethical. The phrase "it was indeed okay to help co-workers lose their jobs" is way off base. It isn't THEIR jobs, it is their employer's jobs. Any employer has the right to shop around for the best deal, just like any consumer of goods or services. The next time you pick one company over another for a better price or service, will you ask yourself it it is ok to "help the workers at the other company lose their jobs"?
This is just code for the kind of world bank economic policy that's brought ruin to every nation it's ever touched.
Was it ethical for Benedict Arnold to try to offshore the ownership of West Point?
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
Some people feel we have a greater ethical duty to those closest to us — our neighbors — but in an era of global trade and travel, that is a recipe for tribalism and its attendant ills
Apologies for the religious undertones of this, but it just makes sense to me:
Love and look after yourself first, so that you can be better able to care for those around you.
Love and look after your neighbours next, so that you can be better able to care for those far away from you.
I felt like I was reading an article back in 1997. (I actually remember where I was when I read a very similar piece.)
History repeats itself. I have lived my entire life, worked, and raised a family in the "Motor City". If for even a moment you think it's OK to send or create jobs outside the US then you really don't have a grip on our current economic climate or an understanding of the ramifications of that process.
What if the IT guy were setting up a call center full of robots as opposed to Indian people? Would he be so ethically outraged then? Or is this really more about brown people getting white people's jerbs?
If a starving slave somewhere in the world can dispense this level of wisdom, then why shouldn't we outsource this rich over-privileged white man's job if it saves one penny per year in overhead? If that impoverishes his family and starves his children to death, tough luck then mister ethical.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander motherfucker.
I live in a third world country, work in the tech field (mostly remote freelance web dev work) and feel that we are all one big brotherhood of tech workers (I am naive like that I suppose). My take on this is that you should not. Why? because the cheap a-holes that are in love with outsourcing love it for more than just lower rates. They seem to love the abuse that they are in a position to dish out to tech workers in third world countries. Part of the abuse is feeling entitled to pay miserly rates simply because someone is in a third world country, sometimes DEMANDING such rates and calling a man's competence and integrity into question, belittling a man's accomplishments even when having direct evidence to the contrary SHOVED INTO THEIR FACE (Google search results as proof of good SEO work) so as to justify said rates. I have been subjected to this, when in fact I perform work that is just as good or in many many instances better than many people in industrialized and civilized countries. In other words, the FUCKS add insult to injury. Don't enable them to. Helping them set that up is helping them pay people (fellow techies someplace) miserly rates AND treat them like dung. I have had jokers get all flustered when I refuse to work for LESS than what people pay HERE (Colombia) . . . I rather see them types pay someone in America what the work is worth than to see them get away with paying a fellow techie somewhere one tenth if that for the same thing. I don't work for peanuts anymore, I did a few times, but, them days are over.
Maybe if enough people refuse to work for next to nothing, prices will begin to go up . . . wishful thinking, I know, but I am doing my part by telling them to FUCK OFF.
SARAVA!
I don't know where you are getting your average price data from, but lets assume it's correct. From http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
$15,000 in 1989 == $26,377.74 in 2010
$21,000 in 1999 == $27,486.05 in 2010
$27,000 in 2010 == $27,000.00 in 2010
You also need to google Comerica Bank's Auto Affordability Index, which measures the cost of an average vehicle in terms of weeks of median family income. You will see that the trend in the past 15 years is showing cars becoming more affordable (29 weeks of pay down to 24). And that's not even accounting for the fact that automobile quality/features/reliability have improved drastically over time.
If he had taken the job, he would have received a few dollars, then had to consider his regrets for perhaps many years, pondering whether the money was worth the compromise of his principles. I understand how hard it is to walk away from paying work. I have done it before. I turned down a contract at Autodesk when the chemistry wasn't good. We have to live by our values, and accept the results.
Sit next to someone and show them how to use their computer more efficiently or answer their questions on the enterprise software suite when the instructions are not 100% then go update the documentation appropriatly.
Gather information about ERP, CRM, etc system bugs for developers to cut their fix time down.
Reboot a server, switch, or router and be there to replace it if it's gone down.
Be there to maintain, service, and repair your users machines when, not if, they go down.
See symptoms and problems upfront, hands-on.
Build customized enterprise desktop deployment software to perform bare-metal push-button system installs.
Reliably and trust-ably manage enterprise software licensing, sensitive information, firewalls, and other equipment.
Fact is I can buy 1,000 computers with a 5-year shelf life, build them in-house with American labor for half the cost of HP or Dell with better specs and reliability, and STILL pay someone 50k per year JUST to set up and tear down users, maintain desktop software installs, and service trouble tickets reliably. The problem is finding the right guy to pay 50k too.
MBA's don't understand how their IT systems work; they just see a big number, the outsourcing firm quotes a smaller number, and because they are stupid, ignorant and lazy they push the button, perform the wire transfer and as things slowly degrade over time, they says they were scammed.
There appears to be an unspoken assumption that the call center (or whatever) is either outsourced to the US or offshore (or "nearshore" even).
IMO, the biggest issue is if a company outsources or not, period. Regardless of local of the outsourced people, if it's outsourced the parent company is not controlling the entire outfit.
For one thing, this skirts around unions. Even if that group stays within the same country, the people will be paid less. People are also more easily expendable. Ebb and flow can be left up to the provider to handle - often, the provider won't handle it well, because they simply have to meet the contracted SLA's, and if it comes down to it, they'll wager the penalties versus the cost of actually supporting those SLA's during peak times. All the call center cares about it hitting their SLA's with minimum cost and maximum profit.
I also used to work for an ISP that has inhouse support. Our top priority was problem resolution, and we didn't have to simply rely on stats to tell us that. It was a small enough group it was easy to spot if anyone was slacking, and if they did, they'd be reprimanded... and if it repeated again, they were fired. It cost the company too much to lose not only a client, but the good word of the client.
Sadly, big companies don't seem to give a crap about that. Their competitors are all doing the same thing, so who cares. If someone leaves one big cell phone provider (for example), they have to go to another one. And that one has support through the same call center (or at least the same parent company call center, in all likelyhood).
Personally, I dislike the outsource to offshore due to economic reasons. Keep the cash in country, and fellow citizens get that cash back. Put it out of country, and (at least some of it) we won't ever see again. Same theory on buying American (or your country of choice), or not buying goods made in china (when feasible).
BTW, "nearshore", for US, is Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, etc. In theory, it lets companies/users/people/etc feel a little better by knowing they're not sending stuff to the other side of the globe.
IMO, hire inhouse always. Loads more benefits than just offshore/outsourced/ethical stuff. More upfront risk, but a bigger pay off if done right.
Take a situation of a person being in a fishing boat. The company hired him to drill a hole in the hull, because it is lower cost to let it sink than to keep it afloat. The passenger drills the hole and drowns himself. The company makes use of the fishing at the offshore location. Who is ethetical, and who is stupid. Back to this opportunity to do the work to kill the local department, I see it as the company having no loyalty to the country that gives it income, and it is almost immoral to send domestic work offshore. I would not take the job, even though someone else would.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Gee, after cheerfully telling HP's Indians how to do my job, I see that there's an important principle at work here. Of course, another important principle is "you can train your replacement and get paid, or you can refuse and then go find another job." Good luck. Let's see, we could fight this until we starve. Most of us IT types could use a couple months of water-only fast to get back to our normal weight. Unfortunately, we haven't schmoozed any union (insert word indicating your opinion of unions), so we probably wouldn't get any traction with the politicians.
Frankly, if you can find another job you shouldn't be working for people who would have you setting up offshores.
Is globalization ethical? Does it create problems we should all have at least some responsibilty for addressing?
Why should people in your own country take precedence over those in other countries? Are they any less deserving? Would you have the same reservations if the help desk was setup on the other side of your own country? If so why?
Be sure to teach that to your kids, it will serve them well over their lives.
Oh, and you'd best not let kids hear about Buddha, Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Mohammad, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King, Howard Zinn, or Malalai Joya until their defenses, justifications, and hypocrisies are impenetrable.
Maybe there's an alternative to performing this particular job? No, it's the only one. Really. Don't even try to think of other ways to get by when your daughter is looking at you with hungry eyes. She'll respect you more with a full tummy and her own room.
(Don't take this wrong, all of us in similar positions have considered the feelings and ethics you're brave enough to state and protective enough to choose. For example I once whittled a semi-large group of secretaries down to one part-timer with the help of a database. Felt great about all the compliments, and was so proud of myself. Some of those secretaries found other jobs, some worse ones, a couple went jobless for years. That pride is now shame. Better if their kids went without than mine? We fight here amongst ourselves though. The bigger problem is rich greedy people running large corporations whom are forcing these kinds of choices. But here I best stop the rant.)
When people locally need jobs (as they certainly do now), I wouldn't go so far as to say it's unethical to get a job who's goal is to move jobs overseas, but I applaud him for not being to willing to do get a job doing this. Economic stimulus? The best stimulus we could have would be to have more in-country jobs, so more people can spend on goods and services than do now.
Maybe you shouldn't have been so insistent on opening the world's markets huh ? For the last two decades, the United States administration has followed a policy of browbeating nations into setting up free trade, in many cases sponsoring coups and bribing members of local governments to ensure that US companies got to plunder economies at terms that were friendly to them. Thousands of people lost their jobs in the native economies, but the US brushed it off as 'progress' and the American citizenry couldn't care less and only cheered on.
Just because the tables have turned doesn't mean you can now cry 'unfair' ...
No--but the fellow who wrote this meant to say "bemuses", or some such word.
When all is said and done your number one responsibility is to your own self preservation and the security of your family. Take the job, do it well and disregard the "ethical" consequences of giving people work in a different country - such a crime that appears to be! If you want to put further strain on the financial security of your family by growing "morals" about something as common as off shoring, which still benefits living, breathing people, then you sir are a fool.
Why should the work you have available have to go to your own nation? Where do you draw the line... why not just your own race, or gender? This is a business decision, and business only cares about one thing: money. If it can be done cheaper off shore then where is the problem? Sure, I hate it when I call a help desk, infrequent though it may be, and I am greeted with poor English in a barely intelligible dialect, but nine times in ten same-country based support is equally fruitless... its just easier to understand.
i work for a bank based in washington outsourced in mexico, so farwe can see is theme as positive, when we are living in a capitalist world, we should always be prepared so in this case, less fortunate people take less intelectual jobs, an old saying in Mexico says: shrimp that sleeps, is dragged by the stream
The second question in the same article was more interesting, or rather, the "UPDATE" to it.
A doctor asks whether it is ethical to sign on a convict mom's petition to delay her jail sentence for a couple of weeks while her child undergoes from surgery.
Then, the UPDATE says, that the dad lost his medical insurance, so the surgery was cancelled.
God, am I the only one seeing the irony in this?
A doctor is worried whether or not it is ethical to send mail to a judge on his patient's behalf (hmm, why wouldn't it?) and at the same time isn't at all worried about the ethical consequences of not treating his child patient who needs surgery (according to his decision), just because her dad lost his job while waiting for the surgery.
Disgusting.
> Giving money and food to poor people in a foreign country does not remove money and food from the poor people of my own country
Where does that money and food come from then - magic?
The jobs are in the west because the British and later American empires used empire and warfare to occupy countries like India. Now those Countries are finally getting somewhere economically you talk about 'competitors' and ethics.
There is no question of ethics here at all - this discussion seems centered around national boundries of the USA.
Maybe you should outsource to the American Indians?
Ha! That cornered you!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I, possibly like the GP, have a set of moral principles, and the topmost of them is survival of my family and close friends. This only kicks in when there is severe danger (not having means to support my immediate family, for example), but then it's an imperative. If that disagrees with your notions of right and wrong, well I really couldn't care less - but if your principles would result in your child not getting, for example, the medical treatment they need, or having them grow up in a shit part of town because the daddy is so noble and can't get a well-paying job, what kind of a father are you? Do you even have kids btw?
You keep your standards of right and wrong and I'll keep mine, thank you very much.
Too bad you'll never see the reply, being an AC:)
Until he has to worry about newspaper columnists being outsourced offshore, It's very easy for him to talk about "global trade and travel" and "tribalism."
If we teach their men to fish, then while no indivudal in the collective of men will have the skill anywhere near that of the single teacher they will still be able to fish, and given their present economic circumstance requiring them to be either given a fish to eat, or taught how to fish for survival they will in all likelyhood work at a combined rate that is substantially lower than that of the teacher with much greater skill would demand to work for resulting in not only more fish coming in due to the simple number of men available for the labour, but much lower expenditure to obtain said fish where quality will likely be 'passable' for consumers and fishmongers, meaning is can be sold at standard market rates resulting in a much higher profit margin versus competitors using 'teacher quality' fishers giving a competitive advantage and a good headstart in driving out the competition.
(and yes. sentences do exist. but there's a reason i avoided them in this case)
Lets split the question...
Is Setting Up an Offshore IT Help Desk in Dublin/London/Sydney Ethical?
Is Setting Up an Offshore IT Help Desk in Bangalore/Rio/CapeTown Ethical?
Anytime the answer to them are different, you are not talking about ethics at all. If the answers are the same, you are still not talking about ethics. The ethical question one should be asking is : Am I willing to take a pay cut and not drive a SUV or use public transport so that someone elsewhere in the world can feed his family two square meals instead of them having only one?
You don't owe your neighbor a job nor does he owe you one. Nobody owes anyone a job. The sense of entitlement simply boggles my mind. You have to compete with everyone else for everything. Its called life and its not always easy.
You articulate quite clearly the problem with tribalism in your post: it's justifiable only on the basis of self-interest, not justice. "look out for my friends/neighbors/in-group because they will look out for me" is a morality purely defined by self-interest. It's the philosophy that gangbangers use to explain their loyalty to the group, that cops draw upon when covering up corruption, that soldiers waging both just and unjust wars have used to achieve extaordinary feats of valour and courage. Of course this is fine if your ethical world view is one defined purely by self interest. However, this is not the common view (or at least people will not admit that this is the common view.) So thats the problem: tribalism may be efficacious, but it is not ethical unless your ethics are that of self interest. Now it's possible to reformulate as "look out for my group because my group holds values that are ethical and worth promoting" but if so, your actual imperative is to promote this value system, not to promote the group. So you aren't actually being tribalist, but being "whatevervaluesystemyoulike"ist. That's a very important distinction because it concedes that someone outside the group that conforms or aspires to this value system merits consideration comparable to someone inside the group.
What would be unethical about it? If you need work, find a job. If others are displaced by your actions, then they need to...wait for it...find a job. Yes, the rules are brutal, but they are clear. You cannot be responsible for everyone else on the planet, and it's amazingly condescending to think that you are. I assume that my neighbors can fend for themselves. If they ask for help, I willingly give it. If they ask for work, I help them find it, or I hire them if I need something done. When I look for work (many times in the past two decades), I've also asked my friends for help. When I've been laid off, I never even thought to ask if it was "ethical". My services were no longer needed, so I took my talents elsewhere. Trying to look at a free and open job market through the prism of ethics is farcical. When times are good and you have your choice of jobs, is that ethical? When times are poor and you have to hunt far and wide, is that ethical? No, in the first case, you benefit by being able to ask for a higher wage, and in the second case, you have to work much harder to find a job. I've been through both scenarios in my life. The situation is amoral, it is neither "good" nor "bad". It just is.
I agree its too disheartening to think about whether or not your actions will change the world. Its better to think about them changing yourself. Doing what you think is right, not because it will make the world better, but because it makes you better. My father taught me a simple rule to answer questions like the GP asked. "If everyone did as you did, would the world be better or worse."
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Business Ethics is an oxymoron - plain and simple. I have been working in the business world for over 25 years and management up to corporate executives - HAVE no ethics. They will do what best lines their pockets with $$$$$$ - PERIOD! And yes I did take a class in Business Ethics for my Comp/Sci degree - what a joke that class was... They try to tell you how things -should be- not how things -are-. What everyone just has to realize is that in corporate Amerika - there IS NO ETHICS. We as peeons argue about whether outsourcing overseas is ethical when in fact our opinions don't matter - do you really think your boss would give a raging rats @$$ if you told him what he/the company was doing was unethical? Hell no - he would be looking for a way to get rid of you QUICK! You can look around the company you work for an see unethical things going on, on a DAILY basis.
This is probably an unpopular idea around here, but some people here really have to embrace the inevitable. Globalization is inevitable, it's just rather challenging for individuals at the moment because of the draconian ideals of the world governments. The future of work in IT, and probably in most industries is dependent on the individual's ability to be mobile and flexible. Instead of tying oneself to a single place in a single country we must as individuals be willing to move to where the work is. Just as the idea that we could start working at 18 for a company that we would then retire from at 65 with a full pension went by the wayside, so must this idea that we can expect the jobs to follow us. Get over yourself; you are not the only person in the world who can do the job and you're not the center of the universe.
So you might think from the above that I have been untouched by outsourcing, that I have stood apart from it all this time and have some agenda. No. I have had my job outsourced and lost it. I have a house with a mortgage and kids... all things that I did when I too was selfish and self-centered enough to think that there would always be work where I am looking for it; in my own back yard. Even recently in my full-time job I've seen parts of my job handed to third-party outsourced vendors, though I continue to keep ahead of the wave of outsourcing enough that I have been able to "surf" so far. However, I don't expect this to last and within 10 years my ability to get a job will be partly dependent upon my ability and willingness to uproot myself and move to where the jobs actually are. The funny thing is; I've done it before when I moved myself from the UK to the US, 16 years ago.
I am already preparing. I have paid off all my credit cards, I have just purchased a car with cash and am getting ready to sell my big fancy BMW that I purchased in hubris. I have already budgeted to take the saved money and use it to fix up my house over the next 18 months, and market-willing I will be able to flip my house for at least what I owe in about 2-3 years. Once I do that, I will stay roughly where I am for a few more years living in more transient housing... apartments for now, though I do feel that even a 1 year lease severely limits my options. However, my son by that point will be 14 and getting closer to the point that he can get out on his own... and I'm not having any more kids. Once he is independent I will be free to follow the work, and since I already have dual citizenship of UK and Ireland (and therefore Europe) and am a legal permanent resident in the USA I already have some modicum of flexibility there.
The only down side to what I foresee is that the current draconian and "tribalist" ideals of world governments mean that there are hoops to jump through in order to work in these other countries. However, even these are not impossible to overcome... all it takes in most countries is to make yourself valuable enough to companies already embedded in those countries that they will do most of the leg work for you.
If this scares you, it probably should... but change is always scary. We as a species will overcome and survive, we always have. However, the notion of national identity will one day be viewed as a rather quaint notion. Worlds without borders is the way of the future, and we either embrace it or perish.
My 2c. No change given.
I work for a MFI in India. We get services from USA. In India, when we get services from overseas partners we pay 40% tax on the value. It really bites our pocket and are looking for similar service in India. I am not sure if USA has similar tax structure. If the government steps up and sets up such tax structure then there will be a balance to outsourcing.
I have heard China does something similar to ensure the locals don't outsource.
a public castration, public hanging and left to rot. That is the cure for those who facilitate outsourcing. ESPECIALLY for politicians who facilitate outsourcing. Until we do this, we will continue to bleed jobs. This is war, and those who facilitate outsourcing are traitors and therefore should be publicly castrated, publicly hung, and their corpses left on the rope to rot
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
There's an interesting move about a similar situation:
Outsourced
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/
Phone sales desk gets outsourced to India. Salesman gets sent to India to set it up.
After meeting their goals, the sales department in India gets outsourced to China.
It's also a love story. I enjoyed this very much.
I've been making this argument for ages, but you state it much better. Most recently we've been receiving offers from our prescription drug plan to switch to meds by mail, and I use the same argument, that you're taking money out of the local tax base. And boy, our local tax base needs it! We only have four pharmacies, and one has already seriously reduced hours.
You deserve to be modded up and nominated for Post of the Year.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
In theory, we're eliminating the drudgery part of their work, "empowering" them to do more productive work.
I tend to agree, and don't know the answer.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
IT is about the destruction of jobs. Its about replacing two people with one person or better yet with software. Travel agents, bank clerks, secretaries, cashiers at groceries, and paper pushers of all stripes have lost their jobs because of IT, If it is unethical to take a job outsourcing IT work then it is unethical to work in IT at all.
Now an American has a global ecological footprint approximately 10 times that of an Indian.
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/explore/global/footprint.html
So birth control is ten times as important in America I guess.
"'Some people feel we have a greater ethical duty to those closest to us."
That isn't just an abstract philosophical position, it is a biological fact. You eat, your family eats, your neighbors, town and so on. Most people (that is, the non-insane) are hard-wired to prioritize that way. Unless you have some sort of messiah complex and infinite resources, that's just life. Ignoring the needs of yourself and those closest to you in favor of those half way around the world who to you are nothing but an abstract concept is, and I do not think this is too harsh a term, sociopathic.
It's unethical, but that has nothing to do with your co-workers. It's unethical because we like to be able to understand our help desks.
So - work it out yourself.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
He could also set it up to fail, and many others could to, joining an invisible group of people working together so that anything off shore fails, and then companies will stop trying to send it over there......had to be said....just sorry it had to be me.
I never get why IT and related companies think that off-shoring technical jobs to other countries is a really good idea. Sure maybe something like programming or the like if all your team is going to be overseas. However stuff like phone support and help desk functions, where the PRIMARY purpose of the job is speaking on the phone to customers, then you might want to take language into account when selecting where to offshore.
If your primarily selling computers or IT services to English speaking people, then for god sakes don't outsource to India, China, or whatever country it is where English is not the 1st language!
I don't know why it seems I am the only one that thinks sending jobs whose primary function is to talk English on a phone to countries where English is not the primary language spoken is retarded. I don't care how much of a cost savings it is. Sure if your primary business is selling IT services to India, then ya go ahead, that would make sense. I know as a customer I am sick of it and won't deal with it any longer. Quit wasting my time and hire more qualified people.
What a Freakin' IDIOT! Who turns down a job. Setting up an IT department offshore where you know people at home will lose their jobs is certainly a dilemma but not catastrophic. Get over it and move on. Take the job do what your good at and make some money! Just think you will have access to voice your opinions to those in power when you start the outsourcing project. Who knows once the outsourcing fails they might use you to set it back up again at home.
The more ethical thing would be to find any wrongdoing to report. Then blow the whistle on it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If you spend you money to other countries, they benefit from that. I understand your bottom line will be better for the short term. If you think about it if everyone outsourced everything who would work here to then make a pay check to use your products / services!