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More On the Disposable Tech Worker
Jim_Austin writes "At a press conference this week, in response to a question by a Science Careers reporter, Scott Corley, the Executive Director of immigration-reform group Compete America, argued that retraining workers doesn't make sense for IT companies. For the company, he argued, H-1B guest workers are a much better choice. 'It's not easy to retrain people,' Corley said. 'The further you get away from your education the less knowledge you have of the new technologies, and technology is always moving forward.'"
Don't throw your disposable tech workers in the trash. Recycle!
Yup...
The almighty dollar wins again
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I'm in my late 40s and over the process of 25 years have re-trained myself at least four times to meet the changing nature of IT, and the fact that empires rise and fall.
Re-training is an essential part of a long IT career, not an option at all. To be honest, I paid for my own re-training because nothing concentrates the mind like putting a lot of money into essential skills and vocational training.
The reason why they want more H1-Bs is straightforward - its a lot cheaper. Not better. Cheaper.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
If you want to hire young, recently trained people so you can use them up and discard them before they hit 40, go right ahead and do so.
But don't expect any special help to further your goals.
Those people can simply move to america and become citizens if they want to work you. The whole H1-B visa thing is bullshit.
Or here's another idea. Instead of whining about the impracticality of retraining "old" tech people, why not help them keep their skills up to date while they are working?
Its called an investment! Its not just about money. Investments include your people. If you treat them right, and invest in them, you will get better results.
I'm really getting tired of the American mentality of just using up resources and discarding whats left. Its time to stop being the rugged individualists who just consume everything in their path, and start being members of a functional society that works together and supports one another in a conservationist manner.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Corley,
You are an idiot. You fail to grasp the difference between knowledge, skills, and experience. Training and education provide knowledge. The ability to apply that knowledge effectively is a skill. Repeatedly applying knowledge and skills creates a virtuous cycle called experience which increases productivity. Productivity is what increases the bottom line. Sometimes that might even take longer than a quarter...
You're a douche with no understanding of the real world.
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
We would much rather pay the cost of having younger workers make the mistakes the older workers learned to avoid. This is the problem we see repeatedly. Younger workers buy into the "Oh look, new, shiny!" Older workers look at this "new" idea and say, "Didn't we try that 5 years ago? and 5 years before that? It didn't work either of those times either."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
For the company, he argued, H-1B guest workers are a much better choice.
Sure. Why not just take us all out back, put us against the wall, and shoot us? Real responsible attitude, corporate America. What a bunch of fucking jerks. Go ahead, loot and pillage the U.S., what the hell do you care anyway?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Statements like these are all the more reason aging tech workers like myself need to build their own businesses so they don't have to rely on the "good graces" of an employer.
Yep. It's always about money. If a company THINKS that it can get a cheaper worker to do the work that you do then that company will try to replace you.
From TFA:
Maybe they do. After all, SOMEONE has to work at the company providing the "guest workers". But there are really TWO issues here:
1. Are the "guest workers" driving down the pay of the workers that they're replacing?
2. WHAT jobs are being created by hiring "guest workers" that would NOT be created by hiring regular workers?
Again, TWO items:
1. WHAT are those jobs?
2. WHICH companies are trying to fill them?
He shouldn't have any problem showing tens-of-thousands of job openings that have been open for months IF WHAT HE CLAIMS IS CORRECT.
> "The biggest slap in the face to all of us here is we have to train all of our replacements," said the IT worker.
I saw this happen in person, during a huge outsourcing of which I was one of the few survivors. This "training our replacements" thing... the problem is, it's difficult to quantify, the "trainers" have little motivation to comply, and the trainees don't have any way of knowing if they're receiving adequate training. So you cutover, and, well in our case it had all the elegance of driving a tour bus off a cliff. But I'm told that in many cases, if the outsourced team was good, things might trundle along for a little while on inertia. Until things start to go wrong, and you suddenly discover, you don't know exactly what has failed or where it's located.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Retaining knowledge of both software and business requirements is the 4th of Lehman's Laws of Software Development, Conservation of Familiarity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
And that law is from 1978. Such knowledge isn't even as recent as the 1980s (a lesson approaching 40 years in age, I was five at the time...), it should be basic guidance at this point in time.
Anyone that doesn't realize how important knowledge of the business and operations are is one that should be ignored completely.
Advice: Always seek to learn as much as possible about the business and how it operates/interacts with the external world. This is the secret to NOT being disposable. It's also a great way to meets VP and C-Level executives.
BlameBillCosby.com
Corporate America is DIVESTING from America.
They seem pretty happy to avail themselves of our extremely expensive military when they need their foreign assets protected. And they also seem happy to invest in lobbyists and campaign contributions.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
For the company, he argued, H-1B guest workers are a much better choice. 'It's not easy to retrain people,' Corley said.
No doubt this is true - hiring cheap indentured laborers without rights is more profitable. Which is why they must be denied that option.
Corporations would employ sweat shops with child labor here*, if we let them. But we don't because while it would be profitable for the sweatshop operator, it would be bad for everybody else.
If the choice is retraining workers, and not having the workers they need, they will most definitely stop throwing away their workforce.
*Yes, I know they do that overseas.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age