California Utility May Replace IT Workers with H-1B Workers

dcblogs writes: "Southern California Edison is preparing to offshore IT jobs, the second major U.S. utility in the last year to do so. It will be cutting its staff, but it hasn't said by how much. The utility is using at least two offshore outsourcing firms, according to government records. SCE's management culture may be particularly primed for firing its IT workers. Following a workplace shooting in SCE's IT offices in 2011, the utility conducted an independent audit of its organizational and management culture. One observation in this report, which was completed a year later, was that 'employees perceive managers to be more concerned about how they 'look' from above, and less concerned about how they are viewed by their subordinates. This fosters an unhealthy culture and climate by sending a message to employees that it is more important to focus on how things look from the top than how they actually are down below.'"

Comments

Not H1-Bs, offshore workers.

[HaeMaker]

If you are "offshoring" you are literally having the work performed off-shore. If they fear their jobs are getting replaced by H1-Bs, then they are "outsourcing". It would be illegal for them to fire everyone then hire H1-Bs, and even if the off-shore companies place people that all happen to be H1-B, lawsuits will follow. How can the consulting company say they couldn't find competent employees when they know a bunch that got laid-off?

Re:Not H1-Bs, offshore workers.

[pixelpusher220]

As an interesting aside, should 'utilities' providing critical infrastructure be subject to more stringent hiring requirements?

Similar to how national security jobs require a gov't clearance, should workers on critical infrastructure require similar concept of vetting?

IMPOSSIBLE

[Billly Gates]

H1B1 Visa's are only because there are not enough applicants to fill a position. Just ask any republican and they will tell you and set the facts straight in interest of protecting the workers.

It is illegal not to pay an H1B1 Visa worker less than a qualified worker. It is stated so it must be true!

Re:IMPOSSIBLE

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the race to the bottom has began, and I doubt it will end until we hit it. If it is cheaper to pay someone else to do the job, be it in another state, another country, or simply to ship in the workers they are going to do it, and if they can't do it, they will try to move the job itself to that other country or other state. Heck if they are just moving jobs to other states they can just call it a reorg and not even get any bad press about it, even though the key purpose was to surplus all those pesky highly paid workers who had devoted much of their lives to a particular company. The guys in charge are betting they can improve the balance sheet while they are there, then get a nice bonus for it, and if it all falls apart later, well they are likely gone or retired by then, so its not their problem.

Sure you could setup sane rules to minimize it, but it is not easy, or at least the politicians make it more difficult than it needs to be. For instance, if the country that your buying all this stuff from has poor environmental laws, well then that country is basically not charging what is required to clean up their own mess, so the logical thing to do is to tarrif it in a measured way so at least society can somewhat deal with the mess later, or at the very least make the playing field a touch more level. At any rate, the reason the United States can't compete with manufacturing/labor/etc is as much as anything about the unlevel playing field. We find rules about safe working conditions and pollution to be a good thing, but hapilly ignore that others are less concerned with such things if we can buy a $200 television.

The other common thing about jobs these days is companies have little loyalty to their employees, so of course their employees have little loyalty to the company either. This leads to companies always asking for employees that are tailor fit for a very obscure job, which of course they often can't find, since that job may be brand new and short term. So the company does a token search, fails to find the non existent expert on widget series 12 when combined with gear series 13 and 20 years experience with the new fad computer language that has only been out five, and of course concludes that it is H-1B time. Sure the employee may be even less skilled than those that were actually available, but hey he or she is cheap and leashed directly to the company of interest so they will spend some effort training him or her. Perhaps in the end they saved no actual money due to all the project delays, but they did save money on paper initially, and that is what is most important.

Re:IMPOSSIBLE

[ebno-10db]

Go a few miles outside the cities and it is mostly Republican.

Nevertheless CA is primarily a blue state. I'm not sticking up for the R's here - just pointing out that with many issues the D's are also busy screwing Americans. The D's whore for money too, and much of theirs comes from the tech industry. One of the few people in congress to oppose some of this H-1B crap is Chuck Grassley, who's an R.

Re:IMPOSSIBLE

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there were organized groups of laborers that were able to band together to protect each others rights.

H-1B or offshore?

[qbzzt]

If you offshore a position, it is in India (for example) and you don't need an H1-B visa.

Outsourcing! Management Sux! What?!?

[Virtucon]

This is an outrage! Companies outsourcing jobs overseas! Management is concerned about perception rather than substance!

What fucking decade are we living in here folks?!? This isn't news but it is confirmation that US companies are full of douche bags.

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone, anywhere, seen an instance where a move like this actually works out well? I sure haven't. Communication issues, poor worker training and expertise, high turnover. The 'savings' look good on paper, but in the end it's a disaster.

Re:Good luck with that

[pixelpusher220]

Worked well enough for my Dad at Xerox. Granted he got laid off for a couple years but got rehired when it went to shit and got quite the hefty raise and extra retirement out of the deal :)

Not a plan I'd recommend obviously, but hey :)

Tata!

[QilessQi]

Northeast Utilities, last fall, announced it was outsourcing part of its IT operations to Infosys and another Indian-based IT services giant, Tata Consultancy Services.

I'm sure they were the breast candidate for the task.

So what they're really saying.

[rmdingler]

Southern California Edison has collectively determined that it is impossible to change the work atmosphere from the top down,

so they'll be needing to import some workers who are better suited to the type of shop they run:

Work the hands like a rented mule.

Re:Outsourcing! Management Sux! What?!?

[gandhi_2]

The labor market is a market. They have labor to supply.
Borders don't keep the jobs in any more than they keep people out.

Ahh Yes the trend continues..

[bobbied]

First, we lost manufacturing jobs.... Then the engineering jobs started going off shore. So why are we surprised when the IT jobs do too?

I feel for the youngsters coming out of college with a STEM degree these days. Huge student loan debt and fewer and fewer prospects..

Re:Ahh Yes the trend continues..

[stenvar]

It's a myth that manufacturing in the US is on the decline; it simply has become smaller relative to other sectors, but in absolute terms, it's been growing.

This needs to be Illegal

[l0ungeb0y]

Under no circumstances should any Utility in the US be allowed to Off-Shore IT operations of it's Infrastructure to Foreign Entities -- doing so opens up the possibility of access being given to enemies of the US or US-based interests by employees of the IT company or by the IT company itself if it comes under the influence or control of enemies of the US.

The ability to fuck with the infrastructure providing power to all of Southern California is a capability no one should be able to hand over to foreign nationals. The Federal Government needs to shove their foot right up the collective asses of Cal Eds Senior Management and Board.

Re:This needs to be Illegal

[ebno-10db]

Nice try at a slur. There is nothing new, unusual, un-Constitutional or unreasonable about requiring that vital functions in the US be performed by US based entities.

Re:What is an H-1B worker?

[byteherder]

A H-1B worker is a worker on a temporary work visa in the U.S. They are usually IT workers.

Company bring them in claiming they cannot find 'qualified' U.S. worker but really do it just to hire cheaper foreign labor.

Unions

[rsilvergun]

Organization (via Unions) is the only solution I can think of to this. Sure, we could call it something else, but it's basically Unions.

Un-Organized workers are too weak to demand or get better wages or a better way of life. Life basically stunk for everyone but a few kings thousands of years. It still stinks if you're not in one of the countries with a strong, well organized pool of labor that has solidarity. Sure, a few on /. might "Got Mine, FU" right now. But the powers that be are coming for you too....

Combination of both

[Jmstuckman]

According to the article, they are outsourcing the work to an offshore IT firm. This IT firm, in turn, will give the work to a US location, which staffs itself with H-1B workers. The effect is that US-based workers are being laid off and indirectly replaced with H-1Bs.

Re:Combination of both

[ebno-10db]

Which is exactly why an Indian commerce minister referred to the H-1B as the "outsourcing visa". It's not an either/or situation - the H-1B visa helps enable outsourcing/offshoring.

Re:Combination of both

[Hamsterdan]

Shouldn't that be illegal?

Re:The King of 18th Century England Called

[cyber-vandal]

I have to pay my mortgage now. I can't afford to wait for your utopia.

Re:What benefits?

[khallow]

The huge world out there that isn't already part of the developed world is doing well.

Karl Marx predicted that capital flowing to where labor was cheapest would result in a race to the bottom

One of the many things he missed is that it raises the bottom greatly in the process.

Dilbert is Real

[Tablizer]

SCE's management culture may be particularly primed for firing its IT workers...One observation in this report...was that 'employees perceive managers to be more concerned about how they 'look' from above, and less concerned about how they are viewed by their subordinates.

PHB1: "This survey shows our employees think we in management are clueless superficial jerks. What do we do about it?"

PHB2: "I got it! Fire them all and outsource their work to new people who don't yet know we are clueless superficial jerks."

PHB1: "Brilliant! Let's vote ourselves a raise for this plan!"

Re:message to you globalization scum:

[rk]

Until that day comes, I will refer to globalization with a more accurate name: "neo-feudalism".