FWD.us To Laid-Off Southern California Edison Workers: Boo-Hoo

theodp writes: Speaking at a National Journal LIVE event that was sponsored by Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us and Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective, FWD.us "Major Contributor" Lars Dalgaard was asked about the fate of 500 laid-off Southern California Edison IT workers, whose forced training of their H-1B worker replacements from offshore outsourcing companies sparked a bipartisan Senate investigation. "If you want the job, make yourself able to get the job," quipped an unsympathetic Dalgaard (YouTube). "Nobody's going to hold you up and carry you around...If you're not going to work hard enough to be qualified to get the job...well then, you don't deserve the job." "That might be harsh," remarked interviewer Niharika Acharya. Turning to co-interviewee Pierre-Jean Cobut, FWD.us's poster child for increasing the H-1B visa cap, Acharya asked, "Do you agree with him?" "Actually, I do," replied PJ, drawing laughs from the crowd.

Comments

Re:They trained their replacements

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend's company outsourced the IT department and Call Centers.h
He agreed to train the replacements.

What he got out of the deal...that is, what his company did for him.
3 more months of employment than those who refused
3 trips to Europe where the outsourced call centers were. (His wife joined him for a European vacation.)
New contacts
Great recommendations
Several thousand dollars of IT equipment
Retraining -- at least $10K in training and salary while being retrained

With the retraining, he was able to land a new job as a "Limited Time Employee" for a major integrator and works a project in the city he lived in. His LTE work has gone on for over 3 years (kind of like a real job and it expected to last for another 3 years. (The "contract" is rebid periodically and he may be picked up by the contract-winner so there is the possibility of employment beyond the 3 year contract he knows about.)

Re:They trained their replacements

[Dog-Cow]

Given current business practices in the US, the rational thing to do is train your replacements incorrectly, but in such a way as their lack of training is only noticeable after you are fired, or long enough after the training has taken place that it can't be tracked down to your specific instruction. This way, you either harm the company who fucked you or you give them an employee who can't do the job, showing that H1Bs aren't worth the effort.

H1B distorts the market - a form of slavery

[CraigCruden]

Simple solution is to change the rules of the H1B visa..... not by stopping the "skilled" immigrants but by having every visa come with residency - which would free a skilled worker to work anywhere and not just for the sponsoring company. I have personally seen the impact on wages for H1Bs because of the need to stay with the company while the company works through the process for residency (which can take the full 6 years). If they change jobs the residency process has to start again, which makes the company not having to compete in regards to wages for H1B visa holders. Competition is good, H1B to residency process depresses it and distorts the market.

Re:And customers always want cheaper

[BarbaraHudson]

I doubt it. I tried to unionize our shop (all I needed was 50%), and while the other coders agreed that it was a good idea in principle, less than half would sign up when the crunch came, even though the law prohibits firing for unionizing. Chicken is as chicken does. Heck, even WalMart workers here unionized.