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After Uproar, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times previously reported that Disney made laid-off workers train their foreign replacements. The Times now reports that Disney has reversed its decision to lay off the workers and canceled training of the replacements. This follows public uproar, two investigations by the Department of Labor into outsourcing firms, complaints to the Justice Department, and calls for an investigation into the H-1B Visa program by Senator Bill Nelson. One of the workers said, "We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice." A former Disney employee who was forced to take an early retirement shared his personal thoughts on the matter in a Google+ post.
One of the workers said, "We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice."
Yeah, that notice will be updated employment terms to try to aggressive prevent people from leaking out the details when they attempt to do the H1-B swap the next time.
And start looking anyway. This is a temp stop gap to keep people from rioting, they'll hope the masses forget about it and can try this again in 6 months. Don't give them the chance, get out of dodge while you can
I'll totally just go back to my job now, with no loss in enthusiasm or loyalty. It's like nothing happened! Everything is okay. I will continue working for Disney and we'll be best friends forever.
Disney completed the layoffs of the Florida IT division (Walt Disney World)
This was ANOTHER set of layoffs for ABC Broadcasting comprising about 35 workers that were going to undergo the same process. ABC's has been halted but, AFAIK, the Florida IT division is still SOL.
Ok, so you thoroughly demotivate your workers. You insult them. You treat them like idiots. Yeah, we think so little of your jobs that we're going to import untrained minimum wage foreigners to replace you, and oh, by the way, before you leave, you have to train them which button to push when the light comes on.
You even complete the layoffs of one division. (Florida.)
And then, responding to Bad Press, as part of damage control, you tell the remaining employees that they get to keep their jobs. At least, for now, until the news cycle passes.
What employee in their right mind would *not* spend every moment looking for a new job at that point? What responsible individual (financially responsible to self and family) would *not* use this opportunity as paid job search?
So, Disney may have quieted down some small portion of the uproar. But they're still going to lose all of that tribal knowledge, guaranteed. And they're going to have the most disgruntled, (old workers) and nonfunctional (imported workers with no training or support) IT department of any company still in business.
I foresee a time when the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is populated with live H1-B actors, because nobody can figure out how to make the animatronics work anymore. Might be an improvement, except the guests will have to swim through the moat.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Important enough that they couldn't "just" be replaced by H-1B workers that were supposed to have skills that were unavailable in the US, the current employees were being required to train the H-1B workers in order to give them the skills and knowledge they needed to perform the job.
BTW, importance of the job has fuck-all to do with the boss getting their quarterly bonus for cutting payroll.
A company I used to work for in Orlando needed animators.
We got 300 applications from people at Disney. They referred to it as Mauschwitz.