Fury and Fear In Ohio As IT Jobs Go To India (computerworld.com)

ErichTheRed writes: A company called Cengage Learning now joins the Toys 'R Us, Disney and Southern California Edison IT offshoring club. Apparently, even IT workers in low-cost parts of the country are too expensive and their work is being sent to Cognizant, one of the largest H-1B visa users. As a final insult, the article describes a pretty humiliating termination process was used. Is it time to think about a professional organization before IT goes the way of manufacturing?

Comments

Re:How will that "professional organization" be...

[sociocapitalist]

One problem with unions is they pit Americans against Americans. When an automaker wants to open a factory in the South, which is still America btw, the unions protest. So they are too extreme in their protectionism and that pisses off a lot of people. Same with Boeing, they wanted to build their next plane in like Tennessee or something, the unions went on strike.

The other big perceptional problem is that unions protect lazy and ineffective workers. Protecting against unfair business practices is one thing, but the stereotype of the union requiring 3 guys standing around watching 1 guy dig and 1 guy hold a "SLOW" sign (road construction) is just too damning. That's not what we need or want, because once again, that goes beyond protecting Americans and into dividing us. Paying 4x the labor cost (for that example) is a cost that the rest of us have to absorb, and that sucks. Then people start thinking, "Oh, I know why high speed rail is so goddamn expensive... fucking unions!" And they have a point. It's really unions plus excessive environmentalism.

Things we have because of unions:
        Weekends
        All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks
        Paid Vacation
        FMLA
        Sick Leave
        Social Security
        Minimum Wage
        Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination)
        8-Hour Work Day
        Overtime Pay
        Child Labor Laws
        Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
        40 Hour Work Week
        Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp)
        Unemployment Insurance
        Pensions
        Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations
        Employer Health Care Insurance
        Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees
        Wrongful Termination Laws
        Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
        Whistleblower Protection Laws
        Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
        Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS)
        Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises)
        Sexual Harassment Laws
        Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
        Holiday Pay
        Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance
        Privacy Rights
        Pregnancy and Parental Leave
        Military Leave
        The Right to Strike
        Public Education for Children
        Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
        Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

If you have ever benefited from anything on that list then you should stop whining about unions and start realizing that without organized workers standing up for themselves the middle class is going to join the lower class in being ignorant and dirt poor.