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Disney IT Workers Prepare To Sue Over Foreign Replacements (computerworld.com)
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: At least 23 former Disney IT workers have filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over the loss of their jobs to foreign replacements. This federal filing is a first step to filing a lawsuit alleging discrimination. These employees are arguing that they are victims of national origin discrimination, a complaint increasingly raised by U.S. workers who have lost their jobs to foreign workers on H-1B and other temporary visas. Disney's layoff last January followed agreements with IT services contractors that use foreign labor, mostly from India. Some former Disney workers have begun to go public (video) over the displacement process
It's a little bit of a moot argument when the federal government isn't really interested in enforcing the H1-B visa law no matter WHO you believe is actually breaking it.
Business schools in the last 20 years have really been a disaster. It's the progressive idea that things should always be improving. They teach the role of a businessman isn't to create value, it is to maximize value. A staid old company with the same employees for 30 years and a steady profit? Out the window! This maximizing progressive attitude goes towards everything, all the way down until they finally get around to skimping on toilet paper.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The H1B visa shuffle has become an almost ritualistic dance at this point:
Congress: May we have this backdoor into your software, for 'merica security and shit?
Silicon Valley: Sure, may we have more H1B visas to drive down wages?
Congress: Sure!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The habits of the consumer is what justifies the abuse. Stop the consumption and the abuse will ebb.
But you'll be in line with the new Star Wars film, right?
It's a little bit of a moot argument when the federal government isn't really interested in enforcing the H1-B visa law no matter WHO you believe is actually breaking it.
It's too difficult to enforce and the 99% of abusers are making the other 1% look bad. So just shut it down. If you can't police it and you can't control it, then you can certainly shut it down. Then we will see the companies who REALLY can't find the talent they need in America and they will be willing to pay through the nose to get it. That is what is supposed to happen with a "shortage" of talent, prices go up. Not down.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Note, of course, that the "owners" are anyone who owns Disney stock. Which includes a large chunk of the 401k's and IRA's in the country. Certainly it includes mine...
What do you think of the long-term implications of this however?
The goal, such as it is is to continually maximize profit in all areas. This means a large portion of expenses are the labor costs.
So it only stands to reason that you want expenses as low as possible - American workers tend to be paid more than someone from a country with a much lower standard of living, therefore - American workers are an expense to be eliminated.
This makes perfect sense for a extremely short term outlook.
But from a long term outlook, it is deadly counter-productive to your interests.
How often is that person from the third world country going to fly his family over to Disney World, pay the 100 dollars a person entrance, the hotels and meals for the time, then fly them all back home?
Oh, that's right - he's not.
Then again, since the incidental end goal for Corporate America is to force most of it's citizens to be either unemployed, or to work for the wages that they can pay someone in a third world country - eventually, the Americans who used to go to DisneyWorld, or DisneyLand or Epcot, or stay at the multiple resorts or cruises, are not going to have the money.
And of all of the businesses that should know that their continued profitability comes from a healthy middle class, Disney should have that on the first sentence of their mission statement.
They rely on a lot of people, spending a fair amount of discretionary money to visit their venues. How much do you figure a third world America that saves the shareholders a lot of money on labor is going to spend on 100 percent discretionary things like a trip to Disneysomething, when we're all making the same wages as that guy in IndiaStan?
It's like saving money on skydiving by not spending money on that expensive parachute.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That often is my gripe. Too many companies and executives aren't satisfied with making a reasonable profit and keeping good people employed. Instead, they want to pursue unreasonable profit and goals with a shortsighted mindset and no concern for how such a business strategy is to affect their employees and society as a whole.
We all can't profit. One's gain is only made possible by another's loss.
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Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
The fact that the federal government hasn't gotten in on a textbook case of H1-B abuse shows what a scam H1-B usage is. It's bad for the guest worker and bad for the replaced worker. It needs to be based upon the skills of the individual H1-B holder. If they are good enough to do the job here, they should be good enough to have an H1-B in their own name, not be beholden to a company sponsoring them. If H1-B workers are truly a valuable commodity, then we want them here *regardless* of where they are working because their skills cannot be replaced. Stop indentured servitude replacement of American workers. Encourage immigrants who bring much needed skills.
And you sound like the perfect corporate shill. Tell you what, you want to negotiate with me personally rather than a selected representative? Fine, get every single one of your shareholders in a room and I'll negotiate with them. What? "Collective bargaining" is good when it's your side? You get a representative and I don't?
"Rationally speaking, there is no reason to pay more for something than you have to. If I can get someone from (or in) India to do something about 80% as well for 50% of the cost of an American worker, then why wouldn't I do it? The only reason not to is a moral argument; there's no financial reason to do it unless doing it results in a boycott of my company and products (it never does). And when you're a financial institution, that's what you follow."
This amoral bullshit only works when you forget that companies are supposed to be SYMBIOTIC with their communities. ITs not rational to promote a 'profit only' mentality, in the end it destroys the nation. We need to get back to the idea that workers and the business are one, and live and die together. You are dressing up sociopathy as business and calling it good. Companies are superposed to have a DUTY to their workers and community and you dont understand this AT ALL.
Good-bye
Free market? In IT? The existence of the H1-b program proves that is incorrect. The H1-b program is a perfect example of government meddling for the benefit of corporate America at the expense of workers. Compensation has declined significantly since the late 90s and one of the reasons is the H1-b program.
The Middle Class is being decimated because of crony capitalism in the USA.
IT compensation has declined significantly since the late 90s.
As a result, I've had to cut back. I don't buy any iThingy or Android thing for that matter. I don't go to movies. I don't have cable because it's too expensive.
My wife and I cook our own meals and we don't go out. And I do my own car and home repair.
My TV is years old and I just have a $30 DVD player I got years ago. My Netflix streaming and over the air TV is my entertainment. Go to the movies? Only if I'm given a gift certificate.
I live worse than my Dad did back in the early 70s when he supported a family of 5, a house and two cars on one engineer's salary. Mom didn't work.
My grandpa supported a family of 7, a house and a car on just a machinist's pay - 50s and 60s.
Try to do that in 2015.
Go to Disney? For an American Middle Class family it's out of reach. It costs a family of 4 thousands of dollars for just a week.
We are spiraling to the bottom and there's plenty of evidence for it.
There are 7.2 billion people with a net increase of about 65 million every year on the World. And unless you're a super model or some extraordinary sports star or entertainer, anyone can be replaced - I don't care how smart you are. Brains are a commodity.
How often is that person from the third world country going to fly his family over to Disney World, pay the 100 dollars a person entrance, the hotels and meals for the time, then fly them all back home?
Probably not WDW Florida and not immediately. But after companies have started to hire skilled workers in the export sector of a particular country's economy, workers in the export sector will be earning more than the workers in non-export sectors.
Respectfully, at the pace that corporate moves these days, as soon as the wages go up, the shareholders cannot have a reduction in profits, so the company has to find more people to pay as little as possible.
Ak Mexico. As wages went up, those people had to lose their jobs.
A sort of positive outcome of the ADHD jobjumping done by Corporate world is that eventually there won't be any more people to pull that stunt with. It is going to be interesting when the whole world is at one pay level. But will that happen before robots take over.
One of the most amusing things in the world of business is billionaires telling people making minimum wage that they are being paid too much.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.