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Laid-Off Disney IT Workers Decry Offshoring At Trump Rally (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: Two former Disney IT workers spoke at a Donald Trump campaign rally on Sunday, telling about the shock of having to train their foreign replacements. Speaking at the large rally in Madison, Ala. was Dena Moore, a former Disney IT worker who trained her foreign replacement, and said tech workers are reluctant to talk about the problem. IT workers "are afraid, they're in shock," she told the cheering crowd. "They're not coming forward because we have been taught all our lives to make do and keep going on. But you know what? This little old grandma is going to stand up for what's right. "The fact is that Americans are losing their jobs to foreigners," said Moore. "I believe Mr. Trump is for Americans first."
Hah, Trump vs. H-1B/Offshoring.
Whether that means offshoring jobs, or speaking against offshoring jobs as a means to the presidency, or hiring foreign workers to work on his construction projects ... Mr Trump will always do what's best for Mr Trump. If your interests align with his great, and if they don't he'll try to convince you that they do for as long as he needs your cooperation. The only reason Mr Trump is running for president is because he thinks he can use the position to advance his business concerns and make him richer than he already is. Why waste money buying off politicians when if you can get yourself into office it's free?
Trump is the end result of lots of people feeling disenfranchised and angry over many, many years. To be fair, there's a lot to be angry about, but I don't think that Trump's supporters are really thinking this one through. People who are angry rarely do. They just want "something" to be done.
Welcome to the second wave of "Hope and Change" as a political platform.
Love sees no species.
The "shortage" of US citizen IT workers in America is a myth. Importation of "guest workers" through various means are simply companies on the buy AND sell side of the equation gaming the US immigration system to distort the price of labor. The same could be said in other industries such as farm labor. Adequate supply of labor exists, but the industry is chafing at paying market labor rates.
The beneficiaries of this cozy relationship between politicians and offshore companies who broker IT consultants by the pound are the politicians taking $$$ and the brokers taking huge skims off the top of the rates paid for the guest workers. Meanwhile, both the US citizen workers and the guest workers are faced with lower wages, with the guest workers taking the brunt of the abuse. (Imagine paying half or more of your salary to some broker who's only "value" is to pay off politicians to get you a visa into another country).
Want to start a technology company and don't want to pay the prevailing wages? Then by all means open up shop in China, Eastern Europe, Brasil, India....wherever. I'm sure those countries would be delighted.
Sad aspect of human nature. The protectionist measures suggested by Trump will harm everyone including the ones supposedly being helped.
That's what the economists say.
One of the things that brought the Roman empire down was all the poor barbarians who wanted in on her wealth. So, they flooded over the boarders and sucked them dry.
Let's look at this as a supply and demand problem. There are billions of poor smart people in the World. If I took the 90th percentile of intelligent people in the World, I can populate the US more than twice over with just geniuses.
Meaning, you can be replaced easily - and I don't care how smart you think you are.
Now, with wages being pushed down, our cost of living won't go anywhere. The bank isn't going to say, "Awe, your job prospects have been decimated by H1-bs. Here, we'll discount that mortgage because we're such nice people."
Food prices are going up.
Our standard of living is declining.
Our economy has changed dramatically in the last 20 or so years. Globalization is proving to be a bust for us little people. The benefits go to the top while we get the crumbs. We never had to deal with a business just picking everything up and going to some third world country, setting up shop and then importing what they make over there. Please, that cheap big screen TV is worthless to me when important things are increasing in cost. We never had to deal before with a company closing an entire department down and sending it all to India or Eastern Europe.
My father-in-law who graduated with his BSME from a public university in the early 60s walked into a job and never had to look for a job in 55 years. Today, he'd have a hard time getting that first job because he didn't go to a top school.
Things have changed and are changing for the worst for us little people.
What can be done? Don't know exactly. But the first step is to eliminate the H1-b program. It is not needed.
should be evidence enough that the employer is lying when they say they can't fill a position with an american and they should lose ***ALL*** of their h1bs, those here should be sent back home - not allowed to find a different employer to sponsor them, AND the employer should be prohibited from applying for more for at least five years.
I'd might as well be voting for some third world dictator thug. At least Trump is not a criminal*. That's about what it boils down to.
Given Trump's predilection for Mussolini quotes, his bromance with Putin, advocacy of violence, desire to gut the 1st amendment and love of eminent domain, I'd be careful what you wish for.
*BTW Trump U cuts it awfully close to being an outright scam operation.
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She would sell out Chelsea if it got her a crucial state.
In domestic economics, you actually create more local jobs by aggressively outsourcing, so long as your labor balance slides more slowly than your wealth. That is: If 50% of your employment is domestic and you save enough money outsourcing to create 10% more jobs, you have the *same* number of domestic employees if you end with 45.45% of your employment domestic and the rest outsourced. You start with 50 Chinese and 50 American workers, you eliminate 10 American jobs in favor of 10 Chinese jobs, and you get 40 and 60; along the way you find you can sell 10% more stuff, so you employ 10% more workers, and end up with 50 and 60--10 new Chinese jobs overall, more stuff being made for the same amount of money, and the 50 American workers are living a higher standard-of-living because they can buy more stuff since it's all cheaper.
I see you drank the koolaid.
So I take 10 high paying american jobs, outsource them for 50% cost overseas. Optimistically those 10 high paying american jobs become a combination of 10 mid to low-paying jobs. They're still employed! Yay! Because unless you can prove concretely that outsourcing any high paying job results in a new higher paying job being created, what you're doing is lowering the pool. Your own logic states this unequivocally in that products are cheaper because of lowered labor costs. That only worked while we were over-employed. That is no longer the case, with the total labor force shrinking every year since 2006. It's actually worse than that, if you go further back. Then you look at what an individual makes, and that has shrunk if you clip the top couple of percent. Yes, they make so much it skews the entire result set, but take the median 90 or so percent, and you'll see that real earning power has shrunk. The reason this hasn't had the major negative impact you'd assume is because the family unit has gone from 1 to 2 workers supporting the family in many cases, or people are co-habiting more and sharing costs. It's not the rosy picture you're painting for sure.
Obviously, if you start shoveling jobs out to China like crazy without creating new American jobs, this doesn't work. Historically, that's not how it's worked; it's not even how it works today.
It's the only way it's worked. Initially we shipped labor intensive work like textiles out. Then more expensive jobs that included things like EPA restrictions. As the manufacturing base overseas ramped up, it wasn't long before more and more of those higher paying middle class jobs all left, if they could. There were some initial jobs created to build up the infrastructure to support the imports, but once done that number shrank again and now there are fewer total jobs. And lets not forget that the imports don't pay into the federal tax pool, leaving that burden more heavily weighed on the populace, as the production base which used to pay taxes now doesn't.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.