Hertz Had Sheriffs On Hand the Day It Cut IT (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes: About 300 Hertz IT employees, most located in Oklahoma City, are being impacted [by] a decision to expand its outsourcing to IBM. About 75 will be hired by IBM and those workers [are expected] to receive offers this week while others are facing layoffs. The news was a shock for IT employees. There was "anger, resentment," especially by employees who "sacrificed that work/life balance to keep things going here," said one employee. Hertz took precautions. On the day that IT employees learned that their work was shifting to IBM, employees noticed Oklahoma sheriff patrol vehicles in the building's parking lot. They believed plainclothes officers were inside the building.
"We consider the safety and security of our people whenever there are circumstances or events that could increase the risk of a disturbance or some form of workplace violence," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman. "Knowing that this was a difficult announcement, we had additional security on hand," said Masterson. "Going forward, Hertz IT resources will be focused on development of future products and services for customers," he said. The majority of services will be cloud-based. According to the Computerworld article, along with severance pay, benefits also include three months of outplacement assistance. IT employees can receive up to $4,000 toward retraining or skill certification, said Masterson. IBM India Private Limited, a IBM subsidiary, has filed paper for H-1B visa workers for Hertz Technology offices.

Comments

Bad dum tish

[pierced2x]

At only 300 Hertz this doesn't seem to be happening with high frequency.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Sarten-X]

The other article says the number is actually 230. 30% exaggeration is fine for a news story, right?

Re:Bad dum tish

[dcblogs]

The 300 includes IT layoffs in other locations nationally. The 230 was for Okla. Hertz increased the number.

Re:Bad dum tish

[mykepredko]

pierced2x,

You're joke didn't resonate with this crowd.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Applehu Akbar]

The 300 includes IT layoffs in other locations nationally. The 230 was for Okla. Hertz increased the number.

In case anyone was wondering where all those Trump voters are coming from, it's from scenes like this.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Sir Holo]

At only 300 Hertz this doesn't seem to be happening with high frequency.

That could easily become a meme –earning Hertz a pernicious slam that pops up every time another company pulls this.

Go post it on FARK! Now, or as soon as this news is posted there (and it will be). Someone might even come up with another layer of pun, or even Photoshop a graphical meme.

Or use a photo + text "Meme generator" site and slap that sucker up on FARK, and especially FB (just make the post totally public, not just friends).

Re:Bad dum tish

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

At only 300 Hertz this doesn't seem to be happening with high frequency.

Lol, for most people this will be a "whoosh", but props for trying. :) If I had mod points they'd be yours.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Anonymous Coward]

He's said little. But he's supposedly the man who isn't beholden to big biz or special interests. Peole see him as the guy who can say eff you to the system.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Applehu Akbar]

It's Austrialian for being dishonest.

So far, Trump has not taken positions on most major issues, so his appeal is based on the idea that he is using his own money. How far he goes in the 2016 campaign depends on whether corporate influence shows up. It's the defining issue of 2016.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Darinbob]

It's all about the bass.

Re:Bad dum tish

[ultranova]

At only 300 Hertz this doesn't seem to be happening with high frequency.

The frequency is less than three nanoHertz. It's been a century since the Red October, which happened well over a century after French Revolution, and we have barely began to ascent the current wave of unrest.

It'll be interesting to see whether this current wave will ultimately subside or reach the tipping point. Our economic control systems are in dire need of some kind of change, seeing how we're producing more yet people are getting poorer and less secure.

Re:Bad dum tish

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Why not? It should resonate with people both on 50 Hz *and* on 60 Hz grids.

Re:Bad dum tish

[bhiestand]

He's said little. But he's supposedly the man who isn't beholden to big biz or special interests. Peole see him as the guy who can say eff you to the system.

Aside from racism, I just don't get why those people wouldn't support Sanders over Trump

Re:Bad dum tish

[lsatenstein]

The 300 includes IT layoffs in other locations nationally. The 230 was for Okla. Hertz increased the number.

In case anyone was wondering where all those Trump voters are coming from, it's from scenes like this.

But Trump is doing exactly the same thing. Visit his Casino, Hotels, or businesses. Oh so few Americans and oh so many H1-Bs.

Re:Bad dum tish

[segin]

No treble.

Re:Bad dum tish

[Coren22]

It's been a century since the Red October

The sub that Jack Ryan helped defect?

Outsource to IBM?

[skovnymfe]

Outsource to IBM? They'll regret that decision very soon. Really. Very, very soon.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Sarten-X]

Apparently Hertz has had a "relationship" with IBM for 20 years... no details as to the nature of that relationship.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Zeio]

Yes. So they fire US workers summarily. Then they outsource to a company which has taken 275,000 US-based jobs in the mid-1980s to having a tiny footprint in the US and ever outsourcing more and more jobs out of country. IBM is gutting US workers. The sad thing is nobody gets an offer for a pay cut to keep the jobs. If its about money and competition at least offer those being summarily shot a way out. This kind of behavior is really discouraging. I also must say that all the free trade and bank deregulation has lead to a severe decrease in standard of living here.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it has led to an increase in standard of living elsewhere, and really, the disparity was not going to be sustainable in the long haul. It had to start to even out, and we're starting to see that happen now. When you have a tiny fraction few % of the world's population living high on the hog compared to the rest, that isn't going to last. Enjoy it while you had it, but don't think that's how you get to live forever.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think that profitable businesses do this? It isn't to spread the wealth and any spread is incidental to ensuring that the shareholders make more per share. The goal of these moves is to make the shareholder richer and increase the gap between rich and poor. The US is working hard to move back to the age of the robber barons. Look it up if you don't know what that was...make sure you look up the concept of the "company store" while you're at it numbnuts.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing about the accounting standards is that they fail to consider the bigger picture.
Which accountant ever calculated that HE was the one to be booted out? With the whole US workforce on welfare, who will be "the market" to buy all the crap made for "less" money?
Every generation has to figure out how to deal with new realities, the challenges our grandparents were facing are very different, in many cases.
A shrinking economy (the US) will have all sorts of bad shit happening, cost savings is a no-brainer for dumb-ass accountants.
Suppose Henry Ford had made the Model-T in the 3rd world for less money than in the US, not the double the average wage he paid, who would he have sold them to? Henry Ford effectively created the middle class, and manufacturing economies will always have buying power.
I would say the middle class is based in manufacturing. No manufacturing = no middle class.
Brain-dead billionaires don't get this, or they do and don't give a fuck. The sluggish but stable economy in Japan, refuses to adopt advanced productivity enhancement to keep full employment. I suppose they value their fellow citizens.
In the US a worker is just a piece of cord wood for the fire, a completely disposable piece of shit. Citizens are degraded to "consumers" in the political discourse.
Killing the middle class will hurt the 1% in the long run. The value of money and savings is not guaranteed. Reichmarks became pretty worthless after the war.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it has led to an increase in standard of living elsewhere, and really, the disparity was not going to be sustainable in the long haul. It had to start to even out, and we're starting to see that happen now. When you have a tiny fraction few % of the world's population living high on the hog compared to the rest, that isn't going to last. Enjoy it while you had it, but don't think that's how you get to live forever.

Is IBM in business to increase the standard of living elsewhere? No. Is it US government policy to increase the standard of living elsewhere, while lowering it here? No. This is being done to increase the standard of living of the few at the top of the organizational food chain. But don't worry, it will self-correct. Eventually, when most Americans can no longer afford to purchase goods and services from these American companies, they will go out of business. Of course, by then, the US won't be a leader in anything other than poverty.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[lgw]

Yes, but it has led to an increase in standard of living elsewhere, and really, the disparity was not going to be sustainable in the long haul. It had to start to even out, and we're starting to see that happen now. When you have a tiny fraction few % of the world's population living high on the hog compared to the rest, that isn't going to last. Enjoy it while you had it, but don't think that's how you get to live forever.

Last time I could find numbers (about 5 years ago), $30k/year put you in the top 1% worldwide. That's probably what US politicians mean when they talk about raising taxes on the 1%. (At least Bernie is honest about his plan to tax basically everyone with a job.)

Seriously, though, it's not an "even-ing out" because it's not a zero-sum game! Concentration of wealth and income produces less demand over all, and thus a weaker economy overall, than more even distribution (all other things being equal, which they rarely are of course). I don't want to see US standard of living fall either, of course, but if the rate of job flow offshore is low, then new demand from new places helps everyone and we sustain.

It's the same thing for immigration, H1-B or otherwise: if the rate is controlled, immigration is great. A growing economy and everyone benefits. OTOH, if we just have "open borders", the system gets swamped by immigrants arriving faster then job creation due to new demand from successful immigrants, and everyone suffers.

There's a rate as which immigration is good. There's a rate at which easily-replaceable jobs moving to lower-cost areas is good. That rate is not 0, and it's not "unbounded" either, but those seem to be the only option politicians discuss.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[superwiz]

and jail time? for conspiracy to commit multiple counts of fraud and human trafficking?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Maxo-Texas]

Actually analysis shows it's going to be at least 2045 before china nears parity and 2065 before india nears parity.
And that was before the chinese economy hit the wall.

So yes-- things will work out in the long run. But 2 to 4 decades is longer than many people's working careers.

We need for the u.s. to stop artificially inflating it's economy. it's no longer sustainable. A period of deflation would ALSO be extremely harsh (Great Depression) but be over in under a decade.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Eventually, when most Americans can no longer afford to purchase goods and services from these American companies, they will go out of business."

No they won't. They'll sell products to Chinese and Indian Middle Class... What's that?
"No middle class in India?"/"The Chinese won't allow a foreign corporation a level playing field with domestic/stated owned corporations?"

Ok: you win. They WILL go out of business, but not before being cannibalized for the personal profit of shareholders.

The formula is simple:
Step 1) build a business establishing brand recognition/equity while creating jobs
Step 2) take the company public
Step 3) shareholders gut the company like a fish for short term profits, then sell their position to the next greatest sucker(retail investors) who fall prey to the fallacy(read: deadly investing sin) of extrapolating past performance to predict future returns.
Step 4) Wealthy insiders realize they've bought a dry milk cow. They elect a conman CEO to bail them out.
Step 5) Conman CEO realizes the company is insolvent and being sustained by inertia. Lacking remaining value to loot, they take out loans from lenders whose ability to set interest rates is controlled by the government(graft via proxy). This temporarily improves balance sheet performance at the expense of future profitability. This is the last call to insiders to GTFO before the titanic hits the iceberg. Executives give themselves a pay increase to embezzle the borrowed money in Salary/Bonuses(Golden Parachute is their compensation for volunteering to take the credibility blow of being at the helm when the ship sinks).
Step 6) Product/service prices go up while value-proposition to customers has officially jumped the shark. Brand reputation has been looted, customers leave for new love affair with different band.(Outsourcing is the means to this end)
Step 7) Corporation declares bankruptcy/is acquired by competitor at fire-sale prices to dissolve/absorb remaining assets.
Step 8) CEO of consumer's new love interest takes company public
Step 9) Rinse/repeat.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"IBM is gutting US workers."

And? This is capitalism in action, mate!

"The sad thing is nobody gets an offer for a pay cut to keep the jobs."

Why they should? Could you really live at 35.000$/year? Because that's the average cost (mean it: cost, not salary) of the outsourced IT guy.

"If its about money and competition at least offer those being summarily shot a way out."

Again: why? What's cheaper for IBM? offering a way out or not offering? And then again, this isn't even about IBM; it's Hertz the one firing all that guys in order to hire IBM -IBM, on their side, are hiring back some of them as they see fit.

"This kind of behavior is really discouraging."

Discouraging... whom? I haven't notice of IBM -or Hertz, for that matter, shares to drop, so maybe there's people that don't find it so discouraging, after all.

"I also must say that all the free trade and bank deregulation has lead to a severe decrease in standard of living here."

What the heck did you expect? Free market is about (gasp!) Free... Market. Anything else be damn. And, given circumstances, why the heck should it be anyway different? After all, you *still* go after, let's say, Chinese electronics and taking advantage of their low prices, or how it goes? "Free market for everything else since I take advantage from that, but *my* employment, no, mine one should be protected from free market competition!"

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"It isn't to spread the wealth and any spread is incidental to ensuring that the shareholders make more per share. The goal of these moves is to make the shareholder richer and increase the gap between rich and poor. "

You started OK but then missed the mark. The goal is to make the shareholder richer -full stop. The gap between rich and poor is an unlooked-for side-effect too.

But, then, what did you expect from a system that calls itself "Capitalism"!? You have two obvious positions: reject Capitalism as a system a society should aim for -and then, try to cry, i.e. "Communism" in USA and see what happens, or accept Capitalism is the way to go and become Capitalist yourself: after all, nobody forbids you to stock shares, does it?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[roman_mir]

This cannot be a surprise though, it should be obvious to everybody (even though it is not for some reason) that USA labour market became unsustainable with the USA taking the world off the gold standard in 1971 while being the issuer of the world's 'reserve currency'. The inflation that hit immediately after that happened was all government creating new fiat. This forced input business prices to go up and up while creating more and more demand for government intervention from the general public.

USA economy is dead. It will not be revived with more collectivism, it can only be reset and fixed with more freedom, which comes from less government intervention, not more. It comes from real money, not fake fiat. It comes from removal of income and wealth related taxes, not more of them to force some to pay 'fair share' (whatever that is). Clearly businesses and people who run them do not in any way consider their taxes to be fair. The businesses and people are moving, the money and businesses are moving out and the only thing that remains is more and more poverty and desire for more government intervention by the majority. The majority is screwed by the government intervention but they think that the solution is government intervention.

Basically there is no way to fix any of this until the attitudes towards freedom change and in the USA the attitudes so far are only changing towards more authoritarian and/or more collectivist approach to the economy and society.

Authoritarian and collectivist systems act as virus (as described in The Matrix, the original one), while free market capitalist systems actually care about their profitability and thus they care about the property that makes them profitable. On balance the only way that is tested and that works to have a working economy and a wealthy society is to allow as much freedom to individuals as possible, not to take it away.

The reality is that most people do not understand any of what I just said, they take it as an attack on themselves because they truly do not understand economics, productivity, production, business, trade, money, politics. There is no way to fix it by demanding more understanding, the only way to fix it will be through appeal to emotion (as always) and eventually the emotion will turn away from the collectivist approach and towards more individual freedom. Unfortunately for the emotion to do that it will have to be based on blood and murder of unimaginable proportions.

We will go through a period of blood before emotion can no longer deal with that much murder and misery and will demand freedom from the collective, freedom to be an individual and not to suffer the collectivist ideology. This will take a while.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[RabidReindeer]

Probably a lot more than 20 years. Hertz was #1 back when the only computers around were mainframes and odds are that they had at least one from IBM.

The more salient point is that the IBM of 20 years ago isn't the IBM of today. At least back then most of your support came from people on and from the same continent as yourself.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[RabidReindeer]

Most corporations that go out of business end up paying little or nothing to the shareholders.

The money is all going to go to the thugs at the top, followed by creditors. In theory, the other way around, but the actual divvying up of the corpse doesn't begin until after the corporation is legally defunct, whereas the directors and C-levels can plunder it via stock options, golden parachutes, consulting fees and other stuff before saying "whoops!"

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all the poor people should just buy more shares. Forget all this nonsense about buying food, housing, and and healthcare. They should be working multiple minimum-wage jobs to buy more shares, right?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"The corporations should pay for the public schools, the police, the firemen, etc. that do not get their wages cut."

Depending on the implementation, that's communism or fascism, both already tried in real world. What's the one you support?

And if you mean it in a "soft" way, they *already* pay for public schools, police, firemen... it's called taxes. "Oh! but they don't pay enough taxes!" you say. They pay exactly the taxes the representatives *you* vote allow and make into legislation.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"Yeah, all the poor people should just buy more shares."

No, they certainly shouldn't. They just better do it *if* they want to stop being poor.

"They should be working multiple minimum-wage jobs to buy more shares, right?"

I am no one to say what others should do, nor I'm trying to do so.

But then, Capitalism is not about social welfare. It is about Capital and bringing profit for those that own it.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Provocateur]

This is the new normal, circa 1990's.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[slashping]

The goal is to make the shareholder richer -full stop.

If you fire all your employees, who's going to buy your product and raise the company value ?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[slashping]

You forgot the most important one: the freedom to shoot your neighbour, because he wanted the same piece of food.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[jgotts]

Saying that they "outsourced to IBM" is corporate doublespeak par excellence.

They fired their technical employees and sent their technical employees' jobs to India.

Behavior like this is why people are voting for Trump in large numbers. And also, by the way, why Sanders won my home state of Michigan. People from both the left and the right have lost tolerance for this behavior. No amount of hired thugs will prevent the backlash that is now upon us.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[penguinoid]

Outsource to IBM? They'll regret that decision very soon. Really. Very, very soon.

Did you hear that from an Oracle?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[locotx]

It's because many Indian programmers are subservient and do not fight back. Once that programmer is hired they are leveraged by manager and they have their thumb on them knowing that person will do whatever is asked of them and if not, then you get fired or replaced. And you can't afford to get fired because their visa is being "sponsored" by that company.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[alexgieg]

You're correct but incomplete. Classic liberals and libertarians talk about two requirements for prosperity: freedom and responsibility. They forget, however, that true freedom only exists when both parts to a contract have the means to say "no" without this refusal resulting in a massive decrease of standards for one of them. If the refusal is massively bad, then the other party only has one possible answer: "yes", meaning the contract is tilted one side. This removes freedom from the equation, and consequently also responsibility.

Is the solution socialism? No. Socialism is just a result of the same mentality Capitalism induces, which is the culture of employment. In Capitalism, the majority are employees and like it that way, they don't envision becoming entrepreneurs. But even if they do, becoming an entrepreneur, particularly for freelancers and small businesses, doesn't offer true autonomy, since a barely longer period of few contracts still results in the same attitude of saying "yes" to any offer lest worse comes to worst. This leads people to begin dreaming of secure employment, a.k.a. having the Government as employer. In other words, Capitalism and Socialism are two sides of the same coin: Employment Culture.

What is the solution? Well, it's a radical departure from both. The name of the Economic school I prefer is Distributism. It shares some similarities with Libertarianism in that it too favors freedom and responsibility, except that it adds a third element borrowed from Socialism but subverted: ownership of the means of production. Not in a statist way, as would happen in Communism, where the State owns the means of production, but in a "distributed" way (hence the name), with each individual individually owning their own means of production, a.k.a. their own capital.

When you have every single individual imbued of capital, you have them imbued of freedom and responsibility too, because contract signing becomes an act of freedom, where the terms of the contract can be truly freely considered and, if rejected, not massively negative outcome results, since one's capital provides for him a guarantee of survivability no matter what. Everyone becomes free to actually say "no", and thus responsible for their choices.

As a result, in Distributism the State has then three duties. The same two duties it has under Libertarianism, namely, security and guaranteeing contracts, plus a third, that of protecting individuals' means of production from 3rd parties cannibalization, so as to guarantee their freedom.

That third duty, which goes against both Capitalist and Socialist ideas, is the one sorely lacking from modern political discourse, and modern political parties.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Euler]

Economics is simply the study of distribution of resources. Everything else 'capitalism', 'socialism', 'libertarianism' etc. are just elements that every nation will have to some degree. The study of a 'free market' assumes many idealized things like you mention in terms of equal footing. i.e. both parties have the same knowledge of the market. Unfortunately, monopolies, government price-setting, and unequal information are barriers to realizing a free market.

So you suggest democratized capitalism. But what aspect empowers the individual? I assume you are talking about giving voting shares in all corporations to everyone. Logistical issues aside, how does this prevent the majority from abusing the individual? How immediate and direct is the influence of one individual person? What gives them more equal footing in day-to-day business dealings? Will they have access to better information, be able to overpower monopolies, or stop government intervention?

These things should already be possible when we democratically elect our leaders. But history has clearly shown that social justice is a long-duration fight even in a democracy.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"If you fire all your employees, who's going to buy your product and raise the company value ?"

Whoever happens to have the money, maybe those little Indians I'm outsourcing to. Or you mean in the far future, when it is mad-max style post apocalyptic all around the world? I'll be a dead (by old age) billionaire by then, so I don't give a damn.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[CanadianMacFan]

Why would I want to cut my salary so that the CEO can get a bonus for keeping the stock price high? The company isn't in trouble. It's a cost reduction exercise looking at short term results in order to boost the stock price (or at least to keep it steady). Do you think those people from Disney should have taken a pay cut in order to keep their jobs?

If the company was failing and had treated me well then I would take a pay cut in order to keep my job or to prevent layoffs so that the company would stay going longer. But never just so that a firm could improve it's bottom line.

What we need is to hear about the good companies. Those that find a way to keep their staff during the bad times instead of resorting to layoffs first thing. We need to know of the good places to work. Not just through our contacts. And when companies pull crap like this then the people impacted, those left behind, and people looking for work will know not to avoid those companies but the companies that are good for employees.

I believe that if you treat your employees right then they will do the same for you and you will get better people wanting to work for you. But that only works if people know that there is somewhere better to go to. So how about we let the people at Hertz, Disney, and all of these other terrible places that there are better employers out there. Anyone want to start a site?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[currently_awake]

The entire point of the H1B visa program is to export American jobs. Offering the workers a way out would undermine that.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[currently_awake]

Owning the means of production sounds like collective ownership (Communism), and is likely to be as workable a solution (not). If your means of production is a factory that needs 500 men to run, you can't own the whole thing- it must be divided up. Meaning a Collective(Communism) or Corporation(Capitalism).

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"If people actually looked and made 1/3/5/10 year plans, like companies do"

There are two *slight* differences between people and corporations:
1) the former come with a date of expiry.
2) the former lives a life.

I really don't expect you see either the difference or the importance of those two facts since you say in a seemingly straight face things like "I can afford the interest-rate of 3% on this house" - Well, spread this out over time and see what those 3% could have become if invested properly. 3% on a $300k house/flat is $9000 per year.. 10 years == almost 30% of what the house price was." but I promise, the difference is important and it is there.

Oh, and by the way, it's been ages since companies doesn't really plan 3/5/10 years in advance, much less publicly traded ones: that's part of the problem.

"people always seem to want to complain and fail to realize that they can affect their lives in a big way with minor effort.. it just takes a bit of time..."

Yes. My own calculations demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that I could be economically affluent if only I lived like an hermit till a mere 50 years after my life expectancy date.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"What's going on in the U.S. is socialism for the rich (and since corporations are people, they're rich) and capitalism for everybody else."

No. What happens in USA is that it is *so* capitalist that the rich have been able to buy even their own government.

"Adam Smith would not agree that what Hertz is doing is capitalism."

I read "The Wealth of Nations" from cover to cover (more than once) and I think Adam Smith would very much agree on what's happening in USA (and most of the world) is basically an unavoidable outcome of capitalism. But just to know your position: do you think Adam Smith was a proponent of capitalism as a way to produce an enhanced society? I can say, after my readings of the wealth of nations that I don't think so.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

So purely out of self interest, those who don't own it should stamp out Capitalism by any means necessary.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

Obama? A man so powerful he took office in 2009 but reached back through time to bail the banks out in 2008?

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

That's why he said once the books are puffed up it's last call for the insiders to get out. That is, stick someone else with the toxic waste.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

Adam Smith would not agree with Hertz existing.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

And? This is capitalism in action, mate!

The wise guys said something very similar when they whacked someone.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[cthulhu11]

30k/year has meaning only in the context of local cost of living. $1k/year isn't poverty in a country / city where that buys you a big house and bare-breasted servants.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[alexgieg]

All individuals have one inbuilt source of "income", so to speak: their ability to Labor. Labor alone is weak however, because for it to result in wealth production one also needs several means with which to convert one's labor into that wealth. Now, the so called "means of production", a.k.a. Capital (both terms are roughly synonymous) can be possessed by individuals and/or by collectivities in these ways:

a) Some individuals own Capital, most individuals don't. The first are fully free to set contracts between themselves. The later sell their Labor to the former and rarely, if ever, ascend to become themselves Capital owners.

a1) If the owners of Capital reached that position by means of negotiation, such as by purchasing the Capital of those who thus ended up without (and now have only their Labor), this is called Capitalism.

a2) If the owners of Capital reached that position by means of politics, such as by confiscating the Capital of those who thus ended up without (and now have only their Labor), this is called Communism.

a3) If it's a mid-term situation between the above two, this is called Socialism.

b) All or almost all individuals own Capital. No one loses their Capital to another so as to be reduced to the status of mere Laborer. All individuals are fully free to set contracts between themselves, and thus the wealth produced by every individual (meaning every possessor of Capital) is freely negotiated, up to and including by means of merging the wealth-producing ability of their individual Capitals so as to generate bigger activities no one alone would be able to do.

This system of distributed (not collective) ownership of Capital is called Distributism. In it, individuals combining their individual Capital into the equivalent of a Capitalist "corporation" is called a Guild, which has properties similar to that of Cooperatives, although with some differences not relevant here. Guilds can own big means of production, and Guild members all use those as a way to generate wealth. Guilds can contract with each other, but no guild has employees, as there is no employment as such in a Distributist society.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[Coren22]

They outsourced to IBM India apparently, so I am not sure why you would think they expected same continent support.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[lgw]

Oh, you get something of value either way. Political stability and drinkable water and so on has its price. $30k in most places will merely get you a relatively modern house (with the whole extended family packed in) with a couple of servants (not bare-breasted unless your mother, who lives with you, approves).

$1K/year won't get you anything nice anywhere.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"If it's a "Free market", I assume they *paid* for the sherriff service"

A Free Market is where you pay what it costs. If they don't have to pay, Free Market means not to pay. Paying when there's no obligation to pay is welfare, not free market.

"did they externalize the cost to the local taxpayer?"

Or was the local taxpayers by means of their local elections the ones that decided who were to pay what?

You might replay something like "Oh! but the big corp bought his way so they ended up paying little or no taxes!" See? Free Market in action again.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[turbidostato]

"So purely out of self interest, those who don't own it should stamp out Capitalism by any means necessary."

Seems quite a logical conclusion.

But beware the law of unintended consequences!

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[sjames]

At the same time, it suggests that the have would do well to make sure their self interest is enlightened if they don't want to be stamped out.

Re:Outsource to IBM?

[EndlessNameless]

Both communism and socialism purport to "share" the capital among all citizens. Supposedly, the political or social institutions allow all members of society to have a say in how the capital is used.

What mechanism does distributism have to enforce this? Historic implementations of socialism and communism have lacked such mechanisms and thus have been plagued by corruption, oligarchy, or outright dictatorship.

If subsidiarity is supposed to serve this function, then what of the economies of scale that are available to massive corporations? Independent workers and smaller groups often cannot create the same output that is possible through a large-scale coordinated effort. Is the reduced efficiency implied by strict subsidiarity required, or is there another mechanism to ensure that power is not consolidated and subsequently used to control the capital?

H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

There was a paper filed for H-1B? More domestic employees being replaced by a program that is only supposed to be used if there are no domestic employees available?

Re:H-1B?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump said he uses H1-B because it's there and he shouldn't be allowed to.

Whether or not we like Trump, I think we all agree that it shouldn't be there and Trump shouldn't be allowed to use it. How about we replace Congress with H1-B's, considering the quality of applicants to Congress, there obviously aren't capable Americans to work there.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

If Trump were willing to take a stand, he wouldn't use H-1B, period. Saying you do it but shouldn't be able to is just a ploy to get support from weak minded voters without really having to make a sacrifice at all.

Re:H-1B?

[m00sh]

There was a paper filed for H-1B? More domestic employees being replaced by a program that is only supposed to be used if there are no domestic employees available?

The article refers to this. http://www.myvisajobs.com/H1B-Visa/SearchLCA.aspx?Y=2015&E=ibm&O1=Employer&O2=JobTitle

Out of the 25 LCA petitions, 1 has been withdrawn. About12 of them are in IT. There rest seem to be in immigration case management and a bunch of ones that started last year.

I can't tell if all the 24 are for the Hertz building.

There is a chance that the new H1Bs are for projects that they could not find local talent for. Obviously, the petitions are fewer than the jobs outsourced to IBM.

It is required by law that all the H1B job requirements and salary be posted on the company common room. Any US worker who feels they have been replaced can walk in and demand a job currently held by an H1B if he/she meets the job requirements.

Re:H-1B?

[KingBozo]

You really missed the loophole. If they were to directly replace them with H1-B that would be illegal. But they contracted a third party to now do the IT work, so those positions no longer exist, and the company gets away with it. Since Hertz is not hiring for those positions.

This is the main problem with H1-B is that there is this large loophole they can all run through.

Re:H-1B?

[FlyHelicopters]

Don't be silly, he is playing the game by the rules that exist.

That is like suggesting that he should pay more taxes than he has to, just because he is rich. That is not logical or sensible.

If he doesn't use H-1Bs, then his competition will. He is playing the game. Don't like the rules, change them. But don't hate the player for following the rules.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

This is why I don't trust business people. They too easily throw their hands up and claim they are helpless slaves to the rules, and it is complete bullshit. Yes, standing up for what you believe in may eat some profits here and there but there is a great difference between complete inaction and going bankrupt. To change things, sometimes the people who have the most to lose have to go against the grain. I run a business myself, and I am trying like hell to use local resources. Yes it's hard on the bottom line and I have to be more creative and do more work to keep by business growing, but at the end of the day I can tell my kids that I did everything I could to help the local economy and ensure they had some quality of living left for their adulthood. I'm just thankful Rosa Parks didn't think like a business person.

Re:H-1B?

[superwiz]

except the laid off workers work in a different company than the one which supplies the H1B slaves. since no one has ever been charged with fraud for doing this shit, they are now brazing engaging in conspiracy to commit fraud to break intent of the law as it was written.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

I'm aware of the loophole, and it has been abused for far too long. Outsourcing companies shouldn't be able to request H1-B at all. Their whole purpose in the system is to fill gaps, and they shouldn't be taking contracts if they don't already have the manpower available to fill those positions.

Re:H-1B?

[superwiz]

umm... you say "loophole", i say "conspiracy" to commit fraud. if only we had a forum to decide which is which. maybe with someone who knows the law presiding over some folks trying to make sense of what's happening. too bad we don't have anything like that. You know that this is exactly why RICO statutes were created. So that the upper management which coordinates an activity each part of which might be legal, but which is illegal when considered in its entirety would be criminal and would mean jail time for those at the top.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

Well that's fairly obvious. I never said he should have my morals, I just said if he did he would be operating differently.

Re:H-1B?

[slashping]

Their whole purpose in the system is to fill gaps

No, the purpose is to make some people richer.

Re:H-1B?

[m00sh]

You really missed the loophole. If they were to directly replace them with H1-B that would be illegal. But they contracted a third party to now do the IT work, so those positions no longer exist, and the company gets away with it. Since Hertz is not hiring for those positions.

This is the main problem with H1-B is that there is this large loophole they can all run through.

No, it's not a loophole. You're mistaken.

Even if the position was eliminated, a qualified applicant can still take the job of an H1B away by applying to the similar job that was created in place. All the information of what the H1B does and how much he makes is public.

The real reason that the third party thing exists because H1B has such a bad name that companies don't want to hire H1Bs and have them show up websites and government databases, and also have to deal with super-convoluted, super-expensive immigration policies.

Most companies have a strict no H1B sponsorship policy. But, when hiring a third party consultant, it doesn't matter if the consultant is H1B or not.

Re:H-1B?

[FlyHelicopters]

Ok, but your post said (or implied) that Trump was wrong for doing what he does, that if he really cared he would stop regardless.

I like to think Trump does care, but he also plays with the rules as they are.

It is not an impossible position to both take advantage of the rules while thinking they are unfair or wrong. I do the same thing. I own my own business and I pay far less in taxes as a percentage of my income than a wage earner does, due to the tax laws. Is that fair? No. But I'm not going to stop until the rules are changed.

I would support the rules being changed, while using them while they exist. I have no problem with this viewpoint either.

---

Side note: I can see *some* benefit to the H-1B program, but I also see a crap ton of abuse. It might be worth taking a year off from the program and rebuilding it, because clearly it has problems. I would agree that what gets posted about H-1B visas here is generally wrong (such as the Disney thing) and should not be allowed).

Re:H-1B?

[currently_awake]

Disney directly replaced their IT staff with H1B workers and nothing happened to them.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

I don't accept that your example of paying more taxes relates to the topic at hand. I wouldn't trouble myself to pay more taxes either. Taxes have a deeply entrenched system and I wouldn't expect anyone to try to throw a wrench in that system no matter what their morals are. You're likely to pay even more than if you would if the laws did match your morals. In the absence of a realistic solution that coincides with my beliefs I would just go with what the accountants tell me I should do.

On the other hand, we are talking about making an active decision about whether to hire local people or whether to hire foreigners. You have to hire someone, so it is up to you which way you go. Trump made the decision to hire foreigners, so he has already shown us how he feels about the matter. If you're going to talk the talk you have to walk the walk. Even if he is honestly regretful that he could not stand by his morals on the matter (which I highly doubt), he is basically saying he will sell out on his morals, leaving me with no reason to believe he wouldn't do the same after I voted for him.

Re:H-1B?

[fluffernutter]

Why should I care about that? What I care about is living in a peaceful society, where my kids can grow up and have a happy life and without fear of uprising, violent protests or civil war. I don't see how that is to happen on the current path.

The end of Hertz?

[Futurepower(R)]

Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?

I'm guessing that the CEO of Hertz has no technical knowledge, and no interest in knowing anything about technology. So, to him, someone who supports Hertz technology is just a rent-a-car, just an appliance. Don't think! Get the cheapest!

I doubt he understands the long-term social and technical effects. It seems that his actions make Hertz a place of hurts.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[westlake]

Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?

Nah. You rent a car rather than hire a taxi because you are going to making many stops along the along while putting some serious mileage on the thing.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[middlemen]

After sitting in a car from Hertz my butt hertz!

Re:The end of Hertz?

[mjwx]

Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?

Nah. You rent a car rather than hire a taxi because you are going to making many stops along the along while putting some serious mileage on the thing.

Plenty of alternatives to Hertz though.

I've never used them because they were always the most expensive option. Keeping all your good deals for "members only" means that non members go to your competition. Last time I was in LA, I got upgraded from a base model compact to a 4 series for $22 just by asking nicely.

That being said, I find it hilarious that people would suggest using Uber because Hertz is scummy. Uber has pretty much become the king of scummy companies.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[thegarbz]

Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?

Different markets, different purposes. Hertz will survive for a long time yet as a corporate preferred vendor for many international companies who need travel arrangements. Hell I certainly wouldn't chose them if someone else weren't paying for it. The desk next to any Hertz at an airport can usually give you a better price.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[Solandri]

IT suffers from the same problem as engineering. When you do your job right, nothing happens. When you do your job wrong, the world implodes and costs your company millions, and the fault can be traced back directly to you.

Contrast this with, say, sales. When you do your job right, a new contract is signed and the company gets millions in additional revenue which can be attributed directly to you. When you do your job wrong, nothing happens.

I've been trying to come up with some sort of algorithm which corrects for this, and correctly quantifies a worker's contribution regardless of how easy or difficult it is to see. Without such a correction, you tend to see the former type of employees as less productive than they really are, and the latter type as more productive than they really are. (I leave management out because that's mostly take credit when those under you do stuff right, blame those under you when they do stuff wrong. To correct that, you need to get feedback from the people they're managing.)

(Another more complicated example is HR. While it seems like their good or bad hiring decisions can be attributed back to them, that's not actually true. Only half of their decisions can be attributed back to them. If they fail to hire a great applicant or decline to hire a terrible applicant, nothing happens and they get no blame/credit for it. Your "stellar" hiring manager who's hired some of your best employees may in fact be costing you money because he's using irrelevant criteria to thin out the applicant stack to reduce his workload, resulting in him turning away other skilled applicants who might've been even better employees.)

Re:The end of Hertz?

[AJWM]

More like use Enterprise or Budget. Certainly they seem a much better deal for personal rentals (like when my own car is in the shop, or I'm flying somewhere). Hertz is typically the most expensive, I'll only go with them if somebody else is booking the car and paying for it (eg company travel).

It's not like the cars are really any different from one rental company to the next.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[bytesex]

People in sales are usually held to targets. Don't make your target = no bonus. Don't make your target twice = get packing.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[whoever57]

The last time I rented from Hertz, I felt ripped-off.

Ripoff 1: I asked for an extra driver. They added the driver without telling me that there would be a charge for this.

Ripoff 2: Despite the fact that I declined the navigation system, they billed me for it. I did get this removed from the bill, but I should not have had to waste my time doing this.

I always thought that Hertz was more expensive but provided better service. Now I know that it's just more expensive.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[KingBozo]

I have seen sales people raked over the coals, when that happens in the company I work for concessions are given to the customer and the sales team that sold that gets to deal with the loss in revenue because of their mistake, it comes out of the district budget and is applied against the sales person, second time they have to deal with concessions bye bye.

Very few companies are like that but I do enjoy working for the company that is ethical and proud of it.

Re:The end of Hertz?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Maybe use Uber or Lyft instead of renting a Hertz car?

So to protest at questionable treatment of staff by Hertz, you're recommending people should boycott them in favour of Uber?!

Too big to jail. Once again.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It has always been like this. Steal 100$ from a grocery store, you get 10 years in jail. They bank steals 100K from the grocery store by collusion with ATM networks to convert 25 cent transaction fee debit cards to 2% transaction fee creditcards, they walk away scot free!

Company A fires one IT worker and hire a H1B, it is illegal. And the company can be prosecuted. Company fires *all* its workers and outsources the department to Company B, it is legal business decision.

Corporations are people! But all it takes is some 100$ filing fee and you have a brand new people with all the rights and privileges from freedom of thought, expression and religion. It is nearly impossible for an real Indian people to get work permit to work in the USA. All that H1B lottery and paper work, and work permits... But it takes no effort for a corporate Indian people to work in the USA!

So company A creates a not-really-companyA in India and brings real Indian people employed by corporate Indian people to serve corporate American people. Real American people get royally screwed. Real Indian people get some bones. Corporate Indian people get a huge slice of the pie because the profits are parked abroad to skirt taxes. Corporate American people get a slice just big enough to pay the CEOs and the cronies large bonuses and pay.

OK, OK go ahead and vote for more tax cuts for the rich, to vote for more abortion restrictions, vote for unlimited mining on public lands, vote to relax envrionmental laws, and then sit in a corner and wonder why the American government always screws you.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[Billly Gates]

It has always been like this. Steal 100$ from a grocery store, you get 10 years in jail. They bank steals 100K from the grocery store by collusion with ATM networks to convert 25 cent transaction fee debit cards to 2% transaction fee creditcards, they walk away scot free!

Company A fires one IT worker and hire a H1B, it is illegal. And the company can be prosecuted. Company fires *all* its workers and outsources the department to Company B, it is legal business decision.

Corporations are people! But all it takes is some 100$ filing fee and you have a brand new people with all the rights and privileges from freedom of thought, expression and religion. It is nearly impossible for an real Indian people to get work permit to work in the USA. All that H1B lottery and paper work, and work permits... But it takes no effort for a corporate Indian people to work in the USA!

So company A creates a not-really-companyA in India and brings real Indian people employed by corporate Indian people to serve corporate American people. Real American people get royally screwed. Real Indian people get some bones. Corporate Indian people get a huge slice of the pie because the profits are parked abroad to skirt taxes. Corporate American people get a slice just big enough to pay the CEOs and the cronies large bonuses and pay.

OK, OK go ahead and vote for more tax cuts for the rich, to vote for more abortion restrictions, vote for unlimited mining on public lands, vote to relax envrionmental laws, and then sit in a corner and wonder why the American government always screws you.

Donald Trump supports a 40% tax on all H1B1 jobs and is a Republican. Just giving a heads up as he is the only one I see who actually cares?! His other stuff ... sigh. Yeah that is a problem. But in his plan for a doctor or senior consulting architect the corps still get them from India. But as a cost cutting measure? Hertz would fine it cheaper to keep their employees. True some could still be managed in India but you need physical people there still

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[Sarten-X]

You're right about one thing... It has always been like this.

It has always been the case that when you strip away all nuance and context, and reduce a complex situation down to a one-sentence slogan, any difference seems unfair.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump supports a 40% tax on all H1B1 jobs and is a Republican. Just giving a heads up as he is the only one I see who actually cares?! His other stuff ... sigh. Yeah that is a problem. But in his plan for a doctor or senior consulting architect the corps still get them from India. But as a cost cutting measure? Hertz would fine it cheaper to keep their employees. True some could still be managed in India but you need physical people there still

I recall Donald Trump flip flopping on that too. h1b Donald Trump stands for whatever will get him elected. Cruz is similar. They acted like friends until Cruz figured out that his strategy of waiting for Trump to implode so he could get Trump's former supporters. Kasich seems the most consistent of those left.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[fluffernutter]

Trump is a businessman through and through. Right now he is saying whatever America wants to hear because winning is good for his business. Once elected, he will continue to do what is good for business, which means forgetting he made a lot of these promises in the first place. As incredible as it sounds, personal integrity still means a bit more in politics than it does in business.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[Streetlight]

Any such tax would need to be established through Congressional action. That's not going to happen if the Congress is run by Republican majority. Also, what Trump says now will not be what Trump does. Gee, that sounds like a political slogan.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[Sir Holo]

Trump is a businessman through and through...

More of a salesman.

He was born rich, and hasn't actually done well in increasing his personal wealth. He just buys big to show off. Any actual increase in wealth, or prevention of decrease, would be due to a wealth management team who handles his actual investments.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[BradleyUffner]

Not ALL of them. We have the chance, this year, to elect what may be the one honest politician of our lifetimes. Don't let that opportunity go to waste.

Re:Too big to jail. Once again.

[fluffernutter]

At least most politicians are somewhat concerned about getting re-elected. It is quite obvious to me that Trump will help himself in the first term and then merely hope for the best in the second.

Couldn't find any local IT workers

[Billly Gates]

It sucks it had 0 IT workers at all who were qualified and could do the job whatsoever. Man we need more h1b1 ASAP!

After all it is illegal to use it as a cost cutting measure right?

Re:Couldn't find any local IT workers

[fluffernutter]

It is about current IT workers being able to do the job. H-1B is only intended to fill positions that cannot be filled. Not positions that cannot be filled cheap enough to suit the employer.

Re:Couldn't find any local IT workers

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't stop economic forces like that any more than you can stop the tide from coming in by passing a law against that.

Actually, you can stop economic forces like that. The next time executives of a company outsource people like that, shoot the executives. Future executives will factor that non-economic factor into their decision-making process quite rapidly.

Ever wonder why seemingly nice, peaceful countries devolve into harsh, authoritarian hellholes? Well, you're watching it in real time.

Re:Couldn't find any local IT workers

[superwiz]

legal vs illegal only matters if "illegal" ends you in jail. i know of no cases of any manager going to jail for filing fraudulent H1B paperwork. why would you expect a conspiracy (legal term for crime committed in concert my multiple cooperating actors) to commit fraud and acts of human trafficking to get prosecuted?

Outsourcing danger

[Z00L00K]

Maybe Hertz didn't consider the dangers of outsourcing completely. It's usually ending up in a situation where things takes longer to perform and becomes a lot more expensive.

If employees are working IT then they also fix stuff that aren't on a trouble ticket but just on a passing event. When it's outsourced everything needs a trouble ticket.

I just wait for the day where someone in an organization has put in a dead mans grip that blows the data as soon as there's a hostile outsourcing. "If X hasn't logged in in 30 days then execute script ZZ that will run", and then have an encryption on the backup with no back-up of the key.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[Billly Gates]

Maybe Hertz didn't consider the dangers of outsourcing completely. It's usually ending up in a situation where things takes longer to perform and becomes a lot more expensive.

If employees are working IT then they also fix stuff that aren't on a trouble ticket but just on a passing event. When it's outsourced everything needs a trouble ticket.

I just wait for the day where someone in an organization has put in a dead mans grip that blows the data as soon as there's a hostile outsourcing. "If X hasn't logged in in 30 days then execute script ZZ that will run", and then have an encryption on the backup with no back-up of the key.

They won't care. They got their bonuses for being so smart and eliminating that nasty cost center who provides no business value at the end of the day. Who cares about the company

Re:Outsourcing danger

[orasio]

I do work for an outsourcing company, won't say which, but your I don't think you comments about dangers of outsourcing quality are accurate right now.

Not IBM, but some outsourcing companies have learned to provide very good quality services, and do anything, from providing more staff, to taking over all IT from a company.

I wouldn't outsource my core business IT if I were a CIO/CEO, but I know why old fashioned companies would do it. You may pay less, but you can at the same time get way better results. Outsourcing companies scale up and down a lot more easily, they bring experience from other industries, you get some free consulting, and you even get to "fire" employees for any reason, no question asked, no sheriffs to call.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter what Hertz thinks. I've seen this movie before. It ends when workers actually get shot by law enforcement or private security forces by daring to not like it when they have careers ended just because some dumbass in management has a stupid idea. The problem is that IT types tend to be special libertarian snowflakes who think their massive skills and personal bargaining power is all they need--until it isn't. You've all bought into the no worker protections of any kind conservative and libertarian propaganda, and this is what happens when you do that.

Now, just as in the early 20th century, reversing that is going to turn bloody and it didn't have to if working people would stop voting and acting against their own interests. I just don't see how this abuse of people who just want to do their jobs ends any other way now.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[MrLogic17]

>but some outsourcing companies have learned to provide very good quality services,

Now *that's* funny.
I have never seen, nor have I ever heard of an outsourcing project that resulted in anything but plummeting satisfaction, vastly slower service, and greatly increased costs.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[bgalbrecht]

My employer outsourced about 200 people to IBM Global Services about 5 years ago, hiring maybe 30 of them to stay for 2-4 years. About 6 months into the program, he had the gall to stand up at an IT wide meeting and admit that they "didn't get the A-team, they didn't even get the B or C-team, but he would fix it". Two years later, he was gone. We still have IBM and Cognizant at our shop, and they're still not the A-team. Don't get me wrong, some of them are excellent, and most of them are the on-shore team, the off-shore team is always hit-or-miss. I only know of one personal that we've ever managed to "fire" for cluelessness, most of them disappear because they got a better job across the street back in India. The Cognizant folks actually have tried to bring in some modern practices, unlike the IBM group, who couldn't even be bothered to learn to use a newer version of an IBM product (with practically zero differences). When either company brought in "experts" in technologies we are using, they never knew more than our own people did, and often less.

Maybe it's our contracts, but I know of plenty of cases where we've asked for statement of work to do stuff, and the internal folks report that something that ought to take a couple of hours gets padded out to several weeks. If I were a CIO, I'd build my own internal contractor pool before outsourcing to India. With an internal pool, there's more stability and accountability, and you can salt it with people from your company who actually understand the business.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[Skuld-Chan]

I worked for an outsourcing company - we were trained to be dicks to everyone essentially because the way the company wrote the contracts for phone calls (like $35 dollars a call, and a penalty if the call went over 14 minutes) - and similar shady tactics.

I work for the government now, and support desk calls are do whatever it takes to solve the issue period end of story - even if it takes all day.

At the outsourcing company it was do whatever it takes to get them to go away - I really saw some horrible things done to customers who genuinely needed help.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[wintermute000]

Of course outsourcing companies can provide very good quality services. For that to happen, you need to pay a lot of money and throw a lot of resources at it, not least of all having a well run governance framework on both sides of the fence. Oh wait, I'm spending the same amount of money, just happens to be on a cheque to the outsourcer instead of payrolls.

Re:Outsourcing danger

[orasio]

Well, that's the thing. If you work for an outsourcing company, they get to fire you on a whim, but you don't get to care, and you can leave some clients yourself, without big harm for you, if you manage your timing. If your project is scrapped, you just go to the bench for a couple of weeks, and then go to a different project, maybe for a different client. In my job, I got "laid off" at least once, only to go back to the same client after a month. I also managed to leave assignments I just didn't like, without having to take drastic measures like change jobs. If they paid a bit more, I could keep doing this for a long time.

Definition

[Futurepower(R)]

That messy German language! Worse even than English!

noun: Gleichschaltung -- The standardization of political, economic, and social institutions as carried out in authoritarian states.

In B4 the union blaming

[PopeRatzo]

Just so you all know, Oklahoma is a "right to work" state, having implemented such laws in 2001 via a constitutional amendment.

And, it's fucking Oklahoma you know? I'm surprised that there are actually any people still living there. The fact that Hertz would have their headquarters in Oklahoma is proof that they don't care about their employees.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[Billly Gates]

Even California is right to work and majority of all states. If we have Cruz as our next president it will be law of the whole land soon as part of a minimum wage increase bill probably.

Corporations will cut whenever and whomever at will and all levels of government brown nose their asses because they bring in jobs and tax revenue or sometimes no tax revenue at all as a favor. That is just how it works regardless of where a company is located.

Since when did government represent the people?

You can't stop them. Trump is the only candidate who wants to address it with a tax so only senior architects and engineers and doctors get to take American jobs with a 40% tax. All the other candidates are in the pockets of big business who hate IT and view us as cost centers who get in the way of bonuses

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[PopeRatzo]

Even California is right to work

No it isn't.

and majority of all states.

Only as of a couple of weeks ago, when West Virginia because the 26th right-to-work state. So it's pretty evenly divided.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[Z00L00K]

The Hertz action is actually good marketing for the unions regardless of the law.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[Lumpy]

You seem to not know anything about it.

only 26 states are right to work and California is not. California is actually one of the most worker friendly states as no compete clauses are 100% toilet paper in that state and you do not have to abide by them in any way.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[Second_Derivative]

At-will. The law you're looking for is at-will, and that's the one the vast majority of states in the union have on the books. Far fewer states are right-to-work states.

Right-to-work means you cannot be required to join a union as a condition of employment.

At-will employment means that the employer or employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[superwiz]

what's right to work have to do with it? unions can't solve this. this is already illegal. the managers conspiring are not going to jail, so why would unions make any difference? they are laying off EVERYONE at hertz... not some IT works. EVERYONE. even if they were all unionized, it wouldn't matter. a strike would have no effect.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[PopeRatzo]

the managers conspiring are not going to jail, so why would unions make any difference?

When unions were ubiquitous, there was no place for companies like Hertz to hide. If the electricians struck a company in Chicago, the teamsters would strike them in Pennsylvania. And so on.

Globalization and the concerted union-busting efforts have left American workers to dangle.

Re:In B4 the union blaming

[superwiz]

yeah, and when laws were enforced, the sheriffs were not in the business of protecting criminals from their victims... well some were. but they risked going to jail themselves. maybe those workers should think about that when they vote for a sheriff or mayor next time. i would argue that this is what happens when we are governed by popular demand instead of the rule of law. the h1b abuses are rampant and ubiquitous and no one even thinks of putting anyone in jail for them. these are managers of major corporations who conspired to lie to immigration officials in order to enable human trafficking. and no criminal charges are even considered. no criminal investigation has been conducted. no grand jury has ever been convened on such charges. all we care about is who gets elected. but what difference does it make if they dont follow the mandates of the offices to which they are elected?

Re:If they actually cared about the safety

[Locke2005]

No, if you're going to screw IT workers, you cut off their computer access suddenly and without warning, then have them escorted out of the building before they can damage or release any of the data they have access to, or even worse, change the admin passwords. Yes, real dickish behavior, but if you had a fiduciary responsibility to protect the shareholders, not the employees, you'd do the same thing.

Choices have consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

As a result of this move I have begun the process of severing our business relationship with Hertz. We do over $300,000 of business annually with them, or at least we did. I will make it very clear why we are terminating our relationship. Hopefully other companies will do the same.

Free market

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't get why you guys are so upset? Are you all communists or something? The market always gets the optimal solution, and this is just the market at work.

Re:Free market

[fluffernutter]

People don't like when the 4th of July respect your nation lines they feed us end up to be nothing but empty lines and promises. The thought that our war veterans fought to give us a certain way of life that is to be respected. Nothing to respect about the nation any more. War vets fought for a nation that has merely been hollowed out to fill with the values of other countries. Why should people even trouble themselves to stand for the national anthem?

Routine except for the one thing...

[rbrander]

...that comment about "work/life balance" sacrificed. There was a great article recently about how one-sided the employee/corporate relationship really is. One side of the relationship has emotions; the other's basically a machine, a mechanism devised by stockholders to increase their investment - when it screws up and has an emotion because one of the parts (your boss) has one, that is corrected ASAP. So it's this relationship between human and machine that *cannot* give anything back, emotionally.
On the human side, people have the emotion of pride; virtually everybody is proud of their "work ethic" and most people describe themselves as "giving 100%" or "giving 110%", that extra ten percent coming out of your personal life, the time you owe to family, friends, and yourself. You have emotions where people become attached to "the team" and don't want to "let down the side" and again, make personal sacrifices not compensated for by pay, because it "just feels good" to help out a team member with a sick kid or de-stress your boss at "crunch time".
NONE of this spirit of teamwork and sacrifice applies to the other side of the relationship. All those emotional, devoted-to-work, sacrificing employees are sacrificed for in turn when their utility falls below zero.
It all represents an ongoing wage theft, in effect: employers routinely profit from the emotional investment, pride, and devotion of employees but don't return it, the way that somebody sacrificing for a primitive tribe would be taken care of in turn by that tribe if they fell sick. Smaller businesses run by owners can react like a normal human group, with a two-way emotional bond. But a modern corporation with absentee owners and professional managers is just a machine that automatically wins these situations because it is never there for the employees that were there for it.

Re:Routine except for the one thing...

[snadrus]

Yes, one-way relationships are bad: personal, business, etc.

As many 20-somethings tell me: Never work for a place where your boss cannot influence the company's direction.

The whole "corporations should not be people" effort isn't enough. We need laws that are pro-small-business (America's real corporate tax base), and anti-big-business.

Re:Routine except for the one thing...

[Sir Holo]

...that comment about "work/life balance" sacrificed. There was a great article recently about how one-sided the employee/corporate relationship really is. One side of the relationship has emotions; the others' basically a machine, a mechanism devised by stockholders to increase their investment - when it screws up and has an emotion because one of the parts (your boss) has one, that is corrected ASAP. ... ...
NONE of this spirit of teamwork and sacrifice applies to the other side of the relationship. All those emotional, devoted-to-work, sacrificing employees are sacrificed for in turn when their utility falls below zero.

Just don't mention this sentiment to your boss when s/he uses it to twist your arm into giving up a weekend.

At least, unless you have an offer in your back pocket.

Actually, that would be a great way to depart from a bad boss – if you could time it right. Better yet, do it in a meeting where such BS is thrown at you. Raise the issue right there and then, in front of all of your co-workers. Don't let him defer the conversation. That will really embarrass the boss, and perhaps get him incensed and emotional, so that he turns out making a scene, thereby more clearly being the bad guy, and planting some seeds in the minds of your co-workers. Continue to engage the boss. Don't drop the topic, but keep it live for as long as you can without getting yourself to insubordination—Be only factual and unemotional. Mention compensation for extra work. Co-workers will all look down at the table during such a scene, but they will be listening. Intently.

Entering fantasy territory: Carefully remember everything the boss says, noting if any threats or outside-of-contract demands are made. Once the exchange is halted by thee boss, or is just about to be halted by the boss, announce your departure, using the boss's words in your preamble sentence before quitting.

And if the boss did break any laws or corporate rules, be sure to document them immediately after, and make sure that HR and three levels in that boss's management chain also receive the letter (add legal if you don't plan to sue—legal will certainly take internal action). If anyone does take action, it will include private interviews by every co-worker that was preasant. This will provide them opportunities to privately convey anything they might want to say. At the least, the boss will be punished – not for breaking rules – but for pushing so hard that someone publicly quits.

One can dream...

Re:Routine except for the one thing...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

This is supposed to be the difference between employees and freelancers.

As an employee, you are essentially paid for your working hours. It's up to the employer to generate the most value from the time you give them, and they get to keep the rewards if they do well but they have to eat the loss and still pay your salary if it doesn't work out. Your time outside work is your own, as long as it doesn't interfere with your ability to do your job properly.

As a freelancer, you are essentially paid for results. Typically your contract can be terminated without notice, and you may well change positions as frequently as every few months even if you do outstanding work every time. You won't enjoy the perks or job security of an employee, and you may well be engaged to clean up the mess that the permies didn't want to touch any more. You may need to put in extra hours to get the job done on the agreed schedule. But, you effectively negotiate your terms and compensation business-to-business, and up to a point you can price according to the value you can generate, more so the better you are at the job and the fewer other people could generate that same value for your client. If you aren't generating results, you can and will get terminated, but if you are generating good results and your client's management team know it, you can command fees to match.

I don't understand the jobs market in the US. It seems that salaried staff in technical positions frequently accept negligible job security, particularly where "at will" employment applies, and very little paid time off compared to almost everywhere else in the world. And yet those same people are still giving up unpaid overtime, covering the gaps, working the deathmarch shift before the deadline, and generally suffering a poor work/life balance.

The only explanation I can think of is that in IT industries the US workers are at least paid salaries much higher than they'd get in most other places, so it's almost like much of the IT industry in the US is being paid what most of the western world would consider freelance rates anyway. Maybe there is now sufficient international freedom of movement for workers that this evens the balance up somehow. But I still don't get how accepting the IT workforce collectively seems to be over there, particularly when it's still an employee's market in most places. I would have expected market forces to drive more favourable employment terms for decent to high-end staff by now.

Re:Routine except for the one thing...

[Sir Holo]

I would not recommend doing anything in this post.

...

1. Talk to your boss privately, one-on-one. Not via email, not via text. Face to face. Tell them that you are unhappy with the situation.

The company DOES NOT CARE that your boss is pulling shit like demanding you to work 80 hours a week. The company DOES NOT CARE. . .

You missed my point. The company DOES NOT CARE about you (We agree). Make your departure an economic fuck-up by your 'bad boss' for not retaining talent—That might get your old boss into trouble. It will at least cause him stress.

And the one-on-one conversation thing. Yeah, I've tried that. They will say anything, knowing that it is not on-the-record. And they will hate you for taking up their time bringing up facts like the CPI relative to your puny "raise". In a verbal meeting, they will try any means possible to get you to say something that is by appearance, incriminating.

Last, that one-on-one meeting, is something that they will never let happen. There will always be another manager, a secretary, anyone who can be a willing (false) 'witness' to statements that you did not make. Verbal discussions are just asking for the deck to be stacked against you.

Re:Routine except for the one thing...

[Sir Holo]

Oh, I forgot to mention, your REFERENCES are past customers.

A former 'Bad Boss' will never provide you with a recommendation. If they flout the accepted rules of common decency, then why shouldn't you?*

* With regard to the bad boss. Retain your integrity.

The Law's changed

[rsilvergun]

they no longer need to show there are no qualified Americans. The law was very quietly changed to allow them to replace American workers. Vote Left. Bernie Sanders, hell Trump if you have to (better than Cruz/Rubio, at least he talks about the issue). Join a Union if you can find one. If you think they're not coming for you your wrong. Only a matter of time.

Re:The Law's changed

[Sir Holo]

they no longer need to show there are no qualified Americans. The law was very quietly changed to allow them to replace American workers. ...

Can you provide a source for that?

I know the cap increased. What were the other changes?

I'd like to read the actual rule changes, or better an analysis of it by someone who is a Lawyer.

Work life balance

[Dunbal]

especially by employees who "sacrificed that work/life balance to keep things going here,"

That's why you never, ever do that - especially not for a salary. Let some other sucker work there and ruin his life.

[are expected]

[wonkey_monkey]

About 75 will be hired by IBM and those workers [are expected] to receive offers this week while others are facing layoffs

What's with the angle brackets? The whole sentence has been rewritten from the article (which says "IBM is hiring about 75 and those workers are expecting to receive offers today"), and in any case those words are attributed to the submitter, so why have two words been picked out for this special treatment?

Sometimes I think Slashdot just does things like this at random because it's seen the grown-up newspapers do it, but isn't quite sure why.

This is par for the course

[rsilvergun]

what's really fun is when the Sheriff is used to intimidate the employees into signing their rights away. I saw a lot of that when the outsourcing started and companies didn't want to pay unemployment. You'd be put in a room with two mean looking guys with guns and not allowed to leave until you signed a paper saying you voluntarily quit.

Said it before, say it again: Vote Left. Vote for the most left leaning candidate you can get your hands on. Bernie. Trump. Hilary if you have to ( not that she's Left, but she's not Cruz/Rubio/Jeb). Join a Union. Start a Union. Vote in your State elections.

Re:This is par for the course

[Sir Holo]

what's really fun is when the Sheriff is used to intimidate the employees into signing their rights away. I saw a lot of that when the outsourcing started and companies didn't want to pay unemployment. You'd be put in a room with two mean looking guys with guns and not allowed to leave until you signed a paper saying you voluntarily quit.

Said it before, say it again: Vote Left. Vote for the most left leaning candidate you can get your hands on. Bernie. Trump. Hilary if you have to ( not that she's Left, but she's not Cruz/Rubio/Jeb). Join a Union. Start a Union. Vote in your State elections.

That is a crime – kidnapping. You should have gone straight to the Police (to file a report, but don't expect them to do anything). Then lawyer-up.

Install your State ACLU's iPhone or Android app that records all audio (&/or video), but leaves the screen blank. These apps, if anyone tries to operate the phone, immediately upload the whole recording to ACLU servers for safe-keeping. keep it in your shirt-pocket to capture good audio – especially the audio where the goons tells you to turn your cell phone off. And where you protest the kidnapping. And warn them that if they try to operate the phone that the recording will automatical... Then lawyering-up will be much easier.

In some States, if they threaten to withhold your last paycheck or severance, it is a crime. In Illinois, it is a crime with 3x damages. I know. :-)

Re:This is par for the course

[bhiestand]

Said it before, say it again: Vote Left. Vote for the most left leaning candidate you can get your hands on. Bernie. Trump.

This Trump bullshit is getting so old. Trump is not on the side of the people. You think he has a history of treating his employees well? Building valuable businesses that provide stable employment and grow the economy? He doesn't. Trump is more likely to put darkies in labor camps and paint the White House gold. Trump stirs populist anger, but he is not a leftist. Hitler stirred populist anger too.

Bernie is the only candidate who has been consistent on this. Hillary will continue some limited welfare to prevent workers from starving, maybe even improve a thing or two while she makes other things worse. But yes, she is better than any GOP candidate. Every single one of them thinks workers should be sacrificed.

Only idiots sacrifice themselves for a company.

[Lumpy]

Your company has ZERO loyalty to you and will fuck you over if it will mean any increased profits.

If you have even a drop of loyalty to your company you are a fool. But then the american worker is generally too stupid to realize that most are getting fucked on pay to begin with and try to make up excuses for the company that they can't afford to pay honest wages while the CEO gets 8 figures yearly.

Re:Only idiots sacrifice themselves for a company.

[fluffernutter]

Loyal or not, Americans have to earn a paycheck from someone hiring in America. On the other hand, these corporations can pull workers from anywhere in the world they want.

A bit of math = a lot of critism

[wjcofkc]

300 in total affected. 75 staying on. So 225 x 4,000 = 900000

I would like to know what savings the company is expected to award themselves on a quarterly basis through outsourcing. If they are bothering to do it at all, if they are bothering to hurt (really no pun intended) so many people, I'm willing to bet that amount of money is equivalent to pissing and shitting all over those 225 people. $4,000 per person for "re-training or skill certification"? If your looking at investing that into a learning institution, $4,000 is laughable, only in a very sad way. If you have kids, a car payment (or two) and a mortgage, that won't last a month just to support your household, "training" aside. This isn't just corporate greed, it's corporate psychopathy. We really do need laws to ensure that laid off workers receive fair compensation. The training, with employee options on where, what, how to be trained should be paid for by the company within limitations. The actual severance should be much higher. I got laid off by a similar sized company ten or so years ago over the same outsourcing bullshit. They gave me three-months salary and continued my health insurance for six-months along with a whole lot of other people. I checked their financials a year later. They still made out like bandits.

Oh, and the best part? That's "up to" $4,000. I shutter at what that may actually mean.

Re:A bit of math = a lot of critism

[wjcofkc]

All my windows to hide from the scary world outside.

so....

[superwiz]

why is no one going to jail for this? If they filing H1B visa applications, they have to state that there no existing US workers who can perform these duties. If they are firing US workers to replace them with H1B visa holders, they are filing fraudulent forms with the Federal Government and they are doing so knowing and with forethought. Filing fraudulent immigration forms is still a criminal offense, isn't it? Working for a corporation only shields them from being sued and losing their property (corporation is liable while employees are not). But it's not a shield from criminal prosecution. And since this is multiple individuals working in concert to accomplish this fraud, it's, by legal definition, a conspiracy. So. Why. Is. No one. Going. To. Jail. For THIS? And since this is done in concert by multiple corporations, it requires prior agreement of those in charge. That means RICO applies. FFS, it's a god damn election year. Is every just coasting? This is the kinds of shit that politicians dream to find in order to make their careers. For every Hillary who takes their bribes, why isn't there some public defendant licking his chops to run for office (to cash by becoming corrupt down the line), but, for now solving an obvious issue that is so easy to use to stir up trouble? Is there really not enough hungry lawyers to pick this up?

Re:so....

[superwiz]

jesus, don't you watch any hbo reruns? it's line from "Dream On". You don't beat your wife during the election year.

Re:so....

[wjcofkc]

why is no one going to jail for this?

I could not agree with you more. This kind of bullshit is so familiar, I doubt there is a single American who would not agree. Take this back to the sub prime loan scandal... holy fucking are you kidding me shit.

The nation is being sold out by corporations and the government has their back. Are we truly helpless? I really don't know but it kinda looks that way. I need some Tylenol now...

Should buy the book

[AndyKron]

They can get up to $4,000 toward retraining or skill certification? That should at least buy the book.

H-1B workers

[Joe_Dragon]

the new H-1B workers will not know how the systems works and the us workers should just tell your own your own and tell there boss to fuck off.

Re:H-1B workers

[FlyHelicopters]

the new H-1B workers will not know how the systems works and the us workers should just tell your own your own and tell there boss to fuck off.

They can do that, but then they don't get severance.

Often the workers being replaced are paid several months pay in exchange for training their replacements.

Let me refrase

[Anonymous Coward]

"About 75 will be hired by IBM and those workers [are expected] to receive offers this week while others are facing layoffs."

Their new jobs will be training the new IBM India emploees, and after 3 to 6 months they will be also redundant.

Re:Godwin's Law

[Lead Butthead]

So it's too late to mention Adolf Hitler?

Just shows...

[Dcnjoe60]

Just shows that they new from the start that this was a controversial and unethical move they were making.

But, but, but....

[Dcnjoe60]

But, but, but, they're job creators! You can't tax, regulate or do anything because they are what's good for America.

Re:But, but, but....

[Dcnjoe60]

I'm not arguing that increasing taxes or changing regulations is the solution. I am simply pointing out the old mantra that you can't tax (or do anything) to business because they are the jobs creators is false. That is the formula for corporatism which is the politically correct term for fascism.

The reality is that it is the middle class that demands goods and services which creates jobs. Off-shoring middle class jobs actually has a negative impact to the economy (something Germany and Japan learned long ago). Importing workers because of a shortage artificially increases the supply of skilled workers, which depresses wages (again supply and demand) which discourages more from entering the field. Particularly in the Hertz case, where there is no shortage because they are actually laying off workers that are then replacing.

I do agree with your signature that guest worker programs create indentured servants. But it is better to be an indentured servant than an unemployed pauper.

Re:But, but, but....

[RabidReindeer]

You're arguing from a Self-Evident Truth.

Trickle-down Economics was considered a Self-Evident Truth by many for many years.

You might consider that rather than a binary tax/no-tax rule that it might be possible to plot a curve and determine where, for a given set of circumstances, a given tax rate might lead to a desired set of circumstances.

Or,, if it's too much trouble to shift out of binary/straight-line simplistic thinking, how it could be that businesses got along fine and employees were generally optimistic for decades under higher tax rates, tarrifs, duties and lower employee productivity. Now it seems that the only way to stay in business is to effectively move the business to another country and employees are fed up to the point that people like Trump and Sanders are serious contenders for the Presidency. And neither one of them has gotten their popularity from pushing the status quo in outsourcing.

Even were your "self-evident truths" absolutely and immutably true, you're dealing with the perversity of human nature here. Which means that if there's a way to derail these "truths", it will happen.

Re:The most amusing part?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they don't have any choice. Wanna face security muscle, computer kid? Hunh? Wanna get curbstomped? Yeah, thought so. Now get out of here before we decide to give you a brown swirlie and stick you heads-down into a trashcan.

Re:Godwin's Law

[Lead Butthead]

To be honest, I entirely unconcerned about Trump's ancestry but very concerned about the parallel between his rise and that of NSDAP in the last century.

Re:If they actually cared about the safety

[Anonymous Coward]

Why even bother having human resources and management if you aren't going to treat workers as people?

Back in the long-ago times, that department was called "Personnel", because it still treated employees a bit like people. They call it "Human Resources" now because they treat humans exactly like resources -- something to be owned, exploited, mined and/or stripped of all possible value. The instant another "resource" is more profitable, the current "resource" is abandoned and forgotten utterly, left to rot.

The good and the bad: Offshoring and SAP...

[Maxo-Texas]

This is a sad but true story...

A large food delivery company laid off most of their IT employees back in 2012. They went with Infosys as the main contractor in their conversion to SAP.

Now- the SAP had been going on with heart attack inducing, divorce causing hours for a few years at that point so my first advice is that if you are on an SAP conversion project with indian contractors there is a 95% chance you will be laid off AFTER doing a lot of crazy hard work. (Shell used the same exact plan just a year before to their IT employees). So if an SAP conversion starts and they have indian contractors, start training and getting certifications and leave as soon as you can. It will be much harder to find work when several hundred people are released on the market at the same time.

If you check the news, a large food delivery company's SAP conversion finally failed as the ground people (and even the CIO) could see it would from the beginning. This was driven by the board of directors- specifically a guy named "Manny" who had ties to SAP. So the schedule was crazy from the beginning since it wasn't really and IT project and it wasn't really with their input.

Now, the next thing to know is that Infosys overpromised and under delivered. They lacked the SAP skill they said they had. And they had challenges getting and keeping qualified people to work the older technology (what smart young indian college grad wants to be put on dead mainframe technology). Turnover was high.

The next thing to consider was there is this model where you document everything on paper and rotate the staff because they are interchangeable cogs. Well... in any complex system, this doesn't really work. it helps to have things documented but productivity comes from the programmers knowing without research which programs will need to be changed for a project and if the project has been tried before and found to be impossible and so on. Essentially, any infosys employee rolling on for a 6 month shift was completely worthless for 4 to 6 weeks- then they were as productive as any apprentice/new employee for 3 to 4 months and then they became worthless again in the 2-4 weeks before they rolled off (lots and lots of certification classes and really training for the new client).

Anyway- Infosys failed miserably and will be replaced by IBM. No one has a clue where THEY are going to find a bunch of experts in the old technology either.

But now -- let's consider the other side. The outsourcing house makes a lot of sense on paper. You can quickly turn on and off employees for a project without heartbreak and legal hassles. And employees of a big outsourcing house get a lot of training, a lot of cross exposure to different clients, and they work for a company that views them as assets.

There is a big "movement" among companies with IT to say, "We are not an IT company. We are a XXXXX company." And it is very challenging to hold 12 to 20 interviews to hire one "meh" candidate. You get good ones in the interviews but they are not interested in you unless you are a top of the line company with a good reputation.

So let me give you a clue. If you have over 5 people in IT, you are an IT company and it gave you a competitive advantage. Back to the dark side here to explain.

Outsourcing companies regularly screw over all but their biggest, highest paying clients. What you actually get from outshored staff is less loyalty and distracted service as they try to balance the needs of multiple clients. And when multiple clients have an emergency- you better be damn sure you have a extremely punitive service level agreement (SLA) because many times, you may find you need service and they just give you $50,000 and say it's going to be 5 to 10 days so good luck running your business that's down in the mean time. Sure this only happens once a year. All business can afford to be down without warning a few days a year, right?

So a large food delivery company has cancelled their SAP projec

Re:ominous sounding title

[superwiz]

how many of those times did the management break the law in laying you off? like they seem to have done in this case.

Translation

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"We consider the safety and security of our people whenever there are circumstances or events that could increase the risk of a disturbance or some form of workplace violence," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman.

Translation:

"We wanna make sure no one hunts us down and blows our fucking heads off when they find out we've outsourced all their jobs," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman.

Management feeling the fear and hatred

[swb]

What's interesting about this is that management actually senses the fear and hatred and potential for violence enough to bring in the state security apparatus.

It'd be kind of interesting to be a fly on the wall during the meetings where they decided to bring in the cops and if even one of them had the nerve to acknowledge the whole reason they might need them is how badly they were fucking over their employees.

I also wonder how many of their senior management had paid goons staking out their houses at night or who decided that day would have been a great one for the family to vacation in Florida.

I seem to remember during the financial meltdown in 2007/2008 reading a quote in the NY Times that high level Wall Street types were going nuts for gun permits and armed security.

Re:Management feeling the fear and hatred

[fluffernutter]

I actually see more of these kinds of things happening. Things that you would expect to see more in a state controlled society that is in the process of breaking down. Hunger games kinds of things.

Re:Management feeling the fear and hatred

[swb]

More are happening, but in small ways.

Our county government building has airport-style security screenings to get to ordinary places where you do generic bureaucratic business like obtaining a copy of a deed or those kinds of transactions.

What does it mean when the government is so afraid of its citizens it needs armed security screenings before they can be allowed in? In a democracy?

In this case, we're told it's to prevent violence after a string of attacks around courtrooms, in my mind it's because the state is afraid of its population. Its criminal justice system has become so grossly unjust and people so frustrated that they're willing to turn to violence.

In the case of cops at the workplace during a mass firing, I think it's the same fear, plus that work is inherently coercive.

Re:Godwin's Law

[turbidostato]

"They're cousins, aren't they?"

Somehow, yes, they are. These calls to populism certainly resemble quite too much to 1930's fascism under new robes.

We know the first iteration didn't end up so happily. Wanna bet about current's one output?

Re:Godwin's Law

[Vinegar Joe]

Socialism/Fascism..........Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

"Outplacement Assistance"

[Manuka]

... Is the biggest fscking scam/joke of any layoff process. That's about as useful as getting a free year of "Credit monitoring" when yet another company is sloppy with your credit card data.

If the United States of America was Jesus Christ..

[wjcofkc]

Collectively speaking, the corporations would be Judas.

That doesn't really work in a small city

[rsilvergun]

or a conservative state. It's kinda like that old Dilbert cartoon about complaining to the Bureau of Dogs. There's really noone to help in that case. These were lower end tech support jobs. Nobody really cared. It predated smart phones or even most folks (especially in that income bracket) having cell phones. The ACLU was (and is) hopelessly over worked too. Paychecks and severance weren't withheld. That was never the point. The point was to avoid paying for unemployment insurance.

One of the dirty secrets of Unemployment Insurance is that companies pay premiums. That's why it's called insurance. But they don't _have_ to pay the premiums in all states. It most Republican led states it's optional, but if anyone files a claim and gets benefits the company pays every red cent of them. So the companies come up with dirty tricks like this.

Sure, maybe it's not technically legal, but good luck proving it.

The Justice Department has already said

[rsilvergun]

there's nothing illegal about what these companies are doing. See here. The key part is that companies just have to say they are not adversely affecting American workers. That's a loophole you can drive a mac truck full of H1-B visas through. America is technically at full employment. You and I know those stats are bullshit, but judges rule on the side of property. They're part of that class. How do you think they're going to rule? You think they'll just down the program? You think our Supreme court will? Good luck with that.

What makes you think

[rsilvergun]

it will even out? What makes you think our overlords won't just take it all leaving a very, very small servant class for themselves? Post WWII America and Europe had unheard of levels of income equality. That's all being rolled back. Screw that noise. I'm not going to march to the slaughter house quietly like a fool. I want Tariffs, an end to Work Visas for all but PHD level researchers (researchers, not rank and file workers, we've got plenty of those) and protectionism. It benefits me. I want things that benefit _me_. That's not being selfish. That's common god damned sense.

Good point: Careful communication is important.

[Futurepower(R)]

Technology professionals need to be careful to communicate the advantages they have given their companies.

CEOs are often ignorant about technology.

[Futurepower(R)]

The main purpose of my comment was to talk about the fact that many CEOs are ignorant about technology.

Re:[are expected] You are an idiot

[wonkey_monkey]

They've got more angles than your angled brackets :p

Re:We don't need no union

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, you are. Unlike with barbers or lawnmowers, they can hire your peers on the other side of the world.

Bern that place!

[martinfb]

Outsourcing jobs so we can import more foreigners while we strand 225 more qualified, ENGLISH speaking citizens?! Put Bernie in office and I bet we keep those folks employed! 'Bern' them!

Re:Godwin's Law

[KGIII]

You might want to look into those free speech zones. They were first used by the Democrats at the DNC in New York in 1988. So, while you still might remember Bush's, you might want to remember where they originated and realize that the Republicans aren't the only ones nor the originators.

Re:If they actually cared about the safety

[basecastula]

NRPC?

Simple

[DarthVain]

300 IT people just left, Hertz can't find them anyway. Said something grumbling about not paying them or something. Pretty much had to go to India after that.

Pretty sure I would pull a Milton after that.

Re:If they actually cared about the safety

[Locke2005]

So, you've sent out resumes, then? (In my experience as a contractor, that is the only way to deal with situations like this. You know what's coming, you just don't know when, and it usually takes longer for the shit to hit the fan than you expect.)

Re:If they actually cared about the safety

[Locke2005]

Discouraging future hires is only a problem if they ever attempt to return those jobs to U.S. citizens, which given the current quarterly profit driven business myopia, is not even a consideration. Foreign workers won't really know about their past dickish behavior, and most customers won't care... people keep buynig from Walmart because it's cheap, not because they treat their employees well! As far as going postal, you'd be surprised how many companies that told me my services were no longer required still didn't stop me from walking in weeks later (one of them never did an exit interview or took my badge back, and I could just show the badge to the receptionist despite it being blocked in the access control system). Fact is, in almost every company, you can just show up during normal work start/stop times and follow someone else through the badge-reader controlled door .Intel is the only company I know that actually had human guards preventing tailgating.

Re:Godwin's Law

[Coren22]

Yeah, I was thinking that turbidostato's statement matches Sander's platform much more than Trump.