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Laid-Off Abbott IT Workers Won't Have To Train Their Replacements (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: An angry letter from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) protesting Abbott Labs' IT employee layoff may be having an impact, but not the way the senator wanted. The layoffs are part of plan by Abbott to shift some IT work to India-based Wipro, a major user H-1B visas, and Abbott is proceeding with the cuts despite Durbin's plea "to reconsider this plan and retain these U.S. workers." Abbott put the number of impacted IT employees at "fewer than 150." Durbin's letter has it at 180. But Abbott may be making changes in how the layoffs are conducted. IT employees, who only spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they were initially told they would be training replacements. But Abbott said Friday that the "affected Abbott IT employees are not being asked to train their replacements." The firm's statement appears to confirm the latest employee accounts of what's going on. One worker said the replacement training may be limited to employees who aren't losing their jobs. The training of replacements was a major issue for Durbin. In his letter to the firm, Durbin wrote: "To add insult to injury, the Abbott Labs IT staff who will be laid off will first be forced to train their replacements."
The sheer capacity of a whole nation to harm itself repeatedly in the name of a long debunked economic fantasy is, as always, astounding.
Probably should have organized instead of acting like they unique Libertarian snowflakes like half of the IT staff I've every worked with, who were convinced they were the best and didn't want to be dragged down to the level of their fellow man.
I guess the ones that were the best are now training their replacements.
So to sum up, H1B's was supposed to be temporary short term relief to cover lack of IT jobs. Now H1Bs are being employed in large scale by Indian IT contractors like Wipro, and used to displace existing IT employees. Getting those displaced workers to train their replacements would simply have been an admission that existing jobs are being replaced.
And who will tackle it? Trump? Clinton? Don't make me laugh.
Bernie is probably the only person who will tackle it, but even then, Wipro et al will be funneling profits into Congress so he would have an uphill struggle.
they also wouldn't have been paid, either. IBM does the same thing. take severance now, or stay for another 2-6 months at full pay while training, then leave.
He said he'll get rid of the H1B program. It's on his web site.
Oh wait - he just told Megyn Kelly in the debate that he changed his mind. He now supports H1Bs because we need to bring the best people into the USA. He made that point multiple times in the debate.
No! Now he says he misunderstood the question, and he supports US IT workers!
So, take your pick. Elect Trump, and he'll do whatever the hell he finds most convenient, and tell anyone who criticizes him that they're losers who didn't listen to what he said very clearly.
You assholes have sold out country to corporations. We need to make a decent living to survive and should be able to live comfortably within our own country. I have a grand idea for you.
You should use the H1Bs to displace the CEO to India and keep the IT jobs here. You WILL save much more money this way! The CEO probably makes $30M+ a year and surely those 180 IT guys don't make that much combined.
It is for reasons like this that Trump/Sanders have grown in popularity and cock smokers like Romney were not elected and shunned. Time for the corruption in Congress to end. Time to elect people who will clean out the bribes, favors, and outright purchasing of congressmen. Let's return America to the people.
Wipro is a great example of an offshore joke technology company. Their technologists are amateurs at best and generally incompetent. Experts within the client company are required to make Wipro's work acceptable. Everything they touch turns to poo. This is typical of these low-cost offshore companies emerging out of third-world countries. I've suffered Wipro for years as well as several other of these big, offshore, low-cost technology companies. Bringing these type companies into your organization is like injecting cancer cells into your body. At some time these execs will wake up and realize their technology is antiquated and debilitating.
This. It's pretty much impossible to _force_ someone to train their replacements (well). Even in the scenario that you get paid to be there and train, there's a lot of gray area between "proper training" and "not fulfilling your job functions". You don't have to make it easy, you don't have update docs, you don't have to tell all important why's and gotchas. You just answer attend the meetings and answer the questions. If your plan is to fire someone and bring in a replacement that depends on training from the previous guy, you had better come up with some plan that motivates the other guy to actually do it.
PS. I did an almost a year of "extended handover" to my replacement as consultant with 2x money and 0.5x work
From the linked article, there is mention of using a loophole to do this. What is this loophole specifically? Does anyone know?
>> The use of the H-1B program to displace qualified American workers "is unlawful," wrote Durbin in his letter to Abbott. But "loopholes in existing law make it difficult for the federal government to hold violators accountable."
I've considered changing careers myself ....
Tried it.
For one, folks see the years of IT on your resume and they look at you as if there was something wrong with you.. And they'll ask why do you want to leave such a wonderful lucrative career.
Secondly, switching careers is incredibly difficult these days. Employers pigeon hole people and they do not want anyone coming up to speed on their dime - any formal education is meaningless unless you have paid experience. As far as they are concerned, you have to be a recent college grad from an top university before they'll do that*.
Thirdly, if you are middle aged like I am (50+), forget it. No one hires middle aged people let alone one that wants to change careers. When I volunteered, I had a retired director working with me, He confessed that skills being close, employers will go with the younger guy all the time. And as a newbie in a field?
There's very little mobility in our economy today. It's not like in my parent's generation where if you had a college degree - in just about anything - there were plenty of doors open. And as it is, the doors are closing even more.
*The other day I was listening to this recruiter bitch and moan as to how there's this feeding frenzy for new CS grads and it's so hard to get them. Incredulously, I pressed him. Well, he only recruits at "top" schools - like everyone else in my area. I asked, "So some sharp kid who wants to commute from home, go to state, and save money because he's smart enough not to bury himself in student debt is SOL?!"
In corporate BS HR-ease the answer was basically "yes".
It's been clear for at least ten years that companies are exploiting a loophole in the H1B law that allows them to outsource to another company which just happens to have foreign employees. In all this time, Senator Durbin and his 534 accomplices have not had the time to fix this loophole. (Also the insanely low salary threshhold.) No one has even proposed anything. But they have time for grandstanding to make it seem that they're trying to help. One can only conclude that they want to keep things the way they are. I wonder why.
COE
While I'm desperately trying to remain as productive as at least 6 Indian employees so I don't get off-shored, I have to admit I'm left with the awkward question "Do I deserve to be part of the 1% (household income $48K) solely on the basis of hereditary privilege?"
I have a feeling we're entering the era of the "Great Equalization". And I have to say, that it absolutely sucks for those who, as part of the developed world, were automatically part of the elite. And if its bad for me, it's going to be terrible for my children.
I just wish I had better moral claim than "I was born rich, so I deserve to remain rich."
Treating workers like this would be illegal in more developed countries. Why do Americans stand for this kind of treatment?
The biggest problem with IT workers is that they feel that their work and effort is not being recognized, and their pay and benefits are not being proportional to the effort and intelligence put in.
Unions will not fix that problem, but hinder it, as the top employee will be treated the same as the lazy and/or inadequate employee. As well Unions tend to have a wider agenda and will expand to beyond just your field, and to a wider scope. When it comes to negotiations they will agree on such things such as laying off the few high salary people in order to get twice as many cheaper employees, as they will bring in more money for dues.
Also with a Union shop, you learn to keep your mouth shut for any ideas that may be against the union, otherwise you are in trouble.
I have worked in unioned and non-unioned shops. Unions make sense for blue-collar jobs, because such jobs easily replaceable and are open to abuse towards a persons health and safety.
Government/Teaching jobs also does make sense for Unions because of the fickle nature of elected officials who are in charge, who may want to fire a teacher for failing the Football star so he can't win the big game. Or having the son of a member of the house of representative in detention for abusing an other student.
White-Collar jobs such as IT have much less health and safety concerns, and it is expensive to replace a good IT worker. Also most companies really fail miserably when they try to outsource, and in time they bring back local workers. Also IT workers can often find jobs in less time then blue collar workers.
I was Laid off in 2008, I was able to get an other job rather quickly.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ohhh whats that? Being forced to compete with 2nd-3rd world labor markets is unfair? But when those filthy peasants that come home from work everyday with grease on their hands or sweat on their brow lost their jobs you said its simple economics??? right?? Why are you upset now??? You should Unionize??? WOAH!! thats peasant talk!!
I just wish I had better moral claim than "I was born rich, so I deserve to remain rich."
I look at it as those in the Third World were born into a Patriarchal culture that doesn't value women and they're living with their karma. Their over-population is a result of their actions.
We all can blame western imperialism all we want, but that ended a long time ago. And their problems existed a long time before that.
Never the less, the World's economy isn't expanding fast enough to allow us to continue to have the living standards that our parents had.
This is why America needs, and will get, President Trump. Every now and then America needs a savior. It the past it has needed great leaders like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy, and such people have always arrived at just the right time. America once again needs a real leader to give it direction and to show it the way, and that leader is President Trump. He is controversial because he is right. America needs to once again put Americans first, even if this means putting in place economic trade barriers, immigration barriers, and even physical walls. President Trump will lead America to a greatness it hasn't sen since the days of JFK.
The H1B model and outsourcing in general is basically slave labor. They make these employees work long hours for just enough money to get by. The company clearly no longer is focused on their consumers but on the bottom line and only pleasing investors. One of the replaced workers should pay one of the H1B's that is near the end of their 6yr stay a $1000 to leak all of the company's private data....then they would probably reconsider the value of the H1B.
Angry letters will change nothing. The senator (lawmaker) simply needs to do their job. You wouldn't even need to end the H-1B program. I think the problem is more the way it is designed to enable slave labor and thus drive the cost of employment down. If H-1B applicants would have more rights, they could demand higher wages. Instead they are kept as slaves that will not only lose their job but also get deported. Making their legal position similar to those that have an illegal immigration status. H-1B simply legalizes illegal immigration for the employer. If H-1Bs had more power, they could and would demand higher wages. How about unionized H-1Bs? Freedom to stay in the US for a guaranteed period of time. And to top it off: Training obligations for the company that requests them.
Or you can simply abandon the H-1B outright.
Btw: Trump loves himself more than anything else. And as a builder he profits from illegal immigrants. Thus he won't do anything about illegal immigration. Simple as that. He has proven that he lies all the time. So we can disregard what comes out of his mouth. Thus we have to look at policies that are likely. And for someone who makes a *lot* of profit from illegal immigrants it would be downright stupid to prevent that from happening. Is Trump stupid?
....it's all in your outlook. If you know you're getting laid off...having a couple extra weeks of pay to train a replacement is better than 2 fewer weeks of pay.
suck it up.
I am wondering whether it should be illegal to require an 'about to be laid off employee' to train their replacements. IMHO, the requirement should be limited to employees who are resigning of their own accord.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Set the minimum salary for an H1B visa holder at $150,000/yr and watch this problem solve itself. Have the salary requirement increase annually based on CPI.
H1B visas were supposed to be for highly skilled workers when talent is available locally.
We all know the H1B program is simply to drive down the cost of IT labor.
Trump - are you listening?
Come on Slashdot, this is a real challenge! On the one hand a large corporation (evil) is laying off IT workers. Yet said large corporation is doing so with people on H-1B visas, meaning it's supporting immigration (this is not off-shoring if they're using immigrant workers, the jobs are still here in the US). So if you're against it, then you clearly are a Trump supporter, who want's to bring jobs back to America. Which evil side do you choose?
I can't wait to see how you guys thread the politically correct needle on this one.
OK, I work for a multinational, creating financial software. We have offices on all the continents and let me tell you the worst branch is the Mumbai branch. I mean 1 guy in estern europe or one guy from US or two guys in south america do the same job as 10 guys from India. The skills of my coworkers there are at best at the level of a high school student from an informatics class in eastern europe. Full of former WIPRO and TCS former empoyees are working in the Mumbai branch, that were in the top 10% and head-hunted from there. I work on a day to day basis interfacing with software developed or managed by WIPRO and TCS and the quality of their work is close to useless garbage. I think that a lot of US mangement still buy into this scam of ousourcing to Wipro or TCS, they are going to regret it soon enough when quality of their product will plummet.
Makes perfect sense...
"You're not skilled enough to do this job, so we need you to train this H-1B guy we hired to replace you at half the cost."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I keep suggesting to my company (a competitor of Abbott's, begins with N and ends with s) that they go for the really big savings and find a way to outsource the Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Directors to India for $40K a head, but my idea never seems to be picked as a discussion topic for our town hall meetings.
I work in a company that pretty much as a business model seeks to bring down the complexity of delivering a service, so it can be standardised and offshored to low cost countries. I remember two questions we were asked at one stage:
"Can your job be done remotely? If yes, can you think of a reason it shouldn't be?"
This, to me, is the essence of globalisation.
From Dec 2015 debates,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11...
Cavuto: Mr. Trump, as the leading presidential candidate on this stage and one whose tax plan exempts couples making up to $50,000 a year from paying any federal income taxes at all, are you sympathetic to the protesters cause since a $15 wage works out to about $31,000 a year?
TRUMP: I can’t be Neil. And the and the reason I can’t be is that we are a country that is being beaten on every front economically, militarily. There is nothing that we do now to win. We don’t win anymore. Our taxes are too high. I’ve come up with a tax plan that many, many people like very much. It’s going to be a tremendous plan. I think it’ll make our country and our economy very dynamic.
But, taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is.
After being reamed for it, he change his mind, but there is no reason to believe he would not change it . He is just running his mouth and will saying anything that will get him elected to president. Who knows what this guy would actually do if he were elected.
I've heard horror stories about Wipro. Maybe Abbott will get itself in real trouble as a result of this decision. That would be about mot juste.
If these "IT Workers" are software developers, dev ops, or network admins with marketable skills, and are either in a decent metro area or are willing to move, is a layoff any more than a slight inconvenience?
In 2011, I worked for a small software company (around 30 people) and we all knew that the end was coming and that we would all lose our jobs. Management was very open about our condition. Most of the survivors stuck around in hopes that our options would be worth something (they weren't) or that we would at least get severance package (we all got a month).
Within one month, every developer had another job, all more than likely paying more than we were making.
In 2014, I was in a department with 14 developers and we all saw the way the department was heading. All of the developers found another job within six months. The only reason some stuck around was because they were close to the 3 year vesting period. But all could have found something sooner.
Absolutely. Seems like a simple, easy solution. It's a win for the guys who otherwise have to queue up for years for H1B, and it's a win for the guys that dont want to compete for jobs with people paid three times less than them.
Why is everyone bashing Trump but not including Clinton? Her voting history clearly shows she would do absolutely the same. I have no reason to believe she wouldn't do to San Francisco what her husband did to Detroit.
As an ex-Abbott consultant and one who brought Linux to their servers (researches have been using them on workstations for some time by then), Abbott was a little weird clinching to Windows, Sun, AIX, and HPUX servers and many, many, proprietary tools. There was even talk by the VPs to move back to HPUX because HP gave them a huge discount and "you know HPUX is better than Linux".
I also doubt WIPRO will be any better. Indian companies are just setting up shop in US and exploit the H1B visas to increase their business by bringing cheap labor, yet their workers just buckle due to lack of experience.
For all his faults (and they are legion) Trump is at least starting up a conversation on left wing politics again. Tariffs, protectionism, etc, etc. He's also done something nobody has given credit for, namely removing the dog whistle from the GOP. Yes, he's saying a lot of Racists and Xenophobic things, but it's nothing we haven't been hearing on Fox News for years but just with a wink & a nod. Bringing that stuff out in the open is important. As long was he hide it behind implied racism we can pretend it's not there. Trump gets us talking about the root cause of all that racism: Fear of losing out in the economy. He's speaking to the millions of Middle Class Americans who are terrified of slipping into a lifetime of $11/hr jobs.
Basically, he's got the Social Conservatives thinking about the economy and how it effects them for the first time since the 70s. That's no mean feet, and we here on the left are hoping to bring them back into the fold. There was a time when Social Conservatives put aside their beliefs to focus on what was right for everyone. When Abortion, Gay Marriage and Gun control weren't the powerful wedge issues used by the Donor class to drive a wedge between workers. Trump might bring that back, and if he does then he's actually what he says he is: A Unifier.
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Salemen, Managers, Accountants etc, etc. You don't really see the smart ones because they're not constantly breaking their computers or getting confused by simple things. It's hard not to develop a Superiority Complex with that going on.
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you should be asking: Do I deserve food, shelter and healthcare? The Answer is yes. You can't solve all the world's problems in one go, but you can work towards it. But before you can even do _that_ then you need to make sure your basic needs are taken care of.
For the record, our civilization already produces enough food to feed the world if you're just counting calories. The problem isn't production it's delivery. We can solve the worlds problems. What we _can't_ do is solve the world's problems while satisfying the opulent whims of the 1% of the 1%. Don't be fools. You're worth it. Everybody is.
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Dear U.S. leaders. Last few years it has been educational reading about all these companies that wanted an increase in H-1B visas because it would be good for the country, create jobs and so forth. So how is that working out for you today?
I was a contractor at Abbott back in the early '90s and they were heavily staffed by contractors even back then. Abbott does this (I suspected) to easily shed staff to save a buck in a hurry when something occurs that impacted the company financially. It was initially quite surprising the first time I noticed that a whole room-full of contractors gone one day. They were there in the morning busily working when I went to lunch and gone when I came back; all because (it was rumored) of an FDA fine the company had been slapped with. I've watched company with some interest for years as they're one of, if not the, employers in the county I live in.
One thing that I've been seeing a lot in recent years is the same IT job adverts for positions at Abbott showing up every few months and keep showing in cycles, generally every 6-months. (And by "same" I mean identical wording not just some generic sysadmin or developer spot.) I've always attributed it to either a.) awful management that is unable to hire properly and is constantly bringing incompetent people -- but in the salary or hourly rate range that Aboott is willing to pay -- into the IT organization who are let go after 6 months ("We're not extending your contract."), or b.) awful management driving away good people by making the place a hellhole to work in and people bail as soon as they find something better ("Good God, get me the helloutta here!"). Once word gets around, maybe they turned to Wipro as the only place they're able to find anyone willing to work there.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
No, that's exactly the problem. H1Bs used to have a high minimum salary, but just like your proposal, it was set to a fixed number so now it's far lower than it should be. If we sit it at 150K we'll just have the same problem in 10-20 years from now. A better solution would be to set it at some function of inflation and similar work.
That would make the perfect "Monkey's Paw" wish outcome for those who want more H1Bs. You can get as many as you like but you have to pay high amounts for it.
H1B holders should be allowed to become citizens; then they can toss the H1B and earn an actual wage. The Department of Labor needs to seriously crack down on all companies who replace anyone with someone who needs ANY training; the point of H1B is they aren't supposed to need training and are fulfilling a position that the US worker couldn't. Fines from the DoL aren't enough; any company found training replacements needs to have their H1B issuing ability yanked and given 90 days to remove all "employees" that have violated the law. Additional violations need to result in that company being banned from working in the US.
An H1B isn't allowed to move from company to company either, but Wipro gets around that by maintaining the primary employment and just moving them around to different "contracts". It's a violation of the spirit of the law; typical corporate shenanigans. But when the replacements need training beyond "company policy" then this IS a violation of the law and needs to be punished quite harshly.
everyone knows that these overseas workers have full MS and Cisco certifications and have the documentation to prove it. And the bonus is that they are cheaper than most so the retail cost of products developed by companies using these workers will be reduced. YMMV :)
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
Diabetics like me will be happy to no longer buy their products.
Those guys were used at a company I worked years ago to supposedly maintain and do critical hotfixes for our products deemed to be in legacy or 'maintenance' mode. They always assigned clueless staff to each product, and as soon as one of them showed signs of real progress in skill/understanding, they were reassigned to other projects (at higher rates now they were 'experienced' I am told). We were basically paying to train Wipro in all of our products so they could eventually become competitors.
Charles Schwab pulls this kind of crap as well. Only they don't tell you you're about to be laid off - just, "Here would you train this WiPro person in your job?". You can't refuse but then a couple of weeks later you find out you're to be laid off.
Scumbags exploiting foreign workers and committing visa fraud.
Tariffs are traditionally American - our founders funded the entire government with them (they placed NO taxes on the income of the citizens). It's relatively recent that the multinational bankers and people who live off their stocks and bonds convinces Americans to shift government funding to a combination of borrowing and income taxes on individuals (with lower rates on the incomes of people who live off stocks, of course). Ronald Reagan used tariffs to deal with trade matters relative to asian steel, imported motorcycles, etc. It was the Bushes and the Clintons that did the bidding of their paymasters and in a bi-partisan manner betrayed the nation's workers.
What has Trump said that is racist or Xenophobic??? He said ILLEGAL ALIENS (NOT all Hispanics/Asians or other ethnicities) were bringing crime into the country - an absolute FACT. Hundreds of Americans are raped and/or murdered every year by people in this country illegally; Obama's own justice department admits this. As for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country: it's NOT "racism" since Islam is a belief system and not a race. Given that the nation's own federal law enforcement agencies say they have no current method to properly screen these people and many polls have placed the number of middle-eastern Muslims who support Jihad at well over 30% this is just common sense. If Catholics supported murdering anybody who disagreed with them, we'd be well advised to show some intelligence and stop them (or any other ideological group) from entering until we could figure out how to screen-out the nuts too.
As for social conservatives not being concerned about economics, you are also wrong. Social conservatives voted for Reagan for both social and economic reasons. At the time, people in the press and in hollywood were insisting that Reagan was a cowboy, a racist, and a fanatical lunatic who would start a nuclear war. They were insanely wrong then too.
that his wife came here LEGALLY.
What is it about modern progressives that makes them so unwilling to discuss any subject honestly?????
Words mean things. Laws are important and are written in words. If you embrace lawlessness when it suits you, then you have no right to complain if others you disagree with suddenly decide they will be lawless too...
Any progressive who embraces illegal aliens and all the rapes and murders and robberies and identity thefts that even president Obama's justice department admits occur annually as a result, has NO RIGHT to complain if some trump fans go rogue and beat people up - after all, in the new progressive age we can each apparently ignore any laws we choose to or that it's politically expedient to ignore...
Employers are businessmen with money on the line. Such people with such incentives will ALWAYS out-smart politicians and bureaucrats who have no skin in the game.
There is simply NO legitimate case for H1-B visas.
If there is a shortage of skilled laborers, then the salaries and benefits will naturally rise (the most-basic law of economics is supply-and-demand) and when college kids see that a particular career promises rising pay and benefits and that the courses they would otherwise choose lead to low salaries, they will change to the majors that are in demand. This is the normal function of a free-market economy. It is government intervention with things like [1] minimum wages, [2] college loan programs that shield students from making hard economic choices, and [3] labor import/export involving laborers outside of the local marketplace that have a combined effect of eliminating the proper feedbacks in the system and that have thus provided the wealthy with abnormally high returns on their investments by suppressing labor costs for about 20 years.
Simply eliminate the outsourcing and the insourcing and the labor compensations rates will go back to proper equilibrium and the super-rich can go back to only getting much richer instead of insanely richer.
Mike Rowe nailed it.
Tax Company Revenues, Not Profits;
Casteism
I lost my house and both vehicles from an IT layoff. No severance pay. My replacement whipes his ass with sandy toilet paper... I helped build the company over 12 years. My wife was a stay at home mother caring for our 2 kids. Now we both work retail while grandpa watches the kids. Had to pull out my 401k which took a huge hit on taxation. I was able to provide long enough. Bought a cheap used car for my wife and kids... I still drive my motorcycle. I was only making 70k a year. Not like I was a top CEO making 300k.
Let's migrate to India to steal our jobs back.