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."

Comments

Sit back and enjoy

[Anonymous Coward]

The sheer capacity of a whole nation to harm itself repeatedly in the name of a long debunked economic fantasy is, as always, astounding.

Cheers

[FunkSoulBrother]

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.

Re:Cheers

[rally2xs]

Yeah,its a marvel how supposedly smart IT workers are not as smart as their blue-collar parents that knew that without a union, they were going to get shit and shoved in it. If you are an employee of any type, you need a union or you're going to get screwed, its that simple. So just continue being high and mighty, and go get in line at the unemployment office. Oh, and vote for Trump, who will end this crap.

Re:Cheers

[Anonymous Coward]

> Probably should have organized

Wouldn't matter if they are outsourcing the whole department. That's also what you do to get rid of unions: just outsource it.

Re:Cheers

[Tyr07]

It takes a lot of time to be an expert in the IT field. Lot of problems are unique, require research and investigation into the problem. They may come run a script on your PC that takes five minutes but it took hours to identify the cause of the issue and write the script.

You'll get a lot more call center like support, where the buck is passed and no one really knows how to fix it, or cares to put the time in figuring it out for you. You'll get "Oh, have you tried turning it off and on? Oh that didn't work? You need to purchase a whole new PC".

I've considered changing careers myself because the amount of time needed to be put in to stay on top of the latest technology changes and be proficient with all adaptations of windows, android, linux, ios, etc, vs the pay isn't really worth it.

If people weren't interested in it enough to put in hours beyond what they work to keeping up with tech it wouldn't happen.

If you ever feel that IT people act superior its because you're putting in no effort to learn the technology, and you look at us like chumps who waste our time and want us to just magic the problem away for you at minimum wage.

Do it yourself, waste your time instead.

Re:Cheers

[Opportunist]

And forgo the chance to screw up the training of your replacement to the point where they have to spend thrice the money to sensibly train him?

Rest assured I'd make perfectly sure that after my kind of "training" my replacement would have such a messed up mix of half-bogus, completely bogus and correct information that it becomes near impossible for him to, even after retraining, know what's right and what's wrong.

Fuck you. If you force me to train my replacement, I will guarantee you that you will have to replace him soon.

Re:Cheers

[dbIII]

Oh, and vote for Trump, who will end this crap

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not but Trump has been a perpetrator of such crap.

Sick of the USA having to act as world policeman due to being the leading nation? Then vote Trump so those Chinese can get a taste of what it's like to be on top - that will show them!

Re:Cheers

[Dutch Gun]

What's hilarious to me is how so many of these same people panicking now don't give two shits about illegals flooding in from our southern borders and depressing the low-skilled jobs market (yay! cheap nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners!), but are now howling because the exact same thing is happening to THEIR jobs. The only exception that these foreign workers are sanctioned by the US H1B program rather than simply being ignored by our policy makers at the top.

Democrats and Republicans, I'm sad to say, appear to be equally complicit in doing jack shit to address the H1B abuse. The Democrats and Republicans realize that the illegals from the south are likely to be future Democrat constituents, which is really why that issue is contested so bitterly. It has nothing to do with "Republican racism" or "Democrat benevolence", just self-interest on both sides. But it's not nearly as clear-cut who cares about mostly moderate to liberal middle-class-to-rich, white, privileged male IT workers affected by H1Bs. My guess is that we're not going to elicit a lot of sympathy when we don't bother standing up for blue-collar workers suffering the same thing.

Re:Cheers

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean:

New guy: Wait, you said you still use token ring?
You: No, Tolkien Ring. It rules them all. And we only use that in the data center. Everywhere else uses ATM.
New guy: Asynchronous Transfer Mode?
You: No, they connect their iPad to an Automated Teller Machine and use its network over a VPN
New guy: They can get a Virtual Private Network over an ATM?
You: No, a Very Profitable Network. It's an ATM after all.
New guy: I quit.

Re:Cheers

[Ol Olsoc]

Oh, and vote for Trump, who will end this crap.

+5 Non sequitur.

Re:Cheers

[rally2xs]

Yeah, Trump has done some of those things as a businessman, but he didn't necessarily like it, it was just forced upon him if he wanted to win the bid.

Its like the founding fathers. Some were even slave owners, but every last one of them hated the institution of slavery, and wanted to abolish it. They couldn't, tho, or they wouldn't have been able to form a union of states amongst the southern states which depended on slaves to operate their great plantations. There would have been less than 13 colonies in the original USA if they had insisted.

Send all the illegals back home, and enforce the laws against the H1B abuse that is technically illegal right now, and make America for Americans again. I think Trump will do it. Voting for him gives us a chance. Most of the other politicians will lie to us and tell us they will help us, but go to Washington and do exactly the opposite. The ones that try simply don't know how to do it, the wall for instance. They're saying, in spite of China building a wall 13,000 miles long 1000 years BC, that its too big a job to build a 1000 mile wall in 2016. Trump says, "A wall? A wall is easy. You want to know what's hard? A 95 story building is hard. I can do that too!" He can at least do it, and I believe he will try. That, right there, is way ahead of any other politician.

Re:Cheers

[rally2xs]

It does matter, because one of the things that a union does besides striking is suing. Yeah, if they're going to outsource to India, that's different, but if they're bringing in H1B like we've been talking about, that's illegal, and the union can and will sue their asses off. That's one of the things that unions are about.

Re:Cheers

[mjm1231]

You need to purchase a whole new PC"

The move to cloud and virtualization means that more and more often this is going to be the cheapest solution.

Re:Cheers

[StillAnonymous]

Trade barriers and walls never made anyone more productive and wealthy

I'm not entirely sure about that. Every time we reduce trade barriers, things seem to get worse. We lose jobs, products get shittier, wages go down, and prices still go up. The only thing that's gotten better overall is electronics/tech, and that's probably in spite of what's happening.

"Free" trade made sense when shipping costs meant that it was still profitable to produce goods locally and you only bought from other nations what you couldn't produce yourselves. When shipping is almost free, and labor in another country is almost free, when that other country doesn't make you properly dispose of environmental waste or treat workers like human beings, how can you possibly compete?? You can't. This outsourcing will continue until America is nothing but a shadow of its former self. Do you really want the majority of the people living in huts and on the streets like in India?

Some love to say that people just need to get into "more creative" jobs, but ignore that fact that it's statistically impossible for any significant portion of the people to do that. Not just due to ability, but if you do get that situation, creative jobs will no longer pay a living wage. Even if you can get 30% of the workforce into these positions, are you just going to throw the other 70% overboard?

Why is it that in the 50's, you could have a single family member working a blue collar job, while still having enough to buy a modest house, a car, and the ability to feed and raise 6 kids, yet 60 years of "progress" later, there's no way in hell that is possible. The excuse these days is that people buy way too much house and spend money on junk. To a degree, that's true, but even if you didn't have cell phone, cable, and 2 brand new cars, you still couldn't live like they could in the 50's.

I think free trade is a great idea, IF all countries are playing on the same level. That's not the case, so what's the solution?

Re:Cheers

[currently_awake]

Guest workers are common in the third world, looks like the USA wants to join that club. Does deliberately destroying your countries economy count as treason? Loyalty to your country means more than saluting the flag and reciting a pledge of allegiance on command.

Re:Cheers

[turbidostato]

"Yeah, Trump has done some of those things as a businessman, but he didn't necessarily like it, it was just forced upon him if he wanted to win the bid."

So, you mean that once in government, he will sell himself to the big corporations, not that he necessarily like it, but because it's just forced upon him if he wanted to win his golden retirement.

"Its like the founding fathers. Some were even slave owners, but every last one of them hated the institution of slavery, and wanted to abolish it."

Yes, because, obviously, without laws forbidding the institution of slavery they were *forced* to own slaves. I can see it: "Noooo, noooo, pleeeeease, don't force onto me the obligation to own those hundreds of slaves to labour these thousands acres I'm *forced* to own! Nooooo, pretty pleeeease!"

"make America for Americans again"

Oh! so Trump is going to abolish the Reservations legal fallacy and return the lands to their American legit owners? Didn't know.

"Most of the other politicians will lie to us"

Trump won't do that, since it's obvious from the very beginning he will do whatever it takes to get the outcome better fits himself. Not that he will like it, you know, but still...

Re:Cheers

[fluffernutter]

You are obviously not one of the ones with the power to change the game. This makes you one of the targets, you just haven't been affected as much by it yet.

Re:Cheers

[fluffernutter]

Say the US started making things difficult on corporations and they started leaving. I promise you, I would stay and I would start a corporation that starts to rebuild part of it. I can honestly say that I would be interested in providing jobs for all the western world, and I would not demand 800x the salary of everyone else. I can fairly confidently say there will be thousands that join me and we would be ok.

Re:Cheers

[wbr1]

You'll get "Oh, have you tried turning it off and on? Oh that didn't work? You need to purchase a whole new PC".

Unfortunately, this is an economic truth now. When a fair PC is $500 bucks, it makes little sense to pay $100s an hour to fix it, unless it serves a highly specialized purpose, which is rare.

Re:Cheers

[alexgieg]

Trade barriers and walls never made anyone more productive and wealthy

But why do you think the goal should be more productivity and more wealth? Trade barriers and such offer job security, which in turn causes lots of other securities to arise. It fulfills the first two base levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Sure, once those two levels are provided for one can add extra flexibility and degrees of freedom in the system so as to provide for the top levels, but if your current policy is damaging those two, you're doing it wrong.

Re: Cheers

[Bartles]

We don't have crumbling infrastructure. Obama spent a trillion dollars to fix the infrastructure just a few years ago.

Re: Cheers

[Bartles]

We don't really ever reduce trade barriers. Democrats like to make trade "deals" which really mean hamstringing American business, giving away the farm to nations "in need", and fucking over American companies that just want to easily sell their products overseas while keeping the company in the US.

Re: Cheers

[Bartles]

Started? They have been doing that for 75 years.

Re:Cheers

[grasshoppa]

Um...ya...

I've with unions ( as IT ), and I've worked without. I *vastly* prefer without. Unions may provide job stability ( after you've been there long enough to have seniority on younger staff, mind you ), but then IT doesn't exactly get raises by being loyal anyway.

Unions only protect those who don't want to be bothered developing themselves to be more valuable, in my experience.

Re:Cheers

[alexgieg]

My point is that ability to produce dollars does not make a wealthy economy, it is ability to produce goods and services that makes a wealthy economy and this ability is destroyed by government monopolising the power over money and then destroying the value of money.

Yes, I agree. I know a lot of classic liberal and libertarian economics, from Bastiat to Hoppe, passing through Mises and Hayek. I agree with their economics, I think praxeology describes pretty well most of economic activity.

That said, I disagree with them in one point. They show pretty well how the economy can, by means of non-State intervention in it, lead to maximal productivity and wealth. But they fail to show why this is desirable. If you question this desirability, and replaces it by something else, you can still do a full praxeological delineation of the path leading to that end goal. With the added benefit that, since this path is predicated from a real understanding of economics rather than the nonsense socialist schools believe economics to be, the new desired end goal is actually achievable.

Twisting praxeology in this way is certainly anathema for libertarians, but it's a powerful exercise in utilitarian reasoning. So, here's my challenge: using praxeology, find the path that leads to the simultaneous fulfillment of these four end goals:

a) Maximization of local exchange so as to empower communities and their unique cultural characteristics, including architectural traditions;

b) Maximization of work security so that the vast majority of individuals can comfortably keep living in the same region for their entire lives, so as to also maximally preserve face-to-face interactions between long time friends, family members and acquaintances;

c) Maximization of the physiological and safety levels of Maslow's hierarchy, while still providing for the effectuation of higher levels;

d) Maximization of psychological comfort by means of reducing the distance between the higher level and lower levels of individual wealth to a maximum difference of 30 times (the poorest individual earns at a minimum 1/30 of what the wealthiest earns), which fits withing our tribal, hunter-gatherer evolutionary framework.

These end goals are, I suppose, praxeologically achievable. It's just a matter of finding the path and implementing it.

Re:Cheers

[roman_mir]

But they fail to show why this is desirable

- you are telling me you read Hayek (this for example?) and it did not click why it is desirable to avoid fascism or any other form of collectivism by ensuring free market capitalism?

To me individual freedom is intrinsically valuable in its own right, YMMV.

If your goals require the means that reduce my individual freedom then by their very definition those are not my goals. I do not buy that all of the goals you mentioned require reduction of my individual freedom, maybe you should question why is that you believe that it is necessary to reduce individual freedom to achieve your goals?

a) Maximization of local exchange so as to empower communities and their unique cultural characteristics, including architectural traditions;

- why is that desirable? I don't see it as a goal that is worth losing individual freedom over but also I don't see why this goal requires reduction of individual freedom.

b) Maximization of work security so that the vast majority of individuals can comfortably keep living in the same region for their entire lives

- Same exact question and point. Beyond that, I don't see why we need to ensure that majority of individuals can comfortably keep living in the same region for their entire lives.

Is the Universe going to help you to live within one spot your entire life comfortably? Why do you think that? I think the Universe will kill you and not worry about this minutia. I think that it is undesirable for the species to get comfortable for their entire lives and live in the same place their entire life comfortably. But I would not put my goals over somebody's freedom.

, so as to also maximally preserve face-to-face interactions between long time friends, family members and acquaintances;

- why does this matter at all? I don't think there is any reason why should anybody's freedom be impeded to achieve this very questionable goal.

c) Maximization of the physiological and safety levels of Maslow's hierarchy, while still providing for the effectuation of higher levels;

- this is something that is done by creating a wealthy society in the first place. USA used to be a wealthy society, today China is basically that society, not USA because in China individual freedoms related to running a business increased and in the USA they decreased.

d) Maximization of psychological comfort by means of reducing the distance between the higher level and lower levels of individual wealth to a maximum difference of 30 times (the poorest individual earns at a minimum 1/30 of what the wealthiest earns), which fits withing our tribal, hunter-gatherer evolutionary framework.

- WTF? WTF? What is this strange arbitrary goal of yours that most definitely requires destruction of individual freedom? Yeah, let's make everybody equal and equally poor, because that's the only thing you can achieve by setting a standard on maximum and minimum earnings. Let's not let individual people pool capital to the best of their ability, because somehow the capital will be pooled without individuals doing it?

Governments do not create wealth, they take it from some to redistribute to others. By setting goals like the above, putting some strange cap on what an individual can pool as his own capital you are setting amazing barriers to the actual ability of the human species to survive in this Universe by using pooled capital to engage in risky enterprises - trying to make more money by trying the previously unknown. Whether survival of the species this is a goal worth working towards is also questionable, but at least it's not self destructing.

Re:Cheers

[sumdumass]

What magical moments will cause this to happen and why hasn't it already happened? What you described as the conditions for you to start has been going on for a long time already.

Of course it is already happening. Its the small businesses in America today. You are essentially saying that if things continue the same way they have been, you will join the club and do as things have been happening.

Or did I miss something in your proclamation to save the country?

Re:Cheers

[guruevi]

What would've been the difference? Organized laborers not only get laid off all the time, they get laid off even quicker due to the fact that they are more expensive and less productive than any other laborer. The IT would still go to India, the workers may suggest they would go on 'strike' which would give them reason to lay them off even faster.

Unions are no longer the organizations they were in the early 1900's, now they are just a dues-collecting layer of middle-management that will go along with whatever the company does. That and labor in the early 1900's was simply impossible to do overseas due to the lack of transport and communications between cheaper labor positions of the world.

Either way, if you can organize into unions, you can be easily replaced because unions only cater to those whose labor is easily replaced. If you as an IT worker can be easily replaced, you're not very good at your job. If your boss thinks you are easily replaceable while you're not, they will realize that soon enough and you probably don't want to work there anyway.

Re:Cheers

[scamper_22]

I agree with your general sentiment that IT workers tend to live in some kind of libertarian paradise that doesn't exist sometimes. Many even don't want government funding for projects and companies. That might be an ideal (depending on your political ideology), but there's no point a martyr industry. Healthcare, education, law, medicine... mega bucks by government and regulations. So what if try to keep a piece of the pie to ourselves.

The problem is that unionizing doesn't work for private sector workers as we have free trade.

Unionization has only ever worked when you are able to capture a large amount of the workers under the same conditions/contract. Go ahead and unionize your blue collar job... they can just setup shop in Mexico, China, India...

There are far larger structural changes that go beyond just unionization that would need to keep bluecollar or IT workers in good conditions. Changing free trade laws. Reforming how unions work (like in Germany...). Accepting public dollars more in tech companies. Maybe making it more of a profession, so the job HAS to be done in country (like law, medicine, teaching...)

Re:Cheers

[sumdumass]

How illegal is it?

Seriously. Is it civil law illegal or criminal law illegal and is there even penalties for replacement of American workers with H1B workers?

We are told it is illegal. But this isn't the first time an elected official has publicly stood against this behavior. You would think that the US government itself would have an interest in it's laws being followed. The president even has a constitutional requirement to faithfully execute the laws of the land. So why does it take a non existent union to sue over illegal activities if they are actually illegal? The union should be completely unnecessary if the practice is truly illegal. All it should require is anyone - let alone an elected member of congress to report the violation of law and have it investigated and prosecuted.

Re:Cheers

[kencurry]

If you can start a viable company, why wait? Just do it now.

See, everyone can talk about their good ideas. Very, very few can execute on them - so can you do it or not?

Re:Cheers

[radish]

I work in tech, and my wife is (was) a teacher. She was forced to join a union she didn't want to join. She was forced to take a deduction from her paycheck to pay for a union she had no interest in supporting. That union stalled pay negotiations for years so she never got a raise, despite getting stellar performance reviews. She was screwed over by her management on more than one occasion, and the union did exactly zero to help her. Let me repeat that - they literally shrugged and said she was on her own. There were other fun incidents, like when her own union prevented her from staying late a couple of hours to finish something which would have helped her kids - because it would have set a bad example for the other teachers. The union's ability to stifle any kind of enthusiasm, innovation or passion is seemingly unbounded. The US education system is in a mess, for lots of reasons, but the unions are absolutely part of the problem.

I have no interest in voting for Trump - I'm a left leaning socialist, but however noble the intent of trade unions may be, the reality (of the one's I've seen) is they're basically a get rich scheme for lazy wannabe politicians. There has to be a better way of protecting workers.

Re: Cheers

[fluffernutter]

What company has left? The same large corporations have been doing business with the American public as long as I can remember.

Re: Cheers

[Bartles]

C'mon, you can use google for just a quick verification before you post a statement like that.

For the lazy, who think that having the highest corporate tax rates in the world won't have negative repercussions

Re: Cheers

[fluffernutter]

Oh I know that is happening, but that's not what I'm talking about. The problem is that it remains too profitable for those corporations to leave and still have access to the American market. They should be free to leave the US, but then they lose free and open access to the American market. Companies should be paying an offset tax to operate from another country. Their margins will go down.. Some will decide that the American market is no longer profitable and leave altogether, thus leaving room for other American companies to start up. As it sits right now, they leave and remain too powerful for anything else from our country to compete.

Re: Cheers

[Bartles]

You sound like a Trump supporter. The only reason it is profitable to leave is because it's too expensive to stay. It's pretty simple. If you want people to do business here, you need to make it easier to do business. Raising taxes until they leave, and then taxing sales they make here after they do that, just fucks everybody over. If a centrally planned and controlled economy really worked, more countries would be doing it.

Re: Cheers

[fluffernutter]

What I'm saying is.. make it easy for companies who employ Americans to do business in America. Understand the value that access to the American market has, and leverage that so if businesses choose to leave, it becomes more expensive for them to operate in America without becoming prohibitively expensive to do so. If they still consider America too expensive to operate in, and choose to abandon the American market altogether and make a go of it in India then so be it. As I said, we'll be fine.

Re: Cheers

[Type44Q]

and didn't want to be dragged down to the level of their fellow man

Have you taken a look at their fellow man lately??

Re:Cheers

[Tyr07]

Sure, and how come your programs are 'missing' now and you can't find all your pictures.

This is why companies want to push cloud everything always on storage, so you just purchase a new PC your pictures / everything is available. Also, you must always have internet, and then also likely will be charged a monthly service fee.

This isn't available for a lot of PC users yet. More realistically home support is around 40-60$ an hour. If you don't want to pay a hundred bucks for your PC repair, you /are/ going to pay 500$ for a new PC. You'll also have to set all your applications backup and sign into everything again.

So either you pay someone for their time, or you spend your time. Currently people don't want to spend their time, but one day it won't be a choice.

It's like self checkout at grocery stores. Now you have to scan and bag your groceries. Same idea will apply to PCs.

Re:Cheers

[Tyr07]

The move to cloud and virtualization means that more and more often this is going to be the cheapest solution.

Yeah, until you don't have any quality alternatives anymore, then you'll be charged a 200$ a month 'service fee' for cloud connectivity.

Re:Cheers

[rally2xs]

You must be a Democrat, because you obviously don't understand how things work. Doing things in business is forced on you, including using illegal aliens, because if you don't, the higher wages paid to American workers makes the price of your product too high, and nobody will buy it. Then you go out of business. Same with the slave owners. If you try to pay your fellow Americans to pick the cotton, you have to raise the price of your cotton in order to pay the American workers you hire, instead of using the free slaves, so nobody buys your high-priced cotton. And as far as Trump doing anything for the big corporations, remember that he cannot be bought - he has all the money he needs already. He will make the big corporations wealthy ONLY if they move their factories back into the USA, where he will have lowered the corporate tax rate to 15%. Then they can make money hand over fist, and Americans can go to work for the big corporations and everyone will have prosperity again, not just the go-to-college bunch.

Re:Cheers

[turbidostato]

"You must be a Democrat, because you obviously don't understand how things work. Doing things in business is forced on you"

I understand what's the meaning of "to be forced on you" you try to set, what you don't understand is that, even if I accept your definition, you still are not forced to engage into business if you don't want to. You get into some kind of business because you don't give a damn about the kind of things you will be "forced" to do which in turn means for the external observer that he can very much anticipate what will happen when the same kind of things happen in a different decision realm.

Just to revisit the example: I have no problems accepting that, once you had a plantation in USA in the XVIII century, you would be basically forced to own slaves if you wanted to remain profitable (not that I know for certain, but let's assume that's the case). What it is obvious is that, if even as a last resort, you still could very well *not* to own a plantation and that, by owning it, you are making also obvious that the money outcome from the plantation is more important to you than the slavery issue just like, by entering into unsustainable debt and then using it to leverage your creditors into giving you more money you are making obvious that you don't give a damn about the output of your actions nor the results on those not being you yourself.

"as far as Trump doing anything for the big corporations, remember that he cannot be bought - he has all the money he needs already."

Ha! Do you *really* think people that reach to billionaire status do it for the money? He's a weasel, and he *enjoys* being a weasel; he *enjoys* looking at the face of those he has weaseled in and he obviously doesn't give a damn about his promises. There's a lot of Trumps in the world, even a bunch of them as successful as Trump himself and that's just the way they are: you can't blame the scorpion for stinging the frog -what you do is making damn sure you don't get within a scorpion's reach.

Re:Cheers

[retchdog]

legal cases are much easier to prosecute when the plaintiff has standing (roughly, this means that you have been personally damaged by the defendant). there are good reasons for this, as having it otherwise would blur the lines between the legislative and judicial branches. unions can provide this level of organization and protection to workers without needing to redesign the state, and as such are a moderate or conservative solution. or you can just fuck them over and leave them to twist. that'll work too.

tl;dr: if a crime is committed and no one prosecutes it, is it a victimless crime? eh, close enough to one, i guess.

Training Replacements = confession

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Training Replacements = confession

[Opportunist]

Your political system makes it pretty much a requirement for a politician if he wants to compete on a national level that he takes bribes. Either that or he is himself SO rich that the political "career" is more akin to a hobby for him 'cause a rich boy needs some rich boy's toys.

You need money to run for an office. LOTS of it. And the only sensible way to get it is to beg for it from corporations. Who in turn are certainly not going to do this out of the good of their hearts. So what do you expect?

Personally I prefer our system. Here, if you manage to get a modest sum of votes you get your campaigning costs back from tax money. Yes, that costs my money. True.

But at least that way I buy the crook.

Re: Training Replacements = confession

[Opportunist]

It doesn't prevent them here either. But it makes them less mandatory. You can actually be a honest politician, and many are.

Ours just upped the punishment for corruption and accepting bribes (with the addendum that politicians from a certain level up have to publish their income fully). Let's see how this is going to turn out.

they ALREADY didn't have to train the replacements

[turkeydance]

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.

It still takes experts

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It's a dead end - sort of.

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

Re:It's a dead end - sort of.

[rally2xs]

I've considered the situation for those coming into the labor market now, and if it was me, I'm not sure I would go tech again. The education is horrendously expensive, requiring student loans that preclude prosperity for a long time while keeping you out of the job market for 4 years while you do it. Then you get treated like this.

I think that all things considered, I'd do whatever it takes to become a railroad engineer. No, not somebody building the railroad, but a locomotive driver. They make pretty good money, it doesn't take 4 years at school to learn, doesn't appear to be "manual labor" like digging a ditch, and everything would be an adventure. I like adventure, and I think I"d enjoy it. Yeah, I made more money in STEM, but it came at a price. The price is much lower for someone like that. And driving? Driving cars, I've been doing that for 50 years, and have had only one significant sheet-metal bender, nobody hurt. If I hadn't swerved, we'd all have been dead, but I just lost track of what was going on, partially, I think, from not being able to fully process the images from my new cataract-replacement multifocal lenses, which were throwing starburts and concentric rings of light from any point source of light. Stopped tail lights on the interstate caused me to almost rear-end the last car in a very long line of cars right around midnight. I don't think that would happen today, I'm used to the lenses now, but they were new to me at the time. But drive a locomotive safely - I think I'd be above average.

Intentional inaction

[CrankyOldEngineer]

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.

Re:Intentional inaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiplier Effect

For each IT worker out of a job, several other US jobs also go.
This sends a market signal - Don't do IT, so then universities cut jobs - and its a race to the bottom.As if US needs more Lawyers and the ilk.
Now India may seem cheaper, but some say the real gains are only about 10%, offset by a risk of falling behind your competitors or down the line and cost blowouts. Insourcing is coming back into vogue because the cut and chop people are getting found out for pathetic agility, and freezing all IT in a timewarp. Outsourcing may also mean you data/pricing and contract details leak out, and maybe IP and trial data.

Yet another reason why if the others turn a blind eye, may as well support Trump.

Re:Intentional inaction

[fluffernutter]

This is why my head explodes every time IT companies start complaining there is no IT talent. They started making their bed the instant they started increased tech productivity into profits.

The Great Equalization Begins

[west]

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."

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Anonymous Coward]

48k US is the bottom 54%. Top 1% is 400k.

He's talking about the world, not the US.

Yeah, all you people whining about the ebil 1%? You're part of it, and you think you deserve it just for not running down your mom's leg.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Junta]

Beyond pay, this also veers toward indentured servitude type stuff going on. Once here, the employer holds an unreasonable amount of power (firing means deportation). This is a very dangerous trend.

Not to say H1-B is always abused, I know some brilliant H1-B folks (company got H1-B to specifically get those people by name, and I get the impression they are paid a premium as well). But the trend of do some labor gymnastics to replace local with H1-B systematically... that's a problem.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[tburkhol]

"Do I deserve to be part of the 1% (household income $48K) solely on the basis of hereditary privilege?"

48k US is the bottom 54%. Top 1% is 400k.

He's talking about the global population, and asking why he deserves to be more wealthy than some random Chinese or Indian peasant, just for the accident of being born in the US.

Globalization will eventually diminish these international differences by shifting production to low-wage populations. This is great for the majority of the world, who get better jobs, higher standard of living, and more of the benefits of modern society. It's not so great for people, like essentially all Americans, who depend on the accidents of geography, history, and heredity for their elevated status.

Personally, I'm happy to accept the benefits of generations of my predecessors. Those benefits are all due to self-interested, sometimes even sociopathic, choices. I make most of my own choices out of self-interest, though I try to stay away from overtly sociopathic choices.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[slashping]

Think not in terms of what you deserve, but in terms of what you want, and what you can get.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[valnar]

If we keep money in America, everybody will do better here. Who cares if they are poor elsewhere (sorry, but true). It worked in decades past. It's only with the new globalization that we have to compete with other countries or their (human) resources.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[fluffernutter]

Unless you make $12 an hour you need to be more effective than six. Try fifty or sixty. That said, the good news is that it is still doable. The bad news is that it probably doesn't matter anyway because even if fifty or sixty can do half the quality of you, most companies are still willing to pay for it. Yes it is that bad.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[fluffernutter]

Except we're talking about a NATIONAL issue here, not a global issue. The poster is correct in referring to the national 1%.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[fluffernutter]

Also, let's not forget restaurants that are basically cooking food on the street and with food filled with paper. Is that what we want?

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Dutch Gun]

You shouldn't have to justify your higher salary based on your nationality (or apparently feel horrifically guilty about your "hereditary privilege". Christ, the PC crowd has really gotten to you). These corporations enjoy the privilege of being located in the US, a safe and prosperous democratic republic. As such, there is some inherent overhead in the form of higher taxes and wages because, to put it simply, they're located on prime real estate. There are all sorts of accounting tricks to help with the former, and H1Bs are helping with the latter. It's not hard to understand the proper fix... it's just rather difficult to actually DO it. Fixing the laws to make sure our own populace isn't unfairly undercut by foreign labor won't likely be easy, because cheap labor benefits a lot of powerful people.

Also, importing cheap foreign labor isn't exactly a new phenomenon in the US. As far as I can tell, it's just new to the middle class.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[slashping]

My job was outsourced 10 years ago, and I even trained my replacements. Then I started my own company, and that's where I still am, making more money than ever before.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[slashping]

It's not hard to understand the proper fix..

So, what's the proper fix ?

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[mjm1231]

If it were only a national issue, there wouldn't be an international source of lower waged workers. The mere fact that this is available makes it a global issue.

Unfortunately, the Trump solution of isolationist trade and immigration policy has been tried more than once in the past, always with disastrous results. But when we don't know what does work, humans always resort to the solution experience has proven will fail, because hey, at least it's a "solution".

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Dutch Gun]

We need to make sure users of the H1B program can't skirt the intent of the law, which they're absolutely doing right now by outsourcing to specialist contractors who hire nothing but H1Bs. They're simply using this program to drive down IT wages, rather than using it as a mechanism to bring in labor for jobs that can't be filled domestically. That loophole needs to be closed, and more importantly, enforced.

Of course, understanding the fix at a conceptual level is easy, but as with many things in life, actually getting it done is going to be rather difficult. More to the point, the fix *in practice* tends to be a lot more complicated than a fix *in theory*, if I'm being brutally honest here, because lawyers, lawmakers, and loopholes, and the CEOs who direct them.

It's not a lot different than the entire software patent issue. Most programmers can pretty clearly see what a disaster it is for everyone except patent pool participants and patent trolls, but getting those types of patents invalidated has proven to be a real challenge in actual practice.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[fluffernutter]

You're confused. It is firmly a national issue, but the thing causing the national issue is the fact that corporations have been allowed to tap into global markets and take full advantage of the one upside to those markets which is cheap labor. This is also bringing in the downside and making it the problem of every average american. I don't know about you, but I was raised to consider our nation great because we had freedom from oppression and now we are being sold out and the things we have been taught to respect our nation for are all along are the cost we are being asked to bear. While there are serious global issues of poverty that should be solved, they are issues that need to be solved over many generations and largely by the nations where the issues exist. The workers of the western world should not be asked to bear the burden of it, especially while the 1% of the western world continue to do nothing but profit from it.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[slashping]

The heart of the problem is that a market inefficiency exists, and only a few people that benefit from that inefficiency (the overpaid US worker) wants that inefficiency to be protected.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[ZecretZquirrel]

In my estimation you will have no problem being as productive as 6 Indian employees. The problem will be getting management to recognize it.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[wbr1]

When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Dutch Gun]

That's a way of looking at it. But generally speaking, as a nation, we don't let markets do whatever they wish, right? Because in many cases, markets don't do what's humane or just for the population at large, and especially not for individuals. For instance, market forces don't care about whether a company pollutes the environment, or whether a person is injured or defrauded, so we pass laws to protect consumers related to safety, fraud, and many other fectors. Markets may dictate that someone is worth only $4.00 an hour, but as a society, we feel that there should be a minimum wage. Minimum wages are, of course, completely antithetical to market forces, which is why it would be stupid to try to raise standards of living by simply passing a law to increase minimum wages to some absurd level.

Unlike many here, I'm actually a pretty strong proponent of capitalism / market forces / whatever you want to call it, but I also believe it needs to be balanced against a system of rules and laws that protect people against the crueler Darwinian forces of capitalism as well. Countries have borders in order to protect their citizens. Part of that protection is purely physical, but it's also partly legal and economic protection as well - not in the sense that you would typically use the word "economic protectionism" (punitive tariffs, for example), but I don't think it's unreasonable for the US to ensure our job markets are not unnaturally diluted. Remember, this is intentionally subverting an existing law which grants an exception to our standard rules. There's zero reason we need to allow that at the behest of corporate interests.

And no, I don't believe there's any problem in the US looking out for US worker's own interest first, especially when no other country is reciprocating in kind to this absurd generousness to their skilled workers.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[grasshoppa]

That is an awkward question, only because it's the wrong one to be asking.

Do you deserve to be part of the 1%? If you believe so, then yes you do.

"You don't get paid what you're worth, but rather what you hustle."

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[techhead79]

You do understand that the only reason why they even have the ability to find a software job is the end result of 1st world nations being stable enough to support and help drive the entire software development field... So in your mind everyone born on this planet gets to inherit nothing from their parents hard work or desire to live in a stable environment...that all children should just be thrown into some little people human pool that you select from when you want a child in this world? lol.

I work my ass off for my children and for my family's children. Every penny I earn is either directly or indirectly driven to their success and inheritance in life. We all have fun with our money but for countless generations this has been our system. And you're ignorant to believe it doesn't exist in every country on this planet.

This concept that the entire planet is all equal is a new concept. While we certainly no longer have an interest in invading and taking over other countries...this idea that our generation is responsible for all of your plight and things you don't have in life is a joke. Governments are bribed. People obey the governments instead of leaving the country or overthrowing it. Corporations might be evil, but they bribe those governments.

Deserve has got nothing to do with it, lol. You think children of my family "deserve" to have someone looking out for their future and best interests? Deserve has got nothing to do with it. It's about the choices all of us make to build up or destroy a nation. You may not be where you are in this world because you deserve it. But if you do nothing with what you are given in it and instead just sit and complain and whine about all that you do not have, then you certainly do not deserve anything that you might achieve in your life. This 1% bullshit in the USA has nothing to do with the difference of equality on this planet.

Everyone living in 1st world nations owe the status of their life to their ancestors. It is their right to continue to try and achieve the most they can out of their lives and pass that onto their children. The 1% in the USA specifically is only interested in their own greed and has no/ZERO comparison to that of a middle income family trying to get by with the wealth of the entire planet. To even compare those two things is insulting...to imply that someone attempting to further their children's lives by gaining wealth in this life with that of the BILLIONS of dollars just single individuals have in this world is not even close to an accurate or fair comparison. Deserves got nothing to do with it. You want what we have? Build it in your own damn nation...work your ass off for it...give the life you are bitching and whining about not having to your children by creating a better world for them to live in...do you honestly believe the short term solution of working in another country only to return home will do that? Nope...it will only serve that 1% that has billions of dollars to take money away from the middle class of another country....all to what...let you barely get by living out of an apartment in another country away from the rest of your family shipping home what money you can save up? This conflict of H1B visas has nothing to do with you or I and everything to do with internal class conflict in the USA and other 1st world nations. You think this is about what people deserve? Try asking to get paid what an American gets paid and see what it gets you...because THAT's what you deserve to be paid...because that's where the job is. EVERY PENNY difference in the income of an American and someone here on an H1B visa goes to that 1% that already has billions of dollars in their pockets. It's as simple as that. This has always been about class warfare...putting it out there as income inequality with the entire planet is ignoring what that same upper class 1% in first world nations is already doing to 3rd world nations by bribing governments.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[Julz]

The major issue is that companies are forcing their workers to take less pay, work longer hours and train themselves, use lower quality tools and base products to increase the profit margins and make the books look great for shareholders and potential takeovers. The end result, in time, will be more reluctance to produce quality output, more failures, more dependence on borrowing, more unrest and unemployment. Perhaps this will be when the standard income, working or not, will become feasible? All I can think of is Idiocracy and feeding my peace plants Brawndo.

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[jrumney]

The problem with this "great equalization" is that in the high income countries, it is not the top earners who are being equalized, but the middle class. In fact the top earners just keep pulling away from the rest of us - and this is happening globally (some of the worlds richest people are now in India and China, while significant portions of their countries' populations are being left at the starting posts). Globally it may look like a "great equalization", but in every individual country, the gap between rich and poor is growing rapidly. The difference is only in whether the middle class is shrinking and becoming poorer (Western countries), or the middle class is growing and becoming richer (developing countries).

Re:The Great Equalization Begins

[EmptyHead]

It might feel good to consider the rest of the world our equals. Trade barriers are seen as protectionism. Patriotism is viewed as xenophobia.

The thing is, humanity needs teams and rewards. Both provide something to compete with or for, in order to stay productive. The second world communist model failed and will always fail because without incentive, efficiency is what people will pursue. One will do the minimum to receive their paltry equal share.

Unions have major problems too

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[dbIII]

because such jobs easily replaceable and are open to abuse towards a persons health and safety

IT has become that on both counts in many places where very long hours for months are expected.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[fluffernutter]

So you are saying that the CEO of a company really puts in 800x the effort? Where does he get time for that 32,000 hour work week and still find time to perfect his golf swing?

Re:Unions have major problems too

[Anonymous Coward]

Work smart, not hard.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[slashping]

Work smart means let other people do the work for you, while you practice your golf swing, and get their money.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[JeffOwl]

So you are saying that the CEO of a company really puts in 800x the effort? Where does he get time for that 32,000 hour work week and still find time to perfect his golf swing?

Why do people keep bringing this up? It isn't about effort. It is about how little they can pay to get someone who is perceived to have the capability they need. Do you think that the person who answers the level 1 help desk line and reads off a script should make as much as the network architect? What if they both work the same number of hours? Do you think that the person who images the new PCs that come in should make as much as the person who runs the data center? Once you concede that point, it is just a matter of degree.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[fluffernutter]

The post I was responding to said, specifically, that people at the non-800x level were not properly recognizing the effort and intelligence put in. I was challenging that, since without unions we get a CEO that is paid at 800x the rate, we must explain how the CEO is putting in 800x the effort (and is 800x more intelligent) to for that argument to hold true. At any rate, I've never seen a union pay scale without tiers for various levels of work so the whole argument is kind of beside the point anyway. What I see unions doing is kind of ending up flat because they still must operate in a system where the CEO makes that 800x AND get a golden parachute for the reward of messing up royally.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[paiute]

Work smart, not hard.

Every company says to "work smarter, not harder". But god forbid they catch you not working harder.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[turbidostato]

"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"

Is it not that you said that IT workers *as a class* have these and these claims? How is it not that bargaining also as a whole can't result into a better output?

"Unions make sense for blue-collar jobs, because such jobs easily replaceable"

Isn't it the very core of this article that IT jobs are also easily replaceable... even by people living thousands of miles away, so even easier than their blue-collar fellows?

Re:Unions have major problems too

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I am a part of a public sector union. Let's examine your claims against my experience (spoiler- you're wrong. A lot.)

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.

That true across nearly every job. Even CEOs think they are underpaid for the amount of stress they are under.

And surprise, one of the main aspects of unions is lobby for increased pay and benefits across the board. The other is holding employers accountable to the employment contract and having some voice in management decisions.

as the top employee will be treated the same as the lazy and/or inadequate employee.

True to a degree, but way off the mark in practice. The baseline treatment of employees is the same, with high performing ones earning bonuses, glowing reviews that lead to promotions, and consideration for increased training.

The bugbear of the difficulty in dismissing shit employees is also true, however unions aren't in charge of hiring, which many problems could be avoided if HR performed due diligence in the first place.

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.

Actually, my union just lobbied for higher pay as a retention bonus for certain highly skilled positions as they are difficult to fill and replace. Not to mention layoffs tend to follow seniority, who are usually the highest paid.

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.

Actually, the union here is roundly criticized when they muff something, and should the officers flub too badly, new officers are voted in.

The lackadaisical attitude of previous officers towards safety was kiboshed in favor of new people with the mandate to improve safety. And they have. Sometimes it is the officers who don't have the skillset to address present concerns, so new ones are voted in.

And this isn't to say unions are all unicorn farts and puppies, but especially with holding management accountable for their poor decisions; your depiction seems to follow a popular trope about unions rather than how they can function.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[Billly Gates]

Put a shitty CEO like that of Nokia in your company and you tell me his work is not more important?

Sorry but we are not all that unless we work for an IT company. That is economic reality. You do not raise the share price. You do not increase sales. You do not make the product your employer sells so why should they pay you? What makes you so special?

The chef at a Chillis brings in millions each year. In comparison you as a sys admin cost money and the only reason you are not paid minimum wage is an outage can be costly. So basically IT is just insurance to make sure other people can be the shiny stars and continue raking in money.

Want to make it? Then go work for an IT company where you are involved in revenue.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[uncqual]

It isn't about effort or intelligence. It's about supply and demand and the impact of doing a good vs. a great job.

Anyone who is not severely disabled can clean a toilet so the supply of those with that capability dramatically exceeds the demand and the pay is low. If the toilet is not cleaned perfectly or it takes one person 5% longer to clean it than another, the impact on the organization owning the toilet is not perceivable so there's little reason to pay someone much more because they are a little better at the job.

However, very few people have the native skills (and education/experience) to run a giant company like GE. More importantly, a "good" CEO of such a company might result in corporate performance being only 95% of what a "great" CEO would have -- and that can result in an aggregate loss to investors in the billions of dollars and aggregate loss of thousands of worker's jobs. Thus, like when picking a quarterback for an NFL team, companies will pay a great deal more for the best possible CEO rather than settling for the second best possible CEO -- and this makes perfect financial sense.

When selecting a gardener, would you pay 50% more for one that do only a slightly better job? Probably not, even if you were wealthy. On the other hand, when selecting a neurosurgeon to perform complex and dangerous brain surgery on you, would you pay 50% more for one that would do a slightly better job? Likely yes if you could possibly afford it.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[ranton]

True to a degree, but way off the mark in practice. The baseline treatment of employees is the same, with high performing ones earning bonuses, glowing reviews that lead to promotions, and consideration for increased training.

While this may be true in some unions, I have never seen it in practice. I have friends in plumber, waste management, and teacher unions, and all of them have very uniform pay scales that hardly adjusts to individual performance at all. Maybe they have a 10% differences from poor performing coworkers with similar tenure, but without unions it can often be 50%-100% more. And for people with the exact same position, education, experience, etc, the only difference being the leverage a highly skilled worker has.

That true across nearly every job. Even CEOs think they are underpaid for the amount of stress they are under.

It doesn't matter as much if poor performing workers think they are underpaid. They will learn they aren't when they try looking for work elsewhere.

The bugbear of the difficulty in dismissing shit employees is also true, however unions aren't in charge of hiring, which many problems could be avoided if HR performed due diligence in the first place.

There is no such thing as a hiring process which only hires quality workers. Google finally admitted that after over a decade of thinking they could build a rigorous enough process to only hire great employees. The only way to build a quality workforce is to aggressively fire people who underperform.

And this isn't to say unions are all unicorn farts and puppies, but especially with holding management accountable for their poor decisions; your depiction seems to follow a popular trope about unions rather than how they can function.

I think almost everyone can agree unions can function well, and almost certainly some unions even do function well. People get upset about how most unions actually function, though, which is not in the way you are describing. It sounds like you work under high quality union leadership. My guess it is you are in the trades, since my friends in a plumber's union do have it better than my teacher friends and waste management. Well actually my friend in waste management gets the best deal from his union, but only because there are riots if garbage men strike, not because the union is run particularly well.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[ranton]

You might be awesome at what you do, and you may even have actual hard proof of this. Unfortunately, none of that matters when you get an idiot director or CEO who thinks that IT people are totally interchangeable and all have the same skill set. Your proof of worth will never even be considered by such people.

Then you stop ignoring the recruiters who send over at least 5 jobs offers per week, or call back your friends who keep asking you if you are available for a job, and get a new job by the end of the month. Job security should not come from forcing someone to employ you. It should come from being highly employable in the marketplace.

The job security that comes from being at the same company from 20 years is an illusion. True job security comes from working 5 different jobs in 20 years, and having the experience and skill to get that 6th job at a moment's notice.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[Fire_Wraith]

You seem to be only familiar with blue-collar unions. That's possibly because most white collar professions that have them don't go by the "union" name. They call themselves professional associations, licensing boards, that sort of thing. They don't necessarily do all of the same things, but unions also aren't just about negotiating salary. They can do a lot more than that.

But really, even your assumptions about what a union will do is flawed. Haven't you ever seen how trade unions work in skilled labor? You know, the ones where they enforce a set of standards to prove that a qualified person knows his or her shit, so jobs can't just be flooded by unskilled hacks to drive down costs. There's also the fact that a union is what its members decide that it should be, and its rules are what they set - so if you're terribly worried that whomever you elect to handle those duties is going to sell you down the river, you could always do something like set the rules such that they don't have an incentive to go the route of lots of cheap low skill bodies.

Furthermore, my experience with unions has been that they tend to protect and favor the more senior people, rather than the other way around as you seem to think. That's largely anecdotal, though, in fairness.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[CanadianMacFan]

I was in a union job doing IT work for the government. I had a series of term contracts and there's a regulation that says that if you are in the same position under term contracts for three years it automatically gets converted into a permanent position. When I was coming up to my three years they told me that they weren't going to give me the extension because it would convert me to a permanent position. They aren't allowed to do this by law because the work still had to be done. I went to the union and they just said the upper management could do whatever they wanted. There were three of us in that position and my direct manager got into a lot of trouble fighting for us to stay, which we did. The union, which we were paying $40 or $50 a month for exactly that, didn't lift a finger.

Re:Unions have major problems too

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

The CEO's ARE putting in 800x efforts, just not aimed at helping their employees. The CEOs are only beholden to the shareowners, who only care about quarterly profits and getting the stocks higher. Employees are nothing but numbers in a column, only means to an end. That end is higher profits, that's all a corp is concerned with. If allowed, a corp would poison the air, water, and ground if it meant making a profit; they would kill the local population indiscriminately. They have in the past, and still do when they can get away with it.

Re:What is this loophole?

[Junta]

The company cuts back jobs, and doesn't really 'hire' anyone. Instead they find a good old outsourcing firm to provide contract work cheaper than the people they laid off. At this point in the transaction, it's just good ol' American capitalist competition at work.

Now turn to the outsourcing company. They just landed a huge contract. But they don't have the manpower, so they need to hire new. They haven't laid anyone off. Now *they* can claim lack of available talent to apply for H1-Bs, and not have any layoffs to scrutinize. They can also at the time point to the work seeking pool and probably easily show they can't find the needed 150 applicants or whatever (because the near-future unemployed folks *still have jobs at that point in time*, so they don't count yet). So they get H1-Bs, staff up, get the staff trained, *then* there's a glut of 150 qualified American professionals on the market that, in theory, should make it difficult to justify H1-Bs in that area.

In theory, this should at least make companies like IBM and Wipro that do this thing be able to do so only sporadically in a given geographic area, but I don't think the process really scrutinizes the local area applicant pool as it should, so that facet of the surplus labor being not yet laid off is not so critical.

Re:What is this loophole?

[Opportunist]

Loopholes make it hard to hold violators accountable?

Certainly. But oh look who has been totally randomly been chosen for a through IRS audit this year. And next. And the year after. And oddly as long as he keeps using loopholes.

Coincidence. Pure coincidence, of course.

This is why America needs President Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[slashping]

As if disliking one of the candidates must automatically mean you support one of the others. Truth is that there's no good choice.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[cyber-vandal]

Isn't Bernie talking about supporting Americans too? How are his policies going to destroy America. They might destroy quite a few parasitic health insurance corporations but I'm not seeing that as a bad thing.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[fluffernutter]

Trump seems upset as well, and he is reaching people who are upset. I'm simply an upset person who is also too intelligent to fall for it.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[paiute]

Trump would do exactly the same as before, call it a different name, declare it a great success, and then distract the media with bombast.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[slashping]

There doesn't always have to a be a "no good choice" there can be a "choice that is the lesser of all evils."

Good. Keep telling yourself that, citizen.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[fluffernutter]

The problem is, Sandars has good ideas but if he can't get them through congress then we are screwed. So, long story short, we have no solution because our very system of democracy ensures that the people who have the resources to run for power will get their way, not just the people we vote for.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[fluffernutter]

When the majority call him out for going back on his word, he will laugh and call him idiots... just like he has always done and always will do. We take personal integrity for granted in politics because we see such little evidence of it, but mark my words we will see the difference between a person who has a little personal integrity and absolutely no personal integrity if Trump is voted in.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[plopez]

If you don't try you'll never know now will you?

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[plopez]

He even offshore his wives.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[plopez]

Trump is an American Inevitability.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem upset. I'm a partisan hack who believes whatever the Illuminati wants me to believe, and I refuse to believe that the other sports team could offer anybody good. I'm also going to somehow call Sanders untrustworthy because in my book, being untrustworthy means sticking to one's principals, keeping consistent opinions and leanings over an entire political career, and most importantly, not going along with Clinton's latest lie that she was involved in the civil rights movements and Sanders wasn't.

There. FTFY. The two people we have running who are completely untrustworthy are Clinton and Trump. Your choices are between a lying, gaslighting bitch who has proven completely incompetent with classified information and has consistently adopted whatever views are politically expedient in the present moment and a lying, gaslighting asshole manager who has proven completely incompetent with managing his inherited wealth and has consistently adopted whatever view are politically expedient in the present moment.

But no, Sanders doesn't have a chance. I voted for him. He won in my state. I'm done with this voting thing for now. I'll leave it up to you enlightened Illuminati-brainwashed masses to figure out just how exactly you want the country to burn.

I will say this about Trump. I may yet change my mind and vote for him in the general election. He's a loose cannon. He's completely unpredictable. He might or might not start World War 3 and incite race riots across the country. I honestly don't know what to expect from a President Trump.

I am absolutely certain, however, that a President Clinton will definitely lead to rioting in every major city when TPP/TTIP/TISA come into full effect. Go ahead and let yourself be fooled by her current political posturing. She's going to go right back to fully supporting those treaties once she's in the oval office. It's a matter of time before BRICS switches away from the US dollar and completely tanks Western economies. World War 3? Total atomic annihilation? That's more difficult to suss out. If I had the cash, I would seriously consider buying one of these condos.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Bartles]

You're right. Hillary Clinton is the true Savior.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Bartles]

I don't think monopoly means what you think it's means. Mono means one. You can't have multiple drug monopolies.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Bartles]

It's amazing that you can substitute Obama for Trump in your statement and it still makes total sense.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you are truly an idiot. Same AC that linked to survivalcondo.com here. I wish I had scrolled a bit further down and saved my reply for this comment instead.

So you really believe that the way forward is making sure the wrong lizard doesn't get into office?

So tell me: who is the wrong lizard here? It's going to come down to Trump and Clinton in November. Who's the wrong lizard? Trump or Clinton? You seem to already dislike Clinton, but for some reason you've decided that the conman in this election is Sanders. Tell me how you feel about Trump.

To clarify, I am upset this time around. Usually I vote Libertarian, so I've come to expect that my vote is only a protest vote. I was one of those people who would go around saying, "Vote! Vote for anybody! Vote Green! Vote Democrat! Vote Republican! Vote Libertarian! Vote Natural Law or Taxpayer's Party! Write in Mickey Mouse! Just get out and vote!" Naah, no more of that from me. It's clear to me that the process is completely rigged. Back when he still had a chance, I watched as article after article ignored that Sanders was even running. Well, that was a fairly effective tactic for the Illuminati. Clinton has been coronated. I'm certain that Trump is an Illuminati candidate as well, except that his role is to ensure that Clinton wins in November.

Watch the working class once again vote against their own interest. Watch as black people once again vote against their own interest just because some "black leaders" and the media told them to. Watch as women once again vote against their own interest. Hey, at least we'll unlock the "female head of state" achievement!

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[cashman73]

Trump himself has used and abused the H1B visa system, and he's admitted it. Why? Because as a businessman himself, even he recognizes the opportunity to save money by importing cheaper foreign labor. Anyone that believes that Trump is somehow going to change his ways and be America's great labor force "savior" is just delusional.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[sumdumass]

Sure you can. Plural drugs with singular company controlling them in the plural sense. You can have a monopoly on drug X and I can one drug Y. We are still monopolies.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[RabidReindeer]

Germany needed a savior too, and it got one. At the risk of false Godwin accusations, it was Adolf Hitler.

I don't think Trump himself is extraordinarily evil (being a businessman, a certain amount of evil is necessary and he has more than enough of that). I cannot say as much, however, for many of those he attracts to his flag, and he hasn't been very diligent in chastising them. I worry that he'd prove the old adage about power corrupting.

What we really need more than a charismatic savior is for the various factions of what we've already got to stop waging war on each other and try to work for the common good, even where it may not perfectly align with their ideologies or party power schemes.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[cyber-vandal]

Providing universal education for children is very expensive too but it more than pays for itself by providing a more skilled workforce. It's not perfect but it's far better than what existed before. Likewise forcing young adults to take on huge debts to get a further education limits their potential to contribute more effectively to society, either by not going or by having very little disposable income. You're right about the problem of getting the rich to pay for the society they depend on to make them rich. I don't know what the solution to that is though.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[vovin]

Yes ... but is he an idiot conning the people. Or a nut trying to con the moneyed stakeholders running this mess?

Either way he's a better bet that what we have.
H. Clinton will double down on this continued economic and foreign policy nightmare. Not to mention the continuous onslaught against person freedom and privacy.

My hope is that Trump is arrogant enough and dumb enough to do whatever the bleep he wants because he thinks his handlers can't destroy him. Either that or we get more of the same .. what do we have to lose?

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[Chris Mattern]

America needs to once again put Americans first

Which, of course, Trump will not do. Trump puts Trump first, last, and always. When he even bothers to lie about it it's so transparent as to be pathetic.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[poetmatt]

when those are your choices you're basically telling us you're too ignorant to realize that you shouldn't have to make bad choices. You're the definition of voter apathy.

If your choice is to lose an arm or a leg, well maybe you shouldn't have to accept either option.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[smooth wombat]

spewing state secrets all over the place.

Is that anything like Dick Cheney outing an undercover CIA agent and lying about it?

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[pagedout]

Sorry for the language but, BS.

1. Nobody forces young adults to take on huge debt. At best stupid people propagate a debtor lifestyle by teaching it to their kids to party now and pay sometime in the future. It is not hard to make it through without debt. It just takes a little planning and work.I know, I did it only a few short years ago.

2. At least you got part of this right. People who blow their money on silly things tend not to have disposable income. If it wasn't this type of debt it would be credit-card debt for something else. Debtors will find things to put themselves in debt for.

3. Yes, primary/secondary education is very expensive, ~$12k/year/student. No, we don't tend to get a lot for it. We still have rather high dropout rates. We still have people graduating with little to no understanding of math, science and dubious literacy skills. I suspect the problem is nature as anyone with even a small drive to learn seems to do just fine. I have no solution to this but I suspect some people would just be happier if we left them alone.

4. As for the rich I have the solution there. Make personal long-term transactions illegal. The average person is not mature enough to sell their future self into virtual slavery. If you get rid of this inexhaustible well of stupidity, that even the modestly bright can tap into, you should have little problem with the current batch of family wealth or bubble rich. The bubble rich won't happen because nobody stupid enough to buy in will have the money. The family wealth will dwindle when they no longer have easy targets to perpetuate themselves on. Once that is cleared up those who are left rich deserve to be and if you want to continue your current 'eat the rich' tune all I can do is wish that you too get eaten when someone else decides they want what you have.

Or that is just my opinion,

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[pagedout]

Cooked numbers show whatever you want them to. Unemployment, under-employment, discouraged workers and labor participation.There are a thousand ways to slice this and each one shows something different.Add in who's to blame President, House, Senate and States now you have a hodgepodge that is impossible to untangle. As far as I can tell its just a religion on both sides.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[Fire_Wraith]

If I understand his argument, he's claiming that he knows the system is broken because he's exploited it too, but that now he wants to block the exploits.

Whether or not you believe him in that claim is up to you.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[Darinbob]

I'm sticking with the Nigerian prince who sent me some email, he claims to have a full plan to fix the economy, restore jobs, and make Pluto a planet again. Besides he's the only one who actually says what he thinks.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[maugle]

No comment on points 2-4, but concerning your first point:
It's true that nobody out-and-out forces young people to take on huge debt, but let's look at their surroundings. Everyone is telling them that a college education is mandatory now if they want to get a good job. All of their peers are taking on student loans, as did all the adults around them that went to college. Their entire environment is screaming "you must take on loans to go to college, and if you don't go to college you will die penniless in a gutter". It isn't fair to hold it against them when they do what every authority figure they know is telling them to do.

I think a possible answer to student debt is to (somehow) put more emphasis on trade schools. Many people going to college right now don't really know why they're there, and just pick the easiest classes and majors to coast through. That takes up slots that could be filled by more driven students, and that allows the colleges to continue raising prices. Find a way to funnel the unmotivated away from college and into learning a trade they find interesting, instead, and we'd get better results all around: more skilled workers with less debt weighing them down.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[sycodon]

Hate to tell you, but Sanders and Hillary are con-artists too. Everyone in D.C. is.

Re:This is why America needs President Trump

[Darinbob]

"Slashdot is trying to slam me. Who do they think they are. Have you seen their poll numbers? They're nothing. No one goes to that site anyway. Vote for me. I'll be huuuuge. Now who wants to buy some steaks?"

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Bartles]

Oh really, genius? What happens if the workforce participation rate was the same as it was in 2007?

Behold

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[pagedout]

There have always been those that that push this (educators to be paid, elitists to divide the world and true believers to have someone to brainwash). It has always seemed like a self fulfilling prophecy to me. I mean seriously how is the proverbial "Russian Lit" degree really going to help anyone be successful (maybe some chance at translator work)?

However, I think you overstate that everyone pushes people that way. There is quite a movement to tell kids that they don't need College to be successful. There was quite a bit of debate a few years ago when I was in college about the real worth of it. Hell, I remember reading about the top 10 CEOs and how the majority thought that current college degrees were pretty worthless.

Further, I would say that either they are children in which case we shouldn't allow them to enter into binding contracts, or they are adults and yes it is fair to hold them to the consequences of their choices.

As for the trade school argument I don't think it will work. There would be a rush of cash as the government started to support it, they would lay down a bunch of insane requirements. The costs would go up just like it has for your standard university and you would be right back in the same place. The only way to control this is to force people to realize their choices have consequences that they will have to live with and then give them enough information to make good choices.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

The numbers are "cooked" the same way regardless of whether there's a Republican or Democratic president. It's the standard metric.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Sanders is definitely not a con artist, he's been very consistent across the board for ages. The only position which seems like a personal compromise was guns, because he represents Vermont. Hillary is a politician, no doubt, and a little cagey but she's not a con artist/fascist like Trump. There's a couple of orders of magnitude difference. It's like saying Richard Nixon was bad, but so were the alternatives at the time. No! Get real.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Type44Q]

Sanders is definitely not a con artist

Nope, definitely not... wait; we're not talking about a politician, right?

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Mashiki]

Wow, you are truly an idiot. Same AC that linked to survivalcondo.com here. I wish I had scrolled a bit further down and saved my reply for this comment instead.

AC that makes shit up huh? And is also a spam bot filled with garbage, no surprise there. I guess it got lucky with mod points for a change.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Mashiki]

Good. Keep telling yourself that, citizen.

Occasionally you have to grow up too. It's funny, but your comment reminds me of the whining that the left was doing back in the late 70's with Regan. Almost word for word at that, I guess some things don't change.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[Mashiki]

when those are your choices you're basically telling us you're too ignorant to realize that you shouldn't have to make bad choices. You're the definition of voter apathy.

If your choice is to lose an arm or a leg, well maybe you shouldn't have to accept either option.

When your choices are worse options and even worse options, where one will likely kill you and the other will only cost you an arm...well you're the very definition of someone who would rather let themselves die instead of doing something that would enable themselves to live.

If you need a definition of apathy, you only need to look in the mirror.

Re: This is why America needs President Trump

[wallsg]

The Refusal Ending still results in a Reaper victory and Shepard still dies.

Change the law

[Britz]

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?

Re:Change the law

[ZecretZquirrel]

Just this on Trump: his hypocrisy doesn't make what he's saying any less true. And no one else running is even saying it, except Sanders--sort of.

Re:Thanks Republicans and Democrats!!!

[fluffernutter]

Do you really think there is anything anyone could have done? Do you really think if we all collectively voted for the other candidate, ever, that things would have been any different?

Should this be illegal?

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:Should this be illegal?

[turbidostato]

"I am wondering whether it should be illegal to require an 'about to be laid off employee' to train their replacements."

Why not? If you are holding a given position is perfectly within requirements to be able to demonstrate your knowledge about it. See, no one is asking for or expecting professional-grade training, but just fulfilling your job. You still get your paycheck by the end of the week so since the company is still fulfilling its part of the agreement, why shouldn't you fulfill yours?

If you don't like your current employment at its current situation, you just need to do what you'd do in any other similar situation: find a new one.

Re: Should this be illegal?

[Karlt1]

Why should it be illegal? I would have no trouble training my replacement as long as I'm getting a paycheck. I would be looking for another job the whole time unless they promised me a severance package that made it worth staying around and having an employment gap.

A minimum wage for H1B visa holders would end this

[zerofoo]

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?

Makes perfect sense

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

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."

Re:US needs to improve employee protection

[arth1]

Treating workers like this would be illegal in more developed countries. Why do Americans stand for this kind of treatment?

The American Dream.
Americans dream that they will become the rich company owner who gets to reap the benefits of hiring cheap and selling dear, so they can live in a mansion and play golf all day. And if not them, their children. Or grandchildren. You just have to vote for the right conservative that keeps that dream possible. And pray to a supernatural being so he'll subtly treat you and yours better than others, so it comes true for you and yours at the expense of others.

TL;DR: Utter stupidity

Re:A minimum wage for H1B visa holders would end t

[Herkum01]

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.

Wipro

[DaMattster]

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.

Is a layoff for an IT worker just inconvenient?

[Karlt1]

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.

Re:A minimum wage for H1B visa holders would end t

[hughperkins]

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.

Believe it or not you're right

[rsilvergun]

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.

in IT you spend all day dealing with dumb people.

[rsilvergun]

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.

Wrong Question

[rsilvergun]

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.

Dear U.S.

[kbsoftware]

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?

This isn't a huge surprise to me

[rnturn]

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.

Re:This isn't a huge surprise to me

[Areyoukiddingme]

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.)

That's an attempt at legal ass-covering, recommended by lawyers. They're fake job listings, designed to "prove" that no local employees are available, to meet the H1B terms. They have no intention of actually hiring anyone who responds to those ads. As long as IT workers displaced by H1Bs continue to just shrug and take another job, the efficacy of the attempted ass-cover won't be tested in court.

Wipro is commiting illegal acts

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

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.

No need for training...

[Julz]

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 :)

Re:No need for training...

[EmptyHead]

Yeah, it takes them a day or two to memorize the material from the cheat sites for those certifications, too. I'm looking forward to the day that we can have some software replace most of these "visionary", "big picture", "strategic thinking" managers that simply follow the failed policies of other firms almost blindly.

I was especially horrified that after her disgusting example at HP of large-scale off-shoring of American jobs, Carly thought she was patriotic enough to run for President. It would be interesting to be a sociopath for a day, just to help understand how these saphien-bots think.

Simple solution

[NewYork]

Tax Company Revenues, Not Profits;