IT Employees At EmblemHealth Fight To Save Jobs (computerworld.com)

Reader dcblogs writes: IT employees at EmblemHealth have united to stop the New York-based employer from outsourcing their jobs to offshore provider Cognizant. Employees say the insurer is on the verge of signing a contract with Cognizant, an IT services firm and one of the largest users of H-1B workers. They say the contract may be signed as early as this week. They fear what a contract with an IT services offshore firm may mean: Humiliation as part of the "knowledge transfer" process, loss of their jobs or a "rebadging" to Cognizant, which they see as little more than temporary employment. Many of the workers, about 200 they estimate, are older, with 15-plus-year tenures. This means a hard job search for them. The IT employees have decided not go quietly. "We're organizing," said one IT employee, who requested anonymity. "We're communicating with one another. They need the knowledge that we have. They can't transition [to Cognizant] without the information that we have. That puts us in a position of strength — they can't fire us for organizing; we're protected by the law," she said.

Comments

Monkeywrench the replacement training

[swb]

Why not just monkeywrench the replacement training?

Train them wrong. Give them incomplete information. Be anti-social. Make a game and see how long you can go answering only yes or no. Basically make the training as empty and useless as possible. Waste time on useless details. Take long shits.

Obviously, no active sabotage, that would be a problem. But who says you have to be any good at the training?

Re:Refuse to transfer knowledge

[Penguinisto]

Depends on the scope... and all it takes is for one key group of people (*nix sysadmins, say) to refuse and stand firm on that refusal.

Personally, if I worked for EmblemHealth, I'd be doing a couple of things right now:

1) start looking for another job - like yesterday.

2) dutifully record every last transgression made by the organization against HIPAA, SOX, and any other authority the organization is subject to. Then start sending emails to the uppers stating those problems, and asking for $$$ to fix it. Word them as if it's no big deal, but it really is a big deal, so as to give yourself a big cushion. Carefully record the expected refusals and store them offsite if you can. After leaving, blow the whistle, because odds are perfect they haven't complied by then if they hadn't complied by the time you left.

(and now for some fun ones, made mostly in jest, you understand...)

3) "Wow - for some odd reason I can't seem to locate all the really critical documentation! Where did it all go?"

4) carefully scrutinize every last labor law for the state. Do your level best to find transgressions against it (especially when it comes to discrimination laws)

5) as an extension to #5, record every spoken conversation, on your phone if you can. save the bits that could be construed as discrimination or suchlike.

6) "Training is going to take a lot longer than I thought..."

7) "I just got hired on to XYZ corp, but I won't start for a month. I'll be happy to transfer my critical knowledge at consultancy fees of $400/hr..." (just be damned sure you have that critical knowledge, have a job waiting for you, and that said knowledge isn't already documented somewhere).

8) carefully study the BOFH archives... see what you can put to use. ;)

Re:Get Use To It

[vivaoporto]

From the Wikipedia, emphasis mine:

On August 5, following the PATCO workers' refusal to return to work, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order, and banned them from federal service for life.

In the wake of the strike and mass firings, the FAA was faced with the task of hiring and training enough controllers to replace those that had been fired, a hard problem to fix as, at the time, it took three years in normal conditions to train a new controller.

They were replaced initially with nonparticipating controllers, supervisors, staff personnel, some non rated personnel, and in some cases by controllers transferred temporarily from other facilities. Some military controllers were also used until replacements could be trained.

The FAA had initially claimed that staffing levels would be restored within two years; however, it would take closer to ten years before the overall staffing levels returned to normal.

The only reason that was possible was because

1) the public sentiment was favourable to empty the power of what was perceived to be very corrupt institutions (the unions)

2) the government could get away with things the private sector would never ever be allowed, like using non rated personnel or military air controllers or taking 10 years instead of 3 to normalise the situation and

3) because you, the american people, was there to pick up the tab so no expenses would be spared to break up not only that union but the whole concept of collective bargaining, striking and fighting in equal footing for workers right.

For reference see what happened in the U.K, about the same time.

The situation is not very similar to the workers mentioned in TFA although the only thing they would get by unionise would be to get the company to declare bankruptcy and to reemerge with another name in the same geographical area, same business plan and most likely same portfolio of customers (but without the workers).

Re:Get Use To It

[Anonymous Coward]

I am no Trump fan, but who would he be a puppet to? The Republican establishment has alienated him, so if he wins, they won't be pulling the strings. He's predominately using his own funds, so the special interest groups won't be pulling the strings. He's a Washington outsider, so they won't be pulling the strings. So who, pray tell, would he be a puppet for?

Re:Get Use To It

[Kazoo the Clown]

The difference is, with the traffic controllers, the FAA wasn't going to declare bankruptcy and go out of business because they couldn't train replacements fast enough. With EmblemHealth, that could be a different story.