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Newspaper Chain CEO 'Pleased' To Announce IT Plan, Then Fires Tech Staff (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes from a report on Computerworld: The McClatchy Company, which operates a major chain of newspapers in the U.S., is moving IT work overseas. The number of affected jobs, based on employee estimates, range from 120 to 150. The chain owns about 30 newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, where McClatchy is based; The Fresno Bee, The News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The State in Columbia, S.C. and the Miami Herald. In a letter sent to the chain's IT employees in late March, McClatchy CEO Patrick Talamantes detailed all the improvements a contract with the outsourcing firm, India-based Wipro, will bring, but buries, well down in the letter what should have been in its lead paragraph: There will be cutbacks of U.S. staff. The letter received by McClatchy's IT employees from Talamantes begins by telling them [the company] is "pleased to unveil our new IT Transformational Program, a program designed to provide improved service to all technology users, accelerated development and delivery of technology solutions and products, variable demand-based technology resources and access to modern and cutting-edge skills and platforms." Seven paragraphs down in the letter, he lowers the boom: "As we embark on the implementation phase, there will be a realignment of resources requiring a reduction in McClatchy technology staff." IT employees thought they were part of the solution to McClatchy's tech direction, not the problem. Said one IT employee: "This has taken us all by surprise. I'm not saying that we felt untouchable as they have been doing layoffs for the past 10 years, but being part of IT we felt that we had a big part in what happens" in the company. Employees are now training their replacements.
And when the replacements are H1B's they are breaking the law.
If we just had a union!
"Employees are now training their replacements" gets me fuming each and every time. If I'm being laid off because I'm a shit worker, that's one thing. Skipping meetings, missing deadlines. Shit like this though? Fuck, if I'm not a valued asset then neither are my years of experience and collected knowledge. These assclowns can get in the god damn ocean, I wouldn't train a single one of these dipshits.
I'd train them.
Poorly.
Yeah, rm -rf / –
That's how you fix it.
I don't know if the Donald is being genuine or just opportunistic, but his messages about loss of American jobs, unfair trade agreements, and corporate behavior is why so many people will put up with his other flaws. They see both current parties as out of touch and not fighting for their needs. IMHO we can't blame these companies as they are operating to maximize shareholder value within the current set of rules (laws, regulations). We should be blaming the government for propagating a set of rules that encourage practices that cause loss of jobs. While I'm no protectionist, we DO need some balance. I find it reprehensible that people have to train their own lower-cost and offshore replacements.
"Employees are training their replacements", I hear that often.
I hope they're spending all their hours at work prioritising job hunting and not training the replacements. Loyalty is two way.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
He's making an announcement to the entire company. Difficult as that may be to believe, IT staff isn't actually the most popular group of employees in many companies.
So, roughly translated, his message reads: "Rejoice, journalists, artists, writers, editors, and business people, our ornery and expensive IT staff is being replaced with more efficient and friendlier overseas staff, and we're going to save money too!"
(Whether this is going to work out as planned is, of course, another question.)
"You don't get that with rigid labor markets"
Let's try something more flexible like outsourcing the management.
No golden parachutes for fuckups.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The Obama administration sued Boeing for moving jobs from Seattle to South Carolina. So yes, some people believe that moving jobs from higher costs areas to lower cost areas, even within America, is wrong.
NY and Kentucky still must adhere to national labor laws.
Bumfuck India does not.
Lot's of talk going around about leveling the playing field, but offshoring of any jobs is definitely not a level playing field.
Even though I can be pretty Right Wong on stuff, I don't it's unreasonable to say if you are going to enjoy US distributions systems, regulations, and misc infrastructure, and most of all a consumer market that pays the prices you are asking for, then you need to make your stuff or support your services here. Feel free to build shit in China or India...but sell it there for the prices you can get there.
THAT, is a level playing field.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's an interesting opinion.
Let's face it, though: The same technology that allows me to work from home also allows someone in a place with an extremely low cost-of-living to compete with me, whether that location is Murrieta, CA or Memphis, TN, or Mumbai, India. If someone has the skills that I have and will work for half the price, why wouldn't a company take advantage of that?
Frankly, I have no problem with this. I don't like it, sure, but it's something I can compete against. I can move to a less expensive area. I can boost my skills. And if a company is looking for the cheapest workers, I'm not sure that's the kind of company I want to work for, anyway.
Where I have the problem is the, "Oh, we need H1B Visas so these people can come to the US and can be trained to do the work you do now." Uh, no. The idea behind H1Bs is that these people have skills that American workers don't have. If I have to train my replacement, then he obviously does not have skills that I, as an American worker, have.
No what we're saying is that if you're benefiting from the generous US tax structure that favors business taxation over individual taxation(if you're doing it right and not doing a sole proprietorship) then you should be employing those people whom allow for that to happen, not abusing the H1B system to create a system of indentured servitude in the US. The tax structure in the US is so out of whack that a tiny sliver are not paying the percentages that they used to,which were...punitive to say the least,and that has swing so far to the other direction that those at the top of the wealth pyramid are essential transferring wealth to themselves and setting the country up for another great depression. We're basically at 1920s levels for income disparity and that's a problem for a functioning capitalist society as well as a functioning democracy and with the advent of the internet news cycle we've seen a huge swing away from journalism to yellow journalism. Your business may be (hopefully) doing well now, but if this trend keeps happening you're mortgaging against your future for short term profits on the backs of the American worker and no one wants to see your business fail, America go into depression, or a jobless economy.
I get it. You think that everyone who starts a business is suddenly a slave to the state, and to anyone that wants a paycheck from them. You're exactly the sort of entitled, lazy bum that's chasing businesses and jobs out of the country.
Actually, I believe fervently that business owners should leave the country as they outsource.
Tell me - and try not to go hyperbolic like you did with the other guy. Should Americans be paid the same as the people that you outsource to? How about making a universal non management pay of 1 dollar a day. At that point, I suspect you mimght consider keeping jobs in America?
So now, you are making the money you deserve as a founder, and a job creator, and those American takers will be making what "entitled, lazy bums" deserve. And should thank you for it while they are at it.
So when all of us lazy bums are unemployed or making third world wages, you better be selling food, because that's where most of their money goes to. Because we'll be doing the same thing. And as "entitled lazy bums" it will be well deserved to only have money foro the most basic of life's needs.
Because you appear to willingly see only one side of the equation. In the world of money matters, there are two, and they should be balanced
1. People need to make shit and make money selling it.
2. People need to make money to buy shit that people who make shit to mke money so that people who make shit can make money.
And in parting, you really should move to wherever you outsource the jobs to - they'll buy your stuff as we takers assume our well deserved collapse. And you won't have to deal with all of us "entitled lazy bums." that you very obviously hate with a white hot passion. Let us know - we'll have a party for you.
The day after you leave, because if you can't hire us "entitled lazy bums' - you are no job creator - you're a parasite.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sure, actually starting a business from the ground up is tough unless you've got some angel investors propping you up. However, the CEO of most Fortune 500 companies are not the founders. It is an all-to-common tale that once the original founder/CEO is out of the picture, the PHBs take over.
Jobs and Wozniak were the foundation of Apple. Jobs was kicked out and then the company nearly went bankrupt. It took his return to save the company, and it is already apparent that Cook isn't up to the task that Jobs left behind. Similarly, HP used to make kick ass stuff, because it was a company that actually valued engineering talent. That went out the door when the founders were out of the picture. Now I wouldn't touch HP goods and services with a ten foot pole. They've driven all of the competent workers out of the organization.
Ultimately, loyalty is a two way street. If your IT guys consistently leave the moment a "slightly" better offer shows up, then there are probably additional factors at play that make you an undesirable employer. My employer is not the best, but I would be hesitant to simply pick up and leave for merely a "slightly" better offer. I've invested many years with my current team and you'd probably have to offer me at least 10k more a year for me to seriously consider bailing.
It sounds like you're the person that is disloyal if your employees jump ship the second that a *sightly* better offer comes around. Did you ever ask yourself why they were jumping ship? Or did you just file it under "worthless disloyal PoS", not bother with figuring out why they left in such a hurry, and start working to correct that so that the next time an offer comes around the "worthless disloyal PoS" might consider their current job more stable and worthwhile?
Most people, whether they are an employee or an employer, will not suddenly change their current arrangements unless they feel that provides a better long term solution. An employee that knows that their work is important to their employer and that the employer is appreciative of their work is a lot less likely to jump at the first offer given to them than the employee that knows their work is just a line item on an expense sheet and that they are replaceable meatsacks as far as their job is concerned. Conversely, an employer that treats their employees as valuable assets and actually cares about the well-being of their employees is more likely to keep them than an employer that treats the employee like a subhuman inanimate object and pays them less than what they need to pay their bills at the end of the month.
In short, both sides must respect and trust one another for the employment relationship to work long term.
Another aspect since you brought it up, (the entitlements), is justified. Why? Because if the damn employer would pay their employees enough to pay their bills, the "entitlements" wouldn't need to be enforced by the government. If you as an employer think that an uninsured, one missed paycheck away from bankruptcy, employee that constantly works an ever-changing number of hours on different days at different times, in an unsafe environment, while being afforded no chance to socialize (at work or at home), have anytime to themselves, or even have a lunch that doesn't involve inhaling their food, is a good business decision then you are:
A. Insane if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof would not break the employee's will to continue working.
B. A sociopath if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof would inspire ANY form of trust with the employee or the job market in general.
C. Corrupt if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof is fair working conditions for your employees.
D. Beyond hope if you think that such conditions or any combination thereof wouldn't harm society as a whole or that the employees wouldn't want to jump for greener pastures given their current conditions.
If you as an employer don't want to be forced by the government to pay for all of this, then clean up your own workplace and keep it clean of your own accord, treat your employees like human beings, and pay your employees enough so they can buy the services they need and pay their bills themselves. Otherwise, if you want to run a skeleton crew sweatshop and pad the profit margin as much as possible to the determent of your workforce, then yes the government will need to step in to protect the workforce from you.
Also "at will" employment is just code for "we can fire you for any reason, deal with it." Typically, an employee that gets fired without warning, winds up spending 6+ months looking for another job. (Especially if they have no real special skill set.) 6+ months that unless their former employer payed the unemployment taxes on their former position, (there are those "entitlements" again!), and they can qualify for them, (government likes tightening it's belt too, in addition to fudging the unemployment numbers), the former employee goes without a form of income and still has bills to pay. Given that situation, there shouldn't be any question as to why an employee is always on the lookout for the next job offer. They want to have something lined up in the event they get fired, so that they can continue paying their bills.
Well, this might seem really weird to you, but the second scenario is how it works in pretty much every country in Europe. "At will" employment contracts are largely illegal.
The employer can't get rid of you unless one of these is the case:
Note that in the last case, you won't be required to train your replacement, because it's your position which is being made redundant, not you.
For their part, employees have to work their notice period, which for some difficult-to-recruit positions can be as long as six months.
Note that Germany has some of the strongest laws on employee rights, and also is one of the most productive countries in Europe. Germany is also the third largest exporter in the world, only slightly behind the USA (not bad for a country with a quarter of the population and a fraction of the natural resources). I'm not saying there's a cause and effect, but I am saying that productivity and employee rights can co-exist.
No, it's the ruthless and uncontrolled search for profits that are chasing businesses and jobs out of the country. Businesses are not motivated by enforcing some idealist "protestant work ethic". It's all about the money. US workers cannot compete with Indian workers: they don't have access to their cost of living, for one thing.
If an employer wants loyalty from employees, they only need pay them a fair rate for the job and provide decent conditions and the employees will stay.
If an employee wants loyalty from an employer in the US, they're shit out of luck.
My father was like that. He started as a young man in 1973 in a large bank, and he did have a really nice career. Granted, I never saw him. He was always at work, always. He did it for us, I know that. He earned well, and could provide us with a good life and my mother stayed home for us.
Then something changed in the early nineties, I don't know what, but I suspect company culture, because my father worked hard. One day, end 1992, he came home and he told us he "had been let go". Basically, "on the spot", because due to his responsibilities he could do way too much damage. I was also superbly timed: a few months more, and he'd have worked there for 20 years instead of 19, which would have doubled his legal severance package.
My mother and my father were shocked. Both expected him to stay with the same company as had both my grandfathers. My father, was -by then- 45 years old. Try getting a job at that age. It took ages before he found anything again, and then it were basically consulting gigs that kept us afloat until he retired.
I was a teenager, when that all happened. It made a profound impact on me, never to trust your employer ever. I'm not going to give you all my time, I'm not going to continue to work for you if you refuse to give me raises. I will leave you.
I doubt, it's the employees that stopped being loyal... I believe that the employee-employer trust has been broken, and I doubt it was the employees doing the first step.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The problem is that if you don't allow existing companies to hire employees in lower cost areas then they will eventually go out of business when their new competitors open shop in the lower cost area and offers a cheaper product.
"Lower cost areas" which is double-speak for "right-to-work states", where unions are much less powerful....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....