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IT Workers Facing Layoffs Jolted By CEO's Message (computerworld.com)
HCSC recently announced layoffs for more than 500 IT workers, and expects them to train their replacements from an India-based contractor. But a few days earlier, CEO Paula Steiner said, "As full-time retiring baby boomers move on to their next chapter, the makeup of our organization will consist more of young and non-traditional workers, such as part-time workers or contractors." dcblogs quotes ComputerWorld:
What Steiner didn't say in the employee broadcast is that some of the baby boomers moving "on to the next chapter" are being pushed out the door. "Obviously not all of us are 'retiring' -- a bunch of us are being thrown under the bus," said one older employee.
The insurance provider argues that its members want easier technology solutions that "help keep rising costs in check. Our IT teams are being transformed...focusing on those and other member needs." But Slashdot reader ErichTheRed writes: Having a CEO actually say in public that their company wants to engage in age discrimination and eliminate full-time employment, rather than just carry out the work in secret, is new to me... for those mid- to late-career technical folks, how have you managed to adjust to new realities like this?
The insurance provider argues that its members want easier technology solutions that "help keep rising costs in check. Our IT teams are being transformed...focusing on those and other member needs." But Slashdot reader ErichTheRed writes: Having a CEO actually say in public that their company wants to engage in age discrimination and eliminate full-time employment, rather than just carry out the work in secret, is new to me... for those mid- to late-career technical folks, how have you managed to adjust to new realities like this?
This is not the first time we've read about laid-off employees being expected to train H-1B replacements. But I've also seen numerous statements that it's illegal to do that. I realize many companies like to play fast and loose with laws, but - why aren't we seeing lawsuits from people in that position? I know some people will be scared they might lose their retirement or severance... but I can't imagine every single person affected would be too scared to sue.
#DeleteChrome
I was asked to train my replacement from India about one year ago. I gave my manager a list of everything they needed to know. They wanted me to do sessions to train them. I said fine, I need prep time for each session and I'm only doing one a day. They screen recorded each session and it took about a hundred hours over three months. I buried them in minutia. If anyone wants to go through it or search it there's a hundred hours of tedious monotone instruction. It's been eight months since I left, no significant features committed to source control. We were doing major releases every month previously. They are thinking of bringing us back now but it is too late we've all moved on to better work. Company is losing millions a year by not having all of their refineries using this custom system that's been eight years in development. Tens of millions to re write from scratch. I've heard they are considering bringing us back but we have all moved on to better things now.
Yes this is a common misconception that IT is a commodity that can be easily outsourced like payroll or janitorial services. At first it was all "let s bring IBM in" then when companies realized that vendors don't care and are not effective on the long run, they've turned to cheap labor, thinking that they could replace the pawns without handing things over to a vendor.
The fun part is that the people who made those decisions cashed in their bonuses and laughed all their way to the bank.
lucm, indeed.
People suddenly voting their self-interest instead of their tribe would change everything.
The conundrum as I see is that African American self-interest is mostly aligned with their "tribal" (not intended ironically) self interest. Black America will never effectively creep out of poverty so long as vast swaths of it are effectively unemployed and wallowing in a culture of perpetual unemployment.
For better or for worse, the way out is through a culture of gainful employment, even if the employment is not instant upper middle class prosperity. No subgroup of Americans *ever* waltzed into that, even white ethnic groups. Most faced daunting discrimination and toiled for a couple of generations in low-wage and low-skilled jobs before educational attainment and cultural amalgamation allowed better employment and enabled large chunks of these groups to obtain a better life.
I would think that Blacks would be *outraged* at Democratic pandering to Hispanic groups over immigration issues. The Democrats are literally giving away the ability of Blacks to bootstrap their way out of poverty to non-citizens, and *nobody* is complaining about it.
I can only speculate on the reasons, and most are too conspiratorial to believe.
The one that sinks in the best is that Democrats have already given up on Blacks, and are turning to Hispanics as an all-purpose replacement for both Blacks and white blue-collar workers. White blue collar workers abandoned the Democrats at least as far back as 1980, and sheer intractability of Black poverty and criminality has made them more of a liability than an ally, especially with Hispanic populations surging.
Hispanics have less invested in white collar America, allowing Democrats to pander to Wall Street's willingness to gut middle class jobs for profit and re-tool their traditional labor message to an increasingly Hispanic blue collar labor force. To the extent that white blue collar workers already abandoned the Democrats and many managerial class whites are essentially for sale, such a change in orientation costs the Democrats nothing and gains them everything.
There is also an educational and cultural gap between middle class whites in rural and less urban America and urban whites. The Democrats can appeal to the urban whites while conspiring with Wall Street against the last bastion of traditional American middle classes.
It has been an epic failure of Republicans to tack into this headwind. Republicans years ago should have pursued their own demographic strategy, such as steering the many Black military vets into law enforcement -- putting a Black face on urban law enforcement may have actually made a difference in so many ways. They also should have vigorously pitted Black voters against Hispanics, asking them why the party they have so long supported is giving away their opportunity to foreigners. At worst, this could have disrupted Democratic political discipline, at best it could have split the Democratic party and exposed its divide and conquer agenda.