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Facing Layoff, An IT Employee Makes A Bold Counteroffer (computerworld.com)
ComputerWorld reports:
In early December, Carnival Corp. told about 200 IT employees that the company was transferring their work to Capgemini, a large IT outsourcing firm. The employees had a choice: Either agree to take a job with the contractor or leave without severance. The employees had until the week before Christmas to make a decision about their future with the cruise line. By agreeing to a job with Paris-based Capgemini, employees are guaranteed employment for six months, said Roger Frizzell, a Carnival spokesman. "Our expectation is that many will continue to work on our account or placed into other open positions within Capgemini" that go well beyond the six-month period, he said in an email.
Senior IT engineer Matthew Culver told CBS that the requested "knowledge transfer activities" just meant training their own replacements, and "he isn't buying any of it," writes Slashdot reader dcblogs. "After receiving his offer letter from Capgemini, he sent a counteroffer. It asked for $500,000...and apology letters to all the affected families," signed by the company's CEO. In addition, the letter also demanded a $100,000 donation to any charity that provides services to unemployed American workers. "I appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and I sincerely hope that you can fulfill these terms."
And he's also working directly with a lawyer for an advocacy group that aims to "stop the abuse of H-1B and other foreign worker programs."
Senior IT engineer Matthew Culver told CBS that the requested "knowledge transfer activities" just meant training their own replacements, and "he isn't buying any of it," writes Slashdot reader dcblogs. "After receiving his offer letter from Capgemini, he sent a counteroffer. It asked for $500,000...and apology letters to all the affected families," signed by the company's CEO. In addition, the letter also demanded a $100,000 donation to any charity that provides services to unemployed American workers. "I appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and I sincerely hope that you can fulfill these terms."
And he's also working directly with a lawyer for an advocacy group that aims to "stop the abuse of H-1B and other foreign worker programs."
This is awesome. Hey Trump, you've talked a pretty big game, here is a chance to walk the walk. Accept this dudes contract on behalf of Capgemini and be the champ you promised to be.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
They could spin off their own outsourcing IT company and ask Carnival to hire them as consultants.
Actually in IT a far better solution is to have exceptional communication skills and keep your skills up to date with in-demand technology. You'll get far better working conditions/salary than any union jobs on offer...
I have no idea what this guy was thinking with his "counter offer" I'm not sure what he has to offer the CEO in terms of increasing the IT operational efficiency or reducing the IT costs of the company, or what benefits he is bringing that the outsourced will not be able to provide.
Time and time again I've seen IT people whine about their teams being outsourced or offshored, but most times when I look at these teams they are outdated, incredibly inefficient, doing a lot of expensive work for little business value. For example they fear automation due to the threat of making their job unnecessary, but at the same time by not automating, they make it much easier for those who do automate win the business of managing that environment.
You guys who keep pushing the union thing are like a broken record. It worked really well for Detroit, right?
The big unions really only made the mob rich and empowered corrupt and self-serving union bosses.
Just look at that vile union boss at the Carrier plant. Faced with the loss of ALL the Carrier plant jobs, Obama and Hillary said nothing could be done. Trump said he'd fight to stop those job losses. Obama actually made fun of this and exclaimed that Trump could do nothing and asked if Trump had a magic wand! Even before taking office, Trump cuts a deal to save most of those jobs, and within HOURS the scummy union boss goes on national TV and whines that Trump did not save EVERY job and calls Trump names. Just what was that union boss's heap of insults toward Hillary and Obama for never even trying to save even ONE job????? CRICKETS!
Union bosses are in it for themselves. The UAW bosses did quite nicely for themselves as the auto industry fled Detroit. Trumpka and his buddies have been doing just FINE as he travels to foreign countries speaking in favor of open borders (which push down wages and benefits for his American workers), global socialism, and more imported immigrant labor (which would compete directly with his current members, but which he sees as HIS personal future since it's the agenda of HIS political allies).
Unions are NOT the solution, an end to global corporations pushing open borders, global "free trade", and treaties like TPP (which gives almost unlimited power to corporations and frees them from oversight/limitation by nations) are what is needed. Global mega corps and billionaires running communications companies like Google and Facebook are the problem; they want a world where they can move themselves, their money, and their labor anywhere at any time to maximize their profits and their leverage over the lowly workers while dodging any oversight or laws imposed by any pesky sovereign nation. They want a world where only the super-rich can compete because only the super rich have the money to relocate as needed to maximize profits and any little upstart can never gain traction - GLOBAL cronyism on steroids. In that environment, unions are a JOKE and the union bosses only end up pretending to fight for their members while actually aligning with those very super-rich forces.
Human nature does not change just because some dude is a union boss and claims to be "for the workers". If you have a skeptical view of corporate barons (as you should), then you should also have a skeptical eye towards politicians and union bosses; they're all human, fallible, corruptible, and not to be trusted with too much power.
Democrats had two years to do stuff effectively, during which they did, in fact, do some things. After that, the Republicans had the house. Two years ago, they got the senate as well.
It's not reasonable to hold up the lack of change as something that is just Obama's fault- the voters stopped him by putting in a conservative house, and later a conservative senate. Elections have consequences, as Obama himself said. And he mostly acted in accordance with this belief.
For years, the company where I work had an automation product which terrified everybody at the firm. We'd had no training on it. An Executive dropped a lot of money on it before anyone could even see if it would work for us, and directly, it didn't.
But we had it and had some incentive to use it. And I spent a couple years learning it on my own and mastered that goddamn thing where I could make it do anything I wanted. I was a wizard and magician and chef and used that product to DO the very automation project they said could not be done, which terrified far more talented people than me. I was soo good at it, my team was eliminated except for me. We didn't need all those people because the automation project worked.
The software was still scary and dangerous to touch but I knew it inside and out. It did not scare me. Among the dangers was that you could right click in the wrong spot and be presented with two different 'delete' options, one of which wiped the entire database rather than just the item you were looking at. The software was apparently designed by an idiot. But I mastered it all anyway. I made that damn thing sing barbershop quartet and fly rings around the moon.
So all was well until they decided to get rid of me, which was not a surprise to me.
What they did was hire a woman from Mexico, apparently off the street. I don't know what her skillset was but it wasn't like mine. And they had me do a few hours of instruction over the phone and webex and boom she took over running this program that had slain experienced people before me.
And that was that. My understanding is that they had a critical issue the next week and they were forbidden from calling me for help. I am sure it went to pieces. It took expertise to run. They hired cheap to replace me, not smart.
18 months later I am still out of work because a LOT of the comparable IT work has already been outsourced or automated. I failed to pay my rent this month and bills are stacking up For the first time in my life, I am facing no future. Can't find work, I'm broke, and there is no hope. But I automated something that was supposed to be impossible. I will go down in flames proud of what i did.
Sig for hire.