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What's Happening As The University of California Tries To Outsource IT Jobs To India (pressreader.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader Nova Express shares an epic column by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik. It details what's happening now as the University of California tries to outsources dozens of IT jobs -- about 20% of their IT workforce -- by February 28th. Some of the highlights:
  • The CEO of UCSF's Medical Center says he expects their security to be at least as good as it is now, but acknowledges "there are no guarantees."
  • Nine workers have filed a complaint with the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing arguing they're facing discrimination.
  • California Senator Feinstein is already complaining that the university is tapping $8.5 billion in federal funding "to replace Californian IT workers with foreign workers or labor performed abroad."
  • Representative Zoe Lofgren (from a district in Silicon Valley) is arguing that the university "is training software engineers at the same time they're outsourcing their own software engineers. What message are they sending their own students?"
  • 57-year-old sys-admin Kurt Ho says his replacement spent just two days with him, then "told me he would go back to India and train his team, and would be sending me emails with questions."
  • The university's actions will ultimately lower their annual $5.83 billion budget by just 0.1%.

9 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is a surprise? by sabri · · Score: 1, Informative

    Universities have never been more than a bottom-line for-profit business that uses cult-like recruiting tactics and has absolutely no shame or loyalty to anything or anyone but themselves.

    Just like the folks in Washington, representing this government funded university. Read this article to see how Feinstein responded to pleas for help from affected workers.

    A University of California IT employee whose job is being outsourced to India recently wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for help. Feinstein's office sent back a letter ... and offered the worker no assistance.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  2. Napolitano is the UC President? by aaronb1138 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Color me shocked! Shocked I say. It blows my mind she has an entire history built around how amazing she is to hold so many high positions as a woman, but it doesn't take much work to see, it's a history of failures and exceptional levels of mediocrity. I don't know why the democratic party an their insiders keep backing her and getting her jobs.

  3. Re:"lower their annual ... budget by just 0.1%" by Steffan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Until you realize that 0.1% on $5.83 billion is $58.3 million. That's not chump change.

    0.1% of $5.83 Billion is actually $5.83 Million. Closer to chump change in a nearly-$6 Billion budget.

  4. So much Wrong with This by wisnoskij · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why is their budget bigger than most countries?
    They will save 60 million dollars by outsourced 20% of the workforce? I have worked in IT in one of the highest internationally acclaimed universities, it was just 2 full time guys with 2 student helpers for 1/5th of the university. I really doubt that the total yearly salaries exceeded 200K.

    Keeping a few thousand computers and a few server rooms running is really not that big of a job.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  5. Re:Not by insults by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Us Alt-Right nut faces don't generally insult the other side of the debate.

    http://www.breitbart.com/tech/...

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:What about globalism? by dbIII · · Score: 2, Informative

    giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses and the ability to vote

    Just like the old days when your grandpa came over, only he wouldn't have been called illegal unless he was Chinese.
    California can't stop them and the Feds are not even trying so why not accept reality instead of fucking about. Those cut-price illegal workers the Republicans love to have babysitting their kids need to drive to do their below minimum wage work so they are allowed licences no matter who is Governor of the state. Decades of government constipation on the issue has just resulted in millions of quasi-citizens who have neither been turned back or made citizens. It's been going on for so long that they are citizens in all but name, plus California used to be part of Mexico FFS so what the fuck is the problem?

  7. Re:UCSF != UC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Except that UCSF is indeed just the start:

    "According to notes from an Aug. 5 meeting of UC's IT Architecture Committee, chief information officers at other campuses are happy to let UCSF act as a guinea pig and will "wait for a year before jumping in with HCL" in order to gauge UCSF's experience.

    https://www.pressreader.com/

  8. Re:Automatic. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Professor here. Universities also create those internal empires for business reasons: there surely is a lot of ideology in universities, but never underestimate the almighty dollar's ability to trump ideology. The biggest internal empires, and not coincidentally some of the biggest money-makers, are the housing and food domains. These are areas that most governments tend not to tread, but universities often require students to buy food and shelter from them for at least one year: the university, like a totalitarian state, creeps into every aspect of a student's life. The revenue from housing and food (both are now often outsourced to private dorm and catering companies) supposedly pays into the university's general funds. They also provide employment to students (RAs, cashiers, etc), as do many of the other internal empires (secretary in the office of multicultural baskwetweaving, etc), which satisfies a requirement that students work in order to receive tuition reduction. Hospitals are another major internal empire for big schools, and they are ginormous money-makers whose budget offices have, between the cushions of their waiting room couches, multiples of the funds available to the academic wing of the university. Finally, you have empires that exist to employ former students who got their PhDs and never got real jobs in academia or outside: here you have the Diversity Officers and Campus Liaison Officers and other vague titles that cover up how worthless some degrees are, because a bunch of unemployed basketweavers would look bad and reduce applications, which might hurt revenue. Law schools are getting famous for this - it's hard to make it in the world with a law degree nowadays, so some schools are hiring their graduates to avoid having to admit how few of them get real jobs. In the end, somewhere in all that, there are a few professors still, although mostly replaced by non-tenured, lower-paid adjuncts who make less money than an elementary school teacher despite being far more qualified and often teaching more students. The most obvious cost-cutting measure in place is the elimination of actual professorships by attrition - a retiring professor will be replaced by an adjunct with no hope of ever achieving the same pay rate. It's all about the money.

  9. Re:OT - Re:Schools are corporations too... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1, Informative

    It's over. Mr. Trump is someone else's POTUS. But not mine.

    Your comment on my signature block is off-topic for this discussion. But you already know that.

    Sorry to inform you, if you're a citizen of the US, then he's gong to be your president unless something extraordinary happens. Period, full stop, the end. You might not have voted for him, you might hate his guts and politics and wish him ill, and until he takes to oath of office he ISN'T your president -- but once he does, he is.

    I'm giving Mr. Trump the same level of respect that the Republicans gave President Obama for eight years.

    Then again, if you really don't want him to be your president, you can always renounce your U.S. citizenship and pick exactly who you'd like.

    I'm still waiting for Rush Limbaugh to move to Costa Rica after ObamaCare became law.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2010/03/22/limbaugh-costa-rica.html

    And by the way, I'm curious: are you on either coast? I'm in flyover country.

    I'm a moderate conservative in California. Yes, I voted for Hillary. At least she was the real deal. I still don't under how the Republicans nominated someone who was neither a conservative nor a Republican, and, until a few short years ago, was a Clinton Democrat.