Slashdot Mirror
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%.
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.
I hope this is becoming a bit clearer to everyone now, as in the past I've been ridiculed for blasting universities as money-driven cults.
They provide very little value in the modern world and should be used sparingly.
More than that- this is a state university. Not a private one like Harvard. Its basically owned by the government. So its the government outsourcing these jobs.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Senator Feinstein heal thyself! H1-B increase after H1-B increase.
The university's actions will ultimately lower their annual $5.83 billion budget by just 0.1%.
It doesn't take a fortune teller to see how this will end. Anyone with experience with low-cost offshore replacements knows that after the painful transition and a slow degradation of IT performance (with all the slowness, bugs, and embarrassing security breaches that come with it), the fallout of the university's decision will ultimately cost a hell of a lot more to fix than what is saved up front.
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?"
Same message as the law schools: "We're happy to take your money. If you can't find a job after you graduate, tough shit. You should have thought carefully about your major's future potential before taking on $100K in student loans."
I used to be an H1B, and this is indeed inexcusable. It's not even just about jobs lost, but what happened to matters such as national pride and the associated symbolism? If the universities of the country - the institutions that educate and train workers for its industries - are refusing to hire those very workers to perform jobs that the universities need, that says a lot about either the usefulness of the degrees that they teach, or the quality of their education. If they're claiming that Indian workers (with Indian degrees) are really "good enough", why even bother with expensive American education? And make no mistake, it's not just a message for the citizens; people abroad will notice as well.
Scams were not invented in India. In fact scam calling is just another form of outsourcing where US based criminals use low paid foreign workers to do the grunt work. So if no singularity happened when Americans were scamming Americans none will happen when Indians scam Indians.
**Life is too short to be serious**
You mean do I want American tax payer dollars recycled back into the US economy and not send to India?
Yes.
How can they say with a straight face that security will be "as good as it is now" when they have just introduced a massive attack vector into the system?
Along with the factor of "Oh network traffic from India is just fine, let that all pass right on through".
Glad I"m not on their payroll or enrolled as a student (to be more specific glad they don't have my SSN).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you want public money to be used to overpay govt employees instead of getting the best value for the money by using the lower cost private sector provider. No wonder taxes are so high in California.
That's also why California has beautiful national parks, expansive and well maintained roads, and is the center of no less than three major industries. Oklahoma has low taxes, and that's about all it has. What good is cheap if it's absolutely worthless?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Slashdot on manufacturing jobs being sent offshore: "Suck it up and smell the future. You are just like the buggy whip manufacturers!"
Slashdot on IT jobs being sent offshore: "This Is An Outrage!!!!!"
"You pedantic twit!"
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
For California? A blue state? The Donald has a well-known penchant for vengeance. I expect that any benefits for Cal. will be a side-effect of policies benefiting one of his or his crony's businesses.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
It's over. Mr. Trump is someone else's POTUS. But not mine.
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* didn't vote for Obama and didn't like a lot of things that he did (and didn't do.) But looks like his hopey changie thing is finally working itself out.
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. Once, anyway. I suggest you move to Canada like these people AREN'T. Or you could join Cher, I'm sure she's going to be lonely on (in?) Jupiter.
And by the way, I'm curious: are you on either coast? I'm in flyover country. (Well actually not, I'm not even that close to the aerial lanes.)
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Us Alt-Right nut faces don't generally insult the other side of the debate.
Who else would use the word "libtard" in political comments?
Anyone with experience of the extreme left ?
As you can see from the responses you have gotten, most people can't explain it. Even if it is "obvious" to them, they should be adult enough to realize that there might be many visitors to this site that seriously have your question even if they believe you don't. They could have used this as an opportunity to explain their side, but instead did such a huge disservice by their replies.
Anyway, I personally don't have anything against hiring the most cost effective solution. Although I doubt it will be as good or ok as the business case suggests. In the end, the university will survive and move on.
What I DO have a problem with is the abuse of the H1-B system. A system that was designed to allow our companies to hire abroad when they can't find the talent locally. It isn't a system designed to drive costs down. I have rarely seen H1-B positions that I felt didn't have local talent. Probably 1/5. In this case, clearly, if the current employees have to train their replacements, then there is no question that there is a more suitable local talent than foreign.
If I had it my way, I wouldn't tie the H1-B visa to the company. 2 years in, the H1-B should belong to the employee to go where ever he feels his talent is most appreciated. If the company fires him after 11 months, the visa still belongs to them. The US could still limit the number of visas issued, and actively maintained. The employee would still need to maintain their visa by having employment 6 out of the last 12 months. I also don't think the permanent residency process be tied to the company. Companies shouldn't be allowed to petition that. Only the individual with backing from a US citizen should be able to.
Fix the H1-B system and we can talk about a fair playing field. Thou, I doubt many companies would be as enthusiastic about it.
From a capitalist perspective, they are selling a product ("an education") in which the very promise is vocational advancement. Yet their own actions demonstrate they are selling a product which doesn't actually do what it claims.
State Universities also exist outside the realm of profit and loss and were established to accomplish a specific social goal -- advancing the practical arts and sciences outside the realm of the traditional liberal arts education. By pushing their own jobs overseas they seem to be undermining that as well.
If they need to save money to meet their operating costs and income, then why not cut costs elsewhere? So many have huge investments in athletics which kind of appear to be paid for by a handful of top tier revenue sports, but at my local University the athletics facilities (a block-sized tennis facility) seem to exceed what could be considered reasonable spending associated with those sports and also fails to take into account for most state Universities' ability to use their quasi-government status for bonding to obtain money for athletic facilities average students will never use.
Plus you can't tell me that any state University in the US couldn't cut a whole laundry list of internal "programs" that mostly exist to create internal empires. And that's without even asking many political questions as to which of these programs are really advocacy programs designed to push ideological agendas.
Outsourcing IT jobs is going to reduce opportunities for financial aid and job training for the students; undermining the basic mission of universities. Dumb move UC.