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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%.
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.
Now your IT department will be trying to fleece the faculty and students with scam phone calls about how their computers are infected with viruses.
Bravo, nitwits.
Shouldn't be any discussion about this. If a UNIVERSITY is outsourcing. They should instantly lose all federal and state funding.
Wanna behave like a private company? Get treated like one. No taxpayer soup for you.
Senator Feinstein heal thyself! H1-B increase after H1-B increase.
Working in IT, I'm not too thrilled by this, but that one statement shows a complete lack of thought.
To paraphrase not-Everett Dirksen, "A tenth of a percent here, a tenth of a percent there, pretty soon you're talking real savings."
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
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.
Shouldn't be any discussion about this. If a UNIVERSITY is outsourcing. They should instantly lose all federal and state funding.
Wanna behave like a private company? Get treated like one. No taxpayer soup for you.
It's a fine position, but how about the rest of the debate?
California was four-square against the recent election outcome, which was in large part *against* globalism. Lots and lots of supporters here and in the MSM were arguing the benefits of this sort of thing from every viewpoint. Some people lose their jobs, but the economy prospers overall. Those jobs are never coming back. We'll be losing all of them to AI anyway.
California is so much against the populist uprising that they are implementing sanctuary cities (and sanctuary universities), giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses and the ability to vote, and generally planning to oppose any new federal mandates and changes (such as deportation of illegals).
And yes, it's the California cities which are [politically] deep blue, while the rest is generally red.
So how does this position fit into the rest of the debate? How can one show outrage over this situation and still support the [generally accepted as] liberal Californian viewpoint which embraces globalism?
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."
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.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
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?
The headline makes it look like the entire University of California is outsourcing their IT to India. Everyone - San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Riverside, Irvine, San Diego, Davis, LA, et al
Is that really the case? I was under the impression that the only people doing that was UCSF. It also brings to mind one question - why can't UCSF outsource that job to UCB, which is just across the Bay Bridge? Let the descendants of the BSD inventors manage their IT
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
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!!!!!"
Fuck - a United States where people who push shit like that are running the place. It makes Rumsfeld look like an intellectual in comparison.
Maybe it's time to start learning Mandarin.
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 ?
> The left has a bias or belief that problems are the fault of society, whereas the right tends to bias to the belief that problems are the fault of the individual.
That's reasonably fair and I realize this is a bit of a tangent to your main point, but I don't know that "fault" is necessarily the right word. I believe that my daughter, who is black and of course female, can become a supreme court justice, president, or chairwoman of the joint chiefs DESPITE whatever is wrong with society, and that it's easier for her to change her own actions than to change all of society. I'm sure Colin Powell encountered some racism; he went right ahead and became Secretary of State *anyway*. He was then in a position to affect society. He didn't whine about the problems in society, he overcame them.
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.
I ended up working for a place that wins these contracts for IT services. A group of around 400 of us had to make the decision to go or not, pretty standard. What we didn't know in the next 12-18 months was that they were moving most of those jobs to offshore locations like Brazil, Argentina, India. I was asked to go to one of these countries to train the team there, said no and started looking for another job. They were going to be laying of most of the outsourced team in the US it turned out and leave 1-2 people in the US to oversee them. Fast-forward 5 years later and that same shop did not re-sign that contract and brought everything back in-house. It would appear that the typical offshore/outsource scenario happened - they move the work to offshore, those people implement a few changes, a mistake is made, they get their ass handed to them over a few conference calls, they stop making ANY changes and call the 1-2 people still in the US non-stop 24/7/365 to have THEM make the changes or berate them into doing it until those people burn out and leave thus rendering the offshore/outsourcer useless because they won't do anything. The original outsourced company doesn't care because they have made their nut and know that if said company cancels the contract, the outsourcer reaps a fat termination fee. The tact of most outsourcing companies is to undercut everyone else's bid, make sure the company doing the outsourcing doesn't add a provision into their contract that all jobs must be kept in the US or Canada (which is a valid provision and costs more) and then offshore it all as fast as possible without trying to piss off the company that just signed the contract to get past any cancellation period then bam, they have them. This same scenario continues to play out until these companies wise up and see that outsourcing ends up costing them more in the long-run as they burn up their own employees that oversee either the outsourced contract, admins or both.