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University of California IT Workers Replaced By Offshore Outsourcing Firm To File Discrimination Lawsuit (computerworld.com)
The IT workers from the University of California's San Francisco campus who were replaced by an offshore outsourcing firm late last year intend to file a lawsuit challenging their dismissal. "It will allege that the tech workers at the university's San Francisco campus were victims of age and national origin discrimination," reports Computerworld. From the report: The IT employees lost their jobs in February after the university hired India-based IT services firm HCL. Approximately 50 full-time university employees lost their jobs, but another 30 contractor positions were cut as well. "To take a workforce that is overwhelmingly over the age of 40 and replace them with folks who are mainly in their 20s -- early 20s, in fact -- we think is age discrimination," said the IT employees' attorney, Randall Strauss, of Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer. The national origin discrimination claim is the result of taking a workforce "that reflects the diversity of California" and is summarily let go and is "replaced with people who come from one particular part of the world," said Strauss. The lawsuit will be filed in Alameda County Superior Court.
It's quite obvious that the reason was to lower costs, not because they specifically wanted younger workers from some foreign land. That's not age or national origin discrimination. The only argument to make it so would be if they failed to offer the previous employees an opportunity to keep their jobs, but at pay competitive with the new employees.
And they almost certainly didn't make that offer, so here's a sincere wish of good luck with the lawsuit.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Isn't this lawsuit discriminatory, by opposing the University of California hiring you get workers from other countries?
What? I'm sure you have some sort of point, but you didn't explain it at all.
Overall, I would say that their case has merit as far as the age issue, and is certainly interesting in the fact that they fired a diverse group of workers and replaced them with a totally non-diverse group. Interesting, but possibly not in violation of anything.
Are you claiming that the high cost of college is due to the burdensome salaries of the IT staff?
I agree, outsource all the professors and facilities staff too. Even cheaper, no buildings or classes. Best value: $20 gets your name printed on the degree of your choice. I mean, it's cheaper, they'd be doing their fiduciary duty, and the student gets a degree. Learning is, at best, ancillary to the sober work of cutting costs.
We recently heard president Trump signed an executive order to harden foreign worker's visa rules. Does that case means it was a failure? Or were the visas obtained before the new rules?
I think that this sort of an incident and the response to it highlights the very contradictory nature of so many leftist ideals.
When old workers are replaced by younger workers, some people will allege that "ageism" is responsible.
But when younger workers aren't hired in favor of keeping around older workers, we also see some people allege that "ageism" is responsible!
When American workers aren't replaced by foreign workers, some people will allege that "diversity" is lacking.
But when American workers are replaced by foreign workers, we also see some people allege that "diversity" is lacking!
Leftists have spun such an illogical web of ideals that at any given time we can see the same "-ism" or the same "discrimination" happening no matter what choice is made or no matter what course of action is taken!
When a set of ideals is so inherently contradictory, the only sensible thing to do is to do a complete reevaluation as to their sanity. Chances are the only sensible conclusion that can be reached is that such a system of thinking is so utterly flawed that it needs to be completely discarded. There is no fixing it.
the CEOs of the outsourcing firms have been caught a few times complaining about lazy Americans. And frankly he's right. By Indian or Chinese standards our 50-60 hour work weeks make us lazy. The H1-Bs I know regularly put in 80 hour work weeks. They're young and disposable but they don't care because currency exchange means they're earning a fortune working here. Best case they get a greencard and start doing the 50-60 hr work weeks of Americans, worst case they go back home flush with cash.
The moral? You can't compete with India. You can't compete with a country that has a literal cast system and effective slavery for millions of their citizens. End the H1-B program. Start calling your congressman/woman/thing and ask them why they haven't ended the program. There are other programs for rural doctors. The program is for replacing Americans. Call your congressman and ask. Remind them you and your family and your friends won't be voting for them in their primary. Make sure you say primary. They've gerrymandered the districts. After their Primary they'll win. But they're vulnerable in the primary.
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Isn't California considered "one particular part of the world"?
Foolish lawsuit.
You are underscoring the very heart of this issue. Why is only one industry a candidate for this legal replacement? H-!B should be open to all professions or not at all. Also there should be a set amount of H-!Bs available at every salary level, including executive/administrative.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
For that matter, if a university could be entirely staffed by a team from India and run at half the cost, isn't it that university's fiduciary duty to change out its entire staff?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You have a space between 'opinion' and '?'. This example of bad grammar has completely invalidated your argument.
I wouldn't go that far. A space between the end of string and the input question mark was common in some versions of BASIC. Old habits die hard.
Seems like a good idea until the first time you step into shit in the parking lot.
More likely he's a cheese monkey.
It's actually correct to write it that way in French, retarded though it is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The law prohibits using the H-1B visa to replace American workers with foreign workers.
Put a few decision makers in prison and watch how fast this stops.
but it's not poor Indians coming over here. It's their middle class. Somebody might read your BS comment and think there's something to it and that would be worse than useless. You're not hurting Indian tech workers by making them stay in India. Not very much anyway. Now, that's not to say their country isn't a hell hole that could use improvement. But the thing is, let _them_ fix it. Not because I'm being as ass, but because they're their countries Middle Class. They're the only ones with any power to effect change. The poor can't. It's all they can do to survive (many don't). The rich won't. They like slave labor. That leaves the Middle Class. They have a responsibility to their country and right now they're shirking it.
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Fuck.
They were doing that back in the 80's. Every fucking math teacher I had could barely fucking speak English. All I understood in calculus was DYDX, which was apparently the only fucking English the fucker knew.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
H Fucking B1 should be eliminated.
There is no fucking way some dude from a country where the majority of people are shitting outside, next to their water well is more qualified than anyone in America.
H-B1 is just so hypocritical assholes in the SJW Silicon Valley businesses can save money while they bitch and moan about men now being able to shower in the women's locker room.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
HCL may be India-based, but it's going to be hard to prove that this is offshoring. HCL has a lot of US operations. It's practically a subsidiary of Microsoft in the US, in fact. They definitely employ a lot of people in the US. So they may be able to pass it off as simply outsourcing rather than offshoring of their operations. It's going to come down to personal accounts of who were the replacements whom the laid-off workers were training. If they are US residents, this isn't likely to go anywhere.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The first rule of outsourcing:
Don't.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You think the cost savings was passed onto the students? Oh that's a good one.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You couldn't be more wrong. Universities tend to pay below market for IT positions. The upside is that you tend to work closer to 40 hours and get decent benefits.
As someone who actually works for a university, I can assure you that we are not unionized and easily could make 10k to 15k more if I left.
Don't like what the University of California is doing, no problem, bag it, rag on it, grind it's reputation to dust. The charge to much, their degrees are shit, the professors abuse students, the facilities are horrible, make them spend ten times as much as they saved on countering negative publicity. Hate what they did, let them feel that financial pain. Don't forget they have no pretty much abandoned to privacy of their students to a foreign contractor. Why would any business trust them with research when a foreign outsourcing contractor now controls access to those secrets. Doing research, a new thesis, a major book, well, now all you work is open to foreign entities, your secrets up for sale (don't think so, think how much they are worth and how much and underpaid H1B can sell the for, especially compared to the sub-standard wage). Research Universities want to open up the network security to foreign 'FOR PROFIT' entities, well, it's major emergency time to shift all the research, delete the data and all backups, otherwise you will see a foreign company suddenly releasing that research et al as their own.
You want to know exactly how I would spy on a country, fill it full of espionage agents pretending to be cheap H1B labour, all operating independently upon seize opportunities as they come up and there will be major rewards for success (no comms leaks, no conspiracy links, just take your chances for major rewards, part ownership of the secrets obtained and passed on, and wow, is US security leaky as across the board and it is just starting to get really bad, some have been there for a quite a while, good luck). By secrets I mean every single kind, industrial, financial, extortion, everything of value and the agents work until they have build up sufficient 'er' investments to retire back home.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
if he was serious he would have rescinded the Obama Executive Order allowing spouses of H1-Bs to work in America signed in 2015. Trump could do that today. The fact that he hasn't isn't an oversight. He's just telling people what they want to hear, but in the end he will side with big business because he's one of them. Always was.
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Yep, when I left a community college I got almost a 30k bump in salary for the exact same position. I lost great benefits and a fairly casual atmosphere, but it was worth it in the end.
Going Anonymous because I am deep in the industry and don't need my name associated to this comment.
You are not going to beat these organizations in court and walk away with just compensation. The lawyers will win big and the workers will end up getting the equivalent of a coupon to Red Lobster out of the settlement. Their names are forever stuck in a Google search showing they sue employers.
If you really want to stop outsourcing in America, you need to socially punish the managers that advocate and those that are close to them (family and friends). Publish their names online with their Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin accounts. Inform their friends and family who are linked to them that it would be in their best interest to "unfriend/unfollow" them or they will be caught up in the social shaming for supporting the perpetrator. Faceless corporations and colleges are not replacing workers, human beings are. Identify those human beings and magnify their actions for the public to see. Pressure their relationships to follow suit or they will suffer the social shame as well. Make a personal cost for the activity at an individual level. (Rule #13)
Make the practice of screwing Americans hurt in the social arena in addition to having their family and friends shun them. If you really want to solve this overnight, hand over the names of Americans outsourcing jobs to H1-Bs to the weaponized autists of 4chan.
Let's just make it illegal to hire all foreign workers so that every one of our tech companies moves entirely overseas and takes every American tech job with it. Wait, making competition illegal isn't the solution then?
Unfortunately for you, American managers don't agree. You idiots go from "The hiring manager hired me because I'm smart" to "The hiring manager hired the brown guy because they're greedy!" without realizing the irony of the situation.
The _REALITY_ of the situation is that all IT workers are overpaid. IT is going to be the next burger flipper profession. Computer are getting easier and easier to use, and soon they're going to be managed entirely through the cloud. Meraki is already doing a fantastic job with networks, and soon azure AD will replace on-premise AD for tons of companies. The train is coming so you either figure out a way to get on it or get crushed. There is nothing you or your boy trump can do about it.
From the top does there exist hard evidence that only certain types of people, or races or age groups will be hired or is that simply an assumption? If I outsource blue jeans to a company in Burma am I under legal compulsion to be certain that they do not race or age discriminate? Is age or race discrimination legal in Burma? Can these employees find enough money to pay for that expensive and probably long lasting law suit? Is the outsourcing to a foreign corporation or an extension of the university. I would not want my money squandered in such a pursuit.
Let's just indulge a little fantasy here and speculate that it is just barely possible that the actual motivation for outsourcing these jobs was not, in fact, due to their age, skin color, or the length of their tenure, but rather that they are simply more expensive than their Indian counterparts. Can we really take this lawsuit seriously?
We should just let the cost of education continue to rise without bound. Cost cutting measures are just too... costly.
The only winners here will be, as usual, lawyers.
Might makes right irrelevant.
Question: How the fug are they getting away with shit like that? And u koolaid koolaiders continue to wonder why horizontal arrow more of the same Hillary didnt get in. Godzilla would be better than that.
Don't worry, you now have a Republican president who has personally been involved in offshore outsourcing to save costs in his own company so you're completely safe now.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Are you actually blaming the spiraling cost of education on IT workers being too expensive?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm sure it would be simplistic to assume that there could be a single cause for the higher cost of higher education, but it does seem reasonable to assume that the cost of labor is a contributing factor. Is my math wrong?
Might makes right irrelevant.
If there's only one thing certain in American education it's that costs of providing education and what students are paying aren't at all related.
What kind of pot are you smoking and why aren't you sharing with everyone? There have been senators and house reps that spoke up against large corporations off-shoring. For example Bernie sanders has been railing against it for over a decade. The majority of of both parties have supported off-shoring, since they are paying for their campaigns and "other" stuff. Go look at the voting record before you take a hit from the bong. You've been screwed by both parties. As an independent, I wish both parties would just die and go away already.
I get it, I'm an independent, also. But Republicans are the ones who have been talking properly about this on (with Trump actually doing something about it, by the way) while Democrats are assuring us that there is no problem. Hillary even wanted to expand the H-1B program.
Do you have ESP?
Re: "Why would any business trust them with research when a foreign outsourcing contractor now controls access to those secrets."
California Universities have an open research policy. Their professors will not sign an NDA, so companies like my former employer will already not work with them. I tried to bring one of their professors on as an expert on a project and learned this pretty quickly.
Basically, yes your maths is wrong because you haven't done any. Compare how much the cost of university has risen compared to the increases in wages over the same time, say 10 or 20 years. Do that and you'll see that the cost of university has risen far, far faster.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Very true. Even at the billionaire-level. "Laissez faire man! Get the government out of my multi-billion dollar corporation! Oh wait, there's an economic downturn??? Oh. We demand government stimulus, to help with our profits! We'll gladly lobby to run up the public debt for our private benefit!"
you hit the nail on the head
Your argument lost all of its teeth, the second you used the word "probably", instead of supplying facts.
Well, I did look around a bit for a nice graph indicating the cost of IT departments in general (not specifically for university IT departments, or for universities in California), but I can't find any such historical statistics. If you have a source, please feel free to share. Being in IT myself, I'm willing to bet that costs have risen somewhat over the last 20 years.
Just for the record, I have witnessed and been a "victim" of this outsourcing practice first hand. The Indian company that replaced me was totally incompetent, but cheap. I did not, however, go crying to the government to protect "my" job. I simply got another job, and my life went on. From what I've heard since then, my former employer was far more miserably as a result of this decision than I was.
Might makes right irrelevant.
I"m not just talking about professors. I'm talking about support staff, people collecting the garbage, maintenance people, janitors, people working cash registers.. Outsource it all to H1B if you're going to outsource it. Because as a person in an industry that is outsourced, I am now at a disadvantage in the economy compared to everyone else I live with. Outsourcing everyone is the only way for me to have prices set at a fair level for myself now, because I must compete in the economy with people who are not outsourced.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
At the end of the day, there are two schools of thought: 1. Outsourcing is good for the economy, because it increases purchasing power. 2. Outsourcing is bad for the economy, because it comes at the expense of American jobs. While both statements are true, I personally believe the price we pay in lost middle-class jobs outweighs the fact that I can save $50 on a TV. Other people disagree, and they're allowed to, and I still respect them and their opinion, because they're still good people, who formed their opinion based on what they believe is best. People also can change their minds on this issue. Here's two scenario's I've seen play-out several times (yes, I oversimplified them for the sake of clarity and word count): 1. Pro-outsourcing person has their own job outsourced, and suddenly the lower price of goods is offset by their lack of disposable income. Now it doesn't matter that a company was able to shave a few dollars of the price, by using foreign call-centers. This person no longer has any money at all to buy it at any cost. 2. Anti-outsourcing person lands a decent job, and has disposable income. They like the extra purchasing-power. They might outwardly say they are against outsourcing, but you don't see them deliberately buying American. I don't think there is a simply solution to this problem. Globalization is a very painful process for developed nations. It is a double-edged sword. Just my two cents.
Walmart and other retailers pressing prices lower and lower, story after story of how this pressure is a race to the bottom when it comes to quality and jobs... are Walmarts sales really hurting?
Except stores like walmart pay more and offer more opportunities for growth than the mom and pop shops that they tend to replace:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ma...
TL;DR version of it:
- Mom and pop stores typically only pay minimum wage and rarely dole out pay increases.
- Mom and pop stores rarely ever issue promotions, except to family members.
That's how they do it in India, not in civilised and clean countries.
It's a cultural thing I guess. Where I studied, someone with a batchelor degree is considered someone who failed to obtain a master, not someone who has finished his education.
I've been working in IT for almost 20 years, and have been involved in offshorings a few times. I've fortunately been able to get other jobs after this happens, but I worry about the overall direction of the industry:
I feel really bad for the IT guys in this situation -- you join a public university system knowing you're not going to make a ton of money compared to the private sector. I know, because I know people who work in the SUNY system. They're trading off current salary for stability and a safe retirement, and are well aware of their choices. When you're midway through a career and are told that your public sector salary is still too high, that's a pretty big blow.
As much as I feel for these people, is there any law here that applies that they have a chance of winning? Is there something on the books that states that a company cannot outsource to save money? I also what evidence they have on age / national origin discrimination, as that's usually difficult, barring obvious
discriminatory statements in email and such.
"Science is the power of man"
Is this kind of outsourcing just due to fail anyway?
95% Engineers in India unfit for software development
If their software engineers are unfit for development work, how fit could these young inexperienced guys be at other IT jobs? Does it fit with the 95%, or did HCL actually find some of the X% that are worthy of actually touching someone elses equipment?
People whining about losing their jobs is downright pathetic. They know perfectly well that the other employees were cheaper, and that is all it comes down to. I'm sure if they all agreed to work for the same wages the Indian firm was charging (accounting for things like employment taxes, benefits, and all that), the university would be happy to hire them back.
These people somehow think they're better than the millions of U.S. Americans who have lost their jobs to overseas manufacturing and other industries, but they're not. They are entitled, little shits and I hope the court shuts them down.
If you employ local people they spend their money in the local economy. If you train and develop local people, you spread more money around the local economy and you help develop your area and your country. Its also a lot easier to do collaborative, agile work when everyone is co-located. Sure you can outsource to a foreign country that bring people into the country, but they rarely stay longer than a couple of years and take your companies IP back home with them along with their accumulated savings. Outsourcing may seem cheaper - and it is at first - but in practice it works out more expensive for companies. Foreign outsourcing companies slowly ramp up the costs and their workers slowly increase their expectations of what they should earn. By the time a company wakes up from its outsourcing nightmare and decide they want to do it themselves , their own systems are a stranger to them.
It only has merit if the university stipulated that the Indian firm only use employees of a particular age. Coincidences do not count as "discrimination." That is ridiculous. 40 years ago, Indians didn't have the means to go into IT. That's just reality. It's not age discrimination by any stretch of the imagination.
who hate each other
Woohoo, I'm 83 years ahead of schedule!
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
IANAL, but having been in a similar situation and after spending some time with a lawyer, I learned that age is indeed a protected class, but lawsuits of this nature typically take a very long time to get through the courts, and the chances of collecting, in the lawyer's words, are about 50/50.
"National origin discrimination"... I haven't heard of that one, but hey, it's California. It might work.
There have been, I think, some recent traction on companies not following rules on outsourcing, they may be able to use that.
I dunno. I think winning is iffy, but I wish them the very best of luck, and maybe now is the time for this kind of suit to go through. Here's hoping they win and it becomes a precedent.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Why is only one industry a candidate for this legal replacement? H-!B should be open to all professions or not at all.
It is. Relevant to this discussion, one of my son's college professors is here on an H1-B visa. She's concerned that Trump's changes to the program may cost her her job. Oh, and she's not a CS/IT prof; she teaches Japanese Literature.
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They can always enjoy a career of writing batch files.
So you're saying house builders are free to get carpenters through H-1B? Because if my salary will go down for it, I would like to know that house prices will go down relatively and I don't get stuck in some fiscal black hole. How can a person ever chose a profession if the most lucrative ones will just have a back door opened to relieve the price pressure? What the hell criteria do you go by?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I guess California is OK with outsourcing as long as it affects flyover country only.
Alright University of California! Woo-hoo! Your big liberal plans for globalism, and putting the rights of foreign citizens first, and giving developing nations (like India) a hand, is starting to come to fruition! Marx is working!
I was surprised to see that this is a bunch of over 40s suing to basically reverse what their notoriously unruly student body screams and fights to see happen.
What will really be interesting is if they win, the student body will be able to use the precedent and sue for these exact same jobs to be given to may a few over 40 supervisors but by and large to the student body themselves where they belong.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Why not just admit that if they'd given these jobs to students under a few faculty members for supervision, they might have also brought the cost down and also benefitted from several positive externalities?
People who talk economics without understanding economics typically just argue endlessly. If you knew economics you could've made your own graph.
Guess your might wasn't right enough!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
If they file their tort claim properly.
If the outcome looks so good, then I hope it goes to federal court. The precedent could change the national economy.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I nominate this comment and it's parent "Comments Of The Day".
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
So you're saying house builders are free to get carpenters through H-1B?
There's no reason why not. They'd just have to figure out how to satisfy the rather vague requirements of high skill. They'd have to be pretty highly skilled just to justify the effort, though, since it costs several thousand dollars to get a potential employee through the H1-B process.
How can a person ever chose a profession if the most lucrative ones will just have a back door opened to relieve the price pressure?
Just accept that you're competing on a global market. If someone in India, or Romania, or Brazil, or wherever can do my job for less money, I see no reason why they shouldn't do it. I have some enormous inbuilt advantages in my understanding of the culture and language, my access to high quality education, etc., and if I can't leverage all of those to outcompete them, I deserve to lose. Yes, this means Americans can't just coast on their luck at being born here. Boo hoo.
My opinion is that we shouldn't have an H1-B program, instead we should allow anyone who wants to work in the US to do so. If that creates a larger influx than we can manage then we can be selective but we should still take every highly-skilled and highly-educated worker we possibly can. Brain drain the whole world, because that will keep the innovation and progress here, and keep our economy the most powerful in the world. Immigration has always been the engine that drives economic growth in the US. That was true when my ancestors arrived in the early 19th century, it was true when we used all the Nazi rocket scientists to win the space race, and it's true today.
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The main problem I have is that the H-1B is not fair because it is enough to replace me as a worker but it is not enough for me to have lower cost of living. If I am competing on a global market then so should everyone, and it will only balance once the prices come down on goods. As it sits right now, companies get a break on cost but yet there is no pressure on them to lower prices.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So, as I forgot to say, I agree with your solution to the issue as long as prices fall to global averages as well as salaries.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The main problem I have is that the H-1B is not fair because it is enough to replace me as a worker but it is not enough for me to have lower cost of living
That's a potential argument against outsourcing, but not against H-1B. The H-1B worker lives in the US and pays the same prices you do.
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But they live in the US under worse living conditions because they know it isn't permanent. Meanwhile on this side of the pond I have to support a family.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So, as I forgot to say, I agree with your solution to the issue as long as prices fall to global averages as well as salaries.
It will equalize globally. Places with low salaries and low cost of living will see both rise. Places with high salaries and high cost of living will see both fall. Standards of living will also equalize, which probably means those who currently have the highest standards will see theirs decline, though not nearly as much as the low standards of living will rise.
This has already happened quite a bit in India, and in China. Labor costs have risen substantially, and cost of living has increased, too. For that matter, the cost of many types of goods has fallen dramatically in the US. Basically anything that can be manufactured overseas and imported is significantly cheaper than it would be otherwise. Clothing, for example, costs less than half what it did, on an inflation-adjusted basis, than it did 30 years ago. Toys, electronics, also dramatically cheaper. In fact, strangely enough, most of those things are actually cheaper to buy in the US than they are to buy in the places they're made!
Note that this equalization won't happen instantly, or painlessly, and there will be winners and losers in the short term. But it's the right thing.
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As a progressive, I don't know what you're talking about. There should be no difference between government and other workers in cases like this.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
W e both know you're full of it because you keep prevaracating and moving the goalposts. IT workers salaries are well enough documented and no, they do not remotely match the spiraling cost of educating.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not at all actually. Which school did YOU go to? :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
- Using cheap young foreign labor (migrant Mexicans) to compete with American blue collar workers? You approve!
- Using cheap young foreign labor (Indian IT workers) to compete with American IT workers? You disapprove!
Obviously, "as a progressive", you fail to see the hypocrisy in this.
But they live in the US under worse living conditions because they know it isn't permanent.
Some, I suppose. The H1-Bs I know very much want to stay.
Meanwhile on this side of the pond I have to support a family.
You're basically saying that you'd like steeper immigration barriers to artificially boost your market value and artificially depress the market value of those who weren't lucky enough to be born here. You're far from alone in that view, but I think it's immoral. I spent some formative years living in another country, with great, smart people who worked their asses off for a standard of living that we wouldn't consider fit for a dog. They deserve a chance to earn something better, and if that means I have to compete harder, or even if it means I have to lower my standard of living, I'm good with that.
To be fair, it's easy for me to say that since I'm pretty comfortable. But I felt the same when I was a poor kid with a young wife and a new baby and I'd just been laid off, so I don't think it's just my relative safety speaking.
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That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm all for the world leveling out and all but only if everyone suffers evenly across the board. From what I see, some people are taking more of the brunt of it than others and I'm not sure how you could say that is fair.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Crap man, the "leaders" in our country are mostly PROFITING from it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
A few comments make the claim that this suit will get thrown out, based on the idea that 1) the Indian outsource firms just happen to have younger workers, and 2) that these workers just happen to be Indian nationals with a number of India-sourced ethnicities.
That would be an interesting dodge, except for one wee obstacle: US labor law doesn't believe in coincidences. Rather, it focuses on disparate impact, and the plaintiffs have that in spades.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I guess you're right. These bosses are clearly just racists who really hate white people in their 40s. Thanks for showing me how their bigotry is so thinly veiled behind a pretense of wanting to minimize IT costs! What a fool I was for thinking people in charge could be motivated by money!
Might makes right irrelevant.
. You make a silly point, namely that it staff salaries are a notable factor despite having risen much much more slowly, then double down by acting like a clown. Just grow up and learn to admit a mistake when you make one.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Whether or not the cost of IT is the one-and-only cause of increases in tuition fees is entirely beside the point. IT is a cost, and controlling costs is what organizations do. If your contention is that IT expenses have zero impact on tuition fees, then I'm afraid I don't follow your logic. Pointing at a diverging graph of historical costs (should you find one) would convince me of nothing. It's like saying that wearing a sweater on a hot summer day is not contributing to me being too hot... because it's the sun, dummy! Well yes... there can be more than one cause.
By the way, if statistics about the cost of IT are so readily available, please do take a moment to share your findings with the rest of the class.
Your idea that students be allowed to replace aging IT staff is a fine one, and I would be surprised if it was not considered. If management rejected (or didn't consider) this idea, that would be their prerogative. I still don't see how lawyering up under false pretenses of "discrimination" solves anything.
And I'll even triple down by saying that it was you, not I, who initiated the personal attacks, dear fellow clown.
It's a shame that people like you are so incapable of engaging in a civil discussion. Resorting to name-calling when one runs out of arguments is a good sign that any actual thinking has come to a halt.
Might makes right irrelevant.
Just one thing... before you waste our time finding actual statistics to back up your argument, I must warn you that any such numbers are very unlikely to convince me. Because principles. Before you tell me that I don't listen to facts, listen to this: You have them too. I'm guessing that I'd be hard-pressed, for example, to find a statistic that would convince you that free speech is not a desirable policy. Or that fascism is actually quite good for the economy. Or whatever your sacred values might hold. Yes, principles matter.
In this case, the principle at work is a simple one, namely that a job is a contract between an employer and an employee. We no longer require the husband's permission in order for the wife to get a divorce, because the agreement ends whenever either party says it does. Compelling one side to maintain the relationship against their better judgement is just wrong.
Besides the little problem of principles, I still don't see what the issue is here. In an economy that is allowed to function normally should provide plenty of opportunity for income, especially in the IT sector in California. Seriously, stop bringing bogus law suits against universities, and try using that energy to get a job instead.
Might makes right irrelevant.
Not really. Most German technology went to the USA, the Soviets received only scraps so they had to design their own missiles after 1949. By the time of Sputnik the only thing left from German technologies was using hydrogen peroxide in the gas generator to drive the turbopumps. Everything developed in the 1960ies and later was fully independent.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
before you waste our time finding actual statistics to back up your argument, I must warn you that any such numbers are very unlikely to convince me
In other words, you're impervious you facts and your arguments are based of something else entirely.
* excuses for why that's ok follow*
Though I don't really follow how the spiraling cost of higher education massively outpacing IT salaries implying that said salaries are therefore not a significant factor is a point of principle or an ethical case. actually I did follow: basically you decided to quadruple down (bonus points for inventing an argument that you claimed I made in your other post, then hallucinating lawsuits I filed in a country I don't even live in, in this post) and declare that your principles are to ignore reason and so therefore your conclusions are unimpeachable.
Well I guess it's impossible to rebut that, in much the same way it's impossible to rebut the time cube.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I take back what I said. You're not a clown at all. You're just a troll.
Oh, before I forget, congratulations on the new job. Who did you sue to get it?
Might makes right irrelevant.
Since this so-called discussion is now irretrievable, I guess you won't mind if I join you down there on your level. Flamethrower is now active.
I didn't expect to hear back from you again, but I see that you just don't know when you are beaten. No problem. I'm enjoying the bloodbath.
Let me break it down (again) in terms a monkey could understand. Maybe I can even make it simple enough for your addled mind, but I'm not as conversant in dumdum-speak as you.
- This lawsuit is clearly spurious and baseless. The argument is that the real reason that these valiant IT employees were laid off was that management is racist and ageist, and that cost-cutting is just a transparent excuse to stick it to nice middle-aged white folks. Seriously? I still hold some hope that, even through the haze of your juvenile concepts of righteousness and moral outrage, you might be able to sense that something is weirdly amiss in this legal logic.
- On the concept of principles: Apparently, this idea is news to you. I'm guessing either you don't have any, or that you do, but you have managed to delude yourself into believing that all your deeply held beliefs are directly derived from empirical evidence. What are your values, exactly? Mine are pretty straightforward. It works like this: People should be free to associate, and to dissolve these associations whenever and for whatever reason they see fit. Compelling a relationship to continue against the wishes of either party is counterproductive, unhealthy, and petty. Personally, I never would expect anybody to pay me for my work unless they feel that they that my work is valuable enough to justify my pay. In this particular instance, the world has changed in such a way that, in the estimation of their bosses, the value of the work produced by the disgruntled slobs in question just isn't what it used to be. Bosses can be fools, too, but they are supposed to be responsible for their decisions.
- Clearly, the cost of education in the US has risen in recent decades due to a wide variety of factors. Addressing all the reasons for this rise would take more time than I have, but, as with any enterprise, forcing universities to pay artificially inflated amounts of money for work is just not helpful. You can either pay people a $15/hr. minimum wage, or you can have a free society with a low cost of living, but you can't have it both ways.
Anyway, this whole argument will soon be moot, as robots and AI will soon be taking all those precious jobs. But not to worry! If people like you have your way, there will be plenty of employment far into the future for lawyers, legislators, lobbyists, accountants, auditors, and tax-collectors... you know, all the really useful people.
By the way, you don't live in the US? Good for you, me neither. Why are you frothing at the mouth over something that is of not even distant concern to your life? Some misplaced "workers of the world unite" brand of logic, I take it? If so, then, like all good comrades, you must be reserving the right to income and employment for just your own selected special group of workers, i.e., those who look like you and are members of your special club.
Sorry about all the big words. I'm not so used to talking to people of your intellectual capacity... but you intrigue me! You get gold star just for being amusing.
Now, if you're still alive, please amuse me with your pathetic attempt at a retort. Oh, and I'm still waiting to see those statistics that are so crucial to your argument, as so easy to find.
Might makes right irrelevant.
By the way, I love the double replies you make to my posts.
I asked you if you were blaming the spiralling costs of education on IT salary costs. You basically said (and I paraphrase):
"yes and no numbers showing otherwise would convince me I'm wrong".
I think that makes you a very silly man indeed. The second thrust of your argument is to then heartily address a bunch of points I never made. The final thrust is to simply make stuff up (lawsuits I've filed) and arguing against that.
I suppose that shows an odd kind of consistency: if reality is't enough to convince you of anything, then what harm is there in inventing your own version of it?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Your telepathy helmet is obviously on the blink. Examine the "approve/disapprove" circuits.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It's not telepathy; you identified politically as a progressive in this very thread. Progressives support large scale illegal and legal immigration and admission of refugees. Why did you self-identify as a progressive in this thread if you don't actually support progressive immigration policies?
Since you are a fan of acts, you might try examining the actual record, rather than putting words into my mouth. I said :
I'm sure it would be simplistic to assume that there could be a single cause for the higher cost of higher education, but it does seem reasonable to assume that the cost of labor is a contributing factor. Is my math wrong?
unquote.
I still don't know how anyone could believe otherwise.
As for accusing you personally of bringing lawsuits... well, you'll just have to show me those words, since I can't find them.
Facts are great, but they are our servants, not our masters. Statistics supporting an argument are only useful when people share the same goals. The fact is, we don't. You seem to be aiming for a sort of socialist utopia in which the authority of the state must be invoked to right every perceived wrong, whereas I aim to let people interact freely, minimizing the role of the state and the need for leeches who extract their income from people at gunpoint.
Might makes right irrelevant.
The nice thing is that if I get the last reply in, then I win :)
The reason for that is you've outed yourself as so scatterbrained, that you forgot about an accusation you leveled at me no less than twice already!
As for accusing you personally of bringing lawsuits... well, you'll just have to show me those words
See?
https://slashdot.org/comments....
You said: Seriously, stop bringing bogus law suits against universities, and try using that energy to get a job instead.
Then followed up here:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
With:
Oh, before I forget, congratulations on the new job. Who did you sue to get it?
The rest of your post is you ignoring the first part you made, then trying to make my argument into a hard extreme and then arguing against that. A weak rhetorical trick, I must say and very obvious to even a novice flamer.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ah, now I understand your confusion. In the first instance, I was speaking rhetorically to the litigious leeches who brought this suit, not to you. But I can see how you might have misinterpreted that.
In the second instance, I was speaking under the assumption that you support the premise of this frivolous lawsuit. Am I wrong??
I wasn't aware that I was employing any sort of "rhetorical trick", but I stand by my original assertion: cost drives cost (even if it isn't the one and only thing that does). What could be more obvious?
Now, unless you have something actually novel to bring to this forum (like those oh-so-easy-to-find statistics you mentioned a couple times), I'm going to leave it at this. You may have the last word, if it pleases you.
Might makes right irrelevant.
Okay, name a political philosophy you like. Should I feel free to ascribe every facet of that philosophy to you, or would you insist on being able to make up your own mind without carefully checking into what people in your political movement have said? I describe myself as a liberal, progressive, or leftist as shorthand. I'm also strongly in favor of nuclear power plants, which is somewhat unusual for leftists.
How about I ascribe distorted versions of your philosophy's views? I don't know progressives that are actually in favor of illegal immigration. Do not confuse this with how people want illegal immigrants treated. Typically but not universally, progressives are for larger scale legal immigration and admission of refugees, and would rather give illegal immigrants a way to become legal than crack down on individual illegal immigrants.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So you are saying that you, and progressives in general, are "not in favor of illegal immigration", and on the other hand they "want to give illegal immigrants a way to become legal". Sounds to me that my "telepathy helmet" is working just fine. Your discomfort comes from the fact that this is not a logically consistent position. And even if you think it is, we tried this 30 years ago and it didn't work. In fact, it is a slap in the face for legal immigrants like myself.
Well, and indeed you hold mainstream "liberal, progressive, and leftist" political positions. And like most of that leftist mainstream, you hold to a set of logically inconsistent rationalizations, mostly carefully crafted propaganda for the economically and historically illiterate.
The actual logical edifice that ties together American leftist ideology is much simpler: it's whatever gets Democrats elected. They just miscalculated for the last few years, because they didn't manage to pull the wool over the eyes of American workers and legal immigrants this time: more and more of those voters are figuring out that admitting large numbers of refugees and legalizing illegals by the millions is not in their interest.
I'm a classical liberal and an advocate of free markets, as represented by Bastiat, von Mises, Hayek, Sowell, Jefferson, and Adam Smith.
I have carefully checked into what these people have said. I may disagree on some details with them, but overall, they represent my views on government, morality, and economics.
Now your turn.