Outsourcing hits US techies hard

Times of India ^ | MAY 26, 2003 | CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

[Lessismore]

WASHINGTON: On a recent April afternoon in Silicon Valley, moments after he was told he had been laid off from his computer programming job at a Bank of America training centre, Kevin Flanagan stepped into the parking lot and shot himself dead.

Some of America's technology workers, who like Flanagan have also had to collect pink slips over the last several months, think they know why Flanagan took his life: Bank of America not only outsourced his job to India, but forced him to train Indian workers to do the job he had to give up.

In the weeks since his death, the techies have used the incident as fuel to fire a campaign against outsourcing to India, an issue that now seems poised to become a major sticking point between the two countries. Several US states are already considering legislation to ban or limit outsourcing.

Bank of America is one of several major US corporations – General Electric, Microsoft, Intel are among others - under scrutiny for outsourcing jobs to India. The Bank created what is called a "Global Delivery centre" in 2000 to identify projects that could be sent offshore.

Since then it has signed agreements with Infosys and Tata Consulting Services (TCS) to provide solutions and services.

In an e-mail exchange with this correspondent, Kevin's father Tom Flanagan said "a significant reason for which my son took his life was indeed as a result of his job being outsourced."

"Did he blame India for his job loss? No. He blamed the "system." He couldn't understand why Americans are losing jobs. Rather I should say he understood it economically, but not emotionally," Flanagan said.

Bank officials, who did not return calls relating to Flanagan's death, have said in the past that the deal with Indian companies would effect no more than 5 per cent of the bank's 21,000 employees, or about 1,100 jobs, in its technology and operations division.

According to some surveys, the US has lost at least 800,000 jobs in the past year and some 3.3 million jobs will move overseas over the next few years because of outsourcing, mostly to India.

The Bank has also acknowledged that it had asked local workers to train foreigners because such knowledge transfer was essential. According to Tom Flanagan, his son was "totally disgusted" with the fact that he and his fellow-workers had to train foreigners to do his job so they could take over. "That sir is a travesty," he said in one e-mail.

US tech workers are challenging the corporate world's claim that it is outsourcing work to improve bottomlines and efficiency. Some analysts have also pointed out that US corporations were being forced to tighten up by the same people who are moaning about outsourcing, and who, heavily invested in the stock market, demand better performance.

But on one website that discussed the Flanagan case, a tech worker pointed out that data processing consumed only a small per cent of revenues and was hardly a drain on the Bank's profit.

"(It is) a prosperous bank which has let greed trump any sense of patriotism or social responsibility," he fumed.

[TradicalRC]

I couldn't have said it better.

[RaceBannon]

THat is what is going on here in AMerica. You are letting in competition who did not pay for the right to do business in America or who did not pay for the right to do business with corporations that depend upon the AMerican market.

Know what else burns my buttons?? THEY didnt even invent the technology that made us prosperous in the first place, nor did they invest in all the new machines or processes that took years and millions to develop!

And we just went over there, set up OUR machines, sent in OUR people to teach them how, they pay them slave wages compared to ours, put ourselves out of business all in the name of competition to wipe us out of the market!! we are selling them the rope to hang us, and we are making the rope ourselves!

And some here say we are whining?? As far as I am concerned, we are the only ones who are seeing this in the light that it is. My only guess is, the cheerleaders for this world economy are those who either never got laid off or havent yet because they entered the work force in such a unique field there is no present outsourcing yet.

The rest of us swallowed the line we were taught in the 1960's: That aviation was here to stay, that the US was the leader in manuacturing, that all these factories are here to stay because up her in CT we make jet engines, helicopters, and all the little mom and pop machine shops that make parts for Pratt and Hamilton and Kaman and Sikorsky will always be employed because there will always be newer jets and such, you live next to an international airport so you can always get a service job that pays well, move freight for Emery or TWA or whoever...

And none of that lasted past my 30th birthday, but that is what I was raised to believe, be trained to live under, direct my education towards...

And since then, due to such a rancid record of steady jobs de to all the temp jobs I had, I have never been able to get the BS, and have had 10 jobs in the last 3 years alone.

I cannot get a job washing dishes around here, did you know that? All the Mexicans are doing that. Not a joke, all the resturants hired Mexicans for $9 or $10, something I would really do if it meant a steady job long enough to get back into school and take a few more courses top get my BS, only, no one hires AS degreed engineers in CT anymore. There are too many BS degreed people looking for work, they dont need me.

[Huber]

We never know where/when the next "big" thing is coming, but rest assured, it always does. The importance of having open/fluid markets is not just products/labor, it's capital. And it's capital that develops industries which in turn hire workers. Perhaps people should be reading more Hayek than moping at FR.

Amen to that! Reading Hayek or better yet, applying his lessons. It seems amazing that as seemingly sophisticated a group as our IT workers would be so willing to embark on "The Road to Serfdom" by demanding greater government intervention.

The fact that it has become efficient, and is becoming more so, to conduct certain functions overseas remains both a challenge and an opportunity. Life presents us with many such paradoxes. What we choose to do when confronted with such a situation defines us as individuals, and collectively, will define us as a nation.

[Pukin Dog]

We do not pay for the rights we have in America.

Our founding documents grant the same rights 0 yeveryone here legally, whether they got here yesterday or 50 years ago.

Here is a better example for you. I drive a pretty great automobile. I know for a fact that my American-made automobile would be a LOT LESS great, were it not for the fact of Japanese competition.

There was a time when American cars were pure junk. Now, they are not. American car makers chose to compete against a well funded opponent, and they held their own.

The point is that if can avoid shooting yourself in the head long enough to have the guts to go down swinging, you might land enough blows to keep you in the game.

[maui_hawaii]

I wouldn't doubt that pretty soon people won't be shooting themselves, but rather their (former) bosses. People are going to go postal if the trend keeps up. But hey, what’s a few execs here and there. They are replaceable.

If that were to happen to some crooked fat head who runs some big corporation it would be all over the news and people would mourn like no tommorrow.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

On Dice I found 53 for programmers in Ct. Over 100 in Florida, almost 500 in California. 2464 nationwide, using "programmer" as a search keyword. Didn't try it without that and just in computer field alone.

[mylife]

Know what else burns my buttons?? THEY didnt even invent the technology that made us prosperous in the first place, nor did they invest in all the new machines or processes that took years and millions to develop! Isnt that the truth!

[TradicalRC]

Excellent point.

[RaceBannon]

You are basically arguing for equalization of wages throughout workers of the world. And if you get your way, that level of equalization will occur at a rate equal to that of workers who are willing to sleep on dirt floors with very low living standards.

Where did you dream that up? I argue no such thing!

I want my country to stop giving away technology to people who didnt do anything to earn it and are only going to use it against us economically by putting us all out of work because they pay their workers slave wages or support their failing industries through govt subsidies instead of making these new companies COMPETE in the free market ike we are forced to!

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Isnt mercedes owned by GM now?

[oceanview]

That Japanese auto competition was legitimate. They invested and started up rival companies, and made a better product, and sold it into a country (the US) that allowed a truly free market for them to do so. Let all the engineers in India form startups to compete with Dell and Oracle and Cisco, and then let them come out with a competing product and sell it into our market. Instead, we are sending Dell and Oracle to India, 100 engineers at a time.

[TaxRelief]

"Some one has to take control of My Life... It might as well be Me!!"
(R.R. Payne)

"At the core of modern liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats ."
(PJ O'Rourke)

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (Paris Sorbonne,1910)

[oceanview]

of course not, Mercedes owns Chrysler. GM owns Saab. Ford owns Volvo and Jaguar.

[crazykatz]

Your gazillions are pukes from India...NOT RED BLOODED AMERICANS who are VETERANS and American taxpayers!!!

[Luke Skyfreeper]

However, if an Airline wanted to park me in a 747-400, I would be happy to do it for the experience alone. Any money would be icing on the cake.

That's because you were able to earn enough money while you didn't have to compete with these guys, to be able to "be happy to do it for the experience alone."

What about us who don't have that option? Like myself, unable to find a job in my field, and working for 10 bucks an hour at the best job I've been able to find, barely able to support my family?

Jerk.

[bvw]

Two areas we still have techno leadership in are games and porno. SAD!

I'm glad that DARPA is addressing this. It's pretty bad, but getting worse fast. We need to re-comit like we did after Sputnik was launched.

Maybe we need an "American West Lunar" company, like the old British and Dutch West India companies.

And I don't trust the Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin slowly dying behemoths to serve any purpose for revitalization, except only to spawn off -- completely -- a few key new technologies. One being the battlefield network integration stuff.

We have not only nearly kilt the golden goose in computers and electronics -- but in metal and chemicals too. (Excepting only drugs.)

[Luke Skyfreeper]

LOL, not surprising to run into you on this thread. 8-)

[RaceBannon]

Oh, Goody. 53 in CT

That means of the 500 that got laid off in the last 2 years from CIGNA alone, and the new graduates, about 250 more, there are how many people per job? 13 people for each job?

Now, add in the people who lost jobs from Aetna and The Hartford. And Pratt. And Sikorsky. And Hamilton Sundstrand. And the banks.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

[mylife]

No mercedes owns chrysler.
and my old chrysler owned co. that provided secure comms to the whitehouse(invented the damn stuff) is out of buisness.

[bvw]

There are a many jerks, believe me. They are the vainest pricks. Less every day, as their own fortresses are wrecked by the vandals. That's no solace at all however,

No solace at all.