This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement
This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement
U.S. workers protested job losses to foreign workers by
displaying American flags in their cubicles
By Patrick Thibodeau
June 10, 2014 (Computerworld)
This is the story of an IT worker who was replaced by a
worker on an H-1B visa, one of a number of visa holders, mostly from India, who
took jobs at this U.S. company. Computerworld is not going to use the worker's
name or identify the companies involved to protect the former employee from
retaliation. For purposes of this story, the worker has been given initials --
A.B. (They're not the person's real initials.)
At A.B.'s company, about 220 IT jobs have been lost to
offshore outsourcing over the last year. A.B. is telling the story because,
initially, there was little knowledge among fellow employees about H-1B visa
holders and how they are used. They didn't know that offshore outsourcing firms
are the largest users of H-1B visas, or exactly how this visa facilitates IT
job losses in the U.S.
"I think once we learned about it, we became angrier
toward the U.S. government than we were with the people that were over here
from India," A.B. said, "because the government is allowing
this."
The IT workers at this firm first learned of the offshore
outsourcing threat through rumors. Later, the IT staff was called into an
auditorium and heard directly from the CIO about the plan to replace them. It
would take months for the transition to be completed, in part because of some
new system installations.
Many younger IT workers found jobs and left. Mainframe
workers were apparently in demand and also able to find new jobs. But older
workers with skills in open systems, storage and SAN faced a harder time. About
half the IT staffers, mostly the older ones, would stay to the end.
Training the replacement workers involved holding
morning-long WebEx meetings several times a week with offshore outsourcing
staff based in India. The sessions were recorded as details about the
environment, including diagrams and scripts, were shared.
As they moved closer to the termination date for the U.S.
workers, the overseas employees would follow or shadow, via WebEx sessions,
everything an IT worker did during the day. The outsourcing firm's onshore
staff helped to coordinate these efforts, but also worked to untangle the
meaning of some of the questions.
The overseas workers did not appear to have much
practical experience, and the same questions were asked repeatedly, A.B. said.
Before they lost their jobs, A.B.'s co-workers decided to
made a subtle and symbolic protest over what was happening: As the H-1B visa
workers gradually took over the offices once occupied by U.S. workers, one
employee brought in a bunch of small American flags on sticks.
The flags were retrofitted so they could fit into the
walls of the cubicles.
(Computerworld viewed a photograph of the cubicle flags,
but decided not to publish it to protect A.B's identity.)
The flags were displayed, cubicle after cubicle, much
like way flags are hung on homes in a residential neighborhoods on the 4th of
July. They were visible to anyone walking down the hall. "That was the
only thing that we could do," A.B. said. "We felt that we were making
a statement. But to be honest, I don't think the Indian workers fully
understood what was going on."
To illustrate this point, A.B. recounted a conversation
with an offshore outsourcing visa holder. A.B. worked directly with one of the
offshore firm's visa employees, whose job it was to help train the overseas
workers.
"I know he was over here to do a job," A.B.
explained. "I treated him as a colleague, even though I was
resentful."
The offshore outsourcing employee was pleasant, and a
couple of weeks before A.B.'s job ended, he asked: "That Monday, you are
going to another job?"
"I said, 'No, I'm not going to another job,"
A.B. recalled. "'You are taking my job. I don't have another job to go
to.'" A.B. explained that as an older worker it would be difficult to get
another full-time position.
The offshore outsourcing worker later sent A.B. a
Facebook friend request. "I don't think he comprehended the situation over
here -- that we were losing our jobs, we didn't have jobs to go to," A.B.
said.
The Facebook friend request was not accepted.
In the last month, the offshore outsourcing workers,
again via WebEx, essentially took over A.B.'s job. It became A.B.'s role to
follow along to make sure that the offshore workers executed various tasks
correctly.
While this was going on, more and more H-1B workers
appeared at the company, filling more of the offices.
Before the offshore outsourcing had begun, there was an
internal study to compare the costs of insourcing versus outsourcing. A.B. did
not see the study, but wonders what would happen if the U.S. government were to
impose restrictions on the H-1B visa and raise the cost of using it, and
whether that could change the economics of offshoring and encourage more
insourcing.
A.B. talked about hopes for getting U.S. lawmakers to
visit the company and count the number of Indian workers and the number of
American workers. Efforts to arrange meetings with lawmakers were unsuccessful.
"They are going to find more Indian workers than
American workers," A.B. said. "For every India worker that's there,
that used to be an American."
The American flags have since been removed from the
cubicle walls.
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