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from the training-how-to-be-outsourced dept.
Michael Hiltzik, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times, has some harsh words about UCSF's plan to outsource 20% of its IT staffing to the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies:
Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India is despicable enough when it's done by profit-making companies such as Southern California Edison and Walt Disney Co.
But the latest employer to try this stunt sets a new mark in what might be termed "job laundering." It's the University of California. Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That's not a distinction UC should wear proudly.
UC San Francisco, the system's biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they've been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
[...] "The argument for Disney or Edison is that its executives are driven to maximize profits," says Ron Hira of Howard University, a expert in H-1B visas. "But UC is a public institution, not driven by profit. It's qualitatively different from other employers."
By sending IT jobs abroad, UC is undermining its own mission, which includes preparing California students to serve the high-tech industry.
"UC is training software engineers at the same time they're outsourcing their own software engineers," says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), whose district includes much of Silicon Valley. "What message are they sending their own students?"
[...] Of course, if UCSF's initiative blows up in its face, the victims will be its patients, doctors and researchers. In running a university hospital, Laret told me, "you have to make some hard choices." That's indisputable, but the unanswered question is whether UCSF's choice will cost more than it saves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:14AM
anti-military.
I dealt with recruiters in both High School and Junior College. They were some of the sleaziest fucks around. Like seriously they make ambulance chasing lawyers look like upstanding citizens. I even went assessment and such for the Army at one point (dropped out after reading through the legalese for the secret security checks for longer contract positions in fact! Even if you didn't enlist, by filling out the paperwork you would have been allowing them to nose into your business for a full 5 years after the date of signing!)
If people on campus dislike the 'hard sell' antics of recruiters coming on campus and harassing them, then more power to them in getting them to shove off and go elsewhere. It is not like there aren't dozens of recruiting centers around the bay area for any interested parties to visit if they wish to consider a career in the military, and it is not like you cannot find ex-military on any college/university campus to give you an idea of what it is like and let you know in their opinion if you should consider it.)