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At the University of California's San Francisco campus, 79 IT employees lost their jobs this week, some of them after explaining to their replacements at Indian outsourcing firm HCL how to do their jobs.
The union representing the employees, University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119, says it's the first time a public university has offshored American IT jobs.
In a statement sent yesterday, UPTE-CWA says the layoffs could spread, since the HCL contract can be utilized by any of the 10 campuses in the University of California system, the nation's largest public university. "US taxes should be used to create jobs in the US, not in other countries," said Kurt Ho, a systems administrator who was quoted in the union's press release. Ho was required to train his replacement as a condition of getting his severance pay.
In its statement on the matter, UCSF says that it was pushed to hire outside contractors due to "increased demand for information technology and escalating costs for these services." The university says it will save more than $30 million by hiring HCL, after seeing IT costs nearly triple between 2011 and 2016, "driven by the introduction of the electronic medical record and increased digital connectivity."
The university says 49 UCSF employees were laid off, and it will eliminate another 48 jobs that are currently vacant or filled by contractors. "UCSF will not replace UCSF IT employees with H-1B visa holders, nor will HCL," the university wrote in a statement e-mailed to Ars.
Of the 49 laid-off UCSF employees, 34 have either secured other employment or are retiring, the university said.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @11:46PM (11 children)
It used to be that Universities were where all the advances in technology were made. Computer Science started there, especially in the UC system: It is not called BSD for no reason!
But now the PHBs that are the Administrators (Not actual scholars, scientists, or intellectuals at all) are prey to all the same software and systems salespersons as private business suffers from. My University is no longer able to run its own email server, it had to farm it out to Google! And they only saved one position's salary! From this, I can no longer use my email client, all my emails are searched by Google and the Same People who got to The Donald.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @12:00AM (6 children)
The Man at UCSF are medical researchers and government administrators. The admin would not have gone down this route without the consent of the medical faction - i.e., the medical faction sees the IT workers as expendable overpaid dullards.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday March 06 2017, @02:54AM (5 children)
And that's exactly why students should avoid STEM.
If you have a brilliant mathematical mind, consider something *important* to the business class... investment research. Banking. Marketing. How to use technology and
How to use technology, backed by laws signed by lobbied Congressmen, to compel others to your Business model.
Right now, we have a sick, diseased internet, that can't be trusted due to rampaging viral issues. So we lay off the people who should be investigating how to cure it.
( Because the cures will inevitably negate the backdoors many businesses and governments paid the software authors to implement in source code and lobbied Congressmen to hold them harmless for. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @08:01AM (2 children)
If you have a brilliant mathematical mind, consider something *important* to the business class... investment research. Banking. Marketing.
I saw an analysis recently which suggested, that even with all the crazy high salaries in those areas, the tech people who actually chose those jobs were the weakest students. They were only looking at MIT students, so its not like they were the dregs of a 2-year college. But there was a pretty clear self-sorting between the top-tier and the bottom-tier and it was the bottom-tier that took the wallstreet jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @08:51AM (1 child)
Could be the 100hr weeks and being treated like shit by the "real investment guys" and burning out at 40? Not so attractive as a (low paid) uni position for the top tier.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday March 06 2017, @10:53AM
The one thing I can say about STEM is its like music or art.... you do this because you have it in you. Its your passion.
However, don't count on it to support a family, lifestyle, or wife.
You may get lucky and get a job where you are appreciated.
But all too often, its like a gardener.... you may absolutely love doing this kind of stuff, but you are gone the instant your employer finds someone else who claims to do a passable job for less.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 06 2017, @03:10PM (1 child)
And that's exactly why students should avoid STEM.
If you have a brilliant mathematical mind, consider something *important* to the business class... investment research. Banking. Marketing. How to use technology and
How to use technology, backed by laws signed by lobbied Congressmen, to compel others to your Business model.
What would be the point of the consideration? What additional value do you bring over a bunch of MBA flunkies? STEM expertise is one of those things that a brilliant mathematical mind can do better. But you can't get the STEM knowledge without some sort of excursion formal or otherwise into these fields.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday March 07 2017, @07:04AM
I was trying to be absurd to the point of trying to get across how we as a nation are squandering the most important resource we have... our creativity.
Some nations have been around for centuries, and seemingly left little to show for it. Other nations have come along and improved things big time for all humanity.
We ( The USA ) used to be in that camp, but we seem to be willing to give it all away to protect the business interests of a few elite. ( Like all this "intellectual property" law being used to keep "commoners" ignorant of how their stuff works, and law that promotes "ownership" instead of research and production. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @02:09AM
Use S/MIME, and tell your friends to use it too. You can use most mail clients with Google mail: I read a gmail account with Alpine 2.20 and I have the same set up to encrypt with S/MIME, and I can't imagine many clients more backwards and antiquated than Alpine.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @04:56AM (1 child)
You are making a terrrrrrrrible assumption. That they ever could run their own systems. Most of what has come out of acadamia is IN SPITE of the bureaucracy in place.
Back when I was 'in it'. The CS dept usually had its shit together with computers (usually). But get outside of it or the math dept and it was a total disaster. You would regularly run into PHD tenured professors who had no clue on how to turn their computer on much less use it. Its 'better' now as most of that sort has aged out. But running an IT system takes work and time.
This case is 100% a cost cutting move. Something acadamia is ALSO very good at. I took classes in one building that was built in 1938. The last renovation was in 1953. I graduated in 1994. Last I heard they gave up on the building and just flattened it around 2010. The computers I used were from the early 80s except for some 'lock and key' servers you could access through a green screen terminal. There are 2 things that get funding, sports and 'research'. Everything else is a cost to be trimmed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @08:56AM
As long as by "research" you mean higher salaries for grant winners. Actual nose-to-the-ground researchers are cannon fodder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @02:25PM
ago.
The original IT department was one or two guys covering the district, plus staff in each room that had a full time IT presence. Over time it became a gestapo-like group of admin separate from the 'visible' school staff and only came around to say 'We've been watching you and that is in violation of network policy guidelines.' Then they started making you sign a contract every year about how you would use the school network. Hilariously, this lead to an open WLAN being implemented on campus, before it too was coopted, and began requiring student ID to log in (They had already leaked our SSNs twice, first via a school run server, then again via the Peoplesoft Web Portal used for Registration, which leaked ALL of us onto the internet.)