IBM Offers to Send Laid-Off Staff to Other Countries 493
TheAmit writes to tell us that many recently laid off IBM employees have been offered jobs if they will only move somewhere it is cheap to employ them. IBM's new Project Match program offers some financial assistance for moving and immigration help for visas. "However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States. "
It's not just India... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I can't believe (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, Corporations tax rate should be based on the percentage of people that work out of country.
100% of your work force in the US? then no corporate taxes. Base it upon work, not hired employees.
So, on that scale, a foreign company doing business in U.S. will pay outrageous taxes because most of their employees are in their home country, i.e. not the U.S.? Geez, that's going to bring investors who are desperately needed especially during an economic downturn.
I don't think you thought your plan through—just like most plans that involves getting the government to meddle in private businesses.
IBM "Union" (Score:3, Informative)
For those that don't know, there isn't one. I believe what the summary is referring to (and possibly the article itself, which of course I didn't read) is Alliance@IBM [allianceibm.org], a ... well, rumor site that gets a lot of disgruntled workers on it.
IBM has a ton of international employees but I believe the largest percentage of employees is in the US. It'd be interesting to compare, say, HP, IBM, Intel, etc., with percentages of employees and where they work, etc.
I guess, in order to make people REALLY happy, they should have just laid off workers and said goodbye for good, huh? Offering to re-locate and stay employed, pfffft, how stupid. Right.
Re:Making the best of a bad situation? (Score:3, Informative)
Had they not just reported record profits they might have a leg to stand on. As is, they don't.
Re:Employment in other countries. (Score:3, Informative)
did your friend also say that the yearly salary
should be a minimum of one million dollars.
with 100k you won't even get a proper house in
places where IT companies exist.
You don't get out much, do you? 100k would buy you a really nice house in my country, about 500 square meters built (about 5000 square feet) with a half-acre to an acre of yard (and we're not talking about one of those plaster and cardboard things you call houses in the US)
And FYI it is quite safe to live here (Montevideo, Uruguay), much safer than the "bad" areas in urban US cities (and yes, I've been there, while I guess you haven't been here). Tech industry here: 5% of GDP was exports of software products and services.
A quick check shows that 100k would buy you a decent house in the US even: http://realestate.shop.ebay.com/ [ebay.com]
However, I am impressed at the number of rooms an average American house is supposed to have:
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/United-States-HOUSING.html [nationsencyclopedia.com]
A coworker bought a house (ok, a ruin mostly) for 11k USD last week, and housing prices are expected to fall with the recent crisis. The apartment I rent costs about 20k USD (and rent is 150 USD, that includes running water but not other utilites).
Re:der takin oar jorbs (Score:2, Informative)
" The number of upper middle class 'slots' is becoming fewer and fewer every year and there might not be a chair for you the next time the music stops. The way things are going, it could even happen in your lifetime -people don't always get what they deserve, but you just might."
That reminds me of the musical chair game they taught us in grade school. Do you think they where trying to inform us of something?
Re:Sign here. (Score:2, Informative)
Democracy is a governmental system. Capitalism is an economic system. They have nothing to do with each other by nature.
Re:Let the CEO's work from India (Score:5, Informative)
I'm living in China because my spouse's company transferred us here. I applied to IBM here and they wanted to hire me and send me back to the USA at the Chinese pay level as an intracompany transfer which they use to avoid the H1-B process (although as a US citizen I didn't even need to apply for the intracompany visa). The pay was a bit under $800/mo for database technical consulting work that's in the $120+ range in the US for the consultant, nevermind what the company charges. Obviously I turned that down, but I have to wonder how many Chinese get sent to the US with this kind of pay thanks to the intracompany visa scheme. The interviewing manager said they "do it all the time".
BTW - the firecrackers 24/7 is only for 2 weeks around Chinese New Year. They go back to being illegal except for permits tomorrow at midnight. And you might build a house without restrictions but you can't own the land. The government at any time can move you out and take it back for some odd reason - and while eminent domain abuse happens in the US, at least there you get paid fire sale rates for your house before they knock it down.
George Carlin - The Real Owners (that's not you) (Score:5, Informative)
The Real Owners [youtube.com] George Carlin:
There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it'll never ever be fixed - it's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got, because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now. The wealthy big business interests that control things, and makes all the important decisions.
The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners.
They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear.
They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it.
They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club.
By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.
The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard working people: white collar, blue collar it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue (these are people of modest being) - continue to elect these rich douchebags who
don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you - they don't give a fuck about you.
They don't care about you at all - at all - at all,
and nobody seems to notice.
Nobody seems to care.
That's what the owners counted on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It's called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
(Listen to him [youtube.com] - the power of the words heard is so greater than read, it's the difference between seeing a punch and taking one.