Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started • Hacker News Board

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#21

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 19, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #9

fennecfoxen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who would pursue IBM in hopes of 'incubating a startup scene' is, not to put too fine a point on it, grossly incompetent. Indeed -- and just one of the most painfully obvious illustrations of why the "high taxes with favored big companies getting tax breaks" strategy is a lot less fair and efficient than the "medium-low taxes for everybody" strategy. (Of course, the latter doesn't give the politicians any ch…

There's a multitude of interpretations there, but to me the obvious(TM) takeaway is that corporate taxes should be zeroed out for everyone, and income/consumption/environmental taxes (take your pick of weighting) increased to make up for it.

[deleted]

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#22

Post by imaginenore » Tue, May 19, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #18

darkarmani wrote: post #12

I can't believe no one mentioned this gem: "Grassley, a Republican, wrote to Rometty on April 16 to express concern about “reports of mass layoffs” even as IBM requested H-1B work visas to allow 5,800 foreign employees to be authorized to work for the company in the U.S."

I saw that too and was going to comment on it. I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India. My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India. Hell, the current project I'm on…

H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition.

It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#23

Post by liveoneggs » Tue, May 19, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #22

at-fates-hands wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that too and was going to comment on it. I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India. My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India. Hell, the current project I'm on…

H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition. It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

But didn't you know there was a massive STEM worker shortage?!

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#24

Post by rrich » Tue, May 19, 2015, 2:59 PM UTC

thoth wrote: post #15

simonw wrote: post #2

"Instead, Ross found herself toiling on what she described as a new-age assembly line -- each employee solving a narrowly focused part of a corporate customer’s technical problem and then passing the baton to the next person." Can anyone decipher the above and explain what kind of work IBM employees in these kinds of offices perform?

I had a job once where I provisioned storage. As in, log into a filer/array (NetApps in my case), create a volume, hand it off typically to system admins that would then create a VM or use the volume for something else. That was it, my portion was mostly "create volume 500G" and sometimes a few extra configuration steps, like mirroring or setting up replication. I don't know what that IBM office was doing specificall…

Astonishing. Did you realize what your responsibilities would be when you were hired? Could only imagine having to do a full blown tech interview to find out the position was mundane and could be scripted.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#25

Post by rrich » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

Motorola basically did the same thing in a Northern Illinois community. I think the massive site stayed open a little more than a year. It still today remains a huge empty space sitting in the prairie some fifteen year on.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#26

Post by forgotAgain » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #22

at-fates-hands wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that too and was going to comment on it. I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India. My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India. Hell, the current project I'm on…

H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition. It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

H1B is not outsourcing.

By definition perhaps, but not in practice. When a company replaces long term employees with H1B's, the H1B's are (in my experience) typically employed by a third party such as a foreign based service provider. Most of the largest users of H1B's are outsourcing agencies.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#27

Post by cwyers » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

nova22033 wrote: post #16

darkarmani wrote: post #12

I can't believe no one mentioned this gem: "Grassley, a Republican, wrote to Rometty on April 16 to express concern about “reports of mass layoffs” even as IBM requested H-1B work visas to allow 5,800 foreign employees to be authorized to work for the company in the U.S."

>reports of mass layoffs Whatever happened to the Cringley reported mass layoffs? http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-... IBM’s big layoff-cum-reorganization called Project Chrome kicks-off next week when 26 percent of IBM employees will get calls from their managers followed by thick envelopes on their doorsteps. By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone. I’m told this has been in th…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2015/01/28/the-ibm-axe-...

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/28/looks-like-those-ibm-layoffs-h...

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#28

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #22

at-fates-hands wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that too and was going to comment on it. I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India. My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India. Hell, the current project I'm on…

H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition. It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

>> who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

The ironic part of my project is now my manager is under pressure because they want to start converting people to full-time and I'm the only one eligible since the rest of the team all have to go back to India soon.

In my 1:1 meeting's my manager is always frustrated since the executives want more full time people, but keep bringing in H1-B's. They just don't get it.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#29

Post by zaroth » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #22

at-fates-hands wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that too and was going to comment on it. I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India. My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India. Hell, the current project I'm on…

H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition. It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

If you read the labor department site on H1B, "not replacing an American job" is actually not a requirement. Highly skilled, yes. But the part about the resume needing to perfectly suit just the H1B application (which, I've heard about for years, and even seen it done) actually I couldn't find it in the law. Seems like it's folk lore.

Re: Iowa Spent $50M to Lure IBM. Then the Firings Started

#30

Post by hharnisch » Tue, May 19, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

It was basically just a call center with sys admins that would remote into servers and give them a kick when needed. Oh an a handful of developers. It was clear as day they weren't going to stick around, since the more interesting positions were being held in other IBM offices. It's a bit of a shame really, there's plenty of smart/technical kids from Dubuque, they just go to Des Moines and Cedar rapids to work at places like John Deere and Rockwell Collins -- because even with IBM, there was no reason to stay.