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My Position On The Disney Layoffs

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Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#41

Post by nibbles123 »

dwightgunning wrote: post #15

What exactly happened here? Reading between the lines it sounds like Disney are executing an outsourced IT transformation involving offshore IT application delivery (maybe maintenance, IT ops etc.)? Flying in staff from offshore teams to shadow/train with the team being reorganised is standard practice from what I've seen. It isn't pretty but it's not like Disney are breaking new ground here...

That's what happened.

I worked at Disney Technology during the new CIO's reign, but left for another opportunity a few months prior to the layoffs.

Tilak Mandadi (Disney CIO) stated that there would be efforts to onboard contract employees to take over what he considered to be maintenance and sustainment tasks, in an effort to allow Disney employees to focus on innovation and new development. From my understanding and observation, though having the title of developer, some people did not have the skill set to perform those tasks.

I feel that if you read between the lines you could see what the end game was.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#42

Post by iktl »

pgrote wrote: post #38
iktl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, none of which says anything about the 70 new jobs and 30,000 jobs total added in the US being non-citizens. New jobs in the US != NOT H1B workers. Skillfully avoiding the topic, but I guess that's why he has that job. And I say this as a non-citizen working in the US.

>>And I say this as a non-citizen working in the US. If you don't mind answering a question I've had about this process for a while, it'd be great. Does your contract end at some point? Do you have options to stay in the US employed by another company?

I'm an at-will employee, sponsored by my employer. I can transfer the visa to a new employer by resubmitting an LCA, but if I lose my job for whatever reason I have ten days to get a new job or I'm out of the country.

Now... finding a job, getting an interview, having an offer made, accepting the offer, and getting the paperwork in? Good luck doing that in ten days.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#43

Post by VLM »

shas3 wrote: post #9
justizin wrote: post #4

"I'm sharing news about it because this experience has taught me the H-1B Visa program needs to change to protect others in the future." Anyone who still supports FWD.us and believes that the US doesn't produce enough professionals to satisfy the needs of our businesses is straight up, while they are reading this, actually holding a crack pipe to their mouth.

Protectionism doesn't work. There is wide consensus among economists on comparative advantage [1]. Healthy, non-protectionist immigration policies have been proposed to have similar effects as free trade [2,3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage [2] http://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/micro/s07/Peri.pdf [3] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100008723963904434771045775512...

The protectionism in this situation is protecting the company from having to participate in an open and free employment market. Import some slaves, threaten them with immediate deportation if they don't accept substandard pay and substandard management...

The anti-H1B folks want to remove the protectionism and have a fair employment market.

I don't like slavery, don't like H1B, and I think a perfect solution would be to shut down the H1B program and hand every participant a green card if not outright naturalization papers.

We have enough class problems in the USA as it is. Having the .gov encourage the creation and growth of a slave caste via the H1B program is the last thing we need.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#44

Post by kalkin »

theklub wrote: post #30
matwood wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do exist in a global economy and you must therefore compete globally. I completely agree, but that's not what the H1-B visa program does. It allows companies to lock in immigrant workers at a lower rate and little to no job mobility. From a companies standpoint it is obviously what they want - pay less, and job lock in! The fix for the H1-B is true immigration reform. We need to make it easy for people to come t…

Why do we need to make it easy for people to come take our jobs? Why would we do that?

Who's "us"? I don't know you, and I have friends who aren't Americans who have been prevented by immigration policy from taking jobs here that I know they'd have been great at. Why should I care more about you keeping your job--just because we were born in the same politically defined geographic area?

But if you need a self-interested explanation: because you don't want to be competing with people who have artificially-restricted bargaining power and so have to take lower wages. The H1B program as-is, like the old bracero program for farmworkers, is a "compromise" that benefits corporations at the expense of both native-born U.S. citizens and immigrants.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#45

Post by teacup50 »

justizin wrote: post #4

"I'm sharing news about it because this experience has taught me the H-1B Visa program needs to change to protect others in the future." Anyone who still supports FWD.us and believes that the US doesn't produce enough professionals to satisfy the needs of our businesses is straight up, while they are reading this, actually holding a crack pipe to their mouth.

The "crack pipe" is in believing that these two situations are equivalent:

- Disney replacing IT staff in bulk with outsourced workers.

- A small (or large) technology firm wanting to hire a specific, highly qualified, but just happens to be foreign-born worker.

The outsourcing companies consume so much of the H1-B pool that the people who want to use it correctly can't, and then people like you start talking about crack pipes.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#46

Post by Balgair »

pgrote wrote: post #35
protomyth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hired them through a third-party, thus Disney had to justify nothing. Look at the list of H1B awards and you'll see the big body shops.

I am having trouble understanding your point and hoping you can clarify it. Disney contracted with this company to perform this action. Isn't Disney responsible for accepting these actions?

So Disney contracts out the work to these body shops. The H1-B guy is an employee of the contracted-to firm, not of Disney. Disney is simply contracting out the work to a cheaper company. The contracted-to company says they can't find the workers, has enough lawyers to actually prove it, hires H1-Bs, and then contracts them to Disney.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#47

Post by exelius »

pgrote wrote: post #35
protomyth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hired them through a third-party, thus Disney had to justify nothing. Look at the list of H1B awards and you'll see the big body shops.

I am having trouble understanding your point and hoping you can clarify it. Disney contracted with this company to perform this action. Isn't Disney responsible for accepting these actions?

Disney doesn't ask questions about how people are procured. From Disney's perspective, they're just hiring a company to take over technical operations and support. Technology is honestly not Disney's core competency, so it makes sense to outsource to someone who can do the same work with a lower cost base because it IS their core competency.

They just have to sign a contract with Cognizant/Wipro/Infosys/etc that says they will provide managed services covering X, Y and Z products for $X million per year. Managed services contracts allow a contractor to have near complete control over personnel decisions; the client doesn't ask questions about how they can do it so cheap because they have no say in the matter anyway. Managed services contracts are managed against SLAs, so as long as you meet your SLAs, you get paid.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#48

Post by swashboon »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #7

"I'm sharing news about it because this experience has taught me the H-1b Visa program needs to change to protect others in the future." It's surprising to me that Disney was able to replace its local workforce by foreigners via H-1b visas, since I always thought that companies making use of this type of visa were required to prove that they would not be able to find an employee with the required qualifications in th…

The key loophole that is use to justify hiring the H-1b is the "qualifications" the basics are that you take their resume, copy all of it, put it as a job posting in a public place and then get no applications for the job because you can use any discrepancies between the applicants resume and the "posting" to say they are not qualified. In reality you will get almost so applicants for the posting anyways.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#49

Post by ececconi »

exelius wrote: post #37
ThePhysicist wrote: post #7

"I'm sharing news about it because this experience has taught me the H-1b Visa program needs to change to protect others in the future." It's surprising to me that Disney was able to replace its local workforce by foreigners via H-1b visas, since I always thought that companies making use of this type of visa were required to prove that they would not be able to find an employee with the required qualifications in th…

I believe the author is simply mistaken that H1-Bs are the problem. H1-Bs are limited enough that they can't be responsible for the volume of outsourcing. They also carry salary parity requirements, and while H1-B holders rarely actually make market salary, the savings still aren't enough to prompt a wave of outsourcing. There was a problem at one time with H1-Bs, but the H1-B lottery has become so competitive that i…

I've seen some firms make org charts that showed that a person on an L-1 visa was "managing" someone when in fact they were an independent contributor.

Re: My Position On The Disney Layoffs

#50

Post by witty_username »

theklub wrote: post #30
matwood wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do exist in a global economy and you must therefore compete globally. I completely agree, but that's not what the H1-B visa program does. It allows companies to lock in immigrant workers at a lower rate and little to no job mobility. From a companies standpoint it is obviously what they want - pay less, and job lock in! The fix for the H1-B is true immigration reform. We need to make it easy for people to come t…

Why do we need to make it easy for people to come take our jobs? Why would we do that?

Competition? Nobody has a indestructible right to their job.
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