What?! IT workers forced to train their replacements
November 10, 2008 by Valerie HelmbreckPosted in: Budgets and spending, IT employment, Special Report
Now here’s an operation that’s sure to slaughter worker morale: The Connecticut-based drug behemoth Pfizer is reported to be making its IT workers train their replacements from an Indian outsourcing firm.
Yep, that’s the kinder, gentler world of corporate IT at its finest. According to a story in The Day, a New London, CN, newspaper, the leaders of one of the largest, most profitable U.S. pharma companies are bringing IT workers from India to the United States on H1B visas and having their soon-to-be downsized staffers train their replacements.
Kind of like being asked to dig your own grave and then jump into it.
Most of Pfizer’s U.S. IT workers are contractors who work at the company’s Connecticut facilities. The company circulated an internal memo in 2005 saying it wanted to cut $4 billion from its annual operating costs by 2008, mostly by moving IT and other operations from the United States and Europe to countries with lower costs of living.
The patents on a number of Pfizer drugs will expire in coming years, meaning that generics for those drugs will hit the market and Pfizer’s rather large pocketbook. Industry watchers believe this is the reason Pfizer’s taking early steps to cut its costs and their outsourcing is part of a plan to keep stockholders from abandoning the company.
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., who represent the region, are reported to have sent a letter to Pfizer asking the company to re-think laying off U.S.-based workers in Connecticut.
No word yet on the company’s response to Dodd and Courtney’s requests, but let’s just imagine what it’ll be.
You Pfizer IT folks: Keep on digging.
So readers, what’s your take on this cost saving IT move?
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November 11th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Hewitt Associates, Lincolnshire, IL, did the same thing about 3 or 4 years ago.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Happened to my husband at a large construction equipment company. He was expected to train the “overseas” group which were outsourced to save money. However, the pay back should take a while since the overseas group are not too reliable, barely educated on the systems needed, and have difficulties with conversations of the needs of their clients. The outsourced group rely on existing employees to pull them through on many occasions–which leads me to believe that there is very little money (if any) being saved.
He still has a job, but often wonders for how long.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I would train them to screw things up and then let Pfizer live with the results. If all the jobs get outsourced who is going to have the money to buy their products in the U.S.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I thought it was illegal to hire foreign workers on a VISA when you have qualified American citizen workers available to do the job, along with the business about paying the prevaling wage to those foreign workers, if no American workers are available. How do these companies circumvent the system?
November 11th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
From what I’ve read about what’s going on at Pfizer, they’re bringing in the workers from India on temporary visas, training them and sending them back to India. It’s not tough to get a temporary visa, as long as you have a sponsor.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I have a great idea, let’s outsource the President/VP/Directors positions at Pfizer to India. Then we will see how Patriotic they are when they are in the same un-employment lines that we are in. Oh not to mention the additional bailout of AIG. WTF!!!! Why can’t we get our heads out of our A$$e$? You’d think that with all the lawyers that are around, we could come up with a better fight to keep our jobs here instead of outsourcing. Anyone ever think about our children?!? This keeps up and they wont have a job to go to. We need to bring back manufacturing, farms, and production work to ensure that we/our children have a future. (sigh) Why are we Americans such dumb A$$e$?
November 11th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
The purpose of the H1-B visa, as I understand it, is to provide companies access to highly skilled and qualified workers in industries and professions where such talent is in very short supply within the domestic workforce. Technically H1-B visas are intended to fill the gaps within the American workforce, not to replace qualified American workers, however there loopholes that allow these organizations to easily and in some cases, blatantly circumvent the rules and the law. Apparently Pfizer has no qualms about abusing the H1-B program to suit its agenda and a reason the visa program needs reform.
A consulting company in Pittsburgh was accused of favoring H-1B visa applicants in job postings and fined $45,000 for H1-B violations awhile back. What loophole did Pfizer use to justify such abuse?
Rick Savoia
The Force Field podcast for IT service providers
http://www.theforcefield.net
November 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I think I would have to cut bait and hop to the next job. That is worse than a slap in the face. It’s one thing to train your replacement when you are leaving on your terms but another to teach your job to someone who has no skin-in-the-game, no reason to do a good job. This drug company needs to get their managers checked for some illegal drug use.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
H1B Workers have to be paid the prevailing wage of the job they are taking. Companies have to demonstrate that they are unable to fill with local skilled resources (wink wink nod nod). They (the H1B Holders) are subject to US Income taxes on the wages earned. H1B visas are valid for 6 years (2 flights of 3 years), and at the end of the 6 years can apply for a Green Card. Since Pfizer is using Contract IT workers, they are paying a fortune in contracting expenses, while avoiding all of the employee expenses – that part has never made any sense to me.
My guess is that Pfizer will employ H1B replacements, pay them the same or less contracting rate to a contract firm and the H1B holder will be making less than the current set of contract workers, after the H1B contractors get their pound of flesh for their services.
All workers need to remember that if your work can be placed on the ‘wire’, it can be worked on anywhere.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The firm my husband works for is an American company that has been bought by a company from India. The company now plans to have their India office take over 95% of the business, so my husband and many of his IT co-workers have been told that there will be a bonus to stay, but only long enough for them to be sent to India and train people there on how to do their job.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Laying off U.S. workers in favor of cheaper “off shore” labor and manufacturing sources is a highly favored economic maneuver in U.S. business. There does seem to be some short sightedness in this method, however. We are laying off (thus rendering them incapable of buying goods and services) the very people our business community relies on to buy their goods and services. We seem driven to work not to raise the standard of living world-wide but to reduce it to the lowest common denominator.
Surely we have learned, starting with Enron, that our business leaders not only are incompetent but have absolutely no interest in the well being of their fellow countrymen/women. If they can continue to make short term profits while remaining incompetent and greedy, that is exactly what they will do.
I strongly believe, without strong regulation, Capitalism will self destruct out of pure greed.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Oh – we’ll have plenty of jobs available here. Janitors, Walmart, fast food service. Not to mention the thousands of security folks needed to keep an eye on all the vacant houses. Just saying.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
How else do you suppose that the knowledge is going to be imparted? Accepted that it is a killer on the people who are training, but am going through the same thing now. I am training my American colleagues on the job that I am losing!!! When I go back to India, I do not have a job!!! I have to search for it within a month! With the job market like it is now….Good Luck to me and my colleagues on finding a job within that time!
So, you just have to do what you have to do as professionals and roll with it!!! No sense in complaining about it. What is sauce for the goose is good for the Gander too…
November 11th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
And the point is? Same thing happened to me and my programming group in 2001. IBMers all, we did it with style and professionalism. That IS what being a professionalis about, don’t you agree?
November 11th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I think there’s something rather grim about training someone to take your place who is only replacing you because they will work cheaper or longer or without comparable benefits.
Yes, it’s reality, but it doesn’t mean it’s pleasant or won’t make the folks who currently hold those jobs feel discarded. Being professional is the right thing to do, but it won’t pay the bills or feed the kids. We’re talking about American workers whose only crime is that they don’t live in third world conditions — yet.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
There is a tendency to see corporations as made up of people. They’re not. The goal of the corporation is to provide profit in whatever way works at the moment. (There’s a wonderful documentarty called “The Corporation”. It explains a lot.) Basically, individuals are usually not held liable for the decisions of the corporation, regardless of who actually made the decisions. A corporation is an entity unto itself. The people who make these kinds of decisions are not the ones who will lose their jobs; they’re the ones who will profit from outsourcing. Short and long term considerations do not enter into it. The decision makers are tasked with making profits, usually by cutting costs. If they don’t cut costs, THAT costs them their jobs. Is it short-sighted? Of course. Is it part of the culture of instant gratification? I think so. Never assume people (also those acting as corporations) will do the honorable thing just because you would. And that’s especially true if they have a corporation to hide behind. We all remember Enron. Do we remember the names of the Board of Enron…? Some of us, maybe. Most of us, no.
I have no advice for the IT staff at Pfizer. I wish I did. Even moving to India wouldn’t help.