Thread: To Keep Your Job, Move To India

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/ibm- ... -india-ibm

IBM To North American Employees: To Keep Your Job, Move To India (IBM)

Eric Krangel | February 3, 2009 8:48 AM

Recent announcements of mass layoffs have created new scrutiny around the H-1B visa program, which brings foreign tech workers (mostly from India) to the US for work (at below-market wages, critics say). But IBM (IBM) is going with a novel tack: Instead of bringing cheap Indian workers to America, the company is demanding its American workers move to cheap India and get paid India-standard wages.

A better option than being laid off? IBM has been quietly eliminating thousands of jobs over the past few weeks.

InformationWeek gets their hands on leaked IBM documents explaining the program:

IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand," IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. "Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move."

The document states that the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America...

"It's more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else," said [an IBM] spokesman. "A lot of people want to work in India."

IBM employees may have their own, more sinister explanations. Multiple IBM staffers have written in to SAI to claim the company has a program in place of demanding deliberately difficult relocations, with the company saying anyone who refuses to move will be considered a "voluntary departure" and denied severance benefits.

Know more about IBM's layoffs or relocation plans? Email ekrangel@alleyinsider.com, anonymity guaranteed.

Multiple IBM staffers have written in to SAI to claim the company has a program in place of demanding deliberately difficult relocations, with the company saying anyone who refuses to move will be considered a "voluntary departure" and denied severance benefits.

Kind of like not qualifying for unemployment if a business offers you ANY job in the company. Manager to part time employee, a move across the country......whatever.

This is no different than what stealthily happened with the title companies in 2006. Originally we were told our jobs were going to India, then somebody contacted the media. We were told a week later that we could follow our jobs to Seattle if we wanted to, at our own expense, but that they would only be there for a year at the most until they got all of the kinks out of moving things to India. This way they could "honestly" assure the media that your private info was staying in the US, they just did not say for how long. They tried, but failed, to get out of paying severance or unemployment because those who did not follow the jobs were considered by the company as "voluntary resignations". California's labor board did not see it that way, luckily for us. However, that left about 500 in my company alone, unemployed and basically unemployable for anything above minimum wage because all of the companies were outsourcing and most of us had been doing title work our entire adult lives. In California, a middle aged woman with a small child who does not speak Spanish often did not even qualify for those jobs because child care is a 7am-6pm m-f only and most minimum wage jobs require nights and/or weekends. 99% of the jobs I would qualify for normally I was not considered for because of my lack of Spanish. In California, going from 50-70k a year to minimum wage is impossible to survive on. We were given 30 days to give an answer as to the transfer and another 5 weeks after that before the jobs moved.

Originally Posted by crazybird

Multiple IBM staffers have written in to SAI to claim the company has a program in place of demanding deliberately difficult relocations, with the company saying anyone who refuses to move will be considered a "voluntary departure" and denied severance benefits.

Kind of like not qualifying for unemployment if a business offers you ANY job in the company. Manager to part time employee, a move across the country......whatever.

Americans are discouraged from working in India anyway. I have heard that Americans who move to India to work are quickly taken advantage of and fired. Indians treat Americans badly. There is an entitlement mentality that is very evil. Generally, Indians feel that Americans owe them their jobs but not the other way around.

It's just another example of how the "law" and the "rule of law" actually work in the U S.