Illegal Aliens and Your Money,
Mickey Mouse is a RAT,
“Disney employees
were told in late October that they would be laid off …‘I just couldn’t believe
they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,’
said one former worker… ‘It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take
over your job. I still can’t grasp it.’…
“Last year,
Southern California Edison initiated 540 technology layoffs…Three Americans who
had lost jobs told Senate lawmakers that many of those being laid off had to
teach immigrants to perform their functions…
“Fossil, the
fashion watch maker, said it would lay off more than 100 technology employees
in Texas this year…The company is planning “knowledge sharing” between the
laid-off employees and about 25 new Infosys workers, including immigrants, who
will take jobs in Dallas…
“Among 350 tech
workers laid off in 2013 after a merger at Northeast Utilities, an East Coast
power company, many had trained H-1B immigrants to do their jobs, several of
those workers reported confidentially to lawmakers.”
Last Task After
Layoff at Disney: Train Foreign Replacements
By JULIA PRESTON
JUNE 3, 2015
ORLANDO, Fla. —
The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy
fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with
their boss.
While families
rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the
theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby,
making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and
hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well
that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.
Instead, about
250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off.
Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly
skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in
India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train
their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.
“I just couldn’t
believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs
exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed
since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train
somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”
The layoffs at
Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power
utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing
companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in
technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce
debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace
them.
According to
federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science
or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those
skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely
affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal
loopholes, however, in practice companies do not have to recruit American
workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced.
Too often,
critics say, the visas are being used to import immigrants to do the work of Americans
for less money, with laid-off American workers having to train their
replacements.
“The program has
created a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers
to substitute for Americans,” said Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at
Howard University who studies visa programs and has testified before Congress
about H-1B visas.
A limited number
of the visas, 85,000, are granted each year, and they are in hot demand.
Technology giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Google repeatedly press for
increases in the annual quotas, saying there are not enough Americans with the
skills they need.
Many American
companies use H-1B visas to bring in small numbers of foreigners for openings
demanding specialized skills, according to official reports. But for years most
top recipients of the visas have been outsourcing or consulting firms based in
India, or their American subsidiaries, which import workers for large contracts
to take over entire in-house technology units — and to cut costs. The
immigrants are employees of the outsourcing companies.
In 2013, those
firms — including Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL America, the
company hired by Disney — were six of the top 10 companies granted H-1Bs, with
each one receiving more than one thousand visas.
H-1B immigrants
work for less than American tech workers, Professor Hira said at a hearing in
March of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because of weaknesses in wage
regulations. The savings have been 25 percent to 49 percent less in recent
cases, he told lawmakers.
In a letter in
April to top federal authorities in charge of immigration, a bipartisan group
of senators called for an investigation of recent “H-1B-driven layoffs,” saying
“their frequency seems to have increased dramatically in the past year alone.”
Last year,
Southern California Edison initiated 540 technology layoffs while hiring two
Indian outsourcing firms for much of the work. Three Americans who had lost
jobs told Senate lawmakers that many of those being laid off had to teach
immigrants to perform their functions.
In a statement,
the utility said the layoffs were “a difficult business decision,” part of a
plan “to focus on making significant, strategic changes that can benefit our
customers.” It noted that some workers hired by the outsourcing firms were
American citizens.
Fossil, the
fashion watch maker, said it would lay off more than 100 technology employees
in Texas this year, transferring the work to Infosys. The company is planning
“knowledge sharing” between the laid-off employees and about 25 new Infosys
workers, including immigrants, who will take jobs in Dallas. Fossil is
outsourcing tech services “to be more current and nimble” and “reduce costs
when possible,” it said in a statement.
Among 350 tech
workers laid off in 2013 after a merger at Northeast Utilities, an East Coast
power company, many had trained H-1B immigrants to do their jobs, several of
those workers reported confidentially to lawmakers. They said that as part of
their severance packages, they had to sign agreements not to criticize the
company publicly.
In Orlando,
Disney executives said the layoffs were part of a reorganization of technology
operations to focus on producing more innovations. They said the company opened
more positions than it eliminated, with a net gain of 70 tech jobs.
“Disney has
created almost 30,000 new jobs in the U.S. over the past decade,” said Kim
Prunty, a Disney spokeswoman, adding that the company expected its contractors
to comply with all immigration laws.
The tech workers
laid off were a tiny fraction of Disney’s “cast members,” as the entertainment
conglomerate calls its theme park workers, who number 74,000 in the Orlando
area. Employees who lost jobs were allowed a three-month transition with résumé
coaching to help them seek other positions in the company, Disney executives
said. Of those laid off, 120 took new jobs at Disney, and about 40 retired,
while about 90 did not find new Disney jobs, executives said.
Living in a
company town, former Disney workers were reluctant to be identified, saying
they feared they could jeopardize their chances of finding new jobs with the
few other local tech employers. Several workers agreed to interviews, but only
on the condition of anonymity.
They said only a
handful of those laid off were moved directly by Disney to other company jobs.
The rest were left to compete for positions through Disney job websites.
Despite the company’s figures, few people they knew had been hired, they said,
and then often at a lower pay level. No one was offered retraining, they said.
One former
worker, a 57-year-old man with more than 10 years at Disney, displayed a list
of 18 jobs within the company he had applied for. He had not had more than an
initial conversation on any one, he said.
Disney “made the
difficult decision to eliminate certain positions, including yours” as a result
of “the transition of your work to a managed service provider,” said a contract
presented to employees on the day the layoffs were announced. It offered a
“stay bonus” of 10 percent of severance pay if they remained for 90 days. But
the bonus was contingent on “the continued satisfactory performance of your job
duties.” For many, that involved training a replacement. Young immigrants from
India took the seats at their computer stations.
“The first 30
days was all capturing what I did,” said the American in his 40s, who worked 10
years in his Disney job. “The next 30 days they worked side by side with me,
and the last 30 days they took over my job completely.” To receive his
severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my job
correctly.”
In late November,
this former employee received his annual performance review, which he provided
to The New York Times. His supervisor, who was not aware the man was scheduled
for layoff, wrote that because of his superior skills and “outstanding” work,
he had saved the company thousands of dollars. The supervisor added that he was
looking forward to another highly productive year of having the employee on the
team.
The employee got
a raise. His severance pay had to be recalculated to include it.
The former Disney
employee who is 57 worked in project management and software development. His
résumé lists a top-level skill certification and command of seven operating
systems, 15 program languages and more than two dozen other applications and
media.
“I was forced
into early retirement,” he said. The timing was “horrible,” he said, because
his wife recently had a medical emergency with expensive bills. Shut out of
Disney, he is looking for a new job elsewhere.
Former employees
said many immigrants who arrived were younger technicians with limited data
skills who did not speak English fluently and had to be instructed in the
basics of the work.
HCL America, a
branch of a global company based in Noida, India, won a contract with Disney in
2012. In a statement, the company said details of the agreement were
confidential. “As a company, we work very closely with the U.S. Department of
Labor and strictly adhere to all visa guidelines and requirements to be
complied with.”
The chairman of
the Walt Disney Company, Robert A. Iger, is co-chairman with Michael R.
Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, and Rupert Murdoch, the executive
chairman of News Corporation, in the Partnership for a New American Economy,
which pushes for an overhaul of immigration laws, including an increase in H-1B
visas.
But Disney
directly employs fewer than 10 H-1B workers, executives said, and has not been
prominent in visa lobbying. Mr. Iger supports the partnership’s broader goals,
including increased border security and a pathway to legal status for
immigrants here illegally, officials of the organization said.
The truth is that the policy formula favored by President
Obama—more regulation, hostility to American energy, anti-growth taxation,
surging debt, bigger government, more federal interference, government-run
healthcare, and mindless immigration policies—are the cause, not the cure, for
growing middle class distress.”
CNN Money, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
SCORE, SBA, Small Business Administration, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, FBN, Fox
Business News.
These are the companies that support more and more illegal aliens,
The Cheesecake Factory, Inc. CVS Caremark Corporation Hallmark
Cards, Inc. McDonald's Corporation The Wendy's Company The Walt Disney Company
The Coca-Cola Company Johnson & Johnson American Express Company 21st
Century Fox Darden Restaurants, Inc (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and others)
Liberty Mutual Group, Inc. Allstate Insurance Company Western Union
Northwestern Mutual American Airlines Inc. Motorola Solutions, Inc. The
Procter Gamble Company (wide range of
well-known home and beauty brands) Newell Rubbermaid Inc. AT&;T Inc.
T-Mobile USA, Inc. Caterpillar Inc. The ADT Corporation Pfizer Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Company HP United Parcel Service, Inc. UPS General Electric
Company GE Verizon Communications Inc.
Pay your phone bill (one dollar short) Marriott International, Inc. Stay somewhere else Hilton Worldwide Find another room Hyatt Hotels
Corporation Say no to Hyatt McCormick
& Company, Inc. Salt and Pepper
Cisco Systems, Inc. A billionaire
doesn't need you anymore, let him sail off Quest Diagnostics Incorporated Eaton
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company BNSF Railway Company Shell Oil
Company General Mills, Inc. (many well-known food brands) Ingram Industries
Inc. Kronos Incorporated Ingersoll Rand Company General Parts Inc. Merck
& Co., Inc. United Technologies Corporation Harris Corporation Illinois
Tool Works Inc. Sears Holdings Corporation
There is a reason that Sears and K-Mart is going broke USG Corporation
Archer Daniels Midland Company Destroy
people that control your food Johnson Controls, Inc. Lots of people make their stuff Ally
Financial Inc. US Foods Univar, Inc. Kiewit Corporation Air Products and
Chemicals, Inc. Great company really bad
leadership W.W. Grainger, Inc. Too bad,
no more money. Avery Dennison Corporation Humana Inc. Novelis, Inc. The
Williams Companies, Inc. Avaya Inc. Computer Sciences Corporation Honeywell
International Inc. International Paper Company
All they do is cut down trees, cut your cash flow to them Dover
Corporation Danaher Corporation TRW Automotive Analog Devices, Inc. Ecolab,
Inc. Avnet, Inc. White Lodging Corporation Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. Simon
Property Group Daikin McQuay Americas Continental Grain Company MSC Industrial
Direct Co., Inc. Hospira, Inc. Cigna Corporation The ServiceMaster Company
Automatic Data Processing, Inc. Bloomin' Brands Inc. Fiserv, Inc. Carolinas
HealthCare System SRA International Emerson Rockwell Automation, Inc. Parker
Hannifin Corporation Saint-Gobain Corporation General Dynamics Corporation A.
O. Smith Corporation Praxair, Inc. HCA Inc. Eastman Chemical Company Manpower
Group Fifth Third Bank Pitney Bowes Inc. Express Scripts, Inc. Cardinal Health,
Inc. Aleris International, Inc. DTE Energy Company U.S. Steel Corporation
Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation Cargill, Incorporated Assurant, Inc. XL
Global Services, Inc Texas Instruments Incorporated ATK WESCO International
