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Fired workers train their replacements in india { April 6 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/135495-1511-031.htmlhttp://www.indystar.com/articles/1/135495-1511-031.html
Fired workers train successors
Staffers losing jobs to overseas outsourcing may boost last paycheck if they cooperate.
By Stephanie Armour
USA Today
April 6, 2004
When computer programmer Stephen Gentry learned last year that Boeing was laying him off and shipping his job overseas, he wasn't surprised. Many of his friends had the same experience.
But what stunned him was his last assignment: Managers had him train the worker from India who would be taking his job.
"It was very callous," says Gentry, 51, of Auburn, Wash., a father of three who is still unemployed. "They asked us to make them feel at home while we trained them to take our jobs."
More cost-cutting companies are hiring workers in other countries to do jobs formerly held by U.S. employees. But in a painful twist, some employers are asking the workers they're laying off to train their foreign replacements.
Almost one in five information technology workers has lost a job or knows someone who lost a job after training a foreign worker, according to a new survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. The study is the first to quantify how widespread the practice is.
Here's how the process typically works: U.S. workers getting pink slips are told they can get another paycheck or beefed-up severance if they are willing to teach workers from India, China and other countries to do their jobs. The foreign workers typically arrive for a few weeks or months of training. When they leave, they take the U.S. jobs with them. The U.S. employees who trained them then are laid off.
Employers say they need workers to train replacements to ensure a seamless transition, but the practice is coming under fire.
In a congressional hearing in February, some lawmakers denounced the training of replacements as "unconscionable."
And seven in 10 information technology workers say they would support legislation requiring companies to inform local officials if they plan to use U.S. workers to train foreign replacements, according to the survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, known as WashTech.
"This is the global economy hitting home," says Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, a union representing technology workers. "It raises serious moral issues. Maybe we need to look at banning this practice outright. For American workers, it's a terrible situation to be in."
Transferring knowledge
Some employers say they are hiring workers in other countries -- a trend known as "offshoring" -- because they can pay them much lower wages, providing a needed competitive advantage. They say U.S. workers aren't forced to train replacements (known as "knowledge transfer"), but are given the choice.
At WatchMark-Comnitel, a telecommunications software company in Bellevue, Wash., 17 employees in quality assurance were laid off in 2003 and replacements in India were hired. Sixteen U.S. workers helped train their replacements. Company officials say no workers were forced to do the training, but those who did got extra incentives.
"It was a voluntary choice," says Sherry Toly, spokeswoman for WatchMark-Comnitel.
"Separation packages were offered whether they participated or not. We've been very happy (with the offshoring), and we feel we have a better product. Lower costs have transferred to an improved product."
But workers such as Myra Bronstein aren't convinced.
On a Friday in 2003, the former WatchMark software tester was part of a team of workers who were summoned to a meeting. There, she says, managers handed out letters explaining that the testing staff was being laid off. Managers told the group their replacements would be workers in India, she says. The workers would be in the office on Monday. She says she was instructed to train them.
Bronstein felt trapped. If she refused, Bronstein says she believes she probably would have been fired without severance and would have been ineligible for unemployment benefits. If she quit, she says, she wouldn't have received severance or been eligible for unemployment.
The next week, she and the other employees facing lay-offs were introduced to the workers who were taking their jobs. The workers from India, she says, would be earning a sixteenth of what she had been paid.
"I was staring hard at my shoes and trying not to cry," says Bronstein, 48, of Mercer Island, Wash. "It was as if they handed us a shovel and said, 'Here, dig your own grave.' "
While some economists and policy makers say there's no question that training replacements is difficult, they also say attention to the issue is overblown. Because this is an election year, they say unions are focusing on the issue.
"Training your replacements is a pretty crappy thing to have to do. But it helps personalize the issue. It makes people empathize," says Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. He says fears about job loss are "grossly overblown. It's always easy to blame foreigners."
Employees forced to train their own replacements say the practice is a stark illustration of how hiring of foreign workers is plundering American jobs. In the next 15 years, American employers will move about 3.3 million white- collar jobs and $136 billion in wages abroad, according to Forrester Research. That's up from $4 billion in wages in 2000.
In 1997, Darrell Rathburn, 61, says he was asked to train his replacements at a high-tech company, but the software developer says he quit voluntarily after training them.
"Their salaries were about a third of ours," says Rathburn, of Columbus, Ohio. "They returned to India, and my project was given to them. There are so many people out of who are very qualified. This is not right. This is not fair."
Lobbying for protection
Union members have been lobbying for legislative protections, from more restrictions on visas to guarantees that workers who quit instead of training foreign replacements still get unemployment.
A bill introduced in Olympia, Wash., would have required employers to give employees advance notice before asking them to train foreign replacements. The bill didn't pass this year, but the sponsor, state Rep. Zack Hudgins, says he plans to bring it back.
"It's a terrible thing to ask someone to train their replacement and ship the job overseas," says Hudgins, a Democrat. "This is way beyond election-year politics. It's not a partisan issue."
Many feel powerless. In 2003, Kevin Flanagan was laid off from Bank of America after training foreign workers. He shot and killed himself in the parking lot in Concord, Calif. His death galvanized other information technology workers, who have staged protests against outsourcing. Members of Congress opposed to the practice also have used his case as a call to action.
"We were very saddened by the death of our associate," says Bank of America spokeswoman Mary Waller. "Our thoughts and prayers went out to the family and coworkers. . . . We determine the best way to transition processes so services are maintained."
When transitions occur, the company says it gives employees help finding work or assistance with finding another in-house position if possible. The bank also has training opportunities. Bank of America officials say the positions that have been moved overseas are less than one-half of 1 percent of their total work force.
"Kevin losing his job with Bank of America was the defining event in his decision to end his life," says Flanagan's father, Tom. "Certainly there were other issues, demons, with which he was unable to cope. Outsourcing isn't new, (but) now white-collar jobs are being lost. Why? Money, of course."
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