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Home Front: Culture Wars

Nielson gets millions job creation tax incentives, then lays off hundreds & outsources to India

2008-07-13

Crank the Rage-O-Meter
(St Pete Times) Nielsen Co. announced 170 more layoffs at its Oldsmar facility Tuesday. This will bring the total number of reductions at the company to 402 since 2007. Nielsen is also planning a staff realignment in Dunedin that will lead to more layoffs there, too. In Oldsmar, Nielsen is outsourcing more work to India-based Tata Consultancy Services, company spokesman Gary Holmes said Tuesday. The work formerly done in Oldsmar will now be transferred to India.

Although companies that hire outsourcing firms often try to limit the release of information about layoffs through employee nondisclosure agreements tied to severance and public statements, Nielsen was unable to do so in this case. That's because it received property tax breaks in 2001 to build a $100 million global technology center in Oldsmar. The tax breaks were pegged to the number of high-wage jobs -- those that paid at least $52,000 -- the company created. That forced Nielsen to disclose hiring details at that facility, effectively putting the employee count of the facility on the local political radar. Nielsen announced a 10-year outsourcing agreement valued at $1.2 billion with Tata Consultancy Services in Mumbai.

Time for somebody to demand increasing the minimum wage again. That'll make us more competetive.

Under the original 2001 agreements, Nielsen has received some $3.1 million in tax incentives for its Oldsmar facility, which includes $1.7 million in breaks from the state and $1.4 million from Oldsmar and Pinellas county.
From the Tata Contract there are further outrages - the H1-B are being used to REPLACE US Citizens - so that the H1B can be used as a virtual slavery device
The Nielsen-Tata pact states 'there shall be no additional charge for overtime work', allows Nielsen to have unsatisfactory Tata (H1B) hires replaced within 4 weeks of starting with no charge for the original or re-performed work, gives Nielsen up to 6 man-weeks of free labor when a Tata (H1B) worker is replaced, and allows Nielsen to make 'any TCS Resource' (read H1B) essentially disappear with no more than 5 days notice if their presence 'is not in the best interests of Nielsen.'

Tata was awarded the contract by Exec VP Michela Habib who has a history of outsourcing large numbers of jobs to Tata. He sent thousands of jobs overseas to Tata when he was at GE Medical Systems, and Citigrouop.

During the Citibank outsourcing, Citibank's NAIT managers were given the proverbial handcuffs and told that they could not review the resumes of the incoming consultants and it was alleged that TATA managers themselves told Citi managers, "You have no choice. You take what we give you."
They killed the US jobs $50K they promised, sent some overseas and are using H-1B to DIRECTLY REPLACE the US Workers IN THE US - the H1B are here taking the Americans jobs!
KILL H-1B NOW! STOP IT!
Its killing the US middle class.
From multiple sources listed below

TampaBay.com
www.computerworld.com
Lou Dobbs (http://youtube.com/watch?v=zjwv0sofytE)

Posted by:OldSpook

#15 H1B and outsourcing == replacing workers with indentured servants and slaves.

Didn't we fight a Civil War over issues like this?

Posted by: 3dc 2008-07-13 17:29

#14 Cheating bastard lawyers at the root of it.

Figures.

Too bad there is no way for the workers screwed by their illegla activity to personally collect damages from the cheaters.

Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 16:39

#13 dvising clients to disqualify American candidates so they could hire much cheaper foreign workers

This has been going on in IT for at least fifteen years. College students aren't interested in going into IT anymore cause they think it's a dead-end (they're right). Congress not only doesn't care but is doing their best to make things worse.

Meanwhile our military is using more off the shelf hardware / software that is developed overseas or by foreign nationals.

This will not end well.

Posted by: Bob Thinemp8308 2008-07-13 16:00

#12 A subsequent Labor Department audit uncovered evidence that the New York-based Fragomen- whose client list includes many Fortune 500 companies - was improperly advising clients to disqualify American candidates so they could hire much cheaper foreign workers. In an unprecedented move, Labor Department officials are now auditing all of Fragomen's pending visa applications.

I think a 20-year jail term would sort them out.

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-07-13 15:19

#11 Looks like the feds are finally starting to pay attention...

Editorial: Feds crack down on visa fraud, finally

WASHINGTON- Highly educated Americans with much-sought-after technical and scientific skills have been complaining for years about not being able to find jobs or being replaced by foreign workers who have come to this country on H1b visas (Congress authorizes only 65,000 H1b visas annually, for hiring foreign workers with skills that can't be found here). Turns out they were right. The Department of Labor has finally started cracking down on law firms and corporations deliberately bypassing federal laws aimed at protecting American workers from being displaced by foreigners willing to work for much less.

When they apply for H1b visas, U.S. companies must first certify that they cannot find any qualified American applicants. But, as Chicago network engineer David Huber discovered, the certification process can be rigged. Huber, a University of Chicago graduate with NASA management experience, had to train his own replacement at Commonwealth Edison. He claimed Chinese nationals were given access to Commonwealth Edison data communication switches controlling the Chicago electrical grid. Huber told The Examiner that when he applied for a Cisco Systems job advertised in the Chicago Tribune last year, he noticed that the contact was not a Cisco hiring manager, but an attorney working for the nation's largest immigration law firm, Fragomen, Del Ray, Bernsen & Loewy.

A subsequent Labor Department audit uncovered evidence that the New York-based Fragomen- whose client list includes many Fortune 500 companies - was improperly advising clients to disqualify American candidates so they could hire much cheaper foreign workers. In an unprecedented move, Labor Department officials are now auditing all of Fragomen's pending visa applications.

The probe has been extended to San Francisco where LawLogix was caught red-handed submitting more than 100 fraudulent applications. The software firm is now barred from submitting any applications for the next three years. And after a video of Cohen & Grigsby attorney Lawrence Lebowitz brazenly telling clients that "our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker" was posted on YouTube, Labor officials placed the Pittsburgh law firm on "supervised recruitment" which means heightened scrutiny for all future visa applications.

The displacement of highly qualified American scientific and technical workers by foreign visa holders has gotten scant attention by the media, which tends to focus on protecting illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities like Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. The legal part of our broken immigration system has gotten much less attention, which is why it may very well pose as grave a threat to national security as porous borders.

Posted by: tu3031 2008-07-13 14:39

#10 And, to add additional insult to injury in the med field, the UK terrorist attack was accompanied with a video threatening "those who cure you will kill you", making the H1B and J1 visas and entry to the US for would-be jihadis. Check out all the Arabic names in the phone book sometime--Syrian internists, Iranian heart specialists, Jordanian nephrologists, etc.

Posted by: Danielle 2008-07-13 14:20

#9 A little hard, though not impossible perhaps, to out-source medical care.

However, we have a different issue --

[soapbox]

We have about 11,000 graduates from US medical school each year, and a few thousand more than that of residency program openings. So we import a few thousand foreign MDs every year to fill those spots. They come on H-1B and J-1 visas, mostly, though I've seen some others. They're obligated to return home after training and some do, but others decide to stay. I can't blame them at all, and a fair number of them are decent docs who learn to love America.

So what's the problem? What it means is that 1) we're essentially taking the best and brightest from India, Pakiwakiland, Malaysia, Ethiopia, the Phillipines, etc., and bringing them here, depriving these countries of the talent they need to fix their own problems and 2) we're depriving pretty good American kids of a chance to be doctors. We could expand our med schools by 10%, and I'm betting that the extra 1,100 students would be equal to or better than the average FMG.

But no-o-o-o-o, that would cost money, so we take doctors from other countries instead. It's short-sighted and frankly, in my mind, truly imperialistic. I like to point that out to my liberal friends here in the Department; they get pretty uncomfortable.

[/soapbox]

Posted by: Steve White 2008-07-13 12:51

#8 I hear talk of a shortage of engineers, doctors, and just about every other professional- (excluding lawyers)- in this country. This is not an IT issue anymore, they will come for your job too, no matter what it is.

Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-07-13 12:29

#7 All of this so one guy can make $130 million this year instead of a paltry $108 million.

Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-07-13 12:27

#6 Work Visas May Work Against the U.S.
Data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys Technologies (INFY) and Wipro (WIT) took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400 applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH), which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S. companies from India, including technology support and back-office processing.

The only other U.S. companies among the top 10 are the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte & Touche and consultancy Accenture (ACN). They rank seventh and ninth, with 8,000 and 7,000 applications, respectively.

Top 1000 H1B Visa and Green Card Sponsors (2000-2007)

Posted by: ed 2008-07-13 11:31

Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 11:14

#4 Tata also leads the US in L-1 visas as well.

Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 10:55

#3 SHut the H1-B down. Completely. NOW.

If we need these workers, then bring them in with green cards, where they have every right the US Citizen does. This way they cannot be made hostage to their visa status, and if we are truly shrot in that type of tech worker, then we need them here longer - and we want them to become citizens and live here eventually.

These are the kind of peopel we want as citizens, not as servants to corporations who use them to depress US labor costs by using the H1B as leverage to distort the US labor market.

KILL H1B NOW!

Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 10:47

#2 I was at Citigroup when Habib brought in Tata for a 2nd time. Initially, he brought them in for the credit card division. He was then promoted to CIO of North America and by then it was obvious to everyone that after what happened at GE and in our credit card division that there existed a quid pro quo arrangement between Habib and Tata. So there was no suprise when Tata was awarded the contract for all of North America, even though there was a 'competition' with at least 5 Indian outsourcing companies. I've got no idea if Habib thought that this move was really in the best interests of our company, I only know that he promptly left Citi for Nielsen right smack in the middle of all the resulting layoffs that he initiated. And anyone paying attention knew at the time that Tata and Nielsen would soon be working together, and every IT worker at Nielsen needed to get their resumes polished up in a big hurry. These firms derive their characteristic competitive advantage from their ability to exploit their workforce in ways that would not be legal with normal US citizens or in the United States.

Posted by: FromSlashdot 2008-07-13 10:42

#1 And how about this as the capper:

The fired US employees MUST TRAIN THIER REPLACEMENTS in order to receive severance - that includes ones that are being replaced by H1B visa holders. Many jobs that are staying are being filled by Tata H-1B workers.

Thats right -- That's US Workers in $50K+ a year jobs being DIRECTLY DISPLACED by lower cost H-1B slaves from overseas! This isn't outsourcing, this is REPLACEMENT. Its abuse of the H-1B program of the worst sort.

And look at the contract language - they are using H-1B virtual indentured servants who cannot complain about forced OT and abusive policies lest they have their H-1B sponsorship pulled and get sent back to India.

DO NOT WORK WITH NEILSON EVER ON ANYTHING! Boycott them and put them out of business.

Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-13 10:28

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