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Thursday, October 18, 2007

A rant to: Finding a Job in America

I often find myself in the position of explaining what I do (as an IT contractor) to Indian project managers, who will take that information back to India to bid on the backlog of tasks that I work on for various clients.

In the companies eyes, they can throw about three Indians at the project for less than they pay me to do it. Often, the US-based companies own stock in the offshore firms, or they are subsidiaries of the US-based company. This is their way of making the transaction invisible to its own employees. However, as a contractor for 12 years I can see through the facade.

While the consumer has the power to make purchases stamped "Made in America", he is blissfully unaware that off-shoring happens at many levels. My point is that the large corporations should be held accountable, or regulated, to curb the off-shoring of labor. You would be hard pressed to find a shirt or TV or cell phone that is actually made in America these days anyway...

Until something is done to curtail corporate behaviors, we as Americans will have to live with LEAD in our children's toys, ANTIFREEZE in our toothpaste and pet food, e-Coli in our vegetables, and vulnerabilities in our electronic systems (where are the servers housing your social security numbers?).

Unfortunately, both Democrats & Republicans make these issues political sticks with which to bash each other, but it's an American problem. If a child grows up mentally challenged because it chewed on an Elmo painted with lead, it is ultimately the corporations and politicians who are retarded.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Why don't you rant about the H1B visas and how the pathetically corrupt politicians and bureaucrats use this as a tool to provide big business with a labor pool of highly skilled CHEAPER FOREIGN LABOR in exchange for financial support for their election campaigns so they can hold on to their political positions. Furthermore, while holding hands with Mr. Gates ,the politicians are declaring we need foreigners to fill the labor gap because we don't have enough talent in this country, all the while government stats showing the growth in the job market for the jobs these people are filling is flat.....

JMKelly said...

Scott, thanks for the suggestion for a future rant. I disagree with your statement "highly skilled", as often this is not the case. It has been my observation that they are sold this way, only later to learn OJT at the client company's expense. By Mr. Gates, I assume you mean Bill...

I will schedule this as a future rant.
JMK

Unknown said...

OK.. I'll agree with your disagreement.

To re-phrase, let me say H1B visas are a tool the pathetically corrupt politicians and bureaucrats use to provide big business with a labor pool of CHEAPER FOREIGN LABOR they can use to fill openings in jobs that require highly skilled workers (Although sometimes they may not be as skilled as their American counterpart…I'm speaking in terms of the Information Technology industry as I have 1st hand knowledge of this, although this is probably happening in other industries that require highly skill labor as well) and can exploit at the expense of native born Americans in exchange for financial support for their election campaigns so they can hold on to their political positions.

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