Unwilling to pay for their own workers to upgrade their skills through training, nor to hire new graduates at living wages, our multinational industries choose to sell us out again....

[ 17 May 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

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North American firms 'can't find' qualified IT talent - 55% of CEOs surveyed plan to offshoreUnwilling to pay for their own workers to ungrade their skills through training, nor to hire new graduates at living wages, our multinational industries choose to sell us out again....

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And I notice all the foreign workers will be working under literal bonded labour conditions: strict termed limited contracts and their visas expire the minute that period ends--no organizing or bargaining rights, no access to employment insurance, no workers' comp if they get hurt on the job, etc.

It's time to start getting hold of and democratizing all our employee pension, RRSP, health and welfare, etc., funds and either forced these parasitic tyrants to do things better or, better yet, re-invest them in sustainable (as opposed to profiteering) democratic business development that does train people, hire locally first and then brings in foreign workers WITH FULL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, uses innovation and inclusive decision-making to overcome hurdles and plans for long-term community well-being (that's what basic/elementary socialism is in practice).

Some good efforts:

Shareholders Association for Research and Education

Confronting Companies Using Shareholder Power

Worker Empowerment

Labour-sponsored investment funds

I work in IT, and for a very large company, have worked for a couple others as well, and they are only more than happy to give proper training, the problem where I am is that a lot of the people working there don't want to do the training available to upgrade their skills.

Second to that, schools are an issue as well, the IT programs in North America are not adapting and updating as fast as some big offshore places like India and China, not to mention their sheer size making it easy to compete with us.

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Cheaper labour and material cost in countries such as India make it easier to build remote offices there. The offshore locations are staffed by local IT professionals who are paid at a lower rate than their North American counterparts.

Another trend recently catching on is the use of foreign contract workers, said Ruffolo. "This has been building up in the U.S. for the past five years and has caught on in Canada about 12 months ago."

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There is an Indian version of Monthly Review that outlines the atrocities of companies like Otis Elevators in India. The merciless exploitation of Indian workers is very instructive as an example of what such companies will do if they can.

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I work in IT, and for a very large company, have worked for a couple others as well, and they are only more than happy to give proper training, the problem where I am is that a lot of the people working there don't want to do the training available to upgrade their skills.

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Well, with all due respect, unless you can show me some stats on this, forgive my skepticism. As a labour and co-op movement/CED activist, I have met many, many working people in a variety of industries and professions. I have yet to find any significant number of people, especially among younger workers, who don't want to take advantage, at least to some degree, of training and skill upgrading opportunities, especially in order to improving their employability or further bolster their job security.

On the other hand, there is absolutely no shortage of corporate bosses who skimp on training, sacrifice quality, force workers to pay for their own upgrades, etc.

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Second to that, schools are an issue as well, the IT programs in North America are not adapting and updating as fast as some big offshore places like India and China, not to mention their sheer size making it easy to compete with us.

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This may be the situation where you are. But out here, the technology programs, especially at places like the BC Institute of Technology, are leaders in innovative training in the newest fields, as well as the most advanced.

The problem again here is that many bosses don't want to pay for training their work forces or complain that they can't dictate how the course should be molded to their specific corporate plans.

There are many IT staff who aren't interested in learning new technologies. Many are quite happy to just keep using the skills they had when they got the job.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:

Well, with all due respect, unless you can show me some stats on this, forgive my skepticism.

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I got no problems with skepticism. I'll give you an example. I was running a training session to teach the reps about Systems management (about #3 on various Top IT concerns for the year), a way to help them earn more money, lock int customers, etc. All sorts of good business things for them.

Out of a pool of about 600 people, 8 showed up. When I asked our training department if this was common they said 'yes, unless it's manager mandated training you can expect less that 5% of the people to be interested.

One in a line of many examples I have, unfortunately I don't have industry wide stats to work with for you.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:

The problem again here is that many bosses don't want to pay for training their work forces or complain that they can't dictate how the course should be molded to their specific corporate plans.

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Again, having worked with the Learning and Development department I found out how much unused training the Organization tries to give the reps. Since I found out the funding available I've been abusing the crap out of it and no one has tried to slow me down. They cover a large amount of internal training, but also include funding for post secondary education, and career specific training at different learning centers.

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Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
quelar, I'm not sure I'd grant that sales reps qualify as IT workers - and I say that after a lifetime in tech sales.

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[ 17 May 2007: Message edited by: Martha (but not Stewart) ]

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It may be the case that some CEO's and companies are really only interested in offshoring, but again, it's not entirely the companies fault.

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First, in situations like this it's very rare that something or someone is "entirely" anything--since "entirely" is an absolute.

When you say it's not entirely the companies' fault, that likely means many of them are responding to a condition that's created by the marketplace, which is almost always either monopolized or unduly influenced by a few powerful corporate players (that's the way it mainly is in a capitalistic dominated economy of any kind).

For example, what I have both read and been told as a union organizer is one of the reasons why many bosses don't want to pay for training id exactly why the above poster claims many workers don't want to take time out of their work to take training courses:

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Because technology evolves so quickly that the evolution gets in the way of getting the job done. You could spend four to six months a year in training when you could be spending that time actually accomplishing the goals you are employed for.

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Obviously, many bosses aren’t too interested in investing in training workers, who, thanks to the rapidly changing technologies, will just have to be trained even further in short order. And obviously, for many workers, getting skills upgrading, working for a bit, then having to take more time out of work to training further, then going back to work for a while, then going back to school, and on and on, is both stressful and unaffordable.

The sad thing is bosses have this horrid option of bringing trained foreign workers under almost practically bonded labour conditions, often working for grossly inferior pay and working conditions with no organizing or bargaining rights, working them for as long as they see fit, then sending them home without any franchise or stake.

That is high tech slavery. Period.

Some solutions (short of the socialistic fundamental of democratizing the economy and moving it toward sustainable development—but that’s a long-term project) are various forms of unionization among the high tech worker force (a growing trend).

Giving workers a greater democratic say in the firms they work for, and in the industry generally, on their own terms is a proven way of addressing these issues. For example, instead of the current situation of willy nilly knee-jerk reactions by a whole variety of companies to the rapidly changing technology, a cooperative worker-run (or at least partially worker-run) apprenticeship skill upgrading plan for all participating companies, a negotiated technological change implementation strategy, an employee-ownership strategy, buy-outs and early retirement options, tying seniority to skill base, specialization in various sectors for those who seek it, and where contracting out and hiring foreign workers is jointly agreed to as necessary, ensure these people are guaranteed similar conditions and freedoms as the locals—with the option of staying in Canada if they choose.