Link to 10,000 Jobs To Move Offshore Under Barclays' Merger Plan -- outsourcing merger -- InformationWeek
To have the right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing
it. - G. K. Chesterton - A Short History of England, Ch.10
Offshoring jobs is an answer to a relatively short-term financial issue. Who has the intellectual capital of how things ran? Will that knowledge get transferred, effectively? Why should someone help? Do the cost savings go toward funding a reward to the executive who architected the job transfer? Did that executive consider, what if I was one of the displaced workers? How does this effect the roof over their heads, food on their table?
Starting in '80s we saw worker rights slowly dwindle. Now granted many unionized businesses were constrained by work place rules and roles. Similar to lawyer joke:
How many personal injury attorneys does it take to change a light bulb?In many unionized workplaces to change a light bulb required more than 3. You needed:
Three - one to turn the bulb, one to shake him off the ladder, and the third to sue
the ladder company.
- An electrician to turn the light circuit breaker off.
- A fork lift driver to operate the lift.
- A custodian for access to the closet where the lights where stored.
- Another custodian rated to get in a lift
- A safety inspector
Was that really all necessary, I believe no. So hence in the '80s it started, but now we have who watching out for worker rights. 40 hours work weeks, who realy works forty hours any more? When I go home I may not be at my desk, but the thoughts are still churning. In the information age isn't that part of the job? When I worked on a lathe when I went home I was truly no longer working. Now when I leave the building where I sit for 9 to 10 hours Monday through Friday, I am still working.
Getting back to my orginal point, just because you can do something should you do it. Just because you can move jobs off shore should you? Does that remove the ethics from the decision? I would argue no. What is the cost to the community? to the good-will the company had? Now that the jobs are moved to the other side of the planet does that make it easier to out-source them, not having any emotional care for them? So you moved the jobs to Mumbai, what happens when that work-force increases their cost? Do you move to Belarus? Then to Kazakstan? Then to Beijing? Then to Hamburg? Hamburg! Yup, because that is where the jobs started, but by now the moving out of the jobs so depressed the economic community that the standard of living is the lowest in the world it is now the cheapest place to do the work.
What is the reason for moving jobs offshore? To get the executives pay as big as possible? I think in the '80s executive pay was five times the average workers pay. Now in many large organizations it is 100s of times the average workers pay.
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