Outsourced? Don't Fall Into Severance Trap

[Cassandra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-vo-welch17apr17,1,1022428.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

"Workers should not allow themselves to be controlled in this way. Outsourcing positions shows that the company no longer has any respect for their workers or their work. Companies can quote financial statistics ad infinitum, but it comes down to respect for the human beings who have been working for the companies.

Once that respect is lost, workers need to move on as quickly as possible. Instead of wallowing along for another two to four weeks of unpleasant, demeaning work, workers should spend that time looking for their next job. Working on a job search will be worth more than any severance pay a company can offer. Remaining at a company after learning about outsourcing is crushing to self-esteem, damaging to the psyche and slows the process of finding a new job dramatically. Instead of spending time transferring knowledge to someone else, workers should take that knowledge to their next job.

One of the great absurdities of asking employees to train their replacements is this: If having that knowledge is important enough to transfer to someone else, it should be important enough to keep the original worker on the payroll. Workers should remember this and not allow themselves to fall into the trap of self-doubt."

Whew! Great article.

[Robert Oak]

1. movement

That sounds great, but if 86% of all US companies are outsourcing,
we need much more than just moving to a new job...
kind of a "spiral" to the bottom versus a straight drop for
there are no real opportunities to go to.

One point in that "workers should not allow themselves to be controlled
in this way" is no joke.

I feel our great grandparents rolling in their graves who fought
so hard for workers rights in the early part of the 20th century
to have them eroded now.

We need to look at their example and realize what effort it took
protesting, striking the long fight to obtain those rights and do
the same thing.

[unblock]

2. not sure how it works elsewhere, but,

everywhere i've worked, if the company is replacing you, they fully expect you to bolt the day you're notified. in fact, they usually insist that you do not linger around with a bad attitude about losing your job.

the 2-weeks notice thing is when the employee quits and offers to stay for 2 weeks to ease the transition.

if i was outsourcing or otherwise working to replace an employee, i would expect them to bolt as soon as they caught wind of the plans.

also, severence pay is usually given without the expectation of work. it's a combination of unemployment compensation and lawsuit insurance.

[Robert Oak]

3. times they are a changin'

Basically they give no notice,
then hold hostage, both severance and unemployment insurance
(i.e. if you don't train your replacement then you quit
and they try to deny you unemployment insurance)

if you don't train your replacement.

And goes to show how complex these jobs are...if they are going
to those extremes to train an unqualified cheaper foreigner
by the qualified American.

See this link for some great stuff, including TV ads on this
topic:

http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=118&st=0&#entry261

or www.showusthejobs.com also is direct...

incredible and those ads are real people.