Laid off workers at Disney made to train foreign replacements

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

ORLANDO, Fla. — The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.

While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.

Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

“I just couldn’t believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”

The layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them.

-more-

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements/ar-BBkE3Ud

[Faux pas]

1. I imagine old

Walt (Disney) is spinning in cryogenic chamber.

[pipoman]

2. I guess the $700 per person just isn't enough to pay quality people

What they're worth ...

[GeorgeGist]

3. We can't afford rich people.

[kairos12]

4. New Disney attraction--Island of the Purged and Replacement Employees. Theme song is it's

a Small Severance After All.

[BlueJazz]

5. According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners discrete positions

" Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans."

[Enthusiast]

18. "should not"

[BlueJazz]

19. Amen. We could write a story the size of "War & Peace" regardring Visas and Should Nots.

[SoapBox]

6. Has Mickey been laid off yet?

Just a matter of time.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. I hear his replacement is

मिकी माउस

[randomelement]

7. Let's hear it for our corporate masters

the very "Captains of Industry". We don't support slavery in good old America, but we'll help another country with their "indentured servants" in a heartbeat.

Here's a rhetorical question - if they keep going to cheaper and cheaper labor (and you know they will), sooner or later it will happen that some group will be more than happy to simply work for food.

Will Disney then accept an apple or maybe lettuce and tomatoes for admission?

[IronLionZion]

10. The corporate masters still want higher revenues

but lower costs. So ticket prices and marketing will continue to increase.

[JDPriestly]

8. Boycott Disney. Get rid of H1-B visas.

[appalachiablue]

24. FYI, Just started June 4. It's a beginning..

WhiteHouse.gov petition Re H1-B

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/end-h-1b-program

[Babel_17]

25. signed (nt)

[arcane1]

28. This should be an OP n/t

[appalachiablue]

30. # 20. created the post. Good idea if you want to do an OP about it. I might repost the

main article in another area soon.

[arcane1]

31. It's ok, I asked them the same thing :)

[JDPriestly]

33. I want to reiterate that I am not anti-immigration. I am opposed to a program that "allows"

people into the US to be exploited at relatively low wage scales and then does not automatically offer them a path to citizenship.

To my mind, the H1-B visas oppose what America has always stood for: the open door to the oppressed.

And the "guest worker" programs in Europe have not worked well in my opinion based on what I saw when I lived there.

[appalachiablue]

34. I hold the same views, and am not anti-immigration in any way. This is an exploitive

program as I know from news reports and Asian friends who are working here on H1-B visas under deplorable conditions and managers from their own country. They have little choice in the matter except to tolerate the situation for now. The guest workers I recall most in Europe were Turkish laborers in Munich, Germany in the late 1970s from my friend and host who is Turkish.

The MSN news link in the main OP connects to the initial NYT article, which states that Disney Chairman Robert Iger, Michel Bloomberg and Rupert Murdock of News Corp (Fox) are working in a group, 'Partnership for a New Economy' which pushes for an overhaul of immigration laws and an increase in H1-B visas. I hope to look into the extent of these corporate titans authority in US legal immigration matters especially in relation to the US federal government.

~ Appa

[JDPriestly]

35. I want to know Hillary Clinton's views on this, her honest views, not the ones she presents

in order to get elected. This topic came up on one of her visits to India. I want to know how she responded to the pressure for more of these visas. They are incompatible with American values. We don't have an underclass of near slaves with no hope of citizenship in America, or at least we should not have.

[appalachiablue]

36. That's a scary possibility, an underclass of near slaves awaiting citizenship that never happens.

The underclass reminds me of sugar cane migrants from Haiti in SW FL in the east, and the Pakinstani associations I mentioned who are still in limbo, and the thousands, millions of others. Of concern as well is the state of the US workforce apart from immigration and in relation to displacement from growing automation through recent AI advances and TPP provisions (and expectations) for discharged American labor.
An update on Hillary's views is needed since what I've read from years ago doesn't sound very encouraging or current. What she told middlemen agencies in India Re visas and then distressed US workers in the Northeast, "I feel your pain" is very different if what I read is accurate.
Uncertainty for many immigrants, and dramatic changes for Americans, particularly the young and vulnerable. And just who is running the ship, are we truly moving into global corporate governance, turning over our national sovereignty to transnationals and corporate run tribunals as some believe. Many serious issues to face and resolve clearly.

[Babel_17]

37. Even more basic, IIRC ...

Even more basic, IIRC, is not letting some visa holders to be able to switch companies. Yeah, indentured servitude comes to mind. They work here at the behest, and whim, of their employers. Our government is just transferring these people over, in effect.
This is part of why businesses want more of this, and they'll donate to politicians and parties to get it.
It's a club to beat down wages.
All Star talent is mostly exempt from this, they come in under a much different deal.

[douggg]

9. "whether they complement American workers or displace them"

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

Being fired is not being complemented.

A debate?

[SummerSnow]

11. What a shame shame shame

[Initech]

12. If my employer told me I was being replaced with a cheaper worker and had to train them...

I'd tell them where they can shove it.

[Thor_MN]

16. Two months pay is two months pay

I had the choice of teaching an H1-b Visa holder to do my job or walk away. I taught her some of my job, in exchange for two months pay. Since the first W recession was in full swing, I took the money.

[Hulk]

14. Work visas in OTHER countries are damned hard to get...

...yet our corporate masters are clamoring to get cheap labor to replace American workers here at home. It's disgraceful!! I'm beyond the Disneyland stage in life; but I'll do everything in my power to expose these sons of bitches for what they are...simply a for-profit, fuck America, greedy corporations that focus solely on the bottom line. Disgusting.

This needs to be exposed, and it should be on ALL the major networks, and light needs to be shown on ALL the other corporations that have these immoral practices as well.

It's time we separate H-1B visas from the immigration discussion. Shame on our greedy nation of parasitic, greedy, heartless thugs.

[Hulk]

15. In order to get a work visa in Mexico...

...you need to provide proof that you will be performing a job that cannot be fulfilled by the Mexican population. I'm a retired teacher, and teaching English or working in construction is nearly impossible to do legally.

Yet in this country, we have Hillsboro, Oregon that resembles a suburb in India somewhere, with all the H1-B workers that have flooded Nike and all the other large corporations to the west of Portland. It's disgraceful, yet it goes UN-noticed. I hope we hear about this REPEATEDLY in the news, where it should be a major concern.

And then we give lip service to young graduates unable to find work???? Get serious!

[Enthusiast]

17. This is bullshit! Disney should be denounced in no uncertain terms.

Like, fuck you Disney!

[47of74]

20. I put up this White House petition to end the program.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/end-h-1b-program

[antiquie]

21. I signed; I'm number two.

Last edited Fri Jun 5, 2015, 07:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Come on, only seven of us?

edit to update

[Babel_17]

26. Just signed ...

We'll get there.

[appalachiablue]

22. Thank you so much! I just signed & am on there. This is so important.

[arcane1]

29. Can you make an OP of this?

Get some additional attention

[47of74]

32. Where at?

On this board or elsewhere?

[Babel_17]

23. Kicked and recc'd, this crap is intended to fly under the radar

Not on our watch.

[randys1]

27. tick tick tick

going to buy a new pitchfork today