SeaCode inc. redefines "Shipping out jobs"

[JohnnyRingo]

When all the jobs have finally vacated our shores, will we need a visa to commute to work?

Shipping Out U.S. Jobs -- to a Ship

The public reaction was predictable when word first got out of SeaCode Inc.'s proposal to house 600 foreign software engineers on a cruise ship moored three miles off the California coast, thus undercutting U.S. wage rates and circumventing local labor rules.

The veteran technology columnist John Dvorak described the vessel as a "slave ship." Other critics preferred the label "sweatshop." The words "exploitative" and "inhumane" caromed around the Web. The image that first leaped to my own rather more literary mind was of the floating prison hulks that housed the convict Abel Magwitch in "Great Expectations."

Roger Green tried to take the rhetoric philosophically. "We know we'll be a lightning rod," Green, 58, a co-founder and chief operating officer of the San Diego company, told me. "But my hope is we'll get our story out."

The story is SeaCode's plan to help clients overcome the drawbacks of outsourcing sophisticated engineering work overseas. The chief benefit of offshoring — the low pay scales in India and elsewhere — often is offset by the cost of flying executives out to monitor progress, the time difference (you have to be awake at 10:30 p.m. in California to reach India at noon) and the doubtful security of intellectual property abroad.


More:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden2may02,1,4320743.column?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

[MsTryska]

1. sweet jesus on a trailer hitch......

what a horrible idea.

[punpirate]

2. Hope this guy's grand plan...

... comes crashing down on his pointy little head. People like this need to crash and burn as quickly as possible and with as much publicity as possible.

"Slave ship" is a damned good description of it all.

[yella_dawg]

3. Help them get the word out.

SeaCode is twisted and evil.

Exactly how is this *not* a slave ship.

[Strelnikov_]

4. According To Bill Gates (M$) And Some On This Board

it is all about the lack of qualified American citizens, and not wage rates.

Guess this will be a luxury cruise ship to lure over all those workers they can't find in the US.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1428181