WDW IT Layoffs 1/30/2015

Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
CaptainAmerica said:
It's not a black list. The laid off folks can go work for other companies in the industry. What they cannot do is work for a company that Disney has contracted to perform IT services and then work on the Disney engagement. There are various regulatory requirements of what is and is not an "employee." Disney would get in a lot of trouble if they laid people off and then had those same individuals back in-house as non-employees doing contract work. Basically, there are certain rules that companies must follow with regards to their employees (chiefly concerning benefits and overtime), and those rules do not apply to contractors. But the regulators won't let you call someone a "contractor" if they look, feel, and function as an employee and are really contractors-in-name-only. That's all this is. It's not Disney being evil, it's Disney following labor laws.
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I would love to know the response that WDW HR is instructed to give when reference checkers pose the question " Is Mr. X eligible for rehire?"
 
mikenatcity1

mikenatcity1

Well-Known Member
CaptainAmerica said:
It's not a black list. The laid off folks can go work for other companies in the industry. What they cannot do is work for a company that Disney has contracted to perform IT services and then work on the Disney engagement. There are various regulatory requirements of what is and is not an "employee." Disney would get in a lot of trouble if they laid people off and then had those same individuals back in-house as non-employees doing contract work. Basically, there are certain rules that companies must follow with regards to their employees (chiefly concerning benefits and overtime), and those rules do not apply to contractors. But the regulators won't let you call someone a "contractor" if they look, feel, and function as an employee and are really contractors-in-name-only. That's all this is. It's not Disney being evil, it's Disney following labor laws.
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thank you for the clarification:)
 
W

willtravel

Well-Known Member
gbruenin said:
Perhaps. Of course, a media company that fiercely tries to control negative press may not like the spotlight they're under.

Another press item today where Disney is not shown favorably:

http://www.financialexpress.com/art...s-for-h1-b-visa-violations/83696/?SocialMedia

On many other topics lots of folks here say 'Disney will change when the public pushes back'. They'll never admit it, but perhaps.......
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I hope something comes of this probe. But I think like other probe's, "no wrong doing's were found"... Election time coming up.
 
LuvtheGoof

LuvtheGoof

DVC Guru
Premium Member
gbruenin said:
Perhaps. Of course, a media company that fiercely tries to control negative press may not like the spotlight they're under.

Another press item today where Disney is not shown favorably:

http://www.financialexpress.com/art...s-for-h1-b-visa-violations/83696/?SocialMedia

On many other topics lots of folks here say 'Disney will change when the public pushes back'. They'll never admit it, but perhaps.......
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willtravel said:
I hope something comes of this probe. But I think like other probe's, "no wrong doing's were found"... Election time coming up.
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The main problem is that Disney is not actually hiring H1B people over locals. They have outsourced it to a company that simply has workers overseas. Disney can claim that they only hire a few H1B, which is technically correct, but the contractor company is probably made up of almost entirely off-shore workers. And if the company hires H1B folks, they still don't work for Disney, and Disney can claim they didn't know, and that they themselves don't employ that many. It really is sickening.
 
W

willtravel

Well-Known Member
LuvtheGoof said:
The main problem is that Disney is not actually hiring H1B people over locals. They have outsourced it to a company that simply has workers overseas. Disney can claim that they only hire a few H1B, which is technically correct, but the contractor company is probably made up of almost entirely off-shore workers. And if the company hires H1B folks, they still don't work for Disney, and Disney can claim they didn't know, and that they themselves don't employ that many. It really is sickening.
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I do not remember thru 12 pages of post's, but did Disney say why they let these 500 people go only to go thru a company to hire people to do the same work?
 
J

jtowntoflorida

New Member
willtravel said:
I do not remember thru 12 pages of post's, but did Disney say why they let these 500 people go only to go thru a company to hire people to do the same work?
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We dabble in some outsourcing to India at my company. The finance department outsources 4 FTEs to one of our affiliates in India. We pay $27,400 per FTE. These are accountant positions that would cost us at least $75K/year when benefits are factored in.

ETA: I should also say that when we were considering this, we also talked to TATA (the company mentioned in the article) and their pricing was lower than the company we went with, but we didn't feel like they treated their workers as well as our affiliate did, so we decided to pass on them.
 
W

willtravel

Well-Known Member
This topic was on talk radio Thursday. And from what I thought was said was that H1-B could only be used by a US company when no one else was available/qualified within the US (citizen) to do the job.
 
J

jtowntoflorida

New Member
willtravel said:
This topic was on talk radio Thursday. And from what I thought was said was that H1-B could only be used by a US company when no one else was available/qualified within the US (citizen) to do the job.
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H1B visas are a different issue than offshoring, but it's also fairly easy to get around the H1B requirements...you just write a very specific job description that can't be met by people in the U.S. We don't have a big H1B program, but I happen to be friends with our inhouse immigration attorney I know a little bit about it. My last company used H1B visas more than my current company does and they had no problems getting around the requirements.
 
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Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
willtravel said:
This topic was on talk radio Thursday. And from what I thought was said was that H1-B could only be used by a US company when no one else was available/qualified within the US (citizen) to do the job.
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The magic occurs in how no US citizen is available/qualified. This is easy to do.

  1. Advertise a position with well below the norm salary. No one will apply or accept the salary.
  2. Hire someone very qualified. Dump the individual at 89 days for lack of fit. Therefore there are no qualified US nationals. Hire 2 foreign individuals at half the salary. You get twice the work for the same price.
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
wogwog said:
Put a face on the greed.

https://plus.google.com/+KeithBarrett/posts/PWA6BXs7dbS
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I don't believe they deserved to have their loyalty and sacrifice rewarded this way, in the declining years of their life for some. All of this during record company profits. Most of them will not say anything because every area business (contractors, recruiters, lawyers) has a relationship with Disney, or they hope to return there one day despite all this. I had hoped to contract there myself, but they changed the policy. My exit status is officially "retiree", but that was not planned and was 7 years before we were financially ready
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Lovely.
 
englanddg

englanddg

One Little Spark...
I'll just say, people who need to contact the helpdesk to set up their email, really don't need to be making IT decisions, especially when it comes to staffing, skill levels and responsibility.

I've found that for every dollar you "save" with these "educated" contractors, you lose several more dollars paying someone who understands what they do (if you even kept that level) to manage them.

What often happens is that people get cut until noone really understands much beyond the basics of the systems, and nothing in depth (much less the topology and design aspects of them)...

Outsource programming? That means once you want to make a change, you better PRAY that same programmer is still around.

And, because they are too cheap to pay for proper documentation, it never gets done. Run IT on bare bones, it's a COST, right? RIGHT?

The modern hypocrisy really annoys me. In a speech to investors, they'll talk about how IT can not only streamline and save money, but they'll also imply it can increase sales. And yet, when it comes to actually, I dunno, FUNDING it, they back off, and see it as a needless expense merely because they have no clue what these people are doing and these MBA sorts are put off by that (rather than taking time to educate themselves on it).

I could rant...I won't. This is not new to the industry, and is not uncommon, and is one of the reason why my target employers, were I looking, would be tech oriented firms with solid technical leadership, or small businesses. It's also why I absolutely HATED working government tech contracts (I had county / state and federal at various points).
 
BernardandBianca

BernardandBianca

Well-Known Member

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