Plot gets thicker in the Disney IT layoffs...

[Bob Haller]

Maybe you can contact one of the reporters who has covered this story? They often have an email address listed at the end of the article, and if it's their local beat they might be still following what's happening even if they haven't written an article. Or they can use the contacts they developed when writing the original article(s) to get an update and forward the information to you.

Good luck. I appreciate your taking an interest and trying to get to the bottom of the story and do something about it if it hasn't been corrected.

unfortunately i cant find a email address for julia preston who wrote the original story.

if i cant find it, i will send a blistering mail to disney, is there a address for the president.

i hope disney fixed this, if not disney my favorite place, will have ceased to exist for me.

so whats universal like?

 

[cranbiz]

While I don't agree on why and how this was done by Disney, the use of H1B visa workers is very common in the IT industry. Are you going to boycott other companies that engage in this practice?

The use of contract workers in general, both american and foreign contract workers is widespread in the IT industry. It is a very common way to lower support costs. What Disney did was sign a contract with a staffing firm to provide a contract labor force for a specific unit. The workers brought in was determined by the staffing firm. Many of Disney's IT assets are managed through outsourcing. Xerox has a large contract to manage WDWPR's SAN and NAS storage. I know several people who work at WDW and work for Xerox.

There is some question as to a "blacklist" If that exists for this contract, that is something to take action on. In this case, there is no logical reason why the displaced castmembers could not have agreed to work for the staffing agency at an agreed upon rate.

 

[Bob Haller]

While I don't agree on why and how this was done by Disney, the use of H1B visa workers is very common in the IT industry. Are you going to boycott other companies that engage in this practice?

The use of contract workers in general, both american and foreign contract workers is widespread in the IT industry. It is a very common way to lower support costs. What Disney did was sign a contract with a staffing firm to provide a contract labor force for a specific unit. The workers brought in was determined by the staffing firm. Many of Disney's IT assets are managed through outsourcing. Xerox has a large contract to manage WDWPR's SAN and NAS storage. I know several people who work at WDW and work for Xerox.

There is some question as to a "blacklist" If that exists for this contract, that is something to take action on. In this case, there is no logical reason why the displaced castmembers could not have agreed to work for the staffing agency at an agreed upon rate.

yes i will boycott others,. since those visas are only supposed to be for jobs that cant be filled........

obviously these jobs were all staffed till the workers were terminated

my take on this, disney appeared to break the law, no doubt some disney suit got a big bonus for cost cutting... and corportate is thrilled more profit for disney.

abusing the visas , the companies who pull stuff like this well no job is safe

reservations can be sent overseas, heck get visas for housekeeping, servers in restaurants, no job is safe.

disney depends in at least part of americans doing disney, yet treat them like trash and it appears prevents them from getting another IT job.

I would love to see disney parks emptied over this, i am outraged. disney is unamerican.

and deserves my hatred. because thats how i feel.

disney charges what 15 bucks for a kids hot dog lunch. the prices are horendous. yep i am this mad

 

[SwimMom2]

This story is sad, but it is also common practice in many industries, including in the federal government. Is you are boycotting Disney, are you also going to stop paying your federal taxes?

You would do better to consider these issues when you vote.

 

[Planogirl]

yes i will boycott others,. since those visas are only supposed to be for jobs that cant be filled........

obviously these jobs were all staffed till the workers were terminated

my take on this, disney appeared to break the law, no doubt some disney suit got a big bonus for cost cutting... and corportate is thrilled more profit for disney.

abusing the visas , the companies who pull stuff like this well no job is safe

reservations can be sent overseas, heck get visas for housekeeping, servers in restaurants, no job is safe.

disney depends in at least part of americans doing disney, yet treat them like trash and it appears prevents them from getting another IT job.

I would love to see disney parks emptied over this, i am outraged. disney is unamerican.

and deserves my hatred. because thats how i feel.

disney charges what 15 bucks for a kids hot dog lunch. the prices are horendous. yep i am this mad

I agree with you that those companies who break the law doing this should be held accountable. The trouble is that most people don't care sadly enough.

 

[Bob Haller]

This story is sad, but it is also common practice in many industries, including in the federal government. Is you are boycotting Disney, are you also going to stop paying your federal taxes?

You would do better to consider these issues when you vote.

congress it bought and sold to buy campaign money. they are useless.

if the public objected and boycotted a couple companies such miss behavior would end.

now they say that 1/2 of all us jobs will be elminated, replacing humans with robots with artificial intelligence. i have a link to the story if anyone is interested.

now if all jobs are cut by half replaced by robots, and lots of the remaing jobs get shipped overseas, or the workers get shipped here how many american workers will remain, to attend disney or do anything else.

the H1A visas are supposed to be only for jobs that cant be filled, and obviously they already were.

several of our family who went jan 2014 and planning on going again this coming january have lost their jobs to outsourcing.

if i lived in florida i would be picketing disney......

look this is really hard, i have been to disney over 20 times, and enjoyed every single trip.. plus i have taken lots of people along so they could experience it too. this kills me.....

anyone have the address for the presidents office.... my letter will tell it as i see it.

you know disney probably gets lots of mail. they could get a contractor to scan in all the mail, transmit it electronically to a low paid worker in the phillipines.

i dont mind immigrants even illegals coming here however i hate that a big profitable company like disney ignores the law and screws it workers

 

[wallrock]

yes i will boycott others,. since those visas are only supposed to be for jobs that cant be filled........

obviously these jobs were all staffed till the workers were terminated

my take on this, disney appeared to break the law, no doubt some disney suit got a big bonus for cost cutting... and corportate is thrilled more profit for disney.

abusing the visas , the companies who pull stuff like this well no job is safe

reservations can be sent overseas, heck get visas for housekeeping, servers in restaurants, no job is safe.

disney depends in at least part of americans doing disney, yet treat them like trash and it appears prevents them from getting another IT job.

I would love to see disney parks emptied over this, i am outraged. disney is unamerican.

and deserves my hatred. because thats how i feel.

disney charges what 15 bucks for a kids hot dog lunch. the prices are horendous. yep i am this mad

As a 20 plus year IT veteran I have to ask/offer up a comment…


Are you not aware that the vast majority of US corporations with medium to large IT departments are doing this, and have been doing so for the past decade or more? Ever since affordable broadband access hit the Indian sub-continent this has been going on. And it’s not only India as sourcing opportunities have sprung up in Mexico, China and Eastern Europe. Organizations that specialize in emerging markets are already looking to places like Africa as the next hotbed for cheap labor. Once they catch up tech-wise the Indian worker will be dropped quicker than you can say ‘quarterly profit increase’.


I appreciate you standing up for those fellow techies being affected by this, but you might as well boycott every major US company. You’d probably have to empty your house of every consumable because the company/conglomerate that sells the products you buy has engaged in this practice or something similar. Everything from the bank you use to your toothpaste and the mac and cheese in your pantry is impacted by this.


As another poster pointed out this is the ugly reality in our society. Again thanks for wanting to fight the good fight, but this is a battle that was lost long ago.

 

[Josh Hendy]

Are you not aware that the vast majority of US corporations with medium to large IT departments are doing this, and have been doing so for the past decade or more? Ever since affordable broadband access hit the Indian sub-continent this has been going on.

This story has nothing to do with outsourcing jobs to workers in India and then collaborating with them through broadband internet.

 

[wallrock]

This story has nothing to do with outsourcing jobs to workers in India and then collaborating with them through broadband internet.

Perhaps not directly, but it is a symptom. The activities discussed here wouldn't be happening if that groundwork wasn't present.

And I wouldn't call it collaboration. Workers here have been displaced by foreign workers both physically and digitally.

 

[Castle2Castle]

so where does this stand today? If disney hasnt done the right thing then it universal for us. jan 2016 looks like 15 people this time[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]

did disney do the right thing and rehire all the terminated workers.

i need to know since i am ready to send a blasting letter of disquist,,,

No, they didn't. Send a letter for them to recycle and enjoy Universal.

 

[Bob Haller]

I was not aware of how many IT jobs have been elminated...

I will send the letter to disney and go check out universal.....

it appears the vast majority of safe jobs are minimum wage. that isnt good for our economy or way of life

 

[ned911]

Make sure you throw away your Dell, HP, Lenovo (and probably Apple) PC as well. It's not just IT workers the companies mention use H1B's to replace US Citizens in almost every white collar position. And there is no labor shortage, if there were salaries would have risen. However salaries at high tech companies have remained flat for over 10 years - because of H1B's.

Increasing the number of H1B's usually gets snuck into every immigration bill and the companies above are throwing huge $'s at congress to ensure they get cheap labor.

 

[techtony]

I have been in IT for 12 years and I can honestly say that the IT departments of almost any company is the bastard child of the company. They normally do not see us as valued employees as you would think, instead we are seen as an expense that should be cut or limited. Several issues have been raised in this thread, but the most egregious is the non-compete clauses. In the United States, your employer can force you to sign away your right to be compensated or make a living. Some states have caught on that this is not a good thing and have banned them outright, but I think only 2 or 3 states have done this. The other problems in IT are the visas - you see this trick all the time.

Back in the day, when IT was a new concept, people made TONS of money, but now, you see the overall wages for IT workers decreasing yearly. Why? the companies have started to replace regular employees with contractors that have less experience, and that is how they can justify not paying very well. I work for a contractor that services a HUGE hospital network. I get $38K a year, with no paid days off and no health insurance (that is affordable that is - they want almost 500 a month). The employees that used to do my job are the best in the business, but they have all been replaced by contractors.

It is a sad state of affairs. I am even considering giving up what I love (computers) and going into nursing simply because at my age (42) I do not see a huge increase in my wage over the next 10 years, so this would help me be more comfortable financially.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I'm sure that it said they are on a black list. It's called a "non-compete" clause and they're as common as bogus, sensationalized reporting like this. I have signed them with more than one employer. They typically last from 1 - 5 years. Disney's is apparently only 1 year.

They're enforceability is also very suspect. They have to be limited and cannot prevent someone from earning a living. So saying they can't work for another media company within 50 miles is legit but in the U.S. Is not. Or saying can't work IT at all is not enforceable either.

Beyond that, most companies will not try and sue over it either unless trade secrets are revealed or clients are stolen. They are expensive to enforce. Execs are the lone exception usually but even then it's spotty.

 

[dinolounger]

New news report that confirms what I suggested in my OP in this thread: detailed first person report by one of the impacted IT workers, describing how he had to train foreign worker and found out after he was laid off and applied for positions with local IT recruiters that Disney will not allow any prior Disney IT worker to be used by any contractor working for Disney for a year:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...americans-with-cheap-foreigners-on-h1b-visas/

Direct quote from piece:

"Since leaving Disney we have also been informed by several large IT recruiting firms that Disney has a policy in place that states all displaced Disney IT Cast Members will not even be considered as contractor workers for 12 months. Thus we have been essentially shut out and black listed by the largest employer in this very small Orlando job market."

Now I have to wait for the "disney can do no wrong" apologist types to come back stating the above is "erroneous" and this is all really just an "unfortunate misunderstanding" about "non-compete" clauses.

Bring it on, HB-1 fans!

 

[Kaimo]

First...The article is on Briebart. Sort of like the The Enquirer of news orgs... Second the author is isn't even using his/her name. Don't believe everything you hear. I know some great people in IT across many industries and what Disney is doing is no different than most all other large corps. Keep a leaner IT org to help drive business needs and contract out the day to day IT operations.
I see no story here only those trying to push their own agenda.

 

[Goofy2015]

I am sorry but who in the world are HB-1 fans, what positive things does it bring to our country to vote it in? If you are, you must have very merry Christmas parties with Scrooge.

 

[dinolounger]

First...The article is on Briebart. Sort of like the The Enquirer of news orgs.

Ah, the old "when you can't rebut the substance, demonize the source" strategy. Problem with that is short of proving the substance wrong, all you have done is demonstrated your personal biases about media.

Second the author is isn't even using his/her name.

Granted, but given the situation they are in (on a blacklist and desperate for new opportunities), I can understand why.

I know some great people in IT across many industries and what Disney is doing is no different than most all other large corps. Keep a leaner IT org to help drive business needs and contract out the day to day IT operations.

With all due respect, the above sounds exactly like the smokescreen talking points used by Sen. Cruz:

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...ho-wants-to-increase-the-h-1b-cap-by-500.html

Replacing existing American staff with foreign HB-1 visa holders is not about getting leaner "to drive business needs."

It's about cutting costs at the expense of American workers.

[

I see no story here only those trying to push their own agenda.

And if my "agenda" is to point out that Disney has shown it puts profits above people, yours must be "who cares?"

Turns out, plenty do:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/u...off-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-...ey-fires-american-workers-uses-h-1b-visas-fly

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...es-at-disney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html

 

[Redcon1]

First...The article is on Briebart. Sort of like the The Enquirer of news orgs... Second the author is isn't even using his/her name. Don't believe everything you hear. I know some great people in IT across many industries and what Disney is doing is no different than most all other large corps. Keep a leaner IT org to help drive business needs and contract out the day to day IT operations.
I see no story here only those trying to push their own agenda.

 

[Redcon1]

First...The article is on Briebart. Sort of like the The Enquirer of news orgs... Second the author is isn't even using his/her name. Don't believe everything you hear. I know some great people in IT across many industries and what Disney is doing is no different than most all other large corps. Keep a leaner IT org to help drive business needs and contract out the day to day IT operations.
I see no story here only those trying to push their own agenda.

No, that would be MSNBC.