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To: Lee L. who wrote (10221)	4/7/1998 10:56:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

OK heres an idea. I was working at a company last year which, like most of the shops I have worked with in the last 3 years, was unable to attract permanent talent and used 40% consultants. So lets say the full time staff earned on average 80K and the consultants 140K. About average here for Silicon Valley. So that makes an average salary of 104K for that shop for the technical workers. So, I propose this. Pay every technical worker in that shop 104K. Just make that offer to everybody, and advertise it in the paper. Every DBA, bus analyst, etc. gets it. It will cost the company the same as before. Now, as a part of the deal, if you choose to hire the foreign nationals, they will also be paid the same. Know what my prediction is for this shop? 1) A flood of qualified applicants. Everybody will want to work there. Very high retention. 2) Mgmt will decide against the foreign nationals. Why? Because, if you have to pay them the same $$$, they generally aren't as flexible in your organization, especially on the business analyst side. 3) Less movement of the technical workers into mgmt. Many people (I was one) move into mgmt even though they prefer technical work just because the money is better. 4) Higher job satisfaction overall (and, in some cases fewer personnel problems). So, my point is, it all comes down to paying people what they are truly worth. Michelle

To: Lee L. who wrote (10221)	4/7/1998 11:10:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14631

>>>Are there many, many outstanding foreign IS workers that should be welcome in the US? Absolutely. <<< If I were an Indian IS worker with this opportunity, would I take it? Absolutely. In fact I could not get the same deal anywhere in Europe, because the Europeans have thought this through. So I would absolutely go to the US, for the sake of myself and my family. Still, if you cherrypick Indian IS workers you hurt India as a country. If you replace American workers with them, you hurt American workers. This affects the number of Americans in prison, the chances of turning welfare into workfare, and many many other problems. >>>Are they a threat to the fabric of our society?<<< No. 125,000 foreign engineers will not bring down the Washington monument. However, a business community almost universally oblivious to the welfare of American workers is a threat to our society. It's not the foreign people that are a problem - it's the cynical folks that hire them - and will be ready to toss them out with minimum severance the second there is a problem. >>> The only unemployeed COBOL programmers that I know have attitudes the size of Buick Roadmasters.<<< My experience is different. Maybe they need a manager with more experience, of an age that could relate to them and their experiences. Or maybe you just have bad employees. Personally I know former programmers in different walks of life, who seem hard-working and intelligent, and who could easily learn a better and easier development environment than the ones they had to work with. I think many folks forget that there are people out there who may be 60 now but started out programming with hex machine code on boxes with 8K of memory, who often helped invent what we know as computing. They were far more qualified than today's average (you used to have to get in the top 2% on what was basically an IQ test (the PAT test) to even get a job.) They could learn learn todays easier development environment, Visual Basic or Delphi, lets say, in a heartbeat. The problem is that people look at their grey hair and imagine Alzheimers. Or daddy. Os somebody, perhaps, savvy enough to see through the BS and make trouble. The other problem is that every company today thinks there is no limit to the number of folks whose training is paid for by someone else to hire. In fact while you are doing an intense project with a given set of tools for one company, you are probably getting dated. Yet you are working too intensely to get new training. If you finish the project, your usefulness is over. End result - laid off, for working too hard. The folks who keep their jobs: the ones that don't finish their projects, but take time for training and to have lives. Just ask them. They'll tell you. They are usually proud of being so wised up. Bottom line: If businesses have now abandoned the national state as a fundamental aspect of organization and loyalty, they either need to be forced to respect some limits to that, or there needs to be international organization by IS workers on a scale capable of competing with them. Or, third choice, just ignore the problem like tech businesses ignored pollution, crime, declining educational standards, global warming. Continue pretending that the misery of East Palo Alto wasn't created by the Palo Alto across the creek. Right now international business is more powerful than any national or organization of nations. That power either needs to become responsible or it needs to be reined in. Now I'm sorry to have taken up everybody else's time with all this. I certainly got some responses from all this. I think the reason this got so many responses is because these are important issues. For instance, are you really being a good citizen if you just make yourself money and hope that everything else is going to work out? Per the dominant business ideology today. Or do you need to make sure your actions have good outcomes. Tech is very important now. So we have to think about it. Especially in the heat of making money. Or just admit to being cynics of the widespread type that keep turning everything to garbage (OK, except for their stuff.) Cheers, Chaz