ADVERTISEMENT

OT: Bank severance requires 2 years on call no pay.

R

RU_Planning

Heisman Winner
Aug 14, 2002
18,337
22,570
113
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...s-it-workers-to-be-on-call-for-two-years.html

And people wonder why a guy like Bernie Sanders is polling so well...its not about "free" stuff.

It would be interesting to know the financial terms of the severance compared to previous severances that didn't include this 2 year on call provision.

I know there seems to be a good # of IT folks on this board. Have you experienced anything similar and do you think we start to see this happening in other mid-level career positions too?
 
There is also the reason the layoffs happened in the first place - employers hiring contractors so you can basically teach someone your job before you get laid off yourself. It is happening more often now and with labor regulations becoming more lax, it will only get worse.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redking
The on call provision seems like too much. I see it all the time with the H1B visa consultants. Initially these visas were supposed to be for functions that the US was having trouble staffing with its own citizens. Roles like nuclear physicists and top researchers. With Y2K many of the financial organizations realized they could get cheaper labor this way.

The issue I have is something I have seen:
- large companies bring in H1B consultants via a large consulting company for a large multi year project.
- The individuals that come from India are paid 1/2 to 2/3 of what a US citizen would be paid
- Once the H1B visa person is in the US for 6 years (as a so called indentured servant) they can apply for a green card.
- once they have the green card they leave the lower paying consulting company for a job with a US corporation. Many times they are hired by a company they consulted for.
- now once they are in a role where they can hire others they give preference to others with a similar background, which can mean US citizens may have little chance for some roles.

There are 85,000 new H1Bs each year. That means over a 5-6 year period you have another 300k+ workers in the US after they get their green cards.

If you were to look at:
- Citi in Warren
- Pershing in Florham Park
- Merrill / BOA in Hopewell

and other large financial tech sites in NJ you will see a lot of current and former H1B visa individuals that have been in the US for less than 15-20 years while you may have neighbors who have similar experience but have been priced out of the market and are unemployed.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: rurichdog, rubigtimenow, LC-88 and 4 others
RUfinal4 said:
The on call provision seems like too much. I see it all the time with the H1B visa consultants. Initially these visas were supposed to be for functions that the US was having trouble staffing with its own citizens. Roles like nuclear physicists and top researchers. With Y2K many of the financial organizations realized they could get cheaper labor this way.

The issue I have is something I have seen:
- large companies bring in H1B consultants via a large consulting company for a large multi year project.
- The individuals that come from India are paid 1/2 to 2/3 of what a US citizen would be paid
- Once the H1B visa person is in the US for 6 years (as a so called indentured servant) they can apply for a green card.
- once they have the green card they leave the lower paying consulting company for a job with a US corporation. Many times they are hired by a company they consulted for.
- now once they are in a role where they can hire others they give preference to others with a similar background, which can mean US citizens may have little chance for some roles.

There are 85,000 new H1Bs each year. That means over a 5-6 year period you have another 300k+ workers in the US after they get their green cards.

If you were to look at:
- Citi in Warren
- Pershing in Florham Park
- Merrill / BOA in Hopewell

and other large financial tech sites in NJ you will see a lot of current and former H1B visa individuals that have been in the US for less than 15-20 years while you may have neighbors who have similar experience but have been priced out of the market and are unemployed.
Click to expand...

I used to work at Merrill/BOA in Hopewell up until last summer, and you're 100% right. Even now I work in Newport in JC and my building is 50% Indian, and there's a big CITI office here too.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Cabana Man
offshoring is a sorry trend - abused by IT and financial services firms.

It is destroying the middle class here in the states - and the quality of the "offshored" service is dubious at best!
 
  • Like
Reactions: RUScrew85
A new trend at work is to now terminate employees for cause without any severance pay. My previous employer which use to be one of the best companies are getting rid of 10-20 years employees and systematically giving bad reviews for 1-3 years, employees considered high performers and still doing a good job, before terminating them for performance. In the past, they always gave severance but no more.

I guess it's the employees fault since the company is giving them a warning to leave the company before they are terminate. The independent contractor is the "NewEmployee" of the future with no benefits and on call similar to Uber.
Everyone like lower cost like Uber employee or New Employee and it's now being translated to in office. It's Great for the contractors since it give them freedom to work whenever they are call on by the company and they have the option to work or not work . This trend has been happening in Japan for the last 10 years and it's killing the workers but great for the CEO and top management.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: redking
We need to turn the immigration spigot off. To many H1B, to many unskilled. These immigrants drive wages down across the board. Cant have unfettered immigration and cradle to grave social benefits. This influx is largely driven by both parties. I can understand the allure of Sanders, but I don't want to live in that world. I don't want to be Europe. It is unsustainable if you also have to provide for your own defense and it is extra-constitutional. Rant over.

But while I don't like the idea of having to provide this service, the article conveniently leaves out the other terms of the 'package'. So until we know the full details we should reserve judgement on the agreement.
 
Hopefully this situation can push the issue into the spotlight. This is the real issue, not the folks entering from the south to be farm workers or dish washers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: okieKnight908
I have no problem allowing immigrants working here for a real wage - sending the job overseas and paying a wage that is comparable with a third world cost of living is just wrong. It also shifts the tax revenue burden back here in the states.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redking
This is what happens when you steadily take power away from workers and give it to their employers. There needs to be a balance and right now it's not even close.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PSU_Nut
massive layoffs then having those Americans replaced by H1B visa holders or having everything done offshore is a HUGE problem for Tech jobs now.

Ironically only Sanders and Trump are the only ones even bring this up, they both agree on this issue. Until the more mainstream candidates start to talk about this, nothing will change, because those two are not winning.

The entry level IT jobs are almost all gone for private companies. They won't exist in a few years, just like factory jobs.

This is not effecting high end IT jobs yet, but no one other than the highly gifted can get those jobs straight out of college. So how are they suppose to break into the business?
 
Things are unclear in that article. Could someone clarify for me:

It sounds like the severance deals have not yet been signed. It also makes no mention of whether there is a severance payment. This leaves me with the following questions;

1. If there is a severance payment, is the continuing "on call" provision basically consideration for the severance payment?

2. If there is no severance payment and the agreements have not yet been signed, who on earth would sign it?

3. If the agreements were previously signed (probably upon acceptance of employment) was there a signing bonus or other compensation in consideration for the agreement?

I'd feel much more comfortable commenting on the provisions if I knew the answers to those questions.
 
The clause is meant as a broad based cover for the company in case something comes up that they need assistance with. If they are giving a generous severance package it's not totally unreasonable. It's basically unenforceable though because all you have to do is say no or ignore their calls and emails. It's unlikely they would do anything about it.
 
RU_Planning said:
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...s-it-workers-to-be-on-call-for-two-years.html

And people wonder why a guy like Bernie Sanders is polling so well...its not about "free" stuff.

It would be interesting to know the financial terms of the severance compared to previous severances that didn't include this 2 year on call provision.

I know there seems to be a good # of IT folks on this board. Have you experienced anything similar and do you think we start to see this happening in other mid-level career positions too?
Click to expand...
How exactly does this relate to Bernie Sanders? Is he going to regulate how companies terminate employees?
 
RUfinal4 said:
The on call provision seems like too much. I see it all the time with the H1B visa consultants. Initially these visas were supposed to be for functions that the US was having trouble staffing with its own citizens. Roles like nuclear physicists and top researchers. With Y2K many of the financial organizations realized they could get cheaper labor this way.

The issue I have is something I have seen:
- large companies bring in H1B consultants via a large consulting company for a large multi year project.
- The individuals that come from India are paid 1/2 to 2/3 of what a US citizen would be paid
- Once the H1B visa person is in the US for 6 years (as a so called indentured servant) they can apply for a green card.
- once they have the green card they leave the lower paying consulting company for a job with a US corporation. Many times they are hired by a company they consulted for.
- now once they are in a role where they can hire others they give preference to others with a similar background, which can mean US citizens may have little chance for some roles.

There are 85,000 new H1Bs each year. That means over a 5-6 year period you have another 300k+ workers in the US after they get their green cards.

If you were to look at:
- Citi in Warren
- Pershing in Florham Park
- Merrill / BOA in Hopewell

and other large financial tech sites in NJ you will see a lot of current and former H1B visa individuals that have been in the US for less than 15-20 years while you may have neighbors who have similar experience but have been priced out of the market and are unemployed.
Click to expand...
The real question is - would those functions simply move to India if companies had to pay the going rate for native board Americans?
 
MGSA99 said:
There is also the reason the layoffs happened in the first place - employers hiring contractors so you can basically teach someone your job before you get laid off yourself. It is happening more often now and with labor regulations becoming more lax, it will only get worse.
Click to expand...

Disney did this recently, lots of backlash, taking advantage of using immigrants to replace IT people at a lower pay scale.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rubigtimenow
1) If you're not in the front office, then you're a cost center that corporations will look to minimize. Information technology, accounting, legal, HR, etc... it doesn't matter. I posted this in the Disney thread too.

2) As a citizen and consumer, if you dislike this corporate action, then speak up and vote with your dollars. Unforunately, nobody seems to care based on the views in the Star Wars thread.
 
vkj91 said:
How exactly does this relate to Bernie Sanders? Is he going to regulate how companies terminate employees?
Click to expand...
Because as mentioned by another poster, Sanders and Trump are the only ones saying anything about this significant issue and that is because neither is beholden to the corporations that exploit these tricks to the detriment of regular working people.
 
RU_Planning said:
Because as mentioned by another poster, Sanders and Trump are the only ones saying anything about this significant issue and that is because neither is beholden to the corporations that exploit these tricks to the detriment of regular working people.
Click to expand...
Ok but what is he going to do? Doesn't Sanders want more immigration? How does that stop this problem?
 
Scarlet_Scourge said:
The entry level IT jobs are almost all gone for private companies. They won't exist in a few years, just like factory jobs.

This is not effecting high end IT jobs yet, but no one other than the highly gifted can get those jobs straight out of college. So how are they suppose to break into the business?
Click to expand...

We see this kind of short sighted, "only worry about the end of the quarter results" in much of america now. GM was built on a pyramidal business model already back in the 1910s and 1920s: get masses of people into your showrooms through low end, low profit brands like Chevy, then gradually get them to buy higher end, higher profit brands like Oldsmobile all the way up to cadillac as they get older and make larger salaries. Somewhere along the way GM decided it was too much trouble to sell the low end cars and ceded that territory to VW and Japanese car makers, focusing only on high profit vehicles...until they lost the pipeline of GM loyal customers to the high end created by selling all those entry level Chevys. They used to have over 60% of the us car market and are now below 20%.
 
Companies in the past had the United States interest between 2 and 5, their main objective was increasing profits. Now, most companies don't care about the US anymore since they consider themselves global corporation.

Corporations want to lower cost whether moving jobs outside the US or moving jobs south, shaking the tree by centralizing and decentralizing the operation. In the future, expect no benefits from companies except the top echelon of management. I previously mentioned that you need to have your retirement money by 50-55 years old since there a strong possibility you might be unemployed.

After this all happens Americans complain how all the jobs are moved overseas and try to blame foreign governments when it's AMERICAN COMPANIES DOING THE DAMAGE.
 
Last edited:
This whole country is totally fracked up. I feel so sorry for my kids. They have no idea how bad it is going to get. Power, entitlements, greed, and corruption. Yeah. I really don't want to vote for a loud mouth immature self absorbed bully...but it might have to come to just that. Break this thing.
 
vkj91 said:
Ok but what is he going to do? Doesn't Sanders want more immigration? How does that stop this problem?
Click to expand...

No, I have never heard him say he wants more immigration, only reform of the current system and points to NAFTA (and other such policies) as major reasons we have the immigrant crisis we have today, but I digress.

The problem is the race to the bottom with regards to our treatment of workers in the USA. Perhaps we were living in a fantasy land where we had a strong middle class because corporations we willing to pay good wages for workers, or it was just because there was nowhere else in the world that could do the work needed since the rest of the 1st world was decimated by WWII. Either way, people are fed up with the direction we are headed and that is why the outsiders are doing so well in the polls. I don't think that point is even debatable.
 
derleider said:
The real question is - would those functions simply move to India if companies had to pay the going rate for native board Americans?
Click to expand...

A simple answer is no. When large companies are rebuilding systems and need business input then they need to be where the business is for the requirements. The actual coding can be done offshore but the business analysts, project managers, and others that are defining requirements need to be where the business is. That is how the H1B's get into the US because they need to be near the business.

The Suntrust 2 year thing doesn't seem to make sense because of anti-compete clauses. If the employee goes to another bank (ie. BOA or PNC) then they won't be allowed to work on Suntrust stuff. What Suntrust should do is require this for the Severance period (ie. 3 months) and then have a clause about paying the former employees a certain hourly wage as consultants after.
 
Last edited:
Something tangentially related to this is medical residency. I am a US citizen going to a foreign medical school in the Caribbean and I will be applying for residency and competing for spots with foreign nationals. US taxpayers are the ones who fund residency training programs. I as a US citizen cannot go to most countries and get the equivalent of residency and obtain employment as a physician, yet we allow foreign nationals to come here to take up our spots and train them to become physicians.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rurichdog
I won't name where I work but we have a very large Indian operation. We started it probably 8 years ago. It's massive now. My team alone consists of almost 1/2 Indians who work out off India. makes for a lot of morning "check in" and status calls of how things are going. They are super cheap, although I'm hearing from management that now they are even getting more expensive and I think more expensive faster than they initially thought. We also bring over a bunch to the US to live and work here on Visas and then they go back after 18 months to manage the Indian teams out there.

It's cary b/c a lot of jobs are not front office. Most companies are not the front office guys. Just everyone else in support. It'll be a shame when all of those jobs are overseas.
 
How many people here have left IT/software or are unemployed in the IT/software industry?

If you are hiring candidates both experienced and fresh out of college - you would know finding qualified candidates is not easy and very few are american born.
 
Unless you get a severance check, and even then, this is probably unenforceable. I'd run it by a labor lawyer to make certain but I can't see how this would be enforced.
 
If you actually reads the article, the requirement is not as bad as the headline implies.

That said, it also appears the requirement to be "available" is more fuzzily worded than it should be.

It is very standard practice for employees, even fired or laid off, to have to remain available for some reasonable length of time (often 1-2 years) to their old employer, for various legal or otherwise related situations (for testimony, or access to their knowledge about a specific situation, etc.). And there is never pay involved.

The company is claiming that the "availability" would be for those types of situations, which are very standard, and that the intent would be not interfere with their existing employment at the time of the old company calling on them.

Obviously, the exact language used in the severance agreement is rather important (i.e. how open-ended is it).

But it hardly sounds like the "severed" employees will actually be "on call."
 
The good thing about Sanders and Trump is that you know they can not be brought. The bad news is that both parties hate them. So they will never get anything done if they win. the house and congress will never pass anything.

So it doesn't even matter. Politics are a mess. Whenever, I see people on here and elsewhere debate nonsense issues I just SMH, since they can't see the forest for the trees.

Sad part is that I don't have an answer, I don't know how it can be fixed. I feel helpless and I am sure that many people do as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redking and dconifer
jellyman said:
If you actually reads the article, the requirement is not as bad as the headline implies.

That said, it also appears the requirement to be "available" is more fuzzily worded than it should be.

It is very standard practice for employees, even fired or laid off, to have to remain available for some reasonable length of time (often 1-2 years) to their old employer, for various legal or otherwise related situations (for testimony, or access to their knowledge about a specific situation, etc.). And there is never pay involved.

The company is claiming that the "availability" would be for those types of situations, which are very standard, and that the intent would be not interfere with their existing employment at the time of the old company calling on them.

Obviously, the exact language used in the severance agreement is rather important (i.e. how open-ended is it).

But it hardly sounds like the "severed" employees will actually be "on call."
Click to expand...

When I leave a job voluntarily, I'll be available to my former colleagues. If I'm forced out, too bad. If you really wanted me you would have kept me.

But, it all depends on the terms of the severance (i.e. did you get a bonus check). If I was just let go, good luck trying to find me. If I was given 3 months severance, then sure I'd be available for that time period.
 
megadrone said:
When I leave a job voluntarily, I'll be available to my former colleagues. If I'm forced out, too bad. If you really wanted me you would have kept me.

But, it all depends on the terms of the severance (i.e. did you get a bonus check). If I was just let go, good luck trying to find me. If I was given 3 months severance, then sure I'd be available for that time period.
Click to expand...

I hear you.

But ... when you sign a severance agreement (usually required before you get a check from said agreement), you are signing a legal document with terms attached to it, and are obligated by law to adhere to the terms of the signed agreement.

I do not kn ow the details of this particular situation, but I have signed agreements myself (or my business has), in both directions, that has a very standard "separation" clause that requires each side to be available to each other, sometimes for unspecified, lengths of time. Usually the reasons are spelled out, and also usually apply to legal matters such as law suits or other legal disputes. And sometimes there are, quite reasonably, no time limits (i.e. a legal dispute connected to the work done by the company or ex-employee could arise years after the separation), and even when time limits are spelled out they are usually for much longer than the so-called time covered by a severance payment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LC-88
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

RU848789

OT: Winter Storm Thursday 2/20: Very Likely Somewhere Between A Non-Event and a Minor Event (oof)

Replies
367
Views
17K
Rutgers Football
JayDogSmooth
J
RU848789

OT (Updated): The Saturday 1/11 Event Now Looking Like <1" with a Whiff Possible on the Low Side and 1-2" Possible on the High Side

Replies
152
Views
7K
Rutgers Football
RU848789
RU848789
RU848789

OT: Minor Snowfall for Most (except moderate N of 80 towards 84 w/some icing) Sat (2/15) pm, Followed by Heavy Rain for Everyone

Replies
59
Views
3K
Rutgers Football
bac2therac
bac2therac
J

OT: Spring Training 2025

Replies
20
Views
565
Rutgers Football
retired711
R
DHajekRC84

OT: Inside tip/news on NJ Anchor program.

Replies
0
Views
523
Rutgers Football
DHajekRC84
DHajekRC84
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT
Top Bottom
Back