Pfizer US job cuts help Indian techies

[OhioChick]

Source: Economic Times India

15 Nov 2008, 0434 hrs IST, Nina Mehta & Jessica Mehroin Irani, ET Bureau

MUMBAI: Pharma giant Pfizer US is believed to be laying off local IT workers from their unit in Connecticut and replacing them with Indian staff sent on H1B visas.

Many of the Indian recruits are from top-rung Indian IT majors like Infosys, Satyam Technologies and Cognizant, who have Pfizer as their client.

"Pfizer has historically used third-party IT vendors from the US and other countries for software development, applications support and for daily IT-related functions. However, this procedure wasn't designed to replace local non-Pfizer personnel with those from outside the US," a Pfizer Global spokesperson said in response to an emailed questionnaire. There have been complaints from Pfizer's US staff that they are being forced to train their Indian replacements.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Joe Courtney recently sent a letter to Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler, expressing concern over Pfizer's internal procedure titled Procedure 117, a policy Pfizer instituted in January that requires the closure of long-term contractor arrangements as those terms expire. "Given Pfizer's critical importance as one of the largest employers in south-eastern Connecticut, we would like you to provide us with information about the potential workforce changes and urge you in the strongest terms to reconsider any such action," the letter stated.

The Senator and the Congressman also sought details on the number of workers who will be affected by this, compensation to be offered to those not re-hired and salary and benefit packages of those retained.


Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Techies_from_IT_cos_for_Pfizer/articleshow/3715265.cms

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Glad to hear of Senator Dodd and Congressman Courtney calling Pfizer on this.
Talk about a traitorous act. :grr:

[AzDar]

1. Traitorous is exactly right.

:puke:

[daa]

2. And they wonder why we are in a depression

firing their customers has left US companies with no one to buy their products.

I never understood why Indian companies create jobs in India and US companies fire Americans and send the jobs to India.

[exboyfil]

3. The H-1B Visa

Yes the H-1B Visa - the corporations way of getting the benefits of massive immigration at the upper middle wage level.

The IT job transfer is greatly facilitated by H-1B Visas. They, like other forms of immigration, serve to suppress wages in the receiving country.

My employer is trying to outsource my job over time to India. I am trying to stay ahead of the curve by morphing into the person which manages the work that the Indians do.

I wonder if we will ever get to the point in which the CEO, CFO and the presidents/vice presidents get outsourced. I think not. At least lawyers are getting affected now. Next up are specialist doctors (think health care tourism like what the Brits do who don't want to wait two years for a hip replacement).

[OhioChick]

12. It's already begun.....let them go.

Cisco shifts top brass from Silicon Valley to India

http://www.indusbusinessjournal.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=A194BEA62D2048E199A88A8D7ABCF585

Funny, I always heard that Cisco wanted to be a Chinese company. Since this article is from 2007, maybe they are now. :shrug:

[babylonsister]

4. This is just wrong on so many levels. nt

[ChromeFoundry]

5. This pisses me off too much for words to express. n/t

[ihavenobias]

6. Dodd is 1 for 2.

He's right on this but wrong on not fighting Lieberman.

[daggahead]

7. Another company that needs to just leave the US and relocate to India.

If that's how they want to operate ...

Let's just let all of the big corporations leave, those of us left here will start new companies and then we charge enormous tariffs on the formerly US companies to import their products.

I'm really tired of this "well, our competition is off-shoring, so we have to in order to be competitive."

Bullshit. Thank you Jack Welsh for starting this shit.:wtf:

[McCamy Taylor]

8. The Medicare free $$$ give away to Big Pharm has to end now.

[shanti]

9. PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA!

end this hemorrhaging, please!! the US absolutely needs incentives for companies that keep jobs here and sanctions against those that don't!

our children deserve this!

[Azlady]

10. Each of us need to go to Change.gov

each time a news article comes out like this, with more and more jobs either leaving the country or being filled by H1B Visa program. We need to get this in his lap so he understands just how bad this issue has become. Change.gov is there for US, to let him know what needs to happen to make a strong America again.
Azlady
off to email this article to our President Elect Obama! God, I like that!

[OhioChick]

11. I've been gathering information

on a daily basis for years and emailing it to my senators, congressman and most recently to Change.gov. :thumbsup: