Workers asked to train foreign replacements

Workers asked to train foreign replacements

By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

When computer programmer Stephen Gentry learned last year that Boeing was laying him off and shipping his job overseas, he wasn't too surprised. Many of his friends had suffered the same experience.

What really stunned him was his last assignment: Managers had him train the worker from India who'd be taking his job.

"It was very callous," says Gentry, 51, of Auburn, Wash., a father of three who is still unemployed. "They asked us to make them feel at home while we trained them to take our jobs."

More cost-cutting companies are hiring workers in other countries to do jobs formerly held by U.S. employees. But in a painful twist, some employers are asking the workers they're laying off to train their foreign replacements — having them dig their own unemployment graves.
Almost one in five information technology workers has lost a job or knows someone who lost a job after training a foreign worker, according to a new survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. The study is the first to quantify how widespread the practice is.
Here's what typically happens: U.S. workers getting pink slips are told they can get another paycheck or beefed-up severance if they're willing to teach workers from India, China and other countries how to do their jobs. The foreign workers typically arrive for a few weeks or months of training. When they leave, they take U.S. jobs with them. The U.S. employees who trained them are then laid off.

Employers say they need workers to train replacements to ensure a seamless transition, but the practice is coming under fire.

In a congressional hearing in February, some lawmakers denounced the training of replacements as "unconscionable."

Seven in 10 information technology workers say they would support legislation requiring companies to inform local officials if they plan to use U.S. workers to train foreign replacements, according to the survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, known as WashTech.

"This is the global economy hitting home," says Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, a union representing technology workers. "It raises serious moral issues. Maybe we need to look at banning this practice outright. For American workers, it's a terrible situation to be in."

Transferring knowledge

Some employers say they're hiring workers in other countries — a trend known as "offshoring" — because they can pay lower wages, providing a much-needed competitive advantage. They say U.S. workers aren't forced to train replacements (known as "knowledge transfer"), but are given the choice whether to participate.

At WatchMark-Comnitel, a telecommunications software company in Bellevue, Wash., 17 employees in quality assurance were laid off in 2003, and replacements in India were hired. Sixteen U.S. workers helped train their replacements. Company officials say no workers were forced to do the training, but those who did got extra incentives.

"It was a voluntary choice they had to participate," says WatchMark-Comnitel spokeswoman Sherry Toly.

"Separation packages were offered whether they participated or not. We've been very happy (with the offshoring), and we feel we have a better product. Lower costs have transferred to an improved product."

But workers such as Myra Bronstein aren't convinced.

On a Friday in 2003, the former WatchMark software tester was part of a team of workers summoned to a meeting. There, she says, managers handed out letters explaining that the testing staff was being laid off. Managers then told the group that their replacements would be workers in India, she says. The workers were flying in and would be in the office Monday. She says she was instructed to train them.

Bronstein felt trapped. She says she believes that if she refused, she would have probably been fired without severance and would have been ineligible for unemployment benefits. If she quit, she says, she wouldn't have received severance or been eligible for unemployment.

The next week, she and the other employees facing layoffs were introduced to the workers who were taking their jobs. The workers from India, she says, would be earning a sixteenth of what she had been paid.

"I was staring hard at my shoes and trying not to cry. It was hideously awkward. I felt forced," says Bronstein, 48, of Mercer Island, Wash. She is still unemployed. "It was very deflating and dehumanizing to train your replacement. I felt sucker-punched. It was as if they handed us a shovel and said, 'Here, dig your own grave.' "

Is issue overblown?

While some economists and policymakers say there's no question that training replacements is difficult, they also say attention to the issue is overblown. Because this is an election year, they say unions are focusing on the issue as public sentiment turns against the loss of U.S. jobs overseas.

"Training your replacements is a pretty crappy thing to have to do. But it helps personalize the issue. It makes people empathize," says Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. He says fears about job loss are "grossly overblown. It's always easy to blame foreigners."

Starting March 24, the AFL-CIO took workers who've felt the impact of unemployment on a "Show Us the Jobs" tour from St. Louis to Washington. The workers arrived last week in Washington to meet with members of Congress. Several of the 51 riders on the tour are jobless workers who say they had to train their own replacements.

Pat Fluno, 54, one of the bus riders, is a computer programmer in Orlando. Slightly more than a year ago, she was told workers from India would be taking the job she held with a German conglomerate. She says she was given a bonus to do the training and severance.

"It's insult to injury," Fluno says. "It's abuse. I think it's disgusting. I'm not pro-Bush or pro-Kerry. I just want the candidates to hear what's happening."
She says the training took about two months.

Employees forced to train their replacements say the practice is a stark illustration of how the hiring of foreign workers is plundering U.S. jobs. In the next 15 years, American employers will move about 3.3 million white-collar jobs and $136 billion in wages abroad, according to Forrester Research. That's up from $4 billion in wages in 2000.

In 1998, Darrell Rathburn says, he was asked to train his replacements at a high-tech company, but the software developer says he quit voluntarily after training them.

"Their salaries were about a third of ours," says Rathburn, of Columbus, Ohio. "They returned to India, and my project was given to them. There are so many people out of work who are very qualified. This is not right. This is not fair."

Hurting morale and image

While some say they feel bitter toward the foreign workers who are getting their jobs, a number of workers who've trained their replacements save most of their antagonism for their former employers. Thirty percent of employers said offshoring has hurt morale at their companies in the USA, according to a March survey by benefits consultants Hewitt Associates. Eleven percent say it has had a negative impact on brand image.


Scott Kirwin, a computer consultant in Wilmington, Del., was a contract worker for J.P. Morgan Chase for about three years when he was told he was being let go. He says the contract was ended so that Indian workers could replace him. He was asked to train the replacements, he says, in order to keep getting a paycheck.

"You feel like you're the guy wearing the red shirt on Star Trek," says Kirwin, referring to characters who often died on the TV show. He helped train his replacements in 2002. "It's a very unpleasant situation. It's unfair. These people appeared, and they'd sit and shadow us and watch what we do."

Kirwin has taken action, setting up the IT Professionals Association of America, which is aimed at raising awareness about offshoring and job issues. Web site visitors (www.itpaa.org) can order a T-shirt that reads, "My job went to India and all I got was a stupid pink slip."
J.P. Morgan Chase declined comment.

Lobbying for protection

Union members have been lobbying for legislative protections, from more restrictions on visas to guarantees that workers who quit instead of training foreign replacements will still get unemployment.

A bill introduced in Olympia, Wash., would have required employers to give employees advance notice before asking them to train foreign replacements. The bill didn't pass this year, but the sponsor, state Rep. Zack Hudgins, says he plans to bring it back.

"It's a terrible thing to ask someone to train their replacement and ship the job overseas," Hudgins, a Democrat, says. "This is way beyond election-year politics. It's a shift in our economy. It's not a partisan issue."

Many feel powerless. In 2003, Kevin Flanagan was laid off from Bank of America after training foreign workers. He shot and killed himself in the parking lot in Concord, Calif.

His death galvanized other information technology workers, who have staged protests against outsourcing. Members of Congress opposed to the practice also have used his case as a call to action.

"We were very saddened by the death of our associate," says Bank of America spokeswoman Mary Waller.

"Our thoughts and prayers went out to the family and co-workers. ... We determine the best way to transition processes so services are maintained."

When transitions occur, the company says it gives employees help finding work or assistance with finding another in-house position if possible.

The bank also has training opportunities. Bank officials say the positions that have been moved overseas are less than one-half of 1% of their total workforce of more than 180,000 employees.
But now, around the one-year anniversary of Flanagan's death, his father, Tom, still copes with the loss.

"Kevin losing his job with Bank of America was the defining event in his decision to end his life. Certainly there were other issues, demons, with which he was unable to cope," Flanagan says.
"Outsourcing isn't new, (but) now white-collar jobs are being lost.
"Why? Money, of course."