Minnesota to become a right to work state? (live, health)

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by Clifford63

yes - outsourcing can be offshore or local or somewhere else in the US. If your wage/salary is higher than what somebody else will do the work for, it could put your job at risk. These small towns in low tax states have really low cost of living, so in fact a lot of jobs are going to places like Sioux Falls. 50% less? - yes it could be that high. Union can write language in contract to prevent this, but at the end of the day the job will be gone.

I actually tried to get setup where I could do my job from Northern MN. Did not work out, but I still think there is potential something like that will be doable in the future. At the moment, corporate culture is not always ready for the unsupervised approach, but it is becoming more common every year.

This is getting a little off topic from right-to-work and more about unions generally, but here goes... If someone else will work for half of what you will work for, why are you entitled to keep your job? You aren't, and this is why American labor unions and Americans' high standard of living has led to the off-shoring of a lot of jobs.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by southernsmoke

This is getting a little off topic from right-to-work and more about unions generally, but here goes... If someone else will work for half of what you will work for, why are you entitled to keep your job?

Doesn't that depend on the nature of the job?

Someone who mows lawns is far easier to replace than a highly skilled person whose knowledge and skillset is already tightly integrated with your company's critical business rules and high-profile client base.

Is the person working for half the rate actually able to do the work in question? And even if so, will the savings in base pay be worth any other potential consequences (lack of product quality, slower work rate, etc.)?

A lot depends on the specific situation.

You aren't, and this is why American labor unions and Americans' high standard of living has led to the off-shoring of a lot of jobs.

Indeed.

One of the problems we run into quite often in the IT industry is a lack of fundamental understanding on the part of some elements of management about exactly what it is that we do.

I've seen it many times over the past 20+ years that I've done corporate software development, and it seems to follow the same pattern every time.

Someone comes in armed with the latest and greatest arsenal of buzzwords, has gleaming references, can provide a list of glittering reviews from the XYZ Group supporting their assertions (based on studies often paid for by the vendor of the solution in question, of course), etc., and the folks who count the beans get all starry-eyed about the potential savings. Outsource the work, and all will be well! We'll save meeelions!

Of course, those savings often don't pan out because the cheaper workers often possess basis technical competency but don't know the business rules your company depends on (there is often a BIG learning curve to overcome), they may not have experience in a real production context so your business and customers become the training ground, the bodies which actually show promise are often rotated out by the contracting firm to other more lucrative projects, time zone differences/accents/cultural mores can adversely impact communication at critical times, the knowledge gained by the development process is now being held by other companies and not your own employee base, there is always something critical that is holding things up for which the person you let go three weeks ago was the only company expert on, etc.

That's why there are so many horror stories in IT about offshoring, and why so many "success stories" were actually far less successful than they appear on the surface once you start digging into the gory details of what actually was done to make things happen correctly.

Yes, it can be done, and done well, but there's a bit of effort involved in setting up and maintaining that situation. You don't get anything for free, even at lower wages, and if you end up having to redo something again and again to get it right and still end up with something less reliable than whatever it was replacing, that "lower cost" solution might end up costing your company its customer base.

A bit of a rant, but you see this type of idiocy enough times and it starts to get old.

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Doesn't that depend on the nature of the job?

Someone who mows lawns is far easier to replace than a highly skilled person whose knowledge and skillset is already tightly integrated with your company's critical business rules and high-profile client base.

Is the person working for half the rate actually able to do the work in question? And even if so, will the savings in base pay be worth any other potential consequences (lack of product quality, slower work rate, etc.)?

A lot depends on the specific situation.


Indeed.

One of the problems we run into quite often in the IT industry is a lack of fundamental understanding on the part of some elements of management about exactly what it is that we do.

I've seen it many times over the past 20+ years that I've done corporate software development, and it seems to follow the same pattern every time.

Someone comes in armed with the latest and greatest arsenal of buzzwords, has gleaming references, can provide a list of glittering reviews from the XYZ Group supporting their assertions (based on studies often paid for by the vendor of the solution in question, of course), etc., and the folks who count the beans get all starry-eyed about the potential savings. Outsource the work, and all will be well! We'll save meeelions!

Of course, those savings often don't pan out because the cheaper workers often possess basis technical competency but don't know the business rules your company depends on (there is often a BIG learning curve to overcome), they may not have experience in a real production context so your business and customers become the training ground, the bodies which actually show promise are often rotated out by the contracting firm to other more lucrative projects, time zone differences/accents/cultural mores can adversely impact communication at critical times, the knowledge gained by the development process is now being held by other companies and not your own employee base, there is always something critical that is holding things up for which the person you let go three weeks ago was the only company expert on, etc.

That's why there are so many horror stories in IT about offshoring, and why so many "success stories" were actually far less successful than they appear on the surface once you start digging into the gory details of what actually was done to make things happen correctly.

Yes, it can be done, and done well, but there's a bit of effort involved in setting up and maintaining that situation. You don't get anything for free, even at lower wages, and if you end up having to redo something again and again to get it right and still end up with something less reliable than whatever it was replacing, that "lower cost" solution might end up costing your company its customer base.

A bit of a rant, but you see this type of idiocy enough times and it starts to get old.

That's all fine and good, but that's the boss's call. It might be a better business decision to pay Person A more than Person B to do the work, but maybe not. If you owned a business, though I can bet you would want to be the one making the decision. And that's the point. Nobody is entitled to any given wage or salary--they should be making their salaries because it makes business sense to pay them that.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by southernsmoke

This is getting a little off topic from right-to-work and more about unions generally, but here goes... If someone else will work for half of what you will work for, why are you entitled to keep your job? You aren't, and this is why American labor unions and Americans' high standard of living has led to the off-shoring of a lot of jobs.

I'm just curious...are you saying that the high living standard Americans enjoy is a bad thing?

The problem is that we will never be able to compete wage-wise with the ridiculously poor third-world countries that will work for pennies. The minimum wage is a place like Pakistan is something like $50 a month.

When the name of the game is outsourcing and you have to compete with wages like that, you'll necessarily see a drop in quality of life and a depression of wages. I'm not so sure that's what I want my future to look like. It's awfully bleak.

[tijlover]

I moved out of MN 19 years ago, to AZ and NV, right to work states. I've always said, given all the abuses: This would never have happened back in MN!

Well, well, well! I was always wondering how long MN was going to take to finally cave in!

All I can say is: Fasten your seatbelts!

[kooks35]

Originally Posted by xandrex

I'm just curious...are you saying that the high living standard Americans enjoy is a bad thing?

The problem is that we will never be able to compete wage-wise with the ridiculously poor third-world countries that will work for pennies. The minimum wage is a place like Pakistan is something like $50 a month.

This is why we have to compete on productivity. If you get paid 2x as much, but can produce 4x more than its an overall win. We are running into problems because the rest of the world is catching up and we aren't able to seperate ourselves like we previously did.

Many emerging countries are finally embracing capitalism and are making the changes to improve their standard of living. Unfortunately, we are moving in the opposite direction and have begun to lost our edge over the rest of the world.

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by kooks35

This is why we have to compete on productivity. If you get paid 2x as much, but can produce 4x more than its an overall win. We are running into problems because the rest of the world is catching up and we aren't able to seperate ourselves like we previously did.

Many emerging countries are finally embracing capitalism and are making the changes to improve their standard of living. Unfortunately, we are moving in the opposite direction and have begun to lost our edge over the rest of the world.

Agreed. People can definitely be worth any amount of money, but you aren't worth more just because you are an American. You have to bring something to the table that makes you worth it. Otherwise, the labor market is just artificially inflated. The only way to keep jobs here when labor here is artificially expensive is to impose barriers to global trade. That hurts us in the long run. We all want cheap goods (and cheap oil, etc.), but we can't have cheap goods without cheap labor. Union supporters generally think they can have their cake and eat it too--that is, that you can have expensive labor and cheap goods. But that's not realistic. (It is also that kind of mindset that leads a nation into $15.5 trillion of debt, but that's a slightly different topic...)

No, I don't think a high standard of living is bad. In fact, I think the opposite--which is why I am, in general terms, a free-market capitalist and why I generally do not support unions.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by kooks35

This is why we have to compete on productivity. If you get paid 2x as much, but can produce 4x more than its an overall win. We are running into problems because the rest of the world is catching up and we aren't able to seperate ourselves like we previously did.

Many emerging countries are finally embracing capitalism and are making the changes to improve their standard of living. Unfortunately, we are moving in the opposite direction and have begun to lost our edge over the rest of the world.

The problem is that you can't just keep increasing productivity to infinity. That's as foolish in thinking as the economists who thought the economy could just keep growing for eternity. If we accept that jobs can simply flow completely freely, then we're in for a world of hurt. Why wouldn't someone just ship the jobs away to China (although really we should be focusing elsewhere...it won't be long before China is too expensive and there is another developing nation to inflate and exploit)? When someone will work a 48 hour week for a mere $50 a month, how could we ever compete? To compete with something like that, we'd literally have to take a major hit to our quality of life. It means fewer available jobs doing more work for longer hours for less pay.

I assume that you are referring to countries like China opening their markets a bit as a sign that they are embracing capitalism. Presumably they are still a far way off, yet are seeing huge amounts of growth. Presumably, much more capitalist in nature, should be seeing even larger growth then? China is actually a horrible model to look at because they largely have been hiding their deficits and they will be in a world of hurt when the growing middle-class rises up and demands more than a pittance wage to work in the dangerous factories. As for America, I don't see how we're going the other way...but perhaps I'm just not seeing it?

I certainly think there is a balance that needs to be struck - the ability to outsource jobs to produce some cheap goods while keeping some worker protections in place. Neither total union control nor a total free market are going to lead to the brightest future we can hope for.

[southernsmoke]

Originally Posted by xandrex

The problem is that you can't just keep increasing productivity to infinity. That's as foolish in thinking as the economists who thought the economy could just keep growing for eternity. If we accept that jobs can simply flow completely freely, then we're in for a world of hurt. Why wouldn't someone just ship the jobs away to China (although really we should be focusing elsewhere...it won't be long before China is too expensive and there is another developing nation to inflate and exploit)? When someone will work a 48 hour week for a mere $50 a month, how could we ever compete? To compete with something like that, we'd literally have to take a major hit to our quality of life. It means fewer available jobs doing more work for longer hours for less pay.

I assume that you are referring to countries like China opening their markets a bit as a sign that they are embracing capitalism. Presumably they are still a far way off, yet are seeing huge amounts of growth. Presumably, much more capitalist in nature, should be seeing even larger growth then? China is actually a horrible model to look at because they largely have been hiding their deficits and they will be in a world of hurt when the growing middle-class rises up and demands more than a pittance wage to work in the dangerous factories. As for America, I don't see how we're going the other way...but perhaps I'm just not seeing it?

I certainly think there is a balance that needs to be struck - the ability to outsource jobs to produce some cheap goods while keeping some worker protections in place. Neither total union control nor a total free market are going to lead to the brightest future we can hope for.

But a free market is going to lead to the bright future.

Expensive labor just prices more consumers out of the market for the goods that the labor produces.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by southernsmoke

That's all fine and good, but that's the boss's call. It might be a better business decision to pay Person A more than Person B to do the work, but maybe not. If you owned a business, though I can bet you would want to be the one making the decision. And that's the point. Nobody is entitled to any given wage or salary--they should be making their salaries because it makes business sense to pay them that.

Yes, I strongly agree.

It's a shame, however, that so many decisions of that nature are made either (1) based on false premises, or (2) made for purely self-serving reasons by a manager with little regard for the long-term future of the business. Of course, unions have done the same thing. Sometimes greed is tremendously unhealthy.