The training began, but after a few days it was suspended with no explanation. In New York, the immigrants suddenly stopped coming to the offices. Then on June 11, managers summoned the Disney employees with different news: Their layoffs had been canceled.In late May, about 35 technology employees at Disney/ABC Television in New York and Burbank, Calif., received jarring news. Managers told them that they would all be laid off, and that during their final weeks they would have to train immigrants brought in by an outsourcing company to do their jobs.
“We were read a precisely worded statement,” said one of the employees, who was relieved but reluctant to be named because he remains at the company. “We were told our jobs were continuing and we should consider it as if nothing had happened until further notice.”
Although the number of layoffs planned was small, the cancellation, which was first reported by Computerworld, a website covering the technology business, set off a hopeful buzz among tech employees in Disney’s empire. It came in the midst of a furor over layoffs in January of 250 tech workers at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. People who lost jobs there said they had to sit with immigrants from India, some on temporary work visas known as H-1B, and teach them to perform their jobs as a condition for receiving severance.
But it remained unclear on Tuesday who had initiated the change of strategy at Disney/ABC or whether it was part of a larger change in direction, because Disney executives declined to discuss it.
Emails and calls over several days to Kevin Brockman, a senior spokesman for Disney/ABC Television Group, were not returned. Cognizant, the global outsourcing company based in New Jersey that was bringing immigrants to the television group, also did not respond to calls or emails.
About 15 of the television group’s tech employees were in New York and the rest were based in Burbank.
The layoffs at Walt Disney World and at other companies have added fuel to a debate about temporary visas, including H-1B’s, that outsourcing firms use to bring immigrants, mainly from India, for technology work. The visas are meant for foreigners with specialized skills to fill discrete positions when Americans with those skills are not available. In the applications large companies must file for the visas, they have to confirm that no American workers will be displaced.
The Labor Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into two outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, for work they did for Southern California Edison, a power utility. It also referred complaints to the Justice Department for a separate inquiry. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, has called for an investigation of the H-1B visa program.
Tech workers who lost jobs in Orlando said Cognizant was one of the firms importing Indian immigrants to replace them.
Current and former Disney tech workers have previously not spoken publicly about the layoffs. But on Saturday, one former Disney employee in Orlando, Keith Barrett, 57, posted a personal account on Google Plus. After working at Disney for more than 10 years, he wrote, he was forced in January to take a retirement that “was not planned and was seven years before we were financially ready.” He said his family was “dealing with medical challenges.”
His time at Disney was “filled with numerous awesome moments,” wrote Mr. Barrett, who runs a blog about information technology and was managing development projects when he was laid off.
The tech employees he knew who had been required to train foreign replacements had “routinely sacrificed personal time and freedoms to help make your experience what it was” in the theme parks, he wrote. Their skills were adequate for the broad reorganization of its technology operations Disney had announced, he said. “Any skill situation could have been addressed by repositioning and/or training existing staff,” Mr. Barrett wrote.
In New York and Burbank, the layoffs announced on May 28 would have affected employees in charge of developing and maintaining internal systems. Since the layoffs were rescinded, employees have not received any new information from managers, several of them said.
Disney executives have said the reorganization that led to the Orlando layoffs had resulted in an overall increase of 70 technology jobs and the rehiring of some people who were laid off. Kim Prunty, a Disney spokeswoman, said outside contractors “are required to comply with all applicable employment laws.”
Michigan House Passed Bill Allowing EMTs To Refuse Treatment To Gay People
Over the weekend, Republicans in the Michigan Statehouse passed a “license to discriminate” bill that would give just about anyone the right to refuse service to LGBT people if it conflicted with their religious beliefs.
The broadly written Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow, for example, an EMT to refuse emergency treatment to a gay person or a pharmacist to refuse to refill HIV medication, because God decreed gays and lesbians should be put to death.
The measure is similar to one in Arizona that even right-wing governor Jan Brewer thought went too far and vetoed.
As The New Civil Rights Movement points out, the act is so broad it would let a Catholic high school refuse to hire a Muslim janitor, and a DMV clerk deny a new driver’s license to someone who is divorced.
Michigan Speaker Bolger fasttracked the bill, which passed 59-50 along party lines. “I support individual liberty and I support religious freedom,” Bolger said. “I have been horrified as some have claimed that a person’s faith should only be practiced while hiding in their home or in their church.”
If it passes in the Michigan Senate and is signed by Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act will become law.
“The idea that we need to ‘restore’ religious freedom — rights that are already enshrined in the U.S. Constitution — is a farce created by conservative lawmakers for the sole purpose of appeasing their far-right donors and the religious right,” said Lonnie Scott of Progress Michigan.
In a supreme bit of irony, the Michigan House over the weekend to pass a non-discrimination bill that protects the LGBT community.
“No one from the LGBT community has ever had fire hoses turned on them by the police department, they have never had to drink out of an LGBT water fountain,” pastor Stacy Swimp told the House committee that considered the measure. “There is no record of LGBT — homosexuals, lesbians—being forced to sit at the back of the bus in an LGBT section.”
See above.
heard on international tv--came off unorganized and right wing but checked info on his:
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.
He makes frequent appearances on national television and is a nationally syndicated columnist, whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, National Review, Harper's, Commentary, The (London) Spectator, Le Figaro (Paris), and elsewhere. he is also a contributing editor to the New York Sun.
Read more at http://spectator.org/bios/r-emmett-tyrrell-jr
FlowerChecker, plant identification app
www.flowerchecker.com/plant identification app for iPhone and Android. Just take a photo.- graduation sunday: 'colleges are places of hostility about god. lots of things being taught and much of it things that have nothing to do w/god and his eternal truth'. graduates from um, ----, and 1 heading to mott
WageCrushers.org Tracks the Groups Lobbying Against Family-Supporting Jobs
Thursday, 25 June 2015 00:00By Zach Peters and Jessica Mason, PRWatch | News Analysis- font size
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Today, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of the award-winning ALECexposed.org, launches WageCrushers.org, a web resource devoted to exposing the corporations, trade associations, "think tanks," and front groups working hard against better wages, benefits, and family-supporting jobs for the American workforce.
"Because local campaigns to pass city and county ordinances to raise the wage and expand access to paid sick days are winning across the country, the Wage Crushers are doubling down in their efforts to hold down wages and disempower working people. With this new online resource, the Center for Media and Democracy pulls back the curtain on the powerful special interests that are literally leading the charge against the higher wages and benefits, like paid sick days, that support working families," said Mary Bottari, deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy.
The wage crushers have been hard at work. By 2022, three-quarters of all US jobs will only require a high school education or less, according to estimates by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly all of those jobs will be low-wage service industry jobs. Americans spend an estimated $152 billion each year supplementing wages, health care, and other basic costs of living for workers, amounting to billions in indirect subsidies to profitable corporations like Walmart and McDonald's.
CMD has been at the forefront of documenting their tactics, such as the one-two punch posed by state "preemption" laws that block and override local legislation, and aggressive litigation against cities and counties, such as the American Hotel and Lodging Association's lawsuit against Los Angeles for its raising of hotel worker wages and the International Franchise Association's lawsuit against Seattle's $15/hr minimum wage ordinance. This strategy was discussed by top lobbyists at a recent American Legislative Exchange Council meeting, as detailed by CMD.
WageCrushers.org identifies some of the key behind-the-scenes players in anti-worker campaigns. Learn more about:
Politicians: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its local government offshoot the American City County Exchange (ACCE). Through ALEC and ACCE, lobbyists and politicians vote behind closed doors on 'model bills' that benefit the corporate bottom line, such as the "Minimum Wage Repeal Act," prevailing wage preemption, and so-called "Right-to-Work" legislation. Click to learn more about ALEC and ACCE.
Front Groups: Front groups and phony think tanks run by PR flack Richard Berman, dubbed "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes. Berman has boasted about his aggressive campaigns against unions, saying, "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions." Learn more about Berman and his deceptive PR campaigns here.
Trade Associations: The International Franchise Association is intensively lobbying against the ruling by the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board that McDonald's is a "joint employer" and potentially liable for labor violations committed at franchised stores. The American Hotel and Lodging Association, initiator of a lawsuit against Los Angeles' wage increase for hotel workers, is spinning $15 per hour as an "extreme wage" while CEOs of the chains it represents are paid millions each year. For decades, the National Restaurant Association has defended a $2.13 per hour sub-minimum wage for tipped workers with heavy lobbying and political spending.
Corporations: Read about the political influence of key corporate players like McDonald's, Walmart, and temp agencies like Adecco and Manpower.
Tactics and Trends: From preemption laws that block local paid sick days ordinances, to so-called "right to work" policies, to outright wage theft, wage crushers use a wide range of tactics that combine to limit wages and benefits, reduce corporate accountability, and disempower workers.
JESSICA MASON
Jessica Mason is a contributor to PRWatch.
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