I worked for a company that was bought by CBA, and this was happening while I was there.
This would be great if:
Indian workers were hired on equivalent terms, in Australia,
on visas that give them a clear path to citizenship.
If they were hired as individuals and not via contracing companies that force them to sign separate secret contracts that prevent them from pushing for their full legal rights under Australian labor law. Immigration has been great for Australia in countless ways. I get really upset about they way large labor firms have co-opted as immigration a lever for corporations to undermine Australian working conditions and exploit Indian workers and I really don't know what to do
about.
Local options should always be preferred to protect local job markets. Any company only exists because they can do business locally, so they should support local or be burnt to the ground.
I now live in the UK, when I got hired here they had to advertise my position to see if they could fill it locally before they could grant me a visa for it - this is the way.
Many years ago I was hired by {tech company} in {European country} (I'm from the US).
Once I worked there for a month and befriended my team, one of them showed me how they posted a fake job listing with exactly my experience, and we all laughed about it.
All of the implementations of this legislation seem trivial to rig. Even though it feels good to assume you outcompeted everyone in the UK with your leet skills and they had no option to import the heavy guns.
I disagree, these are not anonymous people, but real work collegues that I enjoyed working with, who would love to be able to settle in Australia, and would make a great contribution to the country. Australia without post war migration would be a much duller place. The fact that companies use immigation as a lever against fair wages, doesn't mean that there are not also skills shortages in many areas. I don't think we should conflate that with the need to care for citizens, which I would rather we approach with fair tax systems, maybe some resource extraction royalties and using the increase tax income on vastly increased infrastructure and social spending.
Blaming immigrants instead of systematic explotation and inequality takes us down the disasterous Brexit path.
>> via contracing companies that force them to sign separate secret contracts that prevent them from pushing for their full legal rights under Australian labor law
I'm ont talking about anonomous people, I'm talking about remote-work collegues whose name I know. They were not slaves, they were absolutley paid wages, but not equivalent wages to local hires.
IBM has been doing that for decades. They have even been repeatedly sued over unfair dismals, etc. But for them it's only the cost of pursuing their off-shoring goals.
Maybe the problem is the MBAs and letting them run your company? Surely AI could do a better job than most MBAs? The knowledge requirement is lower, the reasoning and analytical capability lower, just learn a few frameworks and glib vacuous McKinsey-speak, have an AI produce those meaningless powerpoints instead of expensive suits if the C-suite really needs to see it (also candidates for replacement), then instead invest in your IT staffing with local culture that understands the business and its customers and which has a tangible benefit.
MBAs or AI would make the same decisions as these are SYSTEMIC issues, which means its not up to individuals or orgs, but the entire system across the board has to change for fairer solutions to work.
Why? Cuz this is not just about cross border diff in labor rates but also in interest rates, real estate/rent, corporate tax rates, forex rates, regulations, govt subsidies, energy costs etc etc.
Sum it all up and the cost differential can't be swept under the carpet.
MBAs getting drilled to focus on the short term / maximize shareholder value which has created all kinds of issues. But that is not hard to change. Lot of schools exist that don't focus only on that. What's hard to change is the underlying calculus without global coordination.
>Maybe the problem is the MBAs and letting them run your company?
The vast majority of companies in the world are run by MBAs. Welcome to the club.
SV companies were an exception to this rule for a short time in history since tech moved faster than the dinosaurs in suits could comprehend or regulate, so it made sense to put engineers in charge to innovate quickly. Having zero interest rate money also helped a lot.
But now that the tech market has matured and consolidated, it's becoming like all the other "uncool" traditional industries, run by MBAs. Except unlike those old traditional industries, there's no credential barrier to entry or unions to protect them, for better and worse.
Its not just CBA, but Westpac, Optus and pretty much any large corporate in Australia.
ACS is being a hypocrite since:
1) they charge $$$ fees for validating IT experience so they would never advocate lowering the immgiration rate (its also a conflict of interest). So they have a hand in dismantling Australian tech jobs.
2) they inform the government that there's still a "skills shortage" of developer , when in reality, they do it to suppress wages.
This reporting is somewhat dishonest it fails to disclose ACS's vested interests...
ACS has a nice government-granted monopoly on assessing the qualifications of work visa applicants (at significant cost) so anyone reducing the demand for IT worker visas (by off-shoring those jobs) is going to hurt ACS directly.
that is also approximately all ACS does as far as I remember, they seem to never lobby for anything useful or go against the government for the exact same reason.
The ACS is about as scary as a limp lettuce leaf, so don't expect the CBA, or any other Australian company that wants to outsource IT operations and retrench existing staff, to be in any way deterred.
If Australia doesn't have the capabilities then why are the university campuses full of overseas students? So they can learn, return to their homelands and work at some outsourcing org?
CBA like all large corporations don't care about their staff nor their customers. Their only priority is to pander to their shareholders and pay their executives ever larger salaries and perks.
Government powers don't work. Lobbyists and party donors make sure that they own the decision makers. Politicians, like the corporations are only in it for what they can personally gain.
Readit News
Local options should always be preferred to protect local job markets. Any company only exists because they can do business locally, so they should support local or be burnt to the ground.
I now live in the UK, when I got hired here they had to advertise my position to see if they could fill it locally before they could grant me a visa for it - this is the way.
Once I worked there for a month and befriended my team, one of them showed me how they posted a fake job listing with exactly my experience, and we all laughed about it.
All of the implementations of this legislation seem trivial to rig. Even though it feels good to assume you outcompeted everyone in the UK with your leet skills and they had no option to import the heavy guns.
Blaming immigrants instead of systematic explotation and inequality takes us down the disasterous Brexit path.
Where is the line between that and plain slavery?
Just before their last big US layoffs, Microsoft announced: "Microsoft is expanding our presence in India with a $3 billion investment"
Why? Cuz this is not just about cross border diff in labor rates but also in interest rates, real estate/rent, corporate tax rates, forex rates, regulations, govt subsidies, energy costs etc etc.
Sum it all up and the cost differential can't be swept under the carpet.
MBAs getting drilled to focus on the short term / maximize shareholder value which has created all kinds of issues. But that is not hard to change. Lot of schools exist that don't focus only on that. What's hard to change is the underlying calculus without global coordination.
The vast majority of companies in the world are run by MBAs. Welcome to the club.
SV companies were an exception to this rule for a short time in history since tech moved faster than the dinosaurs in suits could comprehend or regulate, so it made sense to put engineers in charge to innovate quickly. Having zero interest rate money also helped a lot.
But now that the tech market has matured and consolidated, it's becoming like all the other "uncool" traditional industries, run by MBAs. Except unlike those old traditional industries, there's no credential barrier to entry or unions to protect them, for better and worse.
ACS is being a hypocrite since: 1) they charge $$$ fees for validating IT experience so they would never advocate lowering the immgiration rate (its also a conflict of interest). So they have a hand in dismantling Australian tech jobs. 2) they inform the government that there's still a "skills shortage" of developer , when in reality, they do it to suppress wages.
ACS has a nice government-granted monopoly on assessing the qualifications of work visa applicants (at significant cost) so anyone reducing the demand for IT worker visas (by off-shoring those jobs) is going to hurt ACS directly.
ACS had a hand in blowing up Aussie jobs.
that is also approximately all ACS does as far as I remember, they seem to never lobby for anything useful or go against the government for the exact same reason.
(And yes we are pissed about it)
Look out for the new round of layoffs that get blamed on "AI" next year?
From the article:
> “FSU will take CBA to the Fair Work Commission over the issue”
(FSU being the Finance Sector Union, and Fair Work Commission being a governmental body that does have some powers.)
CBA like all large corporations don't care about their staff nor their customers. Their only priority is to pander to their shareholders and pay their executives ever larger salaries and perks.
Government powers don't work. Lobbyists and party donors make sure that they own the decision makers. Politicians, like the corporations are only in it for what they can personally gain.
Because it’s great business: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-27/australias-internatio...
Because Australian universities are a path to citizenship.
Australia is one of the richest per capita nations on the planet and has been for almost 200 years.
People seek a better life. My ancestors did too, that's why I'm Australian.