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WashTech Reveals Microsoft Secret Layoff Plan
Despite Microsoft's public claim that it does not displace U.S. workers when it sends high-tech work overseas, CWA's WashTech affiliate blew the whistle this week on the company's secret plan to lay off at least 800 tech support employees as it shifts the work to India and Nova Scotia.
The biggest cutback is slated for Microsoft's customer support center in Las Colinas, Texas, near Dallas, which may be closed. Jobs in North Carolina and Washington also will be affected in the work transfer, resulting in the largest firing of full-time employees in the company's history, said WashTech president Marcus Courtney.
Microsoft workers have overheard managers discussing the planned layoffs and office closings, and some supervisors have quietly told workers they should be making other career plans because of impending job cuts, he said. The plan reportedly calls for quietly and steadily laying off groups of workers over the next several months so that the magnitude of the firings doesn't make headlines.
After WashTech released the news this week, a Microsoft spokeswoman declined to either confirm or deny the report but did acknowledge that the company had a new "pilot program" for call center work underway in India.
WashTech, which is based in Seattle, has called for a Government Accounting Office study of the impact of the shift of high-tech work to India and other countries. "Sending the country's best-paying and highest skilled jobs overseas is a serious economic threat to technology employees" and to America's economic growth, said Courtney.
The biggest cutback is slated for Microsoft's customer support center in Las Colinas, Texas, near Dallas, which may be closed. Jobs in North Carolina and Washington also will be affected in the work transfer, resulting in the largest firing of full-time employees in the company's history, said WashTech president Marcus Courtney.
Microsoft workers have overheard managers discussing the planned layoffs and office closings, and some supervisors have quietly told workers they should be making other career plans because of impending job cuts, he said. The plan reportedly calls for quietly and steadily laying off groups of workers over the next several months so that the magnitude of the firings doesn't make headlines.
After WashTech released the news this week, a Microsoft spokeswoman declined to either confirm or deny the report but did acknowledge that the company had a new "pilot program" for call center work underway in India.
WashTech, which is based in Seattle, has called for a Government Accounting Office study of the impact of the shift of high-tech work to India and other countries. "Sending the country's best-paying and highest skilled jobs overseas is a serious economic threat to technology employees" and to America's economic growth, said Courtney.