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RBC fiasco
- Thread starter ndrwrld
- Start date
I hope the government does a bit of an overhaul and a huuuuuuuuge audit of other corporations as well. The fact that they were offered visas anyway is suspect. So it hasn't really been made clear: what are the employment gaps, who is filling them and why these 45 workers are being let go.
These temporary workers are leaving after 3 months. So it looks like RBC "can't afford" to keep this department, wants the department shut down or probably amalgamated to other teams and is saving a shitload of money by paying a bunch of Indians to do the rest of the work.
Which actually also doesn't make sense as the employees are saying they're training these temporary individuals. I'm on the edge of my seat here with this story.
These temporary workers are leaving after 3 months. So it looks like RBC "can't afford" to keep this department, wants the department shut down or probably amalgamated to other teams and is saving a shitload of money by paying a bunch of Indians to do the rest of the work.
Which actually also doesn't make sense as the employees are saying they're training these temporary individuals. I'm on the edge of my seat here with this story.
rbc.com - RBC - Media Newsroom
RBC clarifies recent media reports
TORONTO, April 7, 2013 - RBC wants to address media reports and provide clarification. Contrary to allegations, RBC has not hired temporary foreign workers to take over the job functions of current RBC employees. Like most businesses, RBC works with many suppliers to provide certain products and services in Canada and globally.
Wow, this is pretty pathetic. It doesn't address anything other than the technicality that these workers are not RBC employees. Great, we got that. That doesn't answer any questions. What a fucking red herring. I've always had great relations with RBC (they were my #1 client/employer in hiring newcomers and refugees from my program). So this is really disappointing.
Passing the blame to the government. And the feds will probably hum and haw about this.
RBC clarifies recent media reports
TORONTO, April 7, 2013 - RBC wants to address media reports and provide clarification. Contrary to allegations, RBC has not hired temporary foreign workers to take over the job functions of current RBC employees. Like most businesses, RBC works with many suppliers to provide certain products and services in Canada and globally.
Wow, this is pretty pathetic. It doesn't address anything other than the technicality that these workers are not RBC employees. Great, we got that. That doesn't answer any questions. What a fucking red herring. I've always had great relations with RBC (they were my #1 client/employer in hiring newcomers and refugees from my program). So this is really disappointing.
Passing the blame to the government. And the feds will probably hum and haw about this.
cosmosuave
TRIBE Member
Heard about this and an apalled... Will sell my RBC shares to show my disaprovalof their practices...
Bernnie Federko
TRIBE Member
This is a buying opportunity, coincidently.
sianspherica
TRIBE Member
Think about the extremely marginal amount of money RBC thought they could save by laying off Canadians and hiring outsourced third-party brokered Indian employees.
and compare that to potentially the amount of money they will lose in accounts as this story gets more media attention and boycotts and petitions go up.
LOL, what a fuck up for RBC
Good for the one soon to be laid off employee that first broke this story to the CBC.
and compare that to potentially the amount of money they will lose in accounts as this story gets more media attention and boycotts and petitions go up.
LOL, what a fuck up for RBC
Good for the one soon to be laid off employee that first broke this story to the CBC.
Klubmasta Will
TRIBE Member
if i understand correctly, RBC laid off 45 IT workers and is outsourcing their services to a U.S. company that provides off-site IT support which uses mostly indian employees. is that it?
i'm not sure what the big deal is about. lots of companies outsource services to save money and IT support work is something that can be done from off-site. companies have been doing this for call centre services for years.
the same goes for legal work. i've started sending legal research work to a firm located in south africa that specializes in canadian/ontario law (no joke). the cost they charged to do a research memo that would have easily cost $2-5k in any downtown toronto law firm was $250. and when i asked for some follow up research that would have resulted in another $2-5k in a downtown toronto firm, they did that as well and included it in the original $250 fee.
was it wrong for me to do that or was that okay becuase the people i was taking the work away from were rich lawyers so screw them anyway?
for those of you who are upset with RBC, what are you upset about, exactly? i would bet that every single canadian bank has at some point outsourced work that could have been done in canada to someone overseas, whether directly or through an out-sourcing contract.
we are part of a global economy and, thanks to technology advances, we have options for getting all kinds of services from skilled/cheaper workers in developing countries. while this trend may be bad for canadian workers, certainly it's good for workers in those developing countries.
i do agree that this is a PR nightmare for RBC, but i cannot imagine why anyone would switch banks over this.
i'm not sure what the big deal is about. lots of companies outsource services to save money and IT support work is something that can be done from off-site. companies have been doing this for call centre services for years.
the same goes for legal work. i've started sending legal research work to a firm located in south africa that specializes in canadian/ontario law (no joke). the cost they charged to do a research memo that would have easily cost $2-5k in any downtown toronto law firm was $250. and when i asked for some follow up research that would have resulted in another $2-5k in a downtown toronto firm, they did that as well and included it in the original $250 fee.
was it wrong for me to do that or was that okay becuase the people i was taking the work away from were rich lawyers so screw them anyway?
for those of you who are upset with RBC, what are you upset about, exactly? i would bet that every single canadian bank has at some point outsourced work that could have been done in canada to someone overseas, whether directly or through an out-sourcing contract.
we are part of a global economy and, thanks to technology advances, we have options for getting all kinds of services from skilled/cheaper workers in developing countries. while this trend may be bad for canadian workers, certainly it's good for workers in those developing countries.
i do agree that this is a PR nightmare for RBC, but i cannot imagine why anyone would switch banks over this.
DJ Vuvu Zela
TRIBE Member
the big deal is they were given work visas and brought over to canada to train with the people who's jobs they are taking.
that's not supposed to happen (legally). companies can not replace permanent workers with temporary foreign workers.
the_fornicator
TRIBE Member
Outsourcing is one thing but it seems a bit different to me because the employees are training their replacements. So, it's kind of not outsourcing. Moreover, your choice to outsource is one thing, but to lay off employees so you can hire a cheaper replacement outsource is another.
I don't think it's for supplementary IT support since they aren't particularly skilled workers.
Also, are RBC exploiting these temporary workers as well? How much are they getting I wonder?
Anyway, I'm sure most corporations and large businesses outsource and such. It's only a matter of time before people start figuring out TD and Scotia do this kinda stuff too.
acheron
TRIBE Member
my co did a similar thing with our accounts payable department. Moved all the regions to one centralized location. So they had the central people sit with the regional people for two weeks to shadow/learn their jobs before the regional people were let go. Everyone got really sweet packages, and there was no offshoring, however.
PR nightmare catastrofuck for sure. ...Genuine loss of revenue would be curious to see reports of in coming months. Changing banks is a high involvement purchase, and most people never bother until they pursue a line of credit or mortgage elsewhere and eventually streamline by moving everything over. Takes 32 seconds to profess outage and like a FB page. Of the 1k on the fb page claiming to leave I would project that 1% will actually take action to do so. A lot of these people are going to be all talk, no rock.
in an of itself it's not a big deal, but after years of losing well paying jobs to developping countries it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
banks rake in millions in profits, the avg employee doesn't see that money. wages have been stagnant for years. other people can't even get decent paying jobs.
it's prime example of the rich getting richer while the rest of us get bent over. i don't think it would be a big deal if the economy was in decent shape and people felt like they could make a decent living. or sending jobs offshore improved our standard of living.
RBC just happens to be the one that got called on it.
acheron
TRIBE Member
praktik
TRIBE Member
Getting mad at RBC is really missing the forest for the trees. Take wall street fraud as an example.
We will, of course, all acknowledge that serious fraud and mischief was committed in the highest echelons of finance that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. To date, no individuals have gone to jail and even the most egregious and far-reaching scandal, the LIBOR scandal, has seen no one go to jail. Everyone agrees that there has been a lack of prosecution.
Ok so, while we would all FEEL better if there were more prosecutions, in the grand scheme of things, what would change? They actually did that in the 1930s and people still recollect that era fondly for the way Banksters were trotted off in chains... But what happened after? A host of regulations that were to fix the issues that created the depression were introduced, and everyone who went to jail was replaced. Their replacements immediately set about finding ways around the new regulations. Glass-Steagall was slowly diluted, decade after decade, by a concerted effort of money and influence - culminating in its eventual repeal. Despite the fact lots of people went to jail for financial fraud, CEOs in the Savings+Loan crisis in the 80s, and in the early 90s and again in 2001 and later in 2008 all did what they needed to do, or thought they needed to do for their company's bottom lines.
In short, the punishment and regulation did nothing, because the system still encouraged these leaders to take the risks they did, to committ the crimes they did, because the pressure of the systemic incentives basically demanded it.
And RBC is facing a similar set of systemic market pressures - and to single out RBC and save these 45 jobs does nothing in the face of a society wide problem that encourages our companies to act this way.
If you are truly critical of this issue you need to give RBC a pass, they are doing what the market asks of them.
What you really need to start thinking about instead - is how do we achieve a new set of incentives, such that companies like RBC are not encouraged to act this way?
This is a much tougher conversation, but its one we should start having if the outcomes of the market are ones we would rather turned out differently...
We will, of course, all acknowledge that serious fraud and mischief was committed in the highest echelons of finance that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. To date, no individuals have gone to jail and even the most egregious and far-reaching scandal, the LIBOR scandal, has seen no one go to jail. Everyone agrees that there has been a lack of prosecution.
Ok so, while we would all FEEL better if there were more prosecutions, in the grand scheme of things, what would change? They actually did that in the 1930s and people still recollect that era fondly for the way Banksters were trotted off in chains... But what happened after? A host of regulations that were to fix the issues that created the depression were introduced, and everyone who went to jail was replaced. Their replacements immediately set about finding ways around the new regulations. Glass-Steagall was slowly diluted, decade after decade, by a concerted effort of money and influence - culminating in its eventual repeal. Despite the fact lots of people went to jail for financial fraud, CEOs in the Savings+Loan crisis in the 80s, and in the early 90s and again in 2001 and later in 2008 all did what they needed to do, or thought they needed to do for their company's bottom lines.
In short, the punishment and regulation did nothing, because the system still encouraged these leaders to take the risks they did, to committ the crimes they did, because the pressure of the systemic incentives basically demanded it.
And RBC is facing a similar set of systemic market pressures - and to single out RBC and save these 45 jobs does nothing in the face of a society wide problem that encourages our companies to act this way.
If you are truly critical of this issue you need to give RBC a pass, they are doing what the market asks of them.
What you really need to start thinking about instead - is how do we achieve a new set of incentives, such that companies like RBC are not encouraged to act this way?
This is a much tougher conversation, but its one we should start having if the outcomes of the market are ones we would rather turned out differently...
videotronic
TRIBE Member
sounds a little like that part in mobster movies where guys get taken into the corn fields and have to dig their own graves before they get shot
I agree. Slactivism at its finest.
Spinsah
TRIBE Member
I don't think the outsourcing itself is the big issue, though it is part of it. The issue for many people is that RBC brought in people from outside the country through the subsidized Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) program, which is meant to plug skills gaps where Canadian workers come up short, and is instead using those workers to replace existing Canadian workers, then move those jobs out.