By JULIA PRESTONSEPT. 29, 2015
A Toys “R” Us store in Totowa, N.J. The retailer replaced 67 employees with workers in India. The Indian workers were trained by the American workers Toys “R” Us eventually laid off.
WAYNE, N.J. — When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country.
For four weeks this spring, a young woman from India on a temporary visa sat elbow to elbow with an American accountant in a snug cubicle at the headquarters of Toys “R” Us here. The woman, an employee of a giant outsourcing company in India hired by Toys “R” Us, studied and recorded the accountant’s every keystroke, taking screen shots of her computer and detailed notes on how she issued payments for toys sold in the company’s megastores.
“She just pulled up a chair in front of my computer,” said the accountant, 49, who had worked for the company for than 15 years. “She shadowed me everywhere, even to the ladies’ room.”
By late June, eight workers from the outsourcing company, Tata Consultancy Services, or TCS, had produced intricate manuals for the jobs of 67 people, mainly in accounting. They then returned to India to train TCS workers to take over and perform those jobs there. The Toys “R” Us employees in New Jersey, many of whom had been at the company more than a decade, were laid off.
…but let’s raise the minimum wage to $15/hour.
That will solve everything…Ha Ha
I’d be very interested in having the presidential candidates address this abuse of the temporary visa program. It has been going on for too long.
Why not take it up with Toys “R” Us?
I can’t imaging what it feels like to train someone to take your job.
This is wrong and needs to be stopped.
I would say boycott Toys R Us but they hardly exist anymore.
To 6:35 PM – Toys R Us and the other companies mentioned in article have shareholders who want their company profitable and efficient and as competitive as possible . “Taking it” to them is useless, their spokesperson already explained it in full article, they aren’t shy about what they have done. . This is a matter of government regulations affecting global trade.