NEWS: Outsourcing Fleet To Bring Foreign Workers Three Miles Offshore., page 1

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 12:12 PM

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A California company, SeaCode, has plans to anchor cruise ships in international waters and fill them with workers from outside the United States. In an attempt to cut costs and stay geographically close, SeaCode wants to have foreign programmers working on cruise ship three miles out from Los Angelos.

www.newsmax.com
The company, SeaCode, will seek to classify the workers as "seamen," avoiding U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas.

Programmers from places like India and Russia would work 8-hour or 10-hour shifts, either day or night. Take-home pay: About $21,500 a year. Compare that to the salary of an American programmer – median salary for programmers is around $60,000, and those with extensive experience can make $125,000 or more - and U.S. companies like SeaCode could reap a windfall.

By using foreigners working on boats, SeaCode also believes projects will get done more quickly as their programmers toil both day and night. "Try to get American software engineers to work at night," SeaCode co-founder David Cook told Forbes magazine, explaining his delight in the outsourcing scheme.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

If Seacode can get away with this, expect other companies to follow. What's next, food processing off-shore so they don't have to follow the FDA's rules?

This could weaken our technolgy industry even worse than the .com bust. I hope our government will take notice and put a stop to this shameless flouting of U.S. labor law.

Related News Links:
www.offshoring-digest.com
www.laweekly.com

[edit on 29-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

[edit on 29-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

[edit on 29-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

LazarusTheLong

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 12:40 PM

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Ya know... that is creative loopholeing, but not fair...

if a company is going to blantantly abuse the obvious spirit of the law...
then it doesn't count!

the laws are set up, to establish an equal chance of success for a company...
if they prefer to hire foreigners and have them work offshore, then IMO, they should have to pay all the same taxes and charges that an american company would have to pay...

but the end result should be where there is no more incentive to break the law than follow it...

If only this concept would overlap into all corporate tax structures, so that no company could abuse the system. It would decrease taxes for companies, becuase right now they pay the share of all the companies that are set up off shore.

JoeDoaks

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 01:00 PM

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Gotta say- wow!

I'm glad this came up. Maybe now more people will realize and get spooked enough to act against what has been happening to America's work force for years.

alternateheaven

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 01:16 PM

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Not only is this a pretty messed up move to cut corners and costs, but its also a highly stupid move from a security point of view. It would take one well placed Exocet or a speed boat laden with C4 to cripple or sink the ships, kill a bunch of people and probably damange alot of the hardware onboard as well as destroy data. Then theres the problem of who would respond in an attack like that, international water is just that, international, so its not one peoples jurisdiction or another, its kind of an up-in-the-air territory, and I would think that the country most screwed over by SeaCode would be the least likely to respond when some nutter blows a gaping hole in one of the ships.

junglejake

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 01:21 PM

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To the FDA comment: I work pretty closely with the FDA at my company, and your fear of offshore food processing is one you needn't have. Foriegn medical products, at least (I'm in the medical industry), have to meet all the same standards American medical products do, even if they aren't made here in the US. I would assume this would be the same for food products, too. So no worries there; if someone wants to set up an offshore food processing center, that's all fine and dandy, they're just going to have more hoops to jump through to sell their product on American soil.

LazarusTheLong

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 03:55 PM

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hey, what a great idea for a book or movie...
an unethical outsourcing company screws a country by setting offshore a few miles...
in the dark of the night, a group of international thieves sneak on board to hijack the whole vessel... the screwed country throws a rasberry, so the company has to hire a private security force to rescue the ship...

wonder if Bruce Willis would be interested... a little DIE HARD offshore...

jsobecky

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 04:17 PM

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Even though "Navy" is in quotes, I still have a problem with the word in the title. The implication is that the US Navy is somehow involved in this outsourcing.

Aelita

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 05:13 PM

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This sounds clownish. Why bring programmers on board and risk them throwing up all over the keyboards and flat screens, because some maybe sea sick?

With the universal connectivity in places like India and Russia (and yes, it's widespread) it's so much more economical to have an office open there, just as most outsourcers do anyway. You don't have to be physically close to the US.

IntelRetard

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 08:25 PM

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Indentured servitude charging workers for lodging, food, and services is what I envision. This was practiced in Americas early mining days.

LeftBehind

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 08:35 PM

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The reason they want the programmers closer is so they can reduce the travel costs for their customers. As it is now outsourcing companies have to have their customers fly to India or China to check on their projects. I'm assuming that they are basing their whole project on that niche market.

Jehosephat

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 08:42 PM

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I have a solution to this problem....

Flood tubes one thru four!

Or maybe to further develope the time honored tradition of Corperate priacy ARRRR!

IntelRetard

posted on Apr, 29 2005 @ 09:18 PM

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oh outsourced customer service in India. Have you called MS lately to reactivate XP, 2 times I had to hang up due to language problems or satelite lag in the call.

jsobecky

posted on Apr, 30 2005 @ 12:07 AM

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Originally posted by IntelRetard
Indentured servitude charging workers for lodging, food, and services is what I envision. This was practiced in Americas early mining days.

...as opposed to the many cultures that practiced outright slavery, such as the labor used to build the pyramids in Egypt.

j/k

I wonder what will happen if the workers decide that they want to spend a week or two on shore, or maybe longer? How do the company owners plan to stop them? Catch my drift?

I envision our western borders becoming a problem also.

[edit on 30-4-2005 by jsobecky]

the_oleneo

posted on May, 1 2005 @ 09:02 AM

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Creative Americans who own and runs SeaCode decide to f**kall the government regulations and payroll taxes by hiring foreign workers, work off-shore just few miles away, save money and reap it altogether!

American ingenuity at work!

How financially and legally treasonous. America is too expensive for Americans. Unfortunately, it has too many unfair advantages.