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Unions can make deals as part of the labor contract that they will not offshore their jobs. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/03/with-new-

Unions can make deals as part of the labor contract that they will not offshore their jobs. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/03/with-new-union-deal-att-reverses-offshoring-of-thousands-of-jobs/?outputType=amp https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/03/wi...

bequanna 3y ago
Ok, so forcing a company to lock in high costs while non-union competitors can use offshore. Can you explain how this would even work? Why would any company agree to this?
- acdha 3y ago
  Offshoring projects very commonly fail because companies dramatically overestimate the savings and underestimate the cost of communications, company culture, and experience. If you have a workforce which is delivering good results, there’s often a solid benefit to continuing that rather than chasing a mirage.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    Not my experience at all. I've been part of successful offshoring at a few different companies. It wasn't "one and done", that is, we had to try different countries, different subcontractors, etc but it is totally possible to maintain quality AND lower engineering costs by 50-75% by offshoring. For those interested, my best experience has been with workers in LATAM countries. Pry 75% were Brazilians. Great timezone and culture match also most of them have good written/spoken english.
    - acdha 3y ago
      I’m not saying it’s impossible but that it commonly fails due to those reasons. Timezones are a common source of problems but I’ve also seen a fair number of problems which basically boiled down to outsourcing putting more stress on existing management problems such as inability to produce specs or delegate, and micromanagement were amplified by distance and cultural barriers. Basically the organizational equivalent of saying “our monolith sucks, let’s use microservices” without first contemplating how the existing system got that way.

bequanna 3y ago

Ok, so forcing a company to lock in high costs while non-union competitors can use offshore. Can you explain how this would even work? Why would any company agree to this?

acdha 3y ago
Offshoring projects very commonly fail because companies dramatically overestimate the savings and underestimate the cost of communications, company culture, and experience. If you have a workforce which is delivering good results, there’s often a solid benefit to continuing that rather than chasing a mirage.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Not my experience at all. I've been part of successful offshoring at a few different companies. It wasn't "one and done", that is, we had to try different countries, different subcontractors, etc but it is totally possible to maintain quality AND lower engineering costs by 50-75% by offshoring. For those interested, my best experience has been with workers in LATAM countries. Pry 75% were Brazilians. Great timezone and culture match also most of them have good written/spoken english.
  - acdha 3y ago
    I’m not saying it’s impossible but that it commonly fails due to those reasons. Timezones are a common source of problems but I’ve also seen a fair number of problems which basically boiled down to outsourcing putting more stress on existing management problems such as inability to produce specs or delegate, and micromanagement were amplified by distance and cultural barriers. Basically the organizational equivalent of saying “our monolith sucks, let’s use microservices” without first contemplating how the existing system got that way.