On the day they were fired early last year, about 40 Molina Healthcare IT employees met in a conference room for what they thought was a planning session. The gathering took place at a time of rising tensions over several issues, including the expanding role of offshore IT contractor Cognizant Technology Solutions.
The Molina workers voiced their concerns to then-CIO Amir Desai after he told them they were all being laid off. "I felt they were expecting us to be asking questions about COBRA and unemployment and all that," said Bonita Shok, one of the laid-off Molina employees. "Instead, we were being quite confrontational about why they were laying us off and keeping all these H-1B workers."
"I have never experienced a group of employees who were so angry," said a human resources manager who was in the meeting but asked not to be identified.
"They felt their work was being offshored," said the longtime HR industry veteran, who had been hired to execute the IT layoffs at the managed healthcare provider.
The workers say their questions weren't answered, so 18 of them filed suit in California state court earlier this year against Molina, its former CIO and Cognizant.
The plaintiffs say they were fired because Molina and the outsourcing company sought to employ workers "whose national origin, race and/or ethnicity was exclusively Indian."
Molina said the lawsuit is grounded in "falsehoods and malicious gossip," while Cognizant said the suit is without merit and vowed to "vigorously contest it." Former Molina CIO Desai, through attorney Edward Raskin, says the lawsuit is itself guilty of "an unfair discriminatory bias." In fact, he noted, "some of the employees who lost jobs at Molina were 'of Indian descent.' "
While what happened at Molina is still in dispute, job displacement because of offshore outsourcing is a fact of life in today's IT workplace.
Outsourcing engagements often start when IT services firms bring in workers, typically with H-1B or L-1 visas, to learn the company's processes. Then the work moves overseas.
Molina employees contend that's what happened to them. James Otto, an attorney representing the former Molina employees, claims that about 200 visa-holding workers have been brought into the company. More than a dozen of the plaintiffs, who met with computer world last month, said Molina was at one time a great place for IT professionals. "There was a feeling of camaraderie" among Molina workers and its few contractors, Shok said.
Around 2007, though, most of the workers' immediate IT managers were fired or laid off while the number of contractors increased. The Molina employees said they were asked to train Cognizant workers and told that their role would shift to new development. However, the workers said, the corporate culture changed for the worse as contractors were added.
"There was a point where I felt we were just being written off," said David de Hilster, one of the laid-off IT workers. In the weeks leading up to the layoff, the training process became increasingly "urgent," he added.
The Molina workers voiced their concerns to then-CIO Amir Desai after he told them they were all being laid off. "I felt they were expecting us to be asking questions about COBRA and unemployment and all that," said Bonita Shok, one of the laid-off Molina employees. "Instead, we were being quite confrontational about why they were laying us off and keeping all these H-1B workers."
"I have never experienced a group of employees who were so angry," said a human resources manager who was in the meeting but asked not to be identified.
"They felt their work was being offshored," said the longtime HR industry veteran, who had been hired to execute the IT layoffs at the managed healthcare provider.
The workers say their questions weren't answered, so 18 of them filed suit in California state court earlier this year against Molina, its former CIO and Cognizant.
The plaintiffs say they were fired because Molina and the outsourcing company sought to employ workers "whose national origin, race and/or ethnicity was exclusively Indian."
Molina said the lawsuit is grounded in "falsehoods and malicious gossip," while Cognizant said the suit is without merit and vowed to "vigorously contest it." Former Molina CIO Desai, through attorney Edward Raskin, says the lawsuit is itself guilty of "an unfair discriminatory bias." In fact, he noted, "some of the employees who lost jobs at Molina were 'of Indian descent.' "
While what happened at Molina is still in dispute, job displacement because of offshore outsourcing is a fact of life in today's IT workplace.
Outsourcing engagements often start when IT services firms bring in workers, typically with H-1B or L-1 visas, to learn the company's processes. Then the work moves overseas.
Molina employees contend that's what happened to them. James Otto, an attorney representing the former Molina employees, claims that about 200 visa-holding workers have been brought into the company. More than a dozen of the plaintiffs, who met with computer world last month, said Molina was at one time a great place for IT professionals. "There was a feeling of camaraderie" among Molina workers and its few contractors, Shok said.
Around 2007, though, most of the workers' immediate IT managers were fired or laid off while the number of contractors increased. The Molina employees said they were asked to train Cognizant workers and told that their role would shift to new development. However, the workers said, the corporate culture changed for the worse as contractors were added.
"There was a point where I felt we were just being written off," said David de Hilster, one of the laid-off IT workers. In the weeks leading up to the layoff, the training process became increasingly "urgent," he added.
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