Oops.
My ex-employer seems to be involved in a bit of a scandal over their new relationship with the State of Minnesota. Apparently, people here don’t like the fact that the state contracted a company that runs a code sweatshop in India. Please note that it used to be an excellent company. Also, please note that I lost my job because Samuel, my Indian counterpart, gets paid $12,000 a year. One of their execs stated that they signed the State of MN contract over a year ago, when things were different and they had real live American employees such as myself. This is bullshit, because had they signed that contract then, I wouldn’t have lost my job at all. I hate that this issue is twisted, and that the right-wing argues that we are doing second- and third-world countries a favor with this kind of globalization. Maybe it’s a way for them to shrug off the guilt of racism. I don’t know. All I know is that the motivation of companies like SSI is as un-altruistic as it gets: the goal is to maximize profits at the workers’ expense. And if you don’t agree that a corporation’s goal is to keep that gap between rich and poor just as wide as it possibly can, then you are wrong. Jenni