How can we fight back against Infosys, TCS and other Indian consultancies?

[JamesBrown11]

By his reckoning, your standard TCS bod is now an ex-call centre person googling their way through your code.

You will be lucky to get a call centre drone. Most of the work in Infosys/TCS et al is "done" by students straight out of college or uni. Basically the cheapest, zero experience yet highly pressured individuals who find TCS job offers posted on school walls where the only requirement is proficiency in copy-pasting random blocks of code to create an illusion of progress.

[WTFH]

You will be lucky to get a call centre drone. Most of the work in Infosys/TCS et al is "done" by students straight out of college or uni. Basically the cheapest, zero experience yet highly pressured individuals who find TCS job offers posted on school walls where the only requirement is proficiency in copy-pasting random blocks of code to create an illusion of progress.

In your opinion.

I've worked with some that are a better than many British "contractors".
I've worked with a few who match your description, but generally I then request that they get taken off projects I'm on.

[BlasterBates]

In your opinion.

I've worked with some that are a better than many British "contractors".
I've worked with a few who match your description, but generally I then request that they get taken off projects I'm on.

Sounds better than Accenture who also man their projects with graduates straight out of Uni and charge eye-watering rates.

[LondonManc]

Sounds better than Accenture who also man their projects with graduates straight out of Uni and charge eye-watering rates.

Accenture and others use a different sales pitch. I'll not say where but the team is generally made up of a principal consultant, two seniors, two general and as many junior/grads as they can get away with.

The PC's job is to find/create other problems within the firm to which another Accenture project is the answer.
The 2x seniors job is to spec out the project for everyone else to do, with the grads/juniors generally trying not to cock up putting together Powerpoint presentations.

In effect you've got a team of four and a number of drones cut and pasting their work into slides.

How they sell it to the manager is even better; "tell senior management that if you couldn't get the project to work with us, you'd have had no chance without us." Frightening.

All allegedly true.

[jayn200]

2 weeks ago applied for this contract role, perfect match even including desirables. Agreed to half the market rate and 5 days on-site. Stage 1 went extremely well. Had high hopes for this one. Then a week of silence and today I got this:

"Apologies for the late answer. Unfortunately, we have received information from XXXXXX that they have decided to offshore this role to their hub in India due to budget reasons. Thanks for your time and interest in this role."

Suddenly I don't feel sorry for 1.1 million Covid cases in India. If the number rises to 100 mil I still won't have a problem with that.

You're being too short sighted. In the long term this is good for local contract market. It will end up meaning twice as much local resources fixing their work or working around it in the future.

[Naruto1]

It is much worse in the US. The US have an A1 visa used by Indian IT workers afaik.

[Andy2]

It is much worse in the US. The US have an A1 visa used by Indian IT workers afaik.

No , its H1B visa and Trump has clamped down on it

[webbym]

No , its H1B visa and Trump has clamped down on it

And he's banned GOV.US agencies hiring H1Bs as Contractors or Subcontractors, something GOV.UK needs to follow up on too

[SueEllen]

And he's banned GOV.US agencies hiring H1Bs as Contractors or Subcontractors, something GOV.UK needs to follow up on too

What? This openly corrupt Tory government? Who is the chancellor married to again.....

[pacontracting]

On the top-side, the government is ultimately acting against us by forcing the majority us into PAYE / Inside IR35.

This is a verbatim government response to the recent House of Lords questions about the Finance Bill.

"In addition, the recent Queen’s Speech committed to bring forward an Employment Bill to promote
fairness in the workplace. The Government will continue to work across departments on these issues
and will respond to the 2018 employment status consultation in due course. Given the complexity
and importance of labour market policy, it is clear that careful deliberation is essential before
considering any future reforms. However, the unfairness of contractors paying less tax than
employees when their engagement meets the test of an employment relationship, and the resulting
loss of revenue needed for important public services, is a long-standing problem that the
Government cannot delay addressing any further."*

Essentially, what the government has done (and this is rampant in the banking sector), is to remove IR35 from the equation, via the back door. Nearly all banks / financial sector orgs won't even engage with Ltd Co Contractors, and insist on a PAYE structure via an umbrella. This means the org doesn't have to assess IR35 and HMRC gets the relevant tax. The issue now, will change to employment rights of these contractors, as the market matures.

So certainly, in finance, Ltd Co Contractors have been banned.

COVID now causes something else; those contractors who would turn down a PAYE contract, now find themselves in financial hardship after such a long period of no work and so have no choice but to accept a permie role or a PAYE/umbrella role.

Next steps, I think, is that people will either start bailing as soon as one bank/co starts assessing IR35, in a bid to get the best talent, which will have a knock on effect and force other banks to assess if they want to keep their contractors, or Ltd Co contracting in the finance sector will be banned via the back door.

Having been a Ltd Co contractor, for a number of years, this fact has allowed me to survive the COVID crisis relatively intact due to the fact I am able to build up a warchest for unknown situations like this. Permies that I know have generally kept their jobs but anyone who was unfortunate enough to have been an Umbrella worker has been especially hard hit with the furlough debacle not helping.