Flippant I am not, so bear with me. I ask this question seeking a genuine and honest answer. Should American companies hire Americans? Should Australian companies hire Australians? Do you really need to hire people from your own country? Sadly I should not even need to ask this question, but we live in an age of greed that we should explore the possibilities.
Royal Bank of Canada is laying off some of their IT staff here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in order to outsource their IT operations to India. They obviously feel that they have no obligation to hire fellow Canadians to do the work to serve fellow Canadians.
It goes without saying that the asses at Royal Bank and other companies do not seem to understand that without employment Canadians spend less, invest less and in general are worse off. When this happens, all companies, including the Royal Bank, will suffer. Does not the Royal Bank care about the overall wellbeing of Canada? It seems apparently not.
Like all the large banks, RBC’s PR department seems to believe that soothing words will hide the stark reality that they are shipping jobs that can and should be done here in Canada to overseas. Do they think they are smarter than their clientele? It is certainly easy to see through the deceit that is RBC.
Before capitalism is morality. Even if RBC is legally allowed to ship good Canadian jobs to India does it feel morally right to do so? If they feel morally right to do this then I want nothing to do with RBC. To deal with a company that will not do their best for Canadians is a company I can do without.
Canada should vote with their cash. I would never do business with RBC until they change their flippant attitude to Canadians. RBC should solicit business primarily in India if they want to ship jobs there.
RBC job outsourcing scandal has enraged Canadians: Mallick
Very well said!
I actually was compelled to write an email to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and I’m trying to blast it out to as many news media outlets as possible.
My blog post with letter to PM is posted here: http://blog.daddybentlegs.com/2013/05/06/my-email-to-stephen-harper.aspx
[Don: Hi Neil, and thanks for stopping by. I was so angry that I had to wait 4 weeks before I calmed down enough to reduce the derogatory remarks that swirled in my head. This situation, and the government behind it must stop and take notice of the unemployed and underemployed.]
I took the liberty of tweeting your post. I will not stop until the day comes (hopefully) that RBC CEO Gordon Nixon is sufficiently embarrassed and forced to admit fault.
When is a business not a business? When does a business require loyalty to the location in which it is located?
Don’t get me wrong, I am for Canadians getting jobs in their own country but sometimes I feel that it is just a choice neither good or bad. Why does a business need loyalty to where its situated, or the market it is serving? If they can pass on savings to their customers because of lower costs, isn’t that good? Do you buy domestic products because it’s good for our economy or do you buy based on quality vs price? Why are the Toronto Maple Leafs a Canadian, or even Torontarian team? Many of them are not even Canadian. They just happen to be located in Toronto, and none of the players have any real loyalty to Toronto, they are loyal to their paychecks. Why do people call professional athletes traitors when they go to another team? They do not swear fealty to the city when they sign their contract.
Isn’t business based on supply and demand? I’ve always been against certain minority quotas for companies. I know there is some good intention with battling prejudice, but what if the company HR and culture is not prejudiced? Then you are creating inequalty essentially by saying “you’re not as good as the next candidate, but we have a quota so we are going to hire you because you are Chinese.” Similarly, isn’t that being prejudiced against other citizens just because they don’t live here? A company is here to make money, not to improve the economy of the nation.
I spoke with an American on sending relief to other countries. She was against this. She said that Americans should take care of themselves before sending out aid. Makes some sense. But that is also very discriminatory. As a human race we should all be looking out for each other, if there are 10 million people in India who need jobs, why can’t a Canadian company hire them? Because there’s 10 million Canadians who need jobs but want to get paid more? Like I said, the company has no reason or obligation, they also pay their taxes to Canada, they are not free-loading.
I suppose the crux is, why do you think companies that start off and serve Canada, have any obligation to hire canadians in the first place? Sure it would be nice, but where does the obligation come from? Where does this morality come from and how does it come into play? Morality is about good versus evil. How is it evil to hire workers from India? I would agree only if the reason was to avoid a certain tax, or because in some way it was taking advantage of these workers, etc. I do not know the details of that but I am going to guess it’s not an IT sweatshop.