SeaCode: Globalisation gone Local and 3 miles off-shore

international | anti-capitalism | other press

Friday May 06, 2005 00:28

by redjade

Just when ya thought the Neo-Cons and Neo-Liberals had run out of ideas...

But could it work off-shore from Ireland & the EU?

Probably better housing than what the GAMA workers get

Shipping Out U.S. Jobs -- to a Ship
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden2may02,1,4320743.column?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true
The public reaction was predictable when word first got out of SeaCode Inc.'s proposal to house 600 foreign software engineers on a cruise ship moored three miles off the California coast, thus undercutting U.S. wage rates and circumventing local labor rules.

[....]

The story is SeaCode's plan to help clients overcome the drawbacks of outsourcing sophisticated engineering work overseas. The chief benefit of offshoring — the low pay scales in India and elsewhere — often is offset by the cost of flying executives out to monitor progress, the time difference (you have to be awake at 10:30 p.m. in California to reach India at noon) and the doubtful security of intellectual property abroad.

When a mutual friend hooked up Green, a manager of corporate software projects, with David Cook, 42, a former tanker captain who had moved into the information technology business, their complementary skills suggested a way to bring low-cost offshore labor near to hand. (The mutual friend, Joe Conway, is SeaCode's third co-founder.)

For all the skepticism that has greeted this proposal, it hardly sounds like the launch of a slave ship. SeaCode says it will pay two to three times the going rate for foreign IT workers, which works out to as much as $24,000 for lower-level jobs and $60,000 for senior programmers. They'll work in two shifts of 12 hours each, spending four months on board and two months off, with flights home provided by contract. Assuming they're cleared by immigration authorities, they'll be able to take shore leave whenever they're off duty.

[....]

The ship's location just outside the three-mile limit will exempt it from California labor and environmental regulations, but not international maritime labor rules or federal regulations forbidding the dumping of fuel, trash and sewage. Because the ship will be registered under the Bahamian flag or another foreign registry, the workers won't need H-1B visas, unlike foreign employees housed temporarily on U.S. territory. SeaCode's U.S. clients might consider that a plus because H-1Bs have become extremely scarce since 2003, when the government slashed the annual quota by more than half, to 85,000.

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SeaCode Website:
http://www.sea-code.com/

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SeaCode: Globalisation gone Local and 3 miles off-shore