Shy teenager

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:34:02 GMT, Clisby
wrote:



enigma wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in
news:GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08:


Can you please define what you mean by contract workers?
And can you please cite some references? I am curious about
this.


they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.
IOW, most M$ employees aren't actual employees of M$. they're
contract workers or temps, & therefore excluded from benefit
plans.


I don't know anything about the situation with Microsoft, but being a
contract employee doesn't preclude having benefits. I'm a contract IT
worker and I'm eligible for health insurance, disability insurance, and
a 401K plan - the benefits come from the contracting agency, not the
company I actually do the work for. If I were salaried instead of
hourly, I'd get paid sick leave and vacation. The previous contracting
company I worked for offered the same benefits.

Same with my dh. His benefits through the contracting company were
better than the company he is working at. His situation was temp to
perm, so he was hired at the company after one year as a contract
worker. It's not an uncommon situation at all.

Nan

enigma wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in
news:GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08:

Can you please define what you mean by contract workers?
And can you please cite some references? I am curious about
this.

they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.

I don't think any of that is particularly correct.
Yes, there was a class action lawsuit against Microsoft
by long-term temporary workers where it was determined
that the temporary workers were entitled to at least some
of the benefits. In addition, some boundaries were put
around the use of temporary workers. Now, temporary workers
may not be hired for more than a year, and there must be
a 100 day break before they can be hired again. It was never
the case that even a majority of Microsoft workers were
temps (the number involved in the class action suit
were a substantial fraction of Microsoft's workforce,
but they represented both current *and* former temps).
As of 2000, temporary workers constituted about 12 percent
of the workforce at Microsoft.
Also, speaking as someone who works as an independent
contractor, rules about who can be claimed as an independent
contractor or consultant have tightened up considerably.
Now, I have to provide all sorts of information to companies
so that they can document to the IRS that I'm not just an
employee masquerading as a consultant so they don't have to
pay benefits.
When it comes to retirement in general, it depends
on what you mean. If you mean just defined benefit plans, those
are on the decline all over the country. Only around 22 percent
of private sector workers have access to a defined benefit
retirement plan. However, 53 percent of private sector workers
have access to a defined contribution retirement plan (e.g.,
a 401k or 403b plan). That clearly includes far more than
just management, and recent changes in the law mean that
many part-time employees also have access to them. Now,
having access isn't the same as participating, and defined
contribution plans typically provide less security, particularly
for lower income workers, than defined benefit plans. Still,
it's not accurate to say that retirement plans in general
are reserved only for upper management, either at Microsoft
or in general. Actually, the laws are such that companies
(and executives) are penalized if there is too much of a
discrepancy between the participation of highly compensated
individuals and other employees. The average contribution
of highly compensated individuals cannot exceed the average
contribution of non-highly compensated individuals by more
than 2 percent, and the total can't exceed more than 2x the
total of non-highly compensated individuals (not including
the over-50 catchup contributions). Companies failing this
test have to give the money back to the highly compensated
employees as taxable income.
Is any of this perfect? Of course not. I'm just
arguing that I don't think your initial characterization is
entirely accurate.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Mar 13, 1:05 pm, enigma wrote:
"Jeff" wrote innews:GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08:

Can you please define what you mean by contract workers?
And can you please cite some references? I am curious about
this.

they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.
IOW, most M$ employees aren't actual employees of M$. they're
contract workers or temps, & therefore excluded from benefit
plans.

Source, please. MS did this at one point, but the practice was
challenged by the IRS. MS was forced to admit that these people were
employees, and to pay them benefits. See, eg,
http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/articles/3737.html

Frankly, its pretty darned hard to be an *independent contractor*
You've got to be able to set your own hours, use your own equipment,
work where you want, when you want, and not follow instructions.

Barbara

In article GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08, Jeff says...


"enigma" wrote in message
...
"Jeff" wrote in
news:VjoJh.1529$2%3.1432@trndny06:

Employees who are janitors and such may make a marginal
living. However, I think the vast majority of employees,
here in the US and abroad, make a living that is above the
mean and median income for their area. If any of the
employees have trouble making ends meet, I think it is
rarely because the means are not adequate. I am not saying
that employees can expect a life of luxury, however.

no, you don't understand. almost *all* the Microsoft
employees in the US are contract workers. that means they do
not get any benefits. they are paid salary, which means they
work more than 60 hours per week with no overtime pay, & their
job can be terminated at any time for any reason (like only
working 55 hours)
lee
--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson

That one's job can be terminated at any time for any reason is actually a
common thing. I think that is true of most software engineering types of
work. This is most likely true at Google, Yahoo and Sun, too. One of the
reasons why Google has otherwise good workiing conditions (doctors on site,
day care nearby, buses to work, lots of free food) is so that their workers
will work long hours.

Can you please define what you mean by contract workers? And can you please
cite some references? I am curious about this.

I'd like to see it too.


According to Microsft's 2006 Annual Report (on their website) there are
28,000 Research and Development employees around the world. Microsoft spent
about $6.5 billion on R&D, about $232,000. This probably includes about $80k
for average salary (my guess). Fringe benefits, stock options, etc.,
probably cost about $25,000. The rest of the cost includes the cost of the
buildings, electricity, recruiting, computers, etc.

You're correct about no overtime. But that's part of the deal. $80k a year,
but long hours. Personally, if I ever went to work for a company like
Microsoft, I would make it clear that I would be working from 0900-1700 or
whatever, but, that I would also expect a salary reflecting that those are
the hours I worked, not 0900 to 1300.

No overtime is the deal for just about any full-time professional salaried job.
In my state it's called "exempt".

Banty

In article , enigma says...

"Jeff" wrote in
news:GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08:

Can you please define what you mean by contract workers?
And can you please cite some references? I am curious about
this.

they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.

It's very common to have a *mix* of regular (permanent) employees and contract
employees.

Are you saying that MS has *only* contract employees, or 90% contract employees,
or what?

Banty

In article , Nan says...

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:34:02 GMT, Clisby
wrote:



enigma wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in
news:GJyJh.9088$S06.53@trndny08:


Can you please define what you mean by contract workers?
And can you please cite some references? I am curious about
this.


they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.
IOW, most M$ employees aren't actual employees of M$. they're
contract workers or temps, & therefore excluded from benefit
plans.


I don't know anything about the situation with Microsoft, but being a
contract employee doesn't preclude having benefits. I'm a contract IT
worker and I'm eligible for health insurance, disability insurance, and
a 401K plan - the benefits come from the contracting agency, not the
company I actually do the work for. If I were salaried instead of
hourly, I'd get paid sick leave and vacation. The previous contracting
company I worked for offered the same benefits.

Same with my dh. His benefits through the contracting company were
better than the company he is working at. His situation was temp to
perm, so he was hired at the company after one year as a contract
worker. It's not an uncommon situation at all.


Ditto the firm I'm working at. Contract workers have benefits via the company
they're contracting from, and often times are getting a foot in the door of the
company they're contracting to. (The Big Evul hardware counterpart to MS...)

Banty

You know, in general, I agree with you. If you were to say Dell, Nike,
Reebok, Ford or many other companies that have employees overseas or
outsource overseas, I would agree with you.

Although people in India and other countries where Microsoft has offices
get paid less, the buying power of the money the recieve and the standard
of living is probably similar to life here in the US.

I don't know about people who work for Microsoft in India, I suspect they do
ok, it's the Indians and other nationals that work for Microsoft in the US
that have the problems.

Bill Gates actually earns thousands less than any of his employees. In
fact, I think he is the lowest paid employee in the entire company. His
annual wage is $1. Of course, he makes up for it on company stock. Of
course, Bill Gates no longer runs the company. There has been a new CEO
for a few years. Bill Gates spends a lot of time on his charity.

true, but then the employees do not get particularly great stock options and
there is little benefit to having options if you don't have any spare money
to actually purchase them. He ends up doing a surprising amount of day to
day running, though he is supposed to be completely stepping down from that
in 2008.

Employees who are janitors and such may make a marginal living. However, I
think the vast majority of employees, here in the US and abroad, make a
living that is above the mean and median income for their area. If any of
the employees have trouble making ends meet, I think it is rarely because
the means are not adequate. I am not saying that employees can expect a
life of luxury, however.

I'm talking about educated employees, to get a visa to come from another
country, you have to have education and experience. They may make above the
mean and median for the area (but the area around Microsoft is affluent, so
possibly not), what is unfair is that they make less than a US national
doing the same job. The vasy majority of US nationals who work at microsoft
would be able to own there own home, within 10 miles of campus. Most non US
nationals live in rented apartments, when you dig deeper, they are either
being employed at a lower level than would have been attached to the job had
a US national been doing it, or being paid at the lowest amount possible
within the level.

In this particular case, I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't employ people
who aren't in the US. Microsoft sells software to just about every
country. I think it is only fair that he employees people in every
country. In addition, Microsoft probably has nice offices overseas. And
certainly Microsoft lifts the economies of the places where they employ
people, whether it is in Washington or Hyderabad or Ireland.

I agree, but I wasn't talking about those people and even in the developing
world, Microsoft employees out of the US probably do very well out of it.
I'm talking about those people that are flown into the US, given very little
information about life in the US, how much it costs to live in the US and so
on, then get here to find the simply because the cost of living is fairly
high in the area around Microsoft that they may well be worse off than
before and certainly worse off than if they had worked for Microsoft in
there home country.

I also rather suspect Bill Gates has no idea that this is even going on, it
seems to be at a middle management level that decisions about pay of new
employees are made.

Anne

Employees who are janitors and such may make a marginal
living. However, I think the vast majority of employees,
here in the US and abroad, make a living that is above the
mean and median income for their area. If any of the
employees have trouble making ends meet, I think it is
rarely because the means are not adequate. I am not saying
that employees can expect a life of luxury, however.

no, you don't understand. almost *all* the Microsoft
employees in the US are contract workers. that means they do
not get any benefits. they are paid salary, which means they
work more than 60 hours per week with no overtime pay, & their
job can be terminated at any time for any reason (like only
working 55 hours)

erm, where do you get that information from? Microsoft contracts out things
like cleaning, catering etc. which makes good business sense, some admin is
also contracted out. On the development side of things most employees are
not contracted, though of course some are when it makes sense because
project x needs more man power for y months. There are also numerous
employees who choose to be contracted employees. I haven't got an exact
figure, I'm not sure such is available, but DH and I tried to do an estimate
and on main campus we came up with about 8-10% being contract.

Anne

Anne

That one's job can be terminated at any time for any reason is actually a
common thing. I think that is true of most software engineering types of
work. This is most likely true at Google, Yahoo and Sun, too. One of the
reasons why Google has otherwise good workiing conditions (doctors on
site, day care nearby, buses to work, lots of free food) is so that their
workers will work long hours.

It's actually Washington state law that either side can terminate at a
moments notice.

You're correct about no overtime. But that's part of the deal. $80k a
year, but long hours. Personally, if I ever went to work for a company
like Microsoft, I would make it clear that I would be working from
0900-1700 or whatever, but, that I would also expect a salary reflecting
that those are the hours I worked, not 0900 to 1300.

I'd not expect overtime in most jobs at microsoft, for a secretary paid by
the hour, then maybe, but developers in any company do not get overtime, at
least in my experience they don't!

Anne

they're hired from an employment agency or are "independant
vendors", so that M$ doesn't have to pay benefits, like
healthcare. most workers at M$ do not have healthcare,
retirement (although i guess only upper management get that
sort of thing anymore anywhere), etc.
IOW, most M$ employees aren't actual employees of M$. they're
contract workers or temps, & therefore excluded from benefit
plans.

Whilst you are right that the are "independent vendors" they are not as
common as you seem to think and a good number of choose to be that way, so
they can work part time, from home, etc.

Microsoft worldwide has about 70,000 employees and they are genuine
employees, there may well be a good number of "non employees", but it's
certainly not going to shrink the percentage of true employees below 80%,
and it's probably higher than that.

Anne