Standard & Poor's; is Their Standard to Make Us Poor?

Standard & Poor's Management says final decision has not been made to outsource

The number of potential companies has been reduced to two; actions may speak louder than words

The New York Newspaper Guild met with management recently in a Partnership Committee meeting with Standard & Poor’s management to discuss the potential outsourcing of approximately 46 Guild represented jobs within Finance and Accounting as part of a McGraw-Hill outsourcing plan that could include sending thousands of McGraw-Hill jobs overseas..

Vice President of Finance Michael Twamley and Director of Human Resources Mike McGlynn did go on record to say a decision has not yet been made, but they also noted the list of prospective outsourcing companies had been narrowed to two, making it sound as if it’s not a question of if it will happen, but when it will happen.

McGlynn said, "A lot of this is new to us.” We found this statement especially confusing since we were just told the company has been doing this since as far back as 2006!

In fact, Twamley told us McGraw-Hill has more employees working in India than it does in the United States.

Twamley was quick to point out the benefits of outsourcing and described his recent trip to India and actually said, "It's so well organized, there's thousands of people on a giant open floor and they are bussed in from their homes to work and back again, almost like a ‘people factory.’” He also went on to say, "A lot of these people are really very nice, you would actually like them!"

Really?

We guess being "nice" entitles these people to our jobs?

This thoughtless attitude further illustrates a lack of compassion and is a stark reminder that in the company's eyes, profit is MUCH more important then people. If the company were in trouble financially, maybe we could understand, but the company just had the second best year in the its history.

Corporate greed? 

Our goal at these meetings is to attempt to dissuade management from going ahead with the outsourcing or potentially offer possible alternatives to it. Management told us that the total salaries of those who would lose jobs if the plan goes through amounts to approximately $3.5 million and the “fringe expense” on top of that amounts to approximately $1.3 million, making a total of roughly $4.8 million. 

Management representatives didn’t have a cost for the outsourcing, however, which they said they would provide at a later date.

The union set up a meeting for all Guild members at S&P Wednesday at 1 p.m. in the Riverview Room at Standard & Poor's headquarters to discuss the situation. 

 Guild represented employees protested the outsourcing last week at the 55 Water Street Standard & Poor's offices.

Newspaper Guild CWA 31003 represented Standard & Poor's employees

DC 37, AFSCME Local 1455 members, with Local President, Michael Demarco, joined Guild members at the S&P protest.”