The Programmers Guild

Protest Carly Fiorina - Sacramento 2004 Protesting HP CEO Carly Fiorina in Sacramento - April 29, 2004

On April 29th Natasha Humphries of TechsUnite and Kim Berry, President of Programmers Guild, protested and handed out flyers to attendees who paid $85 to hear Carly Fiorina speak. Natasha's son "Boss" handed out about 200 flyers, and Kim handed out another 100.

According to Sacramento Business Journal, Carly denied that HP is offshoring tech jobs to India and China in order to cut costs. After warning that the real worry is that China is generating millions of engineers, she advises U.S. college students to study "music, art, and history" in addition to math and science.

NOTE CARLY'S NONSEQUITUR She also chided the press for reporting that the offshoring of technology jobs from the United States to countries such as India and China is meant to help tech companies cut costs.

"That isn't it," she said. "China is generating millions of engineers. That's what we need to worry about."

As documented in the December 2002 Forbes: The New HP Way: World's Cheapest Consultants - Carly is lying - HP's prime directive in moving "everything we can offshore" is to cut costs:

"We're trying to move everything we can offshore." - HP Services chief Ann Livermore ... HP figures a good high-end programmer in India costs about $20,000 a year, about a quarter the U.S. cost. And things could get even cheaper. "We see China gaining on India about three or four years from now."

The Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce told us that we were supposed to have a permit and that we needed to stay on the public sidewalk - even though I had a ticket for the event. When they told me that I could not distribute my flyers during the "networking" session, I suggested they refund my ticket, which they did. It's disturbing that the Chamber suppresses the truth while giving Carly a platform to lie.

The Sacramento Bee affirms Carly's deception: "But she also warned that tech jobs are going overseas, not because of lower wages but because of skilled workers." This belies that HP is forcing U.S. workers to train foreign workers - and then laying off the skilled Americans; This belies that HP has not run a help wanted ad in the Sacramento Bee for years; This belies that HP can hire foreign workers on H-1B visas from China - without even considering qualified Americans.

SEE ALSO: Scams, Lies, Deceit, and Offshoring (John Dvorak, PC Magazine)

BTW I was first in this auditorium around 1968 when my grandmother took me to see Captain Kangaroo live. (My mother corrected me. She was pregnant with me at her Sacramento High School graduation celebration.)