Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

When I saw the NYT headline, it seemed to suggest that the GM engineer was singled out precisely due to helping out in exposing the scandal. But when I read the article, it turns out he's just one out of 4,000 other engineers.

We could probably make many other scandalous headlines from the same group of people:

"GM lays off engineer who contributed to trade union organising his colleagues"

"GM lays off engineer who only two years earlier contributed to patent XXX which saved $$$ for the company"

"GM lays off engineer who was recovering from cancer and is now at risk of relapse"

"GM lays off engineer whose seven dependents are now facing an uncertain future"

This is not to belittle what Hemanth Kappanna did, but there are four thousand stories out of which one is now lifted up, even though what he did previously is, as far as we know, not at all connected to this position being terminated. Contribution of Kappanna and his colleagues was to first to WVU and then the world as a whole, not GM. So perhaps a job at GM shouldn't be his "reward"; something else should be.

But I hope that the NYT headline might help him with that.

I was a contractor at GM, and I had automated about 20% of the design Engineering work.(automation of 6 figure Engineering jobs)

I had working software until the company updated to Windows 10.

In the process of making it work again, me and thousands of others were let go.

My boss knew what I was working on, but couldn't/was afraid to stick their neck out.

The world isn't fair, but now I'm doing similar development at a competitor.

> now I'm doing similar development at a competitor.

this means your boss wasn't doing their job.

News organizations are masters at writing headlines that imply causality without actually stating it. See also: every single article about stock price changes. It’s basically high-brow clickbait.

My dad's company used the same strategy to get rid of their "undesirables". Quietly flag the naysayers, whistleblowers, or anyone who went against the grain, wait until a wider lay-off occurs, and then prioritize their departure.

Organizations have short memories, except when it comes to grudges.

Is there any evidence whatsoever that GM would have considered Hemanth Kappanna an "undesirable"?

As far as I know, they hired him after his participation in exposing the VW scandal. If this exposing is what made him "undesirable", why did they hire him in the first place?

I find it more believable that this is just the usual outcome of corporate restructuring, i.e. layoffs in units.

Except that in this case his life is being uprooted due to the power the company wields over his life.

Citizenship (or at least a green card) should be his reward.

My point was that the same is probably the case with many among these 4,000.

They all exposed that GM lied?

No, they didn't

Did GM lie?

I know some people did accuse GM of emission cheating, but haven't heard of any actual proof.

I believe the point here is some of these 4000 now have to entirely uproot their life by having to leave the country.

The part that makes it tragic is that these people have no chance of getting a green card in their lifetime and have to be at the mercy of corporations to maintain their temporary visa status simply due to their nationality, no matter how long they have been staying or working.

Getting laid off is an unfortunate reality that happens to people now and then. It becomes especially nerve-wracking when it is tied to your ability to reside in a place without having enough time to find alternate employment.

It sucks, but these people are not citizens in the country they work in, so I don't see how they have any kind of right to stay here. They're only here because the government here allowed it, for a while, with a temporary worker visa.

Now, it seems pretty obvious to me that these people are probably much more productive and better contributors to this country and its economy than most of our own natural-born citizens, but the fact that we're losing them means we're basically shooting ourselves in the foot. The US isn't the only country where skilled engineers can find good work; these people should be able to find good jobs in another country where they can get a better deal w.r.t. immigration. Germany seems like it's much more welcoming to highly-skilled immigrants, for instance.

I think this should be a cautionary tale to skilled immigrants.

I look at this from a different angle, and to me the U.S. seems very welcoming to highly-skilled immigrants. They are very well-paid from European point of view, not to mention others, and the society in general is used to absorbing immigrant workers.

Germany and other EU countries have expressed their welcoming attitude to immigrants in general ("Wir schaffen das"), often exaggerating the skills of people who actually had no relevant training or competence at all (plenty of quotes available for this). But the current discussion in EU about the recent immigration wave has turned into a blame game of "why does Eastern Europe not carry its share of the burden".

>I look at this from a different angle, and to me the U.S. seems very welcoming to highly-skilled immigrants.

That was before Trump was elected.

The implication from the title is that his role in the scandal is what lead to his layoff or that his role in the scandal should have saved him from being laid off.

Not the same thing.

Your headlines are indeed scandalous. While the one picked by the NYT correctly emphasizes that as part of the layoff plan, GM management decided that the department responsible for investigating emissions was not worth of funds.

When 4,000 people are laid off, it's much more than just this one department that is not worth of funds.

.

Sorry for typo, fixed.

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