Iowa governor issues statement amid job fears: ‘Hiring H-1B visa holders was never considered during our negotiations’
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has caused major disruption when she announced that Iowa will be migrating its executive branch data from an outdated IT system to a modern system powered by Amazon Web Services, and that day-to-day IT operations will be managed by Cognizant Government Solutions. On June 9, government workers were notified that their positions would be terminated, causing huge fear among them. But Reynold’s office said laid-off workers will receive “personalized competitive job offers” from Cognizant later this month.“Part of the state’s negotiations with Cognizant Government Solutions is to guarantee equal or better employment opportunities for the approximately 200 state employees who currently provide IT services that Cognizant Government Solutions will manage,” Reynolds said in a June 10 statement. “This ensures continuity and consistency for the IT workforce that provides services to state government and the state agencies that rely on them.“But workers are in the dark because they have no idea about their future employment status. All they knew was that they might receive a job offer from Cognizant, but they had no idea what the nature of the job would be.
Layoff email from department, explanation from Cognizant
The workers received an email from the department, which stated: “Due to organizational restructuring, the Management Department needs to lay off staff, and a layoff plan has been formulated and approved in accordance with the regulations of the Department of Administrative Affairs.”Then they received an email from Cognizant explaining the company’s employee hiring process. The message included a timeline for employees to sign a contract agreeing to provide employment information to the company if they wanted to receive an offer. The deadline for employees to sign contracts is Friday, June 12, three days after receiving notice of termination. Employees were told they would receive offer letters outlining the job description, salary and benefits between June 15 and 25, with a start date of August 4. They have until July 10 to accept the offer.
No H-1B visa holders
Reynolds once again issued a statement saying that no outsiders would be involved. “The State of Iowa and @Cognizant have been fully committed from the beginning to hiring an Iowa workforce throughout our partnership. At no time during our negotiations was the hiring of H-1B visa holders considered. Iowa’s day-to-day IT operations will continue to be supported by the State of Iowa, supporting the state of Iowa, as they are now,” she said.
