Posted on 11/02/2014 6:21:22 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
A year-long investigation by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) raises questions about a well-known visa program setup to recruit foreign workers to the US: Is it indentured servitude in the high tech age? Or is it a necessary business model to compete in a quickly changing high tech economy? NBC Bay Area and CIR’s team discovered an organized system that supplies cheap labor made up of highly-educated and highly-skilled foreign workers who come to the US via H-1B visas.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcbayarea.com ...
It’s not really a secret.
Uhhhhhhh...by definition, doesn't the bringing of a foreign worker here negatively affect the employment of a US worker?
Oh the horrors! The only way that America can right this wrong is to grant all these H1-B visa holders US citizenship! /sarc
"Wanted: expert in device physics. Ten years experience minimum. Should have five years of particle physics background and be skilled in VLSI design. MS required, PhD a plus. Starting pay $11.40/hr."
They were trying to demonstrate that they couldn't find a US citizen to fill this position.
They are using/abusing L1 and B1 visa. Lot of companies had hired people from India and other countries for this holiday season, they are paying less than minimum wages. Just yesterday, I was talking with someone, who came from India, not yet paid, whatever will be paid is way lower than entry level software engineer in Silicon Valley. Just check Extended Stay etc., where in one room 3+ people are staying. It is really sickening to hear horror stories. These are with Post Graduate degree and how easily get abused.
How it works - Kohls had given contract to some company, that company had sub contracted to some Indian Company, that Indian company had sub contracted to other companies in India. Every step companies are taking their own cut and people who are actually working are getting NILL, only free travel to USA. If they are smart they can stay over their Visa and can join Amnesty season.
This is what tech bigwigs Zuckerberg and Gates are actively supporting: more H-1b indentured servants.
Got that right.
Silicone Valley was built with the help of brilliant foreign PhD students from Stanford and Berkely who were hired to work like dogs for 3-5 years as de fact indentured servants to companies that sponsor them for US citizenship for half of what American Citizens were making, while they go through the citizenship process.
In fact, the high tech sweat shop to American citizenship become somewhat institutionalize and a rite of passage in the Valley just like tough medical residences are for top flight surgeons.
After a few years, their indentured servitude is over and most go on to much bigger and better things like making mega bucks and starting their own high tech start ups or venture capitol companies.
Large segments of Silicone Valley economy are owned and managed by successive generations of highly educated foreign immigrants from Stanford and Berkley who were originally hired as exploited Green Card Indentured Slaves and worked their way up to the top where they become ruthless Green Card Slavers exploiters perpetuating the system.
Over all it's usually a major win - win for all involved and even more of major win for the United States.
I agree with you that to Americans in the Information Technology and engineering fields, it is not a secret. H1-B has driven many American companies out of business and cost many American’s good paying jobs. American’s cannot compete against the slave labor that is coming from India. Lot of people do not know how H1-B is being used as a modern slave trade though.
I have talked about H1-B a number of times here on FR. It has been abused beyond belief. Before a company can hire a H1-B employee, they are supposed to prove that they have made a strong and reasonable attempt to hire an American. They can then hire an H1-B, but it is supposed to be at the prevailing wage rate that an American would be paid for the same job. An indian software engineer is usually making minimum wage that would pay an American $45/hour and up.
DNC, RNC, Zukerberg, Chamber of Commerce, Silicon Valley outraged at government interference
Gorvernment Wrong to Interfere In Free Enterprise
"Well, the labor was free, that's what we meant," said one Silicon executive reached aboard his widebody private jet.
I’ve used up all the care quotas for foriegners. They over stay their welcome. They commit crimes. They put US workers out of jobs. They bring down our schools. They end up being the gimme crowd. They make demands on our country’s values and demand our laws be changed to benefit them. No, sorry, if they don’t like it, they’re free to go back from where they came.
Technocoolies
That must be high in the top 10 of worst kept secrets of all time.
Ha, not at all, and it wasn’t new at a place I worked 20 years ago either.
The pretense of the H1B visa program is to bring in foreigners only after they’ve exhausted all possibilities for hiring domestic engineers, because of a “special skill” or somesuch. In practice, they are simply cheap replacements, enabled via a carefully written list of qualifications that nobody could really have being the rule not the exception.
I would like to know where they get the “highly educated and skilled” from. I’d say that 5% of the foreign IT workers I’ve seen can be described that way, the rest are basically hangers on/cannon fodder/warm bodies.
“This is what tech bigwigs Zuckerberg and Gates are actively supporting: more H-1b indentured servants.”
Why do the Republicans always get associated with slavery? And Silicon Valley companies were also involved in wage-fixing. This is a fact. If “Fat Cat Conservatives” were caught like they were, there would be riots that no number of National Guardsmen would be able to control.
Also, it drives me nuts that Europeans look at us with disdain over slavery in our increasingly distant past. Europe effectively had “indentured servitude” well into the 20th century - oh, it was very genteel, but you could be sure that with class structure the way it was, you could never make enough money to own anything, and even if you had it, nothing would be available for you to be bought.
Tech type employers were doing that 3 decades ago.
I worked for such a company in the early 1980s. They hired in a Brit to work in the same department I was in. They paid him less than a clerk was making, because the salary they offered sounded ‘good’ at the time to Europeans wanting to migrate to the USA for work.
The guy had 2 PhD’s in engineering fields, had numerous mechanical patents, served in high level positions in both the US and British Air Forces.
It was a travesty to find out how little the company was paying him. His salary did improve to a more liveable wage, but it took him going to a competing company to start earning a salary comparable with his qualifications and background.
This is not just a Silicon Valley phenomenon. It is extensive throughout several high-wage sectors of the economy including healthcare practitioners and university faculty. The salary paid to the import professional can be greatly lower than the relative salary paid to that professional only 20 years ago. One big reason is that you can hire someone with a need for a visa and pay them far less than a US citizen. Many university human resources departments have people who specialize in visa paperwork, for just this purpose.
The client has to choose - hire an American who expects to be paid overtime, or one of these guys. Decisions, decisions.
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