The article is mainly about the electronics sector. I am on an H1B visa and my pay is about 25% more than the average wage for my occupation and about 50% more than the prevailing wage. But then again, I'm a research scientist. I believe the large corporations do follow their standard hiring practices, at least the one I work for, but these guys from India probably never thought to make a counter offer for their proposed salaries. And they are probably right out of school so they would be offered wages with that experience level. That being said, there are some serious abuses in the electronics/software areas that are disgusting - both for the foreign worker and for the treatment of the American worker. As I noted earlier, I think one of the unintended effects is locking certain professions at an essentially entry level compensation structure. That’s not uncommon in unskilled and skilled trades. Clearly it’s a disincentive to education and innovation, note my next comment. My impression is that those issues weren’t addressed by government in the creation of the H1B program, that many of the "shortages" result from an unwillingness by employees to revert to entry level compensation, and that the real incentive is largely cost savings.
I see your point. For some employers, the H1B lets them treat employees like commodities. I can speak about my experiences from a Canadian perspective. Lots of us work in the U.S. under the TN visa. Then, if the employer likes our work and wnats to make us officially permanent employees, we must be switched to the H1B visa. The TN visa is strictly non-immigrant, but the H1B is dual purpose. It's both immigrant and non-immigrant. Once on the H1B, then a green card application can be submitted and our status can be adjusted to permanent resident while we are still working in the U.S. under the H1B visa. It's harder to mistreat a Canadian employee because we share the same language and culture and we are as aware of U.S. employment laws as Americans do. plus, we can get another TN visa readily if we need to change employers and go throught the whole thing again. Those things scare the heck out of the Indians stuck in cubicle farms because it is so foreign to them.
If you want real H1B reform, then limit the number of employees that can be hired by a given company so they cannot become H1B dependent. Or break it down by sector or professional requirements like the different EB classes for employment based green cards.