Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements.

NY Times ^ | JUNE 3, 2015 | JULIA PRESTON

[Rockitz]

ORLANDO, Fla. — The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.

While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.

Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

....

Disney executives said that the layoffs were part of a reorganization, and that the company opened more positions than it eliminated.

But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them.

...

“The program has created a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers to substitute for Americans,” said Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University who studies visa programs and has testified before Congress about H-1B visas.

...

[Rockitz]

Any republican politician who rails against amnesty yet is pushing this H-1B crap while filling his campaign coffers with corporate cash is selling out American workers just the same.

[Rockitz]

Turns out Ted Cruz wants to raise the H-1B cap by 500%.

http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=137

[TexasGunLover]

Turns out Ted Cruz wants to raise the H-1B cap by 500%.

I'd rather see 500% increase of US students in STEM programs, but they're too busy with art history, social justice, and political science degrees. So, in lieu of that, raising the H-1B cap makes sense.

[b4its2late]

Good point. We’re turning out little socialists in college and high school these days.

[amihow]

You are so wrong.U.S. stem grads can’t get jobs. Don’t need H1b increase or the abuses by employers with them.

[bert]

Those that can STEM. Those that can’t vote Democrat

You assume that all or at least many can STEM when both intelligence and initiative are required for success.

a Baltimore street kid or a ditsy phone girl has neither

[Rockitz]

What part of H-1B applicants are replacing American workers don't you get? This is just as bad as Mexicans taking jobs and depressing wages of carpenters and gardeners.

Oh, the hypocrisy of some of you Cruz supporters.

[central_va]

I'd rather see 500% increase of US students in STEM programs, but they're too busy with art history, social justice, and political science degrees. So, in lieu of that, raising the H-1B cap makes sense.

If you remove H-1b visas, salaries will go up and students will again invest is a STEM education.

[TexasGunLover]

I don’t support Cruz at all. You can’t support an ineligible candidate. Those “displaced” workers will have jobs in a few hours if they have IT skills.

[Leaning Right]

raising the H-1B cap makes sense

I must respectfully disagree. Let the American market right any STEM shortage. If there is a shortage of such folks, their salaries will go up, and more folks will enter the field.

That's exactly what happened with nursing in recent years.

I don't know what Cruz is thinking about here, but a wild increase of H-1B's will just help destroy what's left of the American middle class.

[Paulie]

Training foreign workers to do the job you just lost. Wow - can’t get much more ‘in your face’ than that.

[KC_Conspirator]

Ah, more Obama economy bad news.

[XenaLee]

Additionally, more H-1B workers mean more jobs for American workers – according to a study by the American Enterprise Institute, for every additional 100 H-1B workers, 183 jobs are created for U.S. citizens.

Ok, how...exactly....does that happen, Ted? I want a detailed explanation. Not just a vague claim from a study done by some "institute". Where are these 183 jobs per H-1B worker being created? Show us. Cause I'm not seeing it.

[Ingtar]

The displaced are the older, more experienced IT workers. It is hard for us to find new work as the influx of foreign labor, who employers do not have to pay as much for due to government rules, fill many of the positions.

[KC_Conspirator]

It makes no sense at all, there are actually just flat out taking American jobs. I have been in the business 20 years; every time this happens its not because they can’t find people or one of the other oft used lies.

[MaxMax]

Which candidate is Against "Legal" immigration policies?

I really want to know the answer to that question.

[XenaLee]

I don't know what Cruz is thinking about here, but a wild increase of H-1B's will just help destroy what's left of the American middle class.

And in true Cloward-Piven style, as more and more American workers are forced onto unemployment, and then onto welfare due to the reality of "no jobs in America" for them. This is BS. When are Americans going to rise up and say enough???

[ConservingFreedom]

H-1B ping. Let me know if you're not on the list and want to be added (or are and want to be removed).

[Moonman62]

I’d rather see 500% increase of US students in STEM programs,

...

Why? There are already plenty of STEM graduates. The so called shortage is a lie. Corporations simply want foreign workers they can abuse.

[Political Junkie Too]

According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal loopholes, however, in practice, companies do not have to recruit American workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced.

H-1B visas were supposed to be about jobs looking for workers, not workers looking for jobs.

The original purported need was during the dot com boom, when web-based programming was all the fad and businesses didn't want to wait for trained-up internal employees to meet the need. They demanded H-1B visa workers who could come here and immediately be productive.

That demand has since passed, and programming skills are commodity now. Employers no longer have the excuses of an immediate unfulfilled need.

This Department of Labor PowerPoint presentation The Employment of Non-Immigrants on H-1B Visas clearly says that H-1B visas are not to be used to displace American workers.

The language is clear that a company has to make a good-faith effort to find similarly qualified American workers. In Disney's case, the qualified American workers were already on the job.

-PJ