Posted on 04/14/2016 6:58:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The H-1B visa program was designed to encourage highly skilled foreign workers to put down roots in the U.S. and spur innovation. However, many IT firms are twisting the intent of the program, and using it to hire inexperienced workers at lower pay. Here are five highly publicized instances of H-1B visa abuse.
Companies claim there just aren't enough highly skilled IT workers in the U.S. to fill the number of available tech jobs. Perhaps what they really mean is that there aren't enough highly skilled U.S. IT workers willing to work for lower wages and zero benefits. While there is a skills gap, it doesn't explain why some companies are using the H-1B visa program to hire inexperienced foreign workers at lower pay to replace currently employed citizens. Here are the five most highly publicized instances of H-1B visa program abuse.
1. Southern California Edison/ Los Angeles
Beginning in August 2014, Southern California Edison began replacing approximately 400 IT employees with a smaller, lower-paid workforce brought in from overseas through the H-1B program, according to Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau, who has reported extensively on this issue. The original employees, who were forced to train their replacements as well as sign nondisclosure agreements and gag orders, were making an average of about $110,000 a year. The replacements were brought to Southern California Edison by outsourcing firms Infosys and Tata, and were paid an average of between $65,000 and $75,000, according to depositions in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing spurred by complaints about the practice.
2. Disney (well, sort of)
The happiest place on earth made headlines when it announced in October 2014 it was laying off many of its IT workers and replacing them with outsourced talent. The firm attempted to spin the move as a "restructuring" that would increase innovation and allow U.S. workers easier access to management and leadership positions. As in the case of Southern California Edison, Disney IT employees also were responsible for training their replacements. Perhaps because of the headlines and the public outcry surrounding the, uh, 'restructuring,' Disney announced in June 2015 it was rescinding the layoffs and canceling its plans to outsource those jobs.
3. Pfizer Connecticut R&D
In 2008, workers at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's New London and Groton (Connecticut) research and development campus raised the alarm: They were being replaced by Indian workers on H-1B visas and forced to train their replacements. Those outsourced workers were scheduled to return to India, where they will run the same systems as their U.S. counterparts, albeit at a cheaper rate and with diminished benefits. The move was part of an outsourcing agreement signed in 2005 between Pfizer, Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services.
4. Molina Healthcare
In 2010, Molina Healthcare announced it was laying off much of its staff. The announcement took place on the same day the U.S. government approved forty H-1B visa applications for the company; a lawsuit and legal battle ensued. The suit alleged that the fired employees, all of whom were U.S. citizens or green card holders, were fired as a cost-cutting measure so they could be replaced by cheaper, less-experienced foreign workers, according to the Boston Globe. The fired Molina employees were earning an average of $75,000 a year, plus benefits; the new workers, brought over to work on H-1B visas, earned $50,000, with no benefits.
5. Infosys and Tata
Noticed a pattern, yet? The same large outsourcing firms keep cropping up in relation to these scandals. As Ron Hira, an Economic Policy Institute research associate and an associate professor of public policy at Howard University outlines in this blog for the Economic Policy Institute:
"These two India-based IT firms specialize in outsourcing and offshoring, are major publicly traded companies with a combined market value of about $115 billion, and are the top two H-1B employers in the United States. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, Infosys ranked first with 6,269 H-1B petitions approved by the government, and Tata ranked second with 6,193 … these leading offshore outsourcing firms use the H-1B program to replace American workers and to facilitate the offshoring of American jobs … they don't use the H-1B visa as a way to alleviate a shortage of STEM-educated U.S. workers; they use it primarily to cut labor costs."
Exactly......jerk Jeh sure wishes he hadn/t put it in writing.
Best way to kill H1-B visas is to require that they be paid 1.5 times the company’s average equivalent position salary.
RE: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) today presented an amendment to the Gang of Eight immigration bill that would improve our nation’s legal immigration system by increasing high-skilled temporary worker visas, called H-1B visas, by 500 percent.
__________________________
In more RECENT NEWS:
In order to protect our national security and serve American workers, Cruz will suspend and audit H-1B visas and halt any increase in legal immigration so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high.
SOURCE:
https://www.tedcruz.org/issues/secure-the-border/
RE: See, there are good reasons why Ted Cruz wants a 500% increase in the number of such Visas.
___________________________
In more RECENT NEWS:
In order to protect our national security and serve American workers, Cruz will suspend and audit H-1B visas and halt any increase in legal immigration so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high.
SOURCE:
https://www.tedcruz.org/issues/secure-the-border/
Ah, the tales of the two Teds...First he say H1B’s increase jobs for Americans. Then he says he’ll suspend them as long as unemployment is high.
What a crock he is.
Lost my job of 16 years to mexico. Now it’s nothing but fo-ruiners at any job site I go to. India, Pakistan, Chinese, Mexicans, Asians and all of them think that making 40 percent less than what I made doing the same job 10 years ago is perfectly acceptable. Most are supporting the huge family they bring over here from their countries. HR is a nightmare. Most of them don’t like Blacks and most don’t like each other. Most take off because of some strange holiday from their own countries, but get pissed when you take off for Thanksgiving, Good Friday or Easter.
Exactly. If they are so necessary skill wise the extra premium will be negligible to the company's bottom line.
I've also thought that there is a class action suit here somewhere. In effect they are replacing older workers for younger workers. Amounts to age discrimination. I know that most people sign away their rights to get severance. But given how many companies are doing this you would think someone would have lawyered up and stuck it to these companies.
Also many companies are outsourcing some of their operations to third party companies. Subaru outsourced their packaging “department” to a third party. Nothing but temps at 9 dollars an hour. Fed Ex does the same. Very few actual employees but tons of temp agencies doing the work.
RE: Ah, the tales of the two Teds...First he say H1B’s increase jobs for Americans.
Well what to say, Trump isn’t any different.
He was for abortion, now he’s pro-life
Trump supported the assault-weapon ban in 2000. He opposes restrictions now.
In 1999 and 2000, Trump expressed a staunch desire for the US to adopt universal healthcare. He calls this an entitlement. Now he says something different.
Trump has a long history with Hillary Clinton, donating to her campaigns in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007, as well as donating a six-digit sum to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton even attended Trump’s 2005 wedding, and Trump once called her a “fantastic Senator.” Now he’s against her.
In 2002 he was in he was in favor of the Iraq war. Now h tells us that Bush LIED to get us into the war.
Donald Trump declared in February that “torture works” and that he would “bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” The next day, Trump walked back his comments.
“I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities,” Trump said in a statement that also acknowledged that the U.S. “is bound by laws and treaties.”
The day after that, Trump again changed his answer again.
“We’re going to stay within the laws. But you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to have those laws broadened because we’re playing with two sets of rules: their rules and our rules,” Trump said pointing to ISIS’s tactics.
Which Trump will we see next?
Sure, right after he parts the Red Sea and leads Beck's Mormon pals out of Egypt.
RE: Sure, right after he parts the Red Sea and leads Beck’s Mormon pals out of Egypt.
Yep, and Trump is a devout Christian who is being harassed by the IRS.
Not us. I purposely shit-can all H1-B’s in the screening. My VP knows it, but HR does not.
It's worse than that. They're run by MBAs and Marketing types.
As opposed to the take of six Trumps? First he's for it, then against it, then for it, then kind of against it, then sort of for it, then...
Why hire one competent American when you can hire 4 incompetent route memory Indians from India who can do 1.5 times the work...
At some point I may just finish paying off my house and go on the “dole” because seriously, why play by the rules of the rules keep getting yourself screwed over...
You should go in the dole you should go on the dole and then work under the table, possibly outsourcing to China or even India. That would be rich!
Sure Trump may have stands we are not too happy about but as a businessman I would expect nothing less of him.
People thought Ronald Reagan, a movie and TV actor would never be a successful president, and look how well he did. So why not a successful businessman like Donald Trump.
The first sentence is crap.
The H-1B program was designed to help businesses overcome temporary shortfalls in the availability of highly skilled resources.
Why does this CIO think that a "temporary" visa was designed to "put down roots in the U.S.?"
-PJ
Right, that sentence is a complete lie. H-1B’s are specifically prohibited from putting down roots in the U.S.
RE: Trump is NOT a US Senator making AND passing new laws causing workers (like his own constituents) to lose jobs.
The moment you enter Politics, you ARE a politician.
And let’s not forget, Trump has not been very private about his policy statements ( he even considered running in the past as a candidate for the Reformed Party ).
Not only that, he DONATED lots of money to politicians. So, what he does with donations ultimately helps Senators/Congressmen/Mayors to pass/execute laws that affect us all.
Therefore, I hold him to the same standard as Ted Cruz and the others.
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