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Economy
H1B is a lie - the truth comes out
2015-02-20
New Data Show How Firms Like Infosys and Tata Abuse the H-1B Program

The principal reason that firms use H-1Bs to replace American workers is because H-1B nonimmigrant workers are much cheaper than locally recruited and hired U.S. workers. Tata and Infosys are getting a 36 to 41 percent savings on labor costs‐or saving about $40,000 to $45,000 per worker per year.
No mention made of H-1B's little sister, the young lady on the other end of the phone in Rawalpindi, assisting you with your flight to Omaha.
The proponents for H-1B expansion claim that the H-1B program is a stepping-stone to permanent immigration. But the vast majority of H-1B workers at Infosys and Tata never get on path to legal permanent residence (often referred to as getting a “green card”) and citizenship: In FY13, Infosys only sponsored seven H-1B workers for permanent residence, and Tata sponsored ZERO H-1B workers, while the U.S. government approved 12,432 H-1B visa petitions for these two companies alone. (See Table 2) In other words, the H-1B workers Infosys and Tata hire are being used as temporary, cheaper, disposable labor, not as a way to permanently introduce talent and innovation into the American labor market

If American workers are training their foreign replacements before they get laid off, then it is quite obvious that it’s the American trainers‐not the H-1B trainees‐who have the superior skills. Are H-1B workers being brought in because they have extensive formal training, like an advanced degree? The answer to that is a definitive no. The vast majority of Infosys and Tata’s imported H-1B workers hold no more than a Bachelor’s degree.

All of the evidence makes it abundantly clear that the H-1B visa is being used to displace U.S. workers employed in decent-paying middle class STEM jobs. U.S. immigration laws are supposed to protect U.S. workers from being displaced, and they grant the Secretary of Labor ample authority to investigate egregious abuses of the H-1B program like the one at SCE, which is why EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey has called on Sec. Perez to investigate. Thanks to the reporting by Computerworld and the L.A. Times, there is now clear and credible evidence to justify the Secretary’s attention in this case.
Posted by:OldSpook

#10  Southern California Edison IT workers 'beyond furious' over H-1B replacements.

The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill.

"Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said.
Posted by: mossomo   2015-02-20 23:34  

#9  The problem isnt that the H1B exists, its that it is being used not to get needed talent, but to displace US talent and force lower wages. And the way it does that is especially egregious: if an H1B gets fired, he is shopped back home. So he is virtually an indentured servant to the company that holds his visa: so they work them at lower wages, worse conditions and far more hours. The H1b becomes an indentured servant - not free to seek proper wages, and subject to the whims of his masters.

If the H1B were able to compete freely go between jobs, this wage cutting and other bullshittery would not be possible.

Thats why we should do away with the H1B completely. Either give them a green card (ending the employers ability to control the workers life), if we need them, or dont give them anything other than a temporary, non-renewable, 90 day work permit (enough to let a true expert or specialist in and get a problem on its way to being solved)
Posted by: OldSpook   2015-02-20 17:02  

#8  It is not cheaper to off-shore the work. Not in the long run or the entire life-cycle of a project.

Even importing them here isn't cheaper. Sure, they work for a lower rate, but take three times as long to complete anything. And, what does get completed has to be 'fixed' to work correctly.

Currently working at a company that sends work to India and gets crap back along with having an army of 'contractors' in-house turning the crap into lesser crap that the American developers then turn into workable applications. Damn stupid.
Posted by: Woozle Scourge of the Wee Folk4194   2015-02-20 14:25  

#7  There might be a law that says H1B workers have to be paid the same as citizens but I think we all know that's not going to happen. If anything the companies will end up paying everybody less. H1B workers and outsourcing are both excellent ways to discourage American kids from becoming programmers. They don't believe there will be any jobs for them so they don't even bother to study it in school. Then you have a nation of computer illiterate lawyers and various other types of English majors who think you can solve all of the world's problems by using DreamWeaver to set up a website. You get politicians who believe the vendors when they say it will cost half a billion dollars to implement healthcare.gov and then when the government pays the money the site still doesn't work.

The United States is the country where modern CPUs and operating systems were invented but these days all of the computers are manufactured in China and all of the support is handled by call centers in Bombay. We're just pissing it away.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2015-02-20 12:31  

#6  "Just pass a law equating salaries."

That is already part of the law. If H1-B's are being abused, then prosecute the abusers. The concept of importing highly skilled labor (as opposed to human offal) does not bother me. What is the alternative, after all? If you can't import the heads then you ship the work itself offshore.
Posted by: Vernal Prince of the Heathen Rus1608   2015-02-20 10:48  

#5  Of course it is. Why else are both parties so eager to keep importing slave labor?

Big Business loves it, therefore so does Washington.
Posted by: DarthVader   2015-02-20 10:18  

#4  Same story here, more or less. My company made digital maps for cars in teh days before it was universally accepted. Anyway they laid off all the cartographers and shipped everything to India. They got lower quality work (they don't have overpasses in India and there are other structural differences to road networks that caused confusion). Eventually the company was bought out and went away.

The real problem was management. The plan was to match the maps to photos (which could take a week per map) and then send the results to field teams to verify and add in addresses and no right turn type info. The field could do a map in a day. But impatient managers sent the maps out early because they had high paid field people sitting around waiting. The result was it took weeks to finish a map in the field and then weeks to align the results to the photos in the confusion afterwards. The managers of course blamed everyone but themselves and gave themselves raises and such. Really sad.

My boss, who came up with the plan initially, got me and one other cartographer to do one map the proper way. We finished it with no errors in incredible time, but nobody paid attention. It was just cheaper to offshore the work and figure how much worse could it all be after all?
Posted by: rjschwarz   2015-02-20 09:59  

#3  My employer keeps trying to use offshore labor to develop software -- the hourly cost is cheaper, and that's all the justification they need. These projects are universally failures -- the cash expended still remains unbelievable, there is no working software, and local employees have to clean up the mess. In one case one guy wrote a temporary solution in his spare time, accomplishing what a hundred or so Indians weren't able to do.

It's not (necessarily) that Indians aren't good workers or intelligent. The problems come from language and cultural differences, the time zone difference, and a different work ethic. Many times a task is allocated N "hours", and after N hours, the Indian developer says they're done and moves on -- working or not. A US developer knows that "hours" in this context are abstract, and that what matters is working software.

Plus there are "new" software development practices (just about 20 years old, but...) that don't seem to be making in-roads in Indian software mills. They appear to have a factory-worker mentality (do the time, perform the motions, job is done) versus a craftsman mentality (complete the task, do what needs to be done, satisfy the customer).
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2015-02-20 08:38  

#2  H-1B nonimmigrant workers are much cheaper than locally recruited and hired U.S. workers.

Well, if this is the whole of the problem, you can fix it very easily. Just pass a law equating salaries. Me, I'm skeptical.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2015-02-20 07:47  

#1  If we don't export the jobs we import serf labor, until the only paying jobs left are in government, and if you don't vote for the incumbents, you lose your government job.
Posted by: Glenmore   2015-02-20 07:24  

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