16 ms·

Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

248 points by joshwa 10y ago

lifeisstillgood 10y ago
I'm not sure I get this - are the workers coming in to replace them actually in the USA physically? Are they staying in the USA physically? I mean is this offshoring / outsourcing or is it replacing with cheaper workers? Why can't the existing employees compete for the jobs? I mean WIPRO must have going through some pretty big pre sales workups, so who else was competing? I think what I mean is that doing this in secret implies that no one doing the actual job was ever consulted about the viability of outsourcing / replacing them / so you never get a real understanding of the costs or opportunities for improvement (essentially automating a bad process) In summary - any company that does this cheap shot is usually one that is going to get its ass handed to it by a better more automated competitor.
- x0x0 10y ago
  Abbott contracted with Wipro, who appears to be performing the work locally, though Wipro claims only 20% h1b labor. Abbott tried to reduce the role of foreigners in the layoffs. Only about 20 percent of the workers brought in by Wipro would be foreigners on H-1B visas, Mr. Stoffel said, while the rest would be American workers.
  - revelation 10y ago
    I thought the idea was 0% H-1B labor? You can't replace an American job with H-1B? The requirements seem very stringent in writing but apparently utterly useless and ineffective in practice, or clearly both executives for Abott and Wipro would be facing criminal prosecution. You should not be able to circumvent the restrictions by a single layer of contract work.
    - johndubchak 10y ago
      >> You can't replace an American job with H-1B? The goal of the system is to use the guest worker program to augment your current workers with talent that you are unable to find and staff here in the US. The requirement is not at 40 - 60% of the cost you pay your US employees, but in skills that you cannot find or fill with US domestic workers.
      - revelation 10y ago
        Then it seems like a clear violation when you have the old employees train the new ones.
      - niftich 10y ago
        These "scarce" skills and requirements are trivially gamed on a regular basis. Large numbers of positions that are eventually filled by H-1Bs don't, in truth, require skills and experience that you simply can't find domestically. Sure, every once in a while you need a nuclear engineer or some other domain expert in a very, very narrow domain, and you may have a genuine shortage of talent. But for general-purpose IT and commodity development, these skill are not in short supply domestically if you're willing to pay market salaries.
  - DrScump 10y ago
    I'm skeptical that there wouldn't be a single foreign Wipro staffer there on a different visa (e.g. L1).
- fizzbuzzwoof 10y ago
  I work for []. They've had various offshored positions for years, working as outside contractors. For the last several years, they've been opening foreign offices and hiring direct employees of the corporation. Last year across some US-based offices, they split the employees into three groups, each roughly 1/3 of the office. Group 1 had their last day of work that day. Group 2 was told that they'd be training their replacements for the next 3-12 months, with large bonuses (60% of their wages for the time) if they stayed as long as the company wanted. Group 3 still works there (except the smarter ones who have bailed). After* that day, they increased hiring in certain foreign countries known for having lower wages. I've been watching coworkers doing "Transfers Of Information" to the people replacing them. If we could live in my area on wages similar to what is reasonable in the foreign workers' hometowns, maybe we could compete for the positions.
yuhong 10y ago
I am not surprised that companies that are broken enough to do the outsourcing in the first place are also often broken enough to have this term in severance agreements. But it really should not be standard.
- x0x0 10y ago
  It's standard for lots of things. I had to sign such an agreement to stay through an acquisition.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    The point is that it should not be.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      I agree, I was merely sharing my experience.
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  Company lawyers think of maximizing the company's power and safety in every contract. If the clause is not illegal and improves that equation, it'll be standard. Morality notwithstanding.
- Hondor 10y ago
  Is it really broken to fight an artificial government imposed monopoly, which is what labor restrictions on foreigners is? This isn't something that's going to make the incumbents destitute. They're IT workers, eminently hire-able and highly paid. I'm sure they can cope with a pay cut unless they've been living beyond their means, which would get them in trouble no matter what their income.
kazinator 10y ago
> Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers. You can easily reveal the facts it in a totally non-critical way. At ABC Data, workers were encouraged to collaborate with management to come up with creative solutions to streamline processes and save costs. When I realized that ABC could save money by replacing me with an equally capable, yet much cheaper worker visiting the country on a temporary work permit, I immediately pitched this idea at the next big cross-departmental meeting. There was much resistance among management. They objected on the basis of the unique knowledge and skills that I bring to the team, and how we all "go way back" to the startup days. In the end they saw it my way and agreed to relocate my posterior to that outdoor concrete fixture which separates the road from the sidewalk or lawn. I was unfortunately not able to talk them out of the egregiously generous severance package, though even with that expenditure, ABC ends up ahead. ABC is a great company to invest in with terrific fundamentals and future prospects, and is led by a highly ethical team whose decisions are beyond reproach.
- tokensimian 10y ago
  IANAL but suspect disparagement is defined in such a way that a corporation's attorneys could prove this type of comment caused harm to the company, and thus meets the definition.
  - jeremyjh 10y ago
    Yes, it turns out judges are not robots who apply law like it is some kind of program. They are capable of reading between the lines.
lazaroclapp 10y ago
This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). On the other hand, a clause requiring that you never say something bad about your employer nor discuss the situation under which you were laid off seems not only abusive, but repugnantly so. In a country that constitutionally enshrines free speech, the ability to sign away for money your right to complain publicly about a person or organization seems particularly dangerous, and the act of asking someone to do so seems truly vile. [1] https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usnivl https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usni...
- eigenvector 10y ago
  > I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labour market artificially and depress salaries by replacing Americans with foreign workers who are tied to one employer and therefore unable to negotiate for a proper salary. The italicized portion is what we should find troubling, not merely that foreigners are moving to America to work. This results in a transfer of wealth from the working population to employers who no longer need to pay prevailing market wages.
  - frostmatthew 10y ago
    A lot of this would be solved (or at least greatly improved) if H-1Bs were awarded via auction rather than lottery.
    - newjersey 10y ago
sjclemmy 10y ago
Free market capitalism. You can't have it both ways.
- tremon 10y ago
  Then we should not have it at all.
  - cscurmudgeon 10y ago
    Tickets to Venezuela are pretty cheap nowadays.
- ap3 10y ago
  We don't have it
warcher 10y ago
Listen, there's no point claiming the H1 situation isn't a rampant clusterfuck. Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo while busloads of cheap, disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited and depress domestic wages. It's a full on disaster. If you have to have temporary worker visas, fine. But don't tie them to a company. If there's a legitimate need, and they're legitimately skilled, they'll find work, and they'll more than likely find work that pays comparably to a native worker (or they'll get poached, because good help is always hard to find).
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo ... good help is always hard to find Sounds contradictory.
  - arjie 10y ago
    Trivially non-contradictory. Consider a hypothetical situation in which all the good skilled workers are on visa statuses that do not permit work and have missed the H-1B lottery. Both things are then true.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      That would require that there are no local good skilled workers, so the argument they are being replaced doesn't hold.
      - arjie 10y ago
        The comment isn't talking about local workers. It is talking about (a) foreign workers who are skilled, (b) low-wage less-skilled foreign workers and how the H-1B fails to achieve its stated aim in two respects because it's easy for there to be unemployed (a) and employed (b). The comment contains no argument that local workers are being replaced.
        WalterBright 10y ago
johndubchak 10y ago
At this point, with both Corporate abuses from American corporations and the H1-B holding companies along with the frequency with which we've seen the more expensive American work replaced with a much cheaper "guest" worker, I believe we need to ask ourselves, do we not have enough surplus American workers that are unemployed such that the H1-B program might not be necessary for a year or two until we've managed to get the unemployed American workers back to work?
- udkl 10y ago
  From a cursory glance with my limited knowledge, that sounds like a very naive approach and one which will not pass a vote. The problem is that of lower skilled (not low skilled) but cheaper labour from the body shop consultancies mixed with higher skilled ones in the same H1B pool. As someone somewhere suggested, instead of a lottery, an auction of the seats would in a sense lead to lesser pay difference between the native and outsourced worker. This is just theory that needs to be given a deep though. The bottomline is that the H1B serves as a competitive advantage to the US. Software, now that it is eating the world, is a very important part of the economy... and the US needs to invest in giving it's corporation whatever advantages it can w.r.t technology. The consequence of stopping the H1B altogether would be a shortage of technical workers, leading to the rise in software expenses for companies and maybe resulting in the US & US corporation to lose their technical advantage & leading positions globally.
  - johndubchak 10y ago
    Perhaps it is naive however, I did not suggest stopping it altogether, the idea is to merely restore some balance back into a system that seems to have gotten out of balance. The auction is a good idea, but I fear it will somehow be twisted and abused as well.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  H1-B visas are for skilled workers. The unemployment rate for skilled American workers is very, very low.
- xenadu02 10y ago
triplesec 10y ago
Worth noting the headlines of the 'related coverage': Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants JAN 25, 2016; Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, Costing the U.S. Jobs NOV 10, 2015; Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary Foreign Workers to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas SEP 29, 2015; Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements. JUN 3, 2015
- udkl 10y ago
  The way I read it, the anti-H1B movement and awareness is gaining steam. It would be interesting the stance Hillary/Trump takes next year after being sworn in.
fiatmoney 10y ago
There is a simple solution, particularly in the context of congressional or other government investigations: subpoena them. Nondisparagement clauses don't & can't cover compelled testimony.
VladKovac 10y ago
Sorry, I don't feel bad for any of these people. Even the poorest Americans have better material conditions than a lot of Indian workers. Why do you think the Indian workers are willing to work for less?
- vthallam 10y ago
  While US has quite better conditions, India is not some messed up rogue state. Many come here for a obvious reason, Money. The currency exchange rate is 1 : 66 for USD : INR. So even with PPP into consideration, that's huge and so they work for way less.
  - VladKovac 10y ago
    I was just using the extreme example of the comparison of low-skilled workers in the two countries. Even in the opposite extreme I have no particular sympathy, in my mind it's analogous to one American programmer losing her job to another American programmer.
johngray0 10y ago
"Marco Peña was among about 150 technology workers who were laid off....." Going on a limb but guessing Mr.Peña might be of hispanic origin. Most talk about Trump has been tone, but little of substance. Sizzle vs steak, and all. My hunch is that most of Pundits&Pols class focus too much on tone and too little on what Trump would actually likely do. And that there are many Mr.Peña's for whom, while the would prefer nicer words coming out of TV set, are more concerned with what their wallets are saying. And that while Trump might take us to uncertain unknown, Clinton is doubling down on a crappy known.
johngray0 10y ago
"Marco Peña was among about 150 technology workers who were laid off....." Going on a limb but guessing Mr.Peña might be of hispanic origin. Most talk about Trump has been tone, but little of substance. Sizzle vs steak, and all. My hunch is that most of Pundits&Pols class focus too much on tone and too little on what Trump would actually likely do. And that there are many Mr.Peña's for whom, while the would prefer nicer words coming out of TV set, are more concerned with what their wallets are saying. And that while Trump might take us to uncertain unknown, Clinton is doubling down on a crappy known.
johngray0 10y ago
Couple of things about H1B: 1. While H1B workers are cheaper, they are also pretty much stuck with their employer. Not 100% but much less mobility than citizen. Sorry, this reeks just a wee bit of indentured servitude. 2. If you take Corp. Execs at their word, and that rising H1B caps is good for country, then would be good for a journalist to probe: what about a 10M worker cap? Or 1.5 billion worker cap? That would make america even stronger, no?
johngray0 10y ago
Couple of things about H1B: 1. While H1B workers are cheaper, they are also pretty much stuck with their employer. Not 100% but much less mobility than citizen. Sorry, this reeks just a wee bit of indentured servitude. 2. If you take Corp. Execs at their word, and that rising H1B caps is good for country, then would be good for a journalist to probe: what about a 10M worker cap? Or 1.5 billion worker cap? That would make america even stronger, no? It wouldn't take much dexterity for a reporter to untangle Corp america's public arguments from it's goals: H1B program helps THEM, and not the country. Come on, business press, do your jobs.
MaggieL 10y ago
It's always amazing that the H-1Bs who have these rare skills that are unavailable in US citizens nonetheless always seem to require training by the native workers they are replacing.
franciscop 10y ago
Totally independently of other things, naming it "Required" sounds better than "took 10.000$ for zipping their lips"
nwhybrid 10y ago
As a former H1-B worker myself (please put down the pitch-forks :)), I can tell you that regular companies aren't hiring H1-Bs to replace you directly. Instead they contract swarms of us through companies like WiPro and other body shops. This, along with the inability to seek a more fitting job on your own regardless of skill level is the main problem I see. You're essentially shackled to these body shops. You can't go home because of their BS employee agreements that force you to pay thousands if you leave before a certain time, you can't ask for higher salary or healthcare benefits, you don't get to choose where you work so it may be Texas today, WA tomorrow, Alabama next week so forget having a family life, you're wife can't work if you bring her and kids with you so you have to just follow along to their whims regardless. It is pretty much human trafficking once you get here. I can tell most folks here are American, they have no idea how messed up the H1-B system is.
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  Is it a common reaction to raise pitchforks at H1-B's? I mostly feel sorry for workers on visa. They don't have the flexibility I do to change jobs if they're not happy. That would be the absolute worst for me, as someone who is always looking for a better gig.
  - pm90 10y ago
    This is a common misconception. It is a very easy process to change jobs on an H1B. The difficult part is the Green Card process, which gets reset (IANAL) and currently getting a green card takes upto 10 years, if you're from India. The problem essentially is that many of these workers either don't know that they can switch jobs, don't have the skills relevant to get another job or, in many cases, have a sort of loyalty to their present company for 'giving them an opportunity to come to the US'. The last sentiment is a lot more common than you would imagine.
    - ropiku 10y ago
      I wouldn't say 'very easy' but 6 years after you get an H1B you are cap-exempt. So any new employer can apply for an H1B for you right away though it only gives you the years left in the original visa not another 6y.
pm90 10y ago
Another commenter alluded to it, but I find both the article and the discussion miss what is really going on. It seems like a lot of firms are basically outsourcing their IT workforce; something that has been going on for a long time now. For most businesses, IT is a cost center, and if that cost can be minimized, they will do so, full stop. What the articles doesn't go into detail is whether those workers that are being trained will continue to work in the US, or whether they are in the US temporarily to understand the IT infrastructure and processes. It seems to me that the latter is the case here. Again, outsourcing has been going on for the longest time, and it really confounds me how many times the same issue will be brought up.
thegayngler 10y ago
It's just businesses abusing the system. We need more legislation in place to keep businesses from Harmon Americans and shooting themselves in the foot long term. American workers who support unfeddered capitalism always end up wondering why they are starving when they supported tax cuts for the wealthy and big business while leaving no money to pay for the fallout of their disasterous decisions. Sometimes you get what you asked for.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  H1-B isn't just abused to depress wages. Mediocre managers love it because docile H1-B body shop contractors are no threat to their careers. This leads to bad corporate IT quality and reduced competitiveness in US enterprises. You can even get them to pantomime the Agile thing and look all progressive and shit, even though those H1-Bs will never rock the boat.
ccrush 10y ago
Why not ask the recruiter or company you are applying for if they are willing to sponsor or work with an H1B visa (pretend you are in that position) and move on if they say yes. It will be interesting to see how well these companies do when all they can hire are H1B workers. After all, they can only get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30% chance that the application will actually be approved. They do need a certain number of US workers to have a stable workforce. With that gone, all their projects will be at risk of failure. How much of this risk do you think they can keep up before they are forced to give up these H1B abuses? I say abuses because there are clearly qualified local candidates willing to work at the market rate, but they lie about the market rate and lie about not finding local candidates to hire their cheap labor. Ideally, they should have a Job ID assigned to all jobs where they are considering H1Bs and post the name, wage, and qualifications of the hired candidate if they hire an H1B candidate. That way, potential employees that were passed up can see who they were passed up for, and complain to the right people if they were unfairly skipped on for a cheaper employee with poorer qualifications just because they were cheaper or would be cheaper in the long run because they would never get a raise or benefits or unemployment or pay into social security and medicaid.
- mavelikara 10y ago
  > After all, they can only get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30% chance that the application will actually be approved. Once an immigrant is granted an H-1B visa, they don't have to go through the lottery process again for the next 6 years. If within that 6 years they apply for a Green Card and reach a certain stage in the processing pipeline, they will get extensions any number of times past the 6 years too.
rrecuero 10y ago
Former H1-B Worker as well. I was sponsored by Zynga Inc and Moz. Finally got my green card recently. As other people have pointed out above, I believe the problem relies on who is sponsoring these candidates. The following list speaks by itself: 1 Infosys: 23,816 2 Tata Consultancy Services 14,096 3 Wipro 8,365 4 IBM 7,944 5 Deloitte Consulting 7,016 Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Tesla or Palantir should be in the top spots. Setting a minimum wage to $100,000 would filter most of the sweat show applications out.
- hibikir 10y ago
  But it would also filter out most of the people outside of the Bay Area, New York and Chicago. In Missouri, for instance you aren't paying 100K to someone that isn't pretty darned senior: 65-70K is a competitive salary right out of school around here. So a recent foreign graduate would have to move to the bay. We also have to understand that consulting companies are pretty great options when you want to get a green card (although not necessarily the big ones): If you are a consultant, and you work for a company doing layoffs, your consulting firm won't drop you like a rock, and might be interested in getting you another gig. If the same thing happens to you when you are working directly for a company, you have a much smaller clock before you should leave the country. When a Green Card wait can be 10 years, the chances you'll work for a company that has a few rounds of layoffs are very high.
  - rrecuero 10y ago
    That's a good point. It would obviously need to be a more complicated system. I think it would be good to prioritize companies like Google, Facebook and the likes but good, honest consulting companies shouldn't be excluded. Factors like innovation, skill scarcity and wage/cost of living can be weighed in. That happened to me. I actually was at Zynga when they closed studios and I needed to start my green card application from scratch.
    - onion2k 10y ago
      It doesn't need to be complicated. Just a rule that the employee must be paid a minimum of the median average wage of any similar domestic employees in the company, or the market average if there aren't any.
the_ancient 10y ago
I have long been an open borders supporter, anyone that wants to come to the US (or any other nation) and make a life for themselves should be free to do so. I am also 100% opposed to even the existence of the H1B visa program, this program is a modernized version of Indentured servitude that allows companies to take advantage of those employees by conditioning their immigration to their employment. These people are often coming from circumstances they do not want to return to, poverty, oppression, persecution, etc. So the threat of being fired and deported is a coercive force that employers use to exploit these workers. I am fine with immigration, I am even fine if immigrant are willing to work for lower wages, provided that agreement is free from the threat of deportation...
35bge57dtjku 10y ago
I've never even had the option to sign a no disparagement clause for a settlement like that. I've had to support my family with what I already had whether I liked it or not. So what they did is shitty, but I have a hard time feeling bad for the 1% who complain that they have the option of getting more money by signing away their rights if they so choose.
dghughes 10y ago
In Canada Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program was changed. It was getting to the point where entire industries changed overnight out with long-time employees and in with near slave wage "TFWs" (many people just say refer to the people as TFWs). It got so bad it became a huge political hot potato and the law was changed resulting in many TFWs disappearing as fast as they arrived. The law here was similar to the TFW laws in the US and it was abused the same way. The law was meant as a way businesses could get help by hiring cheaper labour if they couldn't find local workers. But of course hiring someone at $5/hour versus $11/hour is strong motivation for a business to cheat. This was every industry too each had its own preferred ethnicity mining (Chinese), fast food (Filipino), IT (India), agriculture (Central American). It's only now changing back to local people born in Canada. I don't have any ill will against the TFW workers it's the businesses who are the ones who ruined the purpose of the TFW law and now have to suffer for it.
- Hondor 10y ago
  $5/hour sounds like they were violating minimum wage law which is now about $11/hour. Surely that itself is the problem, not whether the workers were foreign or local, or how much above minimum wage they were paid.
  - dghughes 10y ago
    No Canadian citizen would ever be paid less than minimum wage it was only the TFW who could be paid that. I'm not sure of the exact wage but I know it was less than the minimum wage which is roughly $11/hour, although each province sets its own rate. There were also problems of TFWs being house in apartments that the business owner owned and took wages for rent. Often having a dozens of people in a small apartment. Other reports of passports being confiscated and return tickets home revoked. It's an embarrassment and thankfully the previous right wing government has been turfed. I think the law now states TFW get the same pay and only to fill labour shortages since the program was meant to fix a labour shortage and nothing to do with wages.
known 10y ago
To promote Entrepreneurs/Local Jobs 1. Impose tax on corporate revenues, not profits 2. Regulate market capitalization of corporations
known 10y ago
Most corrupt people on the Earth http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-americans-from-usa/ http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-american...
pmarreck 10y ago
> Two years later, his work with a local tech contracting company pays $45,000 a year less than his Eversource salary. Many of his former co-workers are also struggling, Mr. Diangelo said, but stay quiet to avoid provoking the company. So basically, the company wasn't making enough money to support the affluent pay of its workforce so it had to take drastic measures to stay afloat. If you are suddenly making $45,000 a year less than you were... Perhaps you were getting paid above your true market value
golergka 10y ago
Honest question: if a guy in India can do the same job as a guy in the US, but coming from a country with worse economy agrees to do it cheaper, why would I sympathize with the american guy in this situation? Honestly, to me it seems like american working class have been really privileged compared to the world's population in 20th century, and globalization finally brings some equality — which might not be a good thing to american middle class, but is a great one for workers from China, India and all other 3rd world countries.
xeropho 10y ago
Immigration for "skilled" workers is flawed in US Please look at other countries ( point based system ) and for the love of sanity just adopt best practices ... flaws: 1) Skilled worker immigration should be based on "skills" (country of origin is incorrect: Indian and Chinese immigrants suffer, US workforce also suffers) 2) Immigration should be tied to individuals, influence from employer has conflict of interest. (employer wants to make money even if it comes at the cost of employees ability to immigrate) 3) Immigration as whole should be based on what new individuals bring to the table (skills, age when joining workforce, true intent and ability to adopt new country) Point 3 is complex and involves true value for US or country of adoption. * Immigration overall is not as complex or difficult as most politicians publicize it, it has become far more political than it needs to be, thank you President Obama.
muhfuhkuh 10y ago
I find it interesting the amount of sudden vitriol by some of the formerly "free market" supporters that thought that the terrible job market for non-STEM majors would never, ever hit the technology industry. Those that decry artistry and creative industry jobs as beneath them and their money, those that felt working class people were just too lazy to find "good" jobs, and generally feeling apathy if not schadenfreude for those suffering from the corporate recovery of 2010-present. Those same free marketers also agreed with the destruction of unions and protections like minimum wage. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, look at the comments. "H1-Bs are depressing prices" have replaced "why should I pay for music and movies" and "any industry that relies on ads should die". Well, now with the tables turned, why should working class Americans and artists and content creators give one shit that the technology industry is suffering from "depressed salaries". Suffer with the rest of America.
- blisterpeanuts 10y ago
  I agree with you, actually; you can't have your cake and eat it, too. I believe employees in every field should be looking out for themselves. Signing a non-disparagement agreement is ridiculous. The company needs you to train the replacement, so make them pay through the nose. If they just say, get out, don't let the door hit you etc. -- fine. Move on. Don't dig your own grave then lie down in it. People need to keep their resume up to date, keep testing the market, and be ready to move on if a superior opportunity arises, or if they become aware of an H1B replacement scheme in their group. That's the only real way to stop these practices; make the employers aware that people can and will walk if not treated right.
beatpanda 10y ago
So, is it time for a union yet?
Hondor 10y ago
This is simple "they stole our jobs" rhetoric. It's just like taxi drivers with their "Uber stole our fares". If you can't compete, go to another market. If you're already overcharging, charge less. "Depressing local wages" is a good thing - it reduces the cost to society of getting productive things done. The other argument about foreign workers being exploited is a clear sign of people pretending to care but really not caring. Sure there are some who were tricked into debt traps, but for most, they know what they're getting into and they know it's better than what they have back home. So they're making a step up in life. You want to kick them back down because you care about their welfare? What it means is you only care about people in America and once they leave, they lose their status as worthy human beings who deserve good working conditions. I used to be a foreign laborer. I was paid minimum wage to do grunt work that locals didn't want. It was wonderful. The currency was worth more in my home country than where I was working. It helped me pay off my student loan. I would have hated to be forced out by someone trying to protect me from myself. My coworkers loved it too, they'd send money home to help their parents run their farms and pay off their own loans. They'd laugh at the lazy local workers who were mostly overweight and doing the same job more slowly.
- strictnein 10y ago
  No, it's not. This is about companies only granting severance if you sign non-disparagement agreements.
  - Hondor 10y ago
    Well yes, mainly. But the complaint of the laid-off workers was about immigrants taking their jobs.
FLengyel 10y ago
These companies seem not to believe in the free market if they suppress the free exchange of information about their labor practices.
giis 10y ago
As a Indian and worked in Indian body shops (but who never traveled aboard). My views on Indian-body shop immigrants : In 2005, when I completed university masters degree. Our class has around 60 students, I'm pretty sure may be 5 or 6 of (1%) them are talented and good in computers. Most of us took IT job. We had chances to immigrate to other as early as 2007 through Indian body shops like Wipro, Infy, Tata, CTS etc. In 2016, now most of them (60%) of them working in aboard. May be 40% in USA and 20% EU/ROW. How did almost 59% of these not-so talented friends landed in other countries? Did they gained sound knowledge in those 48 months or later. I really _really_ doubt that. Its because we are low-cost workers and got close to Indian IT management. Typical Indian IT managers are ass*. They want boot-lickers not skilled developers. So its easy for unskilled people to land in other countries in the name of skilled-person. I know few guys who worked in non-IT companies (later created fake IT experiences) joined these body shops and now living in US. I assume almost 80-90% IT Indians in US are helping American companies simply because he/she is low-cost worker. Its not like US companies cant find local talent to fill these roles, but they want low-cost solution. If you got laid-off due to low-cost workers, please remember, its the US company & IT Body-shop bosses & stock-holders financially benefited a lot from these lay-offs not necessarily the worker who replaced you or the poor-outsourced IT slaves. one simple solution : Please tighten the visa-interview process, make it more like real IT company interview (ask about data-structures and algorithms etc). This will ensure immigration rates from body-shops drop from 60%(from my numbers above) to 5% max. --- My personal experience with Indian & US/foreign freelancers greatly differ. Even though US/foreign freelancers are costly (1USD:66 INR), I find them worthy. They go-out and put extra-effort to finish the task. With Indian freelancers, they just want to finish the task quickly and get the paid. I find it amusing that US companies hire us for of lack-of talents there :)
abpavel 10y ago
A lot of uproar, but have you ever tried to teach a 60yo veteran working his paper trail to switch to python? The laid off personnel did not have the required skillset, and would be fired regardless of the source of replacement, H1B or local.
blisterpeanuts 10y ago
So, after thirteen years of my loyal and dedicated service, you're offering me $10,400 severance, six weeks notice (during which I must train my H1B half-price replacement), if and only if I sign a non-disparagement agreement? And otherwise, I'm out on my butt tomorrow? No. You're going to give me one year's salary with benefits (after all, Lester Burnham got away with it in "American Beauty"). You're also going to pay me DOUBLE during the period that I am training the half price indentured servant who you imagine is going to replace me. Mind you, he'll never replace my previous loyalty and dedication; that's not something you can train into someone in six weeks... or ever. You have to earn loyalty, a lesson you'll discover over the next few months as you screw your employees. Also, you will sign a mutual non-disparagement agreement; I say nothing bad about you, and you say nothing bad about me, and my lawyer says if you spread malicious and damaging gossip about me, it will cost me one million dollars in lost career potential, so that's what you will owe me if you do so -- plus punitive damages. And if you don't give me what I want, I'm quitting as of 5pm today and will immediately write a book and blog about the stupidity of management here at Wrecked Lives Inc. In fact I've already reserved the domain names that will be appropriate for my upcoming tell-all. Lots of luck stopping me; I'll only tell the truth, and the First Amendment protects me. If you try to sue me, I'll sue you back, and the resulting publicity will make my book and my blog and my Youtube channel famous enough that I'll never need to work again. Your investors and commercial partners will also hear about it. So make my day. I'm not saying most people would do this, or even if they did, that they would get away with it, but it's how a person in that situation ought to respond. Granted, we in the U.S. have at-will employment, granted it's a free market, and sometimes the smartest move is to simply move on and put this behind you. But we're also human beings with emotions, loyalties, and a sense of betrayal, and when a management team tries to pull the H1b-swap-and-gag on the employees, they have to recognize the price.

248 points by joshwa 10y ago

I'm not sure I get this - are the workers coming in to replace them actually in the USA physically? Are they staying in the USA physically? I mean is this offshoring / outsourcing or is it replacing with cheaper workers? Why can't the existing employees compete for the jobs? I mean WIPRO must have going through some pretty big pre sales workups, so who else was competing? I think what I mean is that doing this in secret implies that no one doing the actual job was ever consulted about the viability of outsourcing / replacing them / so you never get a real understanding of the costs or opportunities for improvement (essentially automating a bad process) In summary - any company that does this cheap shot is usually one that is going to get its ass handed to it by a better more automated competitor.

x0x0 10y ago
Abbott contracted with Wipro, who appears to be performing the work locally, though Wipro claims only 20% h1b labor. Abbott tried to reduce the role of foreigners in the layoffs. Only about 20 percent of the workers brought in by Wipro would be foreigners on H-1B visas, Mr. Stoffel said, while the rest would be American workers.
- revelation 10y ago
  I thought the idea was 0% H-1B labor? You can't replace an American job with H-1B? The requirements seem very stringent in writing but apparently utterly useless and ineffective in practice, or clearly both executives for Abott and Wipro would be facing criminal prosecution. You should not be able to circumvent the restrictions by a single layer of contract work.
  - johndubchak 10y ago
    >> You can't replace an American job with H-1B? The goal of the system is to use the guest worker program to augment your current workers with talent that you are unable to find and staff here in the US. The requirement is not at 40 - 60% of the cost you pay your US employees, but in skills that you cannot find or fill with US domestic workers.
    - revelation 10y ago
      Then it seems like a clear violation when you have the old employees train the new ones.
    - niftich 10y ago
      These "scarce" skills and requirements are trivially gamed on a regular basis. Large numbers of positions that are eventually filled by H-1Bs don't, in truth, require skills and experience that you simply can't find domestically. Sure, every once in a while you need a nuclear engineer or some other domain expert in a very, very narrow domain, and you may have a genuine shortage of talent. But for general-purpose IT and commodity development, these skill are not in short supply domestically if you're willing to pay market salaries.
- DrScump 10y ago
  I'm skeptical that there wouldn't be a single foreign Wipro staffer there on a different visa (e.g. L1).
fizzbuzzwoof 10y ago
I work for []. They've had various offshored positions for years, working as outside contractors. For the last several years, they've been opening foreign offices and hiring direct employees of the corporation. Last year across some US-based offices, they split the employees into three groups, each roughly 1/3 of the office. Group 1 had their last day of work that day. Group 2 was told that they'd be training their replacements for the next 3-12 months, with large bonuses (60% of their wages for the time) if they stayed as long as the company wanted. Group 3 still works there (except the smarter ones who have bailed). After* that day, they increased hiring in certain foreign countries known for having lower wages. I've been watching coworkers doing "Transfers Of Information" to the people replacing them. If we could live in my area on wages similar to what is reasonable in the foreign workers' hometowns, maybe we could compete for the positions.

yuhong 10y ago

I am not surprised that companies that are broken enough to do the outsourcing in the first place are also often broken enough to have this term in severance agreements. But it really should not be standard.

x0x0 10y ago
It's standard for lots of things. I had to sign such an agreement to stay through an acquisition.
- yuhong 10y ago
  The point is that it should not be.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    I agree, I was merely sharing my experience.
andrei_says_ 10y ago
Company lawyers think of maximizing the company's power and safety in every contract. If the clause is not illegal and improves that equation, it'll be standard. Morality notwithstanding.
Hondor 10y ago
Is it really broken to fight an artificial government imposed monopoly, which is what labor restrictions on foreigners is? This isn't something that's going to make the incumbents destitute. They're IT workers, eminently hire-able and highly paid. I'm sure they can cope with a pay cut unless they've been living beyond their means, which would get them in trouble no matter what their income.

kazinator 10y ago

> Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers. You can easily reveal the facts it in a totally non-critical way. At ABC Data, workers were encouraged to collaborate with management to come up with creative solutions to streamline processes and save costs. When I realized that ABC could save money by replacing me with an equally capable, yet much cheaper worker visiting the country on a temporary work permit, I immediately pitched this idea at the next big cross-departmental meeting. There was much resistance among management. They objected on the basis of the unique knowledge and skills that I bring to the team, and how we all "go way back" to the startup days. In the end they saw it my way and agreed to relocate my posterior to that outdoor concrete fixture which separates the road from the sidewalk or lawn. I was unfortunately not able to talk them out of the egregiously generous severance package, though even with that expenditure, ABC ends up ahead. ABC is a great company to invest in with terrific fundamentals and future prospects, and is led by a highly ethical team whose decisions are beyond reproach.

tokensimian 10y ago
IANAL but suspect disparagement is defined in such a way that a corporation's attorneys could prove this type of comment caused harm to the company, and thus meets the definition.
- jeremyjh 10y ago
  Yes, it turns out judges are not robots who apply law like it is some kind of program. They are capable of reading between the lines.

lazaroclapp 10y ago

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). On the other hand, a clause requiring that you never say something bad about your employer nor discuss the situation under which you were laid off seems not only abusive, but repugnantly so. In a country that constitutionally enshrines free speech, the ability to sign away for money your right to complain publicly about a person or organization seems particularly dangerous, and the act of asking someone to do so seems truly vile. [1] https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usnivl https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usni...

eigenvector 10y ago
> I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labour market artificially and depress salaries by replacing Americans with foreign workers who are tied to one employer and therefore unable to negotiate for a proper salary. The italicized portion is what we should find troubling, not merely that foreigners are moving to America to work. This results in a transfer of wealth from the working population to employers who no longer need to pay prevailing market wages.
- frostmatthew 10y ago
  A lot of this would be solved (or at least greatly improved) if H-1Bs were awarded via auction rather than lottery.
  - newjersey 10y ago

sjclemmy 10y ago

Free market capitalism. You can't have it both ways.

tremon 10y ago
Then we should not have it at all.
- cscurmudgeon 10y ago
  Tickets to Venezuela are pretty cheap nowadays.
ap3 10y ago
We don't have it

warcher 10y ago

Listen, there's no point claiming the H1 situation isn't a rampant clusterfuck. Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo while busloads of cheap, disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited and depress domestic wages. It's a full on disaster. If you have to have temporary worker visas, fine. But don't tie them to a company. If there's a legitimate need, and they're legitimately skilled, they'll find work, and they'll more than likely find work that pays comparably to a native worker (or they'll get poached, because good help is always hard to find).

WalterBright 10y ago
> Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo ... good help is always hard to find Sounds contradictory.
- arjie 10y ago
  Trivially non-contradictory. Consider a hypothetical situation in which all the good skilled workers are on visa statuses that do not permit work and have missed the H-1B lottery. Both things are then true.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    That would require that there are no local good skilled workers, so the argument they are being replaced doesn't hold.
    - arjie 10y ago
      The comment isn't talking about local workers. It is talking about (a) foreign workers who are skilled, (b) low-wage less-skilled foreign workers and how the H-1B fails to achieve its stated aim in two respects because it's easy for there to be unemployed (a) and employed (b). The comment contains no argument that local workers are being replaced.
      - WalterBright 10y ago

johndubchak 10y ago

At this point, with both Corporate abuses from American corporations and the H1-B holding companies along with the frequency with which we've seen the more expensive American work replaced with a much cheaper "guest" worker, I believe we need to ask ourselves, do we not have enough surplus American workers that are unemployed such that the H1-B program might not be necessary for a year or two until we've managed to get the unemployed American workers back to work?

udkl 10y ago
From a cursory glance with my limited knowledge, that sounds like a very naive approach and one which will not pass a vote. The problem is that of lower skilled (not low skilled) but cheaper labour from the body shop consultancies mixed with higher skilled ones in the same H1B pool. As someone somewhere suggested, instead of a lottery, an auction of the seats would in a sense lead to lesser pay difference between the native and outsourced worker. This is just theory that needs to be given a deep though. The bottomline is that the H1B serves as a competitive advantage to the US. Software, now that it is eating the world, is a very important part of the economy... and the US needs to invest in giving it's corporation whatever advantages it can w.r.t technology. The consequence of stopping the H1B altogether would be a shortage of technical workers, leading to the rise in software expenses for companies and maybe resulting in the US & US corporation to lose their technical advantage & leading positions globally.
- johndubchak 10y ago
  Perhaps it is naive however, I did not suggest stopping it altogether, the idea is to merely restore some balance back into a system that seems to have gotten out of balance. The auction is a good idea, but I fear it will somehow be twisted and abused as well.
robotresearcher 10y ago
H1-B visas are for skilled workers. The unemployment rate for skilled American workers is very, very low.
xenadu02 10y ago

triplesec 10y ago

Worth noting the headlines of the 'related coverage': Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants JAN 25, 2016; Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, Costing the U.S. Jobs NOV 10, 2015; Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary Foreign Workers to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas SEP 29, 2015; Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements. JUN 3, 2015

udkl 10y ago
The way I read it, the anti-H1B movement and awareness is gaining steam. It would be interesting the stance Hillary/Trump takes next year after being sworn in.

fiatmoney 10y ago

There is a simple solution, particularly in the context of congressional or other government investigations: subpoena them. Nondisparagement clauses don't & can't cover compelled testimony.

VladKovac 10y ago

Sorry, I don't feel bad for any of these people. Even the poorest Americans have better material conditions than a lot of Indian workers. Why do you think the Indian workers are willing to work for less?

vthallam 10y ago
While US has quite better conditions, India is not some messed up rogue state. Many come here for a obvious reason, Money. The currency exchange rate is 1 : 66 for USD : INR. So even with PPP into consideration, that's huge and so they work for way less.
- VladKovac 10y ago
  I was just using the extreme example of the comparison of low-skilled workers in the two countries. Even in the opposite extreme I have no particular sympathy, in my mind it's analogous to one American programmer losing her job to another American programmer.

johngray0 10y ago

"Marco Peña was among about 150 technology workers who were laid off....." Going on a limb but guessing Mr.Peña might be of hispanic origin. Most talk about Trump has been tone, but little of substance. Sizzle vs steak, and all. My hunch is that most of Pundits&Pols class focus too much on tone and too little on what Trump would actually likely do. And that there are many Mr.Peña's for whom, while the would prefer nicer words coming out of TV set, are more concerned with what their wallets are saying. And that while Trump might take us to uncertain unknown, Clinton is doubling down on a crappy known.

johngray0 10y ago

Couple of things about H1B: 1. While H1B workers are cheaper, they are also pretty much stuck with their employer. Not 100% but much less mobility than citizen. Sorry, this reeks just a wee bit of indentured servitude. 2. If you take Corp. Execs at their word, and that rising H1B caps is good for country, then would be good for a journalist to probe: what about a 10M worker cap? Or 1.5 billion worker cap? That would make america even stronger, no?

johngray0 10y ago

MaggieL 10y ago

It's always amazing that the H-1Bs who have these rare skills that are unavailable in US citizens nonetheless always seem to require training by the native workers they are replacing.

franciscop 10y ago

Totally independently of other things, naming it "Required" sounds better than "took 10.000$ for zipping their lips"

nwhybrid 10y ago

As a former H1-B worker myself (please put down the pitch-forks :)), I can tell you that regular companies aren't hiring H1-Bs to replace you directly. Instead they contract swarms of us through companies like WiPro and other body shops. This, along with the inability to seek a more fitting job on your own regardless of skill level is the main problem I see. You're essentially shackled to these body shops. You can't go home because of their BS employee agreements that force you to pay thousands if you leave before a certain time, you can't ask for higher salary or healthcare benefits, you don't get to choose where you work so it may be Texas today, WA tomorrow, Alabama next week so forget having a family life, you're wife can't work if you bring her and kids with you so you have to just follow along to their whims regardless. It is pretty much human trafficking once you get here. I can tell most folks here are American, they have no idea how messed up the H1-B system is.

dclowd9901 10y ago
Is it a common reaction to raise pitchforks at H1-B's? I mostly feel sorry for workers on visa. They don't have the flexibility I do to change jobs if they're not happy. That would be the absolute worst for me, as someone who is always looking for a better gig.
- pm90 10y ago
  This is a common misconception. It is a very easy process to change jobs on an H1B. The difficult part is the Green Card process, which gets reset (IANAL) and currently getting a green card takes upto 10 years, if you're from India. The problem essentially is that many of these workers either don't know that they can switch jobs, don't have the skills relevant to get another job or, in many cases, have a sort of loyalty to their present company for 'giving them an opportunity to come to the US'. The last sentiment is a lot more common than you would imagine.
  - ropiku 10y ago
    I wouldn't say 'very easy' but 6 years after you get an H1B you are cap-exempt. So any new employer can apply for an H1B for you right away though it only gives you the years left in the original visa not another 6y.

pm90 10y ago

Another commenter alluded to it, but I find both the article and the discussion miss what is really going on. It seems like a lot of firms are basically outsourcing their IT workforce; something that has been going on for a long time now. For most businesses, IT is a cost center, and if that cost can be minimized, they will do so, full stop. What the articles doesn't go into detail is whether those workers that are being trained will continue to work in the US, or whether they are in the US temporarily to understand the IT infrastructure and processes. It seems to me that the latter is the case here. Again, outsourcing has been going on for the longest time, and it really confounds me how many times the same issue will be brought up.

thegayngler 10y ago

It's just businesses abusing the system. We need more legislation in place to keep businesses from Harmon Americans and shooting themselves in the foot long term. American workers who support unfeddered capitalism always end up wondering why they are starving when they supported tax cuts for the wealthy and big business while leaving no money to pay for the fallout of their disasterous decisions. Sometimes you get what you asked for.

Zigurd 10y ago
H1-B isn't just abused to depress wages. Mediocre managers love it because docile H1-B body shop contractors are no threat to their careers. This leads to bad corporate IT quality and reduced competitiveness in US enterprises. You can even get them to pantomime the Agile thing and look all progressive and shit, even though those H1-Bs will never rock the boat.

ccrush 10y ago

Why not ask the recruiter or company you are applying for if they are willing to sponsor or work with an H1B visa (pretend you are in that position) and move on if they say yes. It will be interesting to see how well these companies do when all they can hire are H1B workers. After all, they can only get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30% chance that the application will actually be approved. They do need a certain number of US workers to have a stable workforce. With that gone, all their projects will be at risk of failure. How much of this risk do you think they can keep up before they are forced to give up these H1B abuses? I say abuses because there are clearly qualified local candidates willing to work at the market rate, but they lie about the market rate and lie about not finding local candidates to hire their cheap labor. Ideally, they should have a Job ID assigned to all jobs where they are considering H1Bs and post the name, wage, and qualifications of the hired candidate if they hire an H1B candidate. That way, potential employees that were passed up can see who they were passed up for, and complain to the right people if they were unfairly skipped on for a cheaper employee with poorer qualifications just because they were cheaper or would be cheaper in the long run because they would never get a raise or benefits or unemployment or pay into social security and medicaid.

mavelikara 10y ago
> After all, they can only get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30% chance that the application will actually be approved. Once an immigrant is granted an H-1B visa, they don't have to go through the lottery process again for the next 6 years. If within that 6 years they apply for a Green Card and reach a certain stage in the processing pipeline, they will get extensions any number of times past the 6 years too.

rrecuero 10y ago

Former H1-B Worker as well. I was sponsored by Zynga Inc and Moz. Finally got my green card recently. As other people have pointed out above, I believe the problem relies on who is sponsoring these candidates. The following list speaks by itself: 1 Infosys: 23,816 2 Tata Consultancy Services 14,096 3 Wipro 8,365 4 IBM 7,944 5 Deloitte Consulting 7,016 Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Tesla or Palantir should be in the top spots. Setting a minimum wage to $100,000 would filter most of the sweat show applications out.

hibikir 10y ago
But it would also filter out most of the people outside of the Bay Area, New York and Chicago. In Missouri, for instance you aren't paying 100K to someone that isn't pretty darned senior: 65-70K is a competitive salary right out of school around here. So a recent foreign graduate would have to move to the bay. We also have to understand that consulting companies are pretty great options when you want to get a green card (although not necessarily the big ones): If you are a consultant, and you work for a company doing layoffs, your consulting firm won't drop you like a rock, and might be interested in getting you another gig. If the same thing happens to you when you are working directly for a company, you have a much smaller clock before you should leave the country. When a Green Card wait can be 10 years, the chances you'll work for a company that has a few rounds of layoffs are very high.
- rrecuero 10y ago
  That's a good point. It would obviously need to be a more complicated system. I think it would be good to prioritize companies like Google, Facebook and the likes but good, honest consulting companies shouldn't be excluded. Factors like innovation, skill scarcity and wage/cost of living can be weighed in. That happened to me. I actually was at Zynga when they closed studios and I needed to start my green card application from scratch.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    It doesn't need to be complicated. Just a rule that the employee must be paid a minimum of the median average wage of any similar domestic employees in the company, or the market average if there aren't any.

the_ancient 10y ago

I have long been an open borders supporter, anyone that wants to come to the US (or any other nation) and make a life for themselves should be free to do so. I am also 100% opposed to even the existence of the H1B visa program, this program is a modernized version of Indentured servitude that allows companies to take advantage of those employees by conditioning their immigration to their employment. These people are often coming from circumstances they do not want to return to, poverty, oppression, persecution, etc. So the threat of being fired and deported is a coercive force that employers use to exploit these workers. I am fine with immigration, I am even fine if immigrant are willing to work for lower wages, provided that agreement is free from the threat of deportation...

35bge57dtjku 10y ago

I've never even had the option to sign a no disparagement clause for a settlement like that. I've had to support my family with what I already had whether I liked it or not. So what they did is shitty, but I have a hard time feeling bad for the 1% who complain that they have the option of getting more money by signing away their rights if they so choose.

dghughes 10y ago

In Canada Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program was changed. It was getting to the point where entire industries changed overnight out with long-time employees and in with near slave wage "TFWs" (many people just say refer to the people as TFWs). It got so bad it became a huge political hot potato and the law was changed resulting in many TFWs disappearing as fast as they arrived. The law here was similar to the TFW laws in the US and it was abused the same way. The law was meant as a way businesses could get help by hiring cheaper labour if they couldn't find local workers. But of course hiring someone at $5/hour versus $11/hour is strong motivation for a business to cheat. This was every industry too each had its own preferred ethnicity mining (Chinese), fast food (Filipino), IT (India), agriculture (Central American). It's only now changing back to local people born in Canada. I don't have any ill will against the TFW workers it's the businesses who are the ones who ruined the purpose of the TFW law and now have to suffer for it.

Hondor 10y ago
$5/hour sounds like they were violating minimum wage law which is now about $11/hour. Surely that itself is the problem, not whether the workers were foreign or local, or how much above minimum wage they were paid.
- dghughes 10y ago
  No Canadian citizen would ever be paid less than minimum wage it was only the TFW who could be paid that. I'm not sure of the exact wage but I know it was less than the minimum wage which is roughly $11/hour, although each province sets its own rate. There were also problems of TFWs being house in apartments that the business owner owned and took wages for rent. Often having a dozens of people in a small apartment. Other reports of passports being confiscated and return tickets home revoked. It's an embarrassment and thankfully the previous right wing government has been turfed. I think the law now states TFW get the same pay and only to fill labour shortages since the program was meant to fix a labour shortage and nothing to do with wages.

known 10y ago

To promote Entrepreneurs/Local Jobs 1. Impose tax on corporate revenues, not profits 2. Regulate market capitalization of corporations

known 10y ago

Most corrupt people on the Earth http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-americans-from-usa/ http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-american...

pmarreck 10y ago

> Two years later, his work with a local tech contracting company pays $45,000 a year less than his Eversource salary. Many of his former co-workers are also struggling, Mr. Diangelo said, but stay quiet to avoid provoking the company. So basically, the company wasn't making enough money to support the affluent pay of its workforce so it had to take drastic measures to stay afloat. If you are suddenly making $45,000 a year less than you were... Perhaps you were getting paid above your true market value

golergka 10y ago

Honest question: if a guy in India can do the same job as a guy in the US, but coming from a country with worse economy agrees to do it cheaper, why would I sympathize with the american guy in this situation? Honestly, to me it seems like american working class have been really privileged compared to the world's population in 20th century, and globalization finally brings some equality — which might not be a good thing to american middle class, but is a great one for workers from China, India and all other 3rd world countries.

xeropho 10y ago

Immigration for "skilled" workers is flawed in US Please look at other countries ( point based system ) and for the love of sanity just adopt best practices ... flaws: 1) Skilled worker immigration should be based on "skills" (country of origin is incorrect: Indian and Chinese immigrants suffer, US workforce also suffers) 2) Immigration should be tied to individuals, influence from employer has conflict of interest. (employer wants to make money even if it comes at the cost of employees ability to immigrate) 3) Immigration as whole should be based on what new individuals bring to the table (skills, age when joining workforce, true intent and ability to adopt new country) Point 3 is complex and involves true value for US or country of adoption. * Immigration overall is not as complex or difficult as most politicians publicize it, it has become far more political than it needs to be, thank you President Obama.

muhfuhkuh 10y ago

I find it interesting the amount of sudden vitriol by some of the formerly "free market" supporters that thought that the terrible job market for non-STEM majors would never, ever hit the technology industry. Those that decry artistry and creative industry jobs as beneath them and their money, those that felt working class people were just too lazy to find "good" jobs, and generally feeling apathy if not schadenfreude for those suffering from the corporate recovery of 2010-present. Those same free marketers also agreed with the destruction of unions and protections like minimum wage. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, look at the comments. "H1-Bs are depressing prices" have replaced "why should I pay for music and movies" and "any industry that relies on ads should die". Well, now with the tables turned, why should working class Americans and artists and content creators give one shit that the technology industry is suffering from "depressed salaries". Suffer with the rest of America.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago
I agree with you, actually; you can't have your cake and eat it, too. I believe employees in every field should be looking out for themselves. Signing a non-disparagement agreement is ridiculous. The company needs you to train the replacement, so make them pay through the nose. If they just say, get out, don't let the door hit you etc. -- fine. Move on. Don't dig your own grave then lie down in it. People need to keep their resume up to date, keep testing the market, and be ready to move on if a superior opportunity arises, or if they become aware of an H1B replacement scheme in their group. That's the only real way to stop these practices; make the employers aware that people can and will walk if not treated right.

beatpanda 10y ago

So, is it time for a union yet?

Hondor 10y ago

This is simple "they stole our jobs" rhetoric. It's just like taxi drivers with their "Uber stole our fares". If you can't compete, go to another market. If you're already overcharging, charge less. "Depressing local wages" is a good thing - it reduces the cost to society of getting productive things done. The other argument about foreign workers being exploited is a clear sign of people pretending to care but really not caring. Sure there are some who were tricked into debt traps, but for most, they know what they're getting into and they know it's better than what they have back home. So they're making a step up in life. You want to kick them back down because you care about their welfare? What it means is you only care about people in America and once they leave, they lose their status as worthy human beings who deserve good working conditions. I used to be a foreign laborer. I was paid minimum wage to do grunt work that locals didn't want. It was wonderful. The currency was worth more in my home country than where I was working. It helped me pay off my student loan. I would have hated to be forced out by someone trying to protect me from myself. My coworkers loved it too, they'd send money home to help their parents run their farms and pay off their own loans. They'd laugh at the lazy local workers who were mostly overweight and doing the same job more slowly.

strictnein 10y ago
No, it's not. This is about companies only granting severance if you sign non-disparagement agreements.
- Hondor 10y ago
  Well yes, mainly. But the complaint of the laid-off workers was about immigrants taking their jobs.

FLengyel 10y ago

These companies seem not to believe in the free market if they suppress the free exchange of information about their labor practices.

giis 10y ago

As a Indian and worked in Indian body shops (but who never traveled aboard). My views on Indian-body shop immigrants : In 2005, when I completed university masters degree. Our class has around 60 students, I'm pretty sure may be 5 or 6 of (1%) them are talented and good in computers. Most of us took IT job. We had chances to immigrate to other as early as 2007 through Indian body shops like Wipro, Infy, Tata, CTS etc. In 2016, now most of them (60%) of them working in aboard. May be 40% in USA and 20% EU/ROW. How did almost 59% of these not-so talented friends landed in other countries? Did they gained sound knowledge in those 48 months or later. I really _really_ doubt that. Its because we are low-cost workers and got close to Indian IT management. Typical Indian IT managers are ass*. They want boot-lickers not skilled developers. So its easy for unskilled people to land in other countries in the name of skilled-person. I know few guys who worked in non-IT companies (later created fake IT experiences) joined these body shops and now living in US. I assume almost 80-90% IT Indians in US are helping American companies simply because he/she is low-cost worker. Its not like US companies cant find local talent to fill these roles, but they want low-cost solution. If you got laid-off due to low-cost workers, please remember, its the US company & IT Body-shop bosses & stock-holders financially benefited a lot from these lay-offs not necessarily the worker who replaced you or the poor-outsourced IT slaves. one simple solution : Please tighten the visa-interview process, make it more like real IT company interview (ask about data-structures and algorithms etc). This will ensure immigration rates from body-shops drop from 60%(from my numbers above) to 5% max. --- My personal experience with Indian & US/foreign freelancers greatly differ. Even though US/foreign freelancers are costly (1USD:66 INR), I find them worthy. They go-out and put extra-effort to finish the task. With Indian freelancers, they just want to finish the task quickly and get the paid. I find it amusing that US companies hire us for of lack-of talents there :)

abpavel 10y ago

A lot of uproar, but have you ever tried to teach a 60yo veteran working his paper trail to switch to python? The laid off personnel did not have the required skillset, and would be fired regardless of the source of replacement, H1B or local.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago

So, after thirteen years of my loyal and dedicated service, you're offering me $10,400 severance, six weeks notice (during which I must train my H1B half-price replacement), if and only if I sign a non-disparagement agreement? And otherwise, I'm out on my butt tomorrow? No. You're going to give me one year's salary with benefits (after all, Lester Burnham got away with it in "American Beauty"). You're also going to pay me DOUBLE during the period that I am training the half price indentured servant who you imagine is going to replace me. Mind you, he'll never replace my previous loyalty and dedication; that's not something you can train into someone in six weeks... or ever. You have to earn loyalty, a lesson you'll discover over the next few months as you screw your employees. Also, you will sign a mutual non-disparagement agreement; I say nothing bad about you, and you say nothing bad about me, and my lawyer says if you spread malicious and damaging gossip about me, it will cost me one million dollars in lost career potential, so that's what you will owe me if you do so -- plus punitive damages. And if you don't give me what I want, I'm quitting as of 5pm today and will immediately write a book and blog about the stupidity of management here at Wrecked Lives Inc. In fact I've already reserved the domain names that will be appropriate for my upcoming tell-all. Lots of luck stopping me; I'll only tell the truth, and the First Amendment protects me. If you try to sue me, I'll sue you back, and the resulting publicity will make my book and my blog and my Youtube channel famous enough that I'll never need to work again. Your investors and commercial partners will also hear about it. So make my day. I'm not saying most people would do this, or even if they did, that they would get away with it, but it's how a person in that situation ought to respond. Granted, we in the U.S. have at-will employment, granted it's a free market, and sometimes the smartest move is to simply move on and put this behind you. But we're also human beings with emotions, loyalties, and a sense of betrayal, and when a management team tries to pull the H1b-swap-and-gag on the employees, they have to recognize the price.