5 ms·

Staffing companies should get no H1 visas at all. They are the biggest abusers.

belltaco 8y ago
The key problem is that the visa is given to the company, not the person, leaving the employee at the mercy of the company, leading to abuses like underpay and overwork in even direct jobs. If you lose your job, you lose your green card application if it's not past a certain stage and may have to leave the country immediately in case of layoffs, being fired. The rules are byzantine and a bureacratic nightmare with long processing delays. The Trump administration even tried to make it so that if you're working legally while waiting on your extension visa(can take more than 8 months) and it happens to get rejected, they will report you to ICE for deportation proceedings calling the period you worked legally as being illegal, creating a Catch-22 where you're accruing illegal stay after you have to stop working, but cannot leave the country because you're waiting for a court date, since not showing up in a court is another new crime in itself. You have to live without a salary and being able to work at all, and the immigration courts are overloaded and once you accrue 6 months of illegal stay, you can be banned from entering the US for 10 years on any visa. If you think that sounds too ridiculous to be true, read this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#632d7dea4615 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u... This is the reason that many talented folks prefer to work for companies on a contract through a staffing company that holds the visa that allows for easier job hopping without losing your chance of getting a green card, or getting fired on Friday and accruing illegal stay starting from Saturday. Otherwise, why would you give away 40% to >50% of your hourly rate to a middleman? In this new environment, if you somehow get caught in an ICE raid while selling your car for pennies and puting all your belongings that dont fit in luggage in the dumpster or whilepacking your bags, you might get shipped to jail inspite of not violating a single law before you got fired. The companies oppose these fixes because they will less leverage over their employees on visas and they might job hop more if underpaid or overworked. Fix these problems instead of creating weird custom rules against staffing companies and the problem will fix itself for the most part.
- tracer4201 8y ago
  Even if you give the visa to the employee, now you run the risk of employers sizing up an employee's status (are they a citizen or an immigrant who needs a job to stay in the country) and hiring or offering salaries based on that. It'll still lead to the wrong behaviors. Citizenship questions are illegal but still get asked. Are you going to outlaw asking about an employee's immigration status? Good luck enforcing that.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    My point is that it will make it easier for employees stuck in a bad spot due to employee abuse to switch jobs. Lets say they join the company you cite and the boss dumps 80 hours a week worth of work every week and doesn't pay overtime. Currently it's a huge hassle and risky to switch jobs, so that employee may continue thus hurting the job market. If you give the employee the visa, they can shop around for jobs like citizens and the company they left will have to find someone else to replace them, hopefully at better market rates this time. The biggest leverage the companies have on immigrant labor is the threat of being fired and deported, if you make that less costly and not turn their life upside down in a day, the problem will be lessened and make the job market more fair and competitive for everyone looking for jobs, and also greatly hurt staffing companies. It also lets the employee say "No." more easily when asked to work 80 hours for the fourth week in a row with no extra pay. This is the reason companies lobby against making this happen.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      In my company most H1 workers that come from Infosys and others are mainly there because they are cheap and not because they are "highly qualified" as the intent of H1 is. If Infosys just had to pay market rates they would lose competitiveness and open up visa spots for the people who truly deserve one.
      - belltaco 8y ago
        If you make it easier for those folks to switch, they will switch away from Infosys to a better job after spending a month or two working for cheap, as you say. If that happens a lot Infosys will stop bringing in new people since they mostly leave early but they already paid for their immigration costs which add up. The employees also will be less inclined to work 80 hrs a week for Infosys to rake in the profits. If they want to retain people, Infosys will have to increase their salaries to close to market rate by charging the client more, which means the client is less likely to hire from Infosys. Either way it's a win.
rajeshpant 8y ago
Although staffing companies have abused the visas but given the way industry is structured, staffing companies do fill a lot of positions for contract workers & consulting roles. Strictly speaking in terms of law they should be able to hire people on visa as well. The most idiotic thing here is giving a visa to a company based on lottery. As the original comment pointed out, there should be a point system where you are graded based on education and experience.

The key problem is that the visa is given to the company, not the person, leaving the employee at the mercy of the company, leading to abuses like underpay and overwork in even direct jobs. If you lose your job, you lose your green card application if it's not past a certain stage and may have to leave the country immediately in case of layoffs, being fired. The rules are byzantine and a bureacratic nightmare with long processing delays. The Trump administration even tried to make it so that if you're working legally while waiting on your extension visa(can take more than 8 months) and it happens to get rejected, they will report you to ICE for deportation proceedings calling the period you worked legally as being illegal, creating a Catch-22 where you're accruing illegal stay after you have to stop working, but cannot leave the country because you're waiting for a court date, since not showing up in a court is another new crime in itself. You have to live without a salary and being able to work at all, and the immigration courts are overloaded and once you accrue 6 months of illegal stay, you can be banned from entering the US for 10 years on any visa. If you think that sounds too ridiculous to be true, read this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#632d7dea4615 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u... This is the reason that many talented folks prefer to work for companies on a contract through a staffing company that holds the visa that allows for easier job hopping without losing your chance of getting a green card, or getting fired on Friday and accruing illegal stay starting from Saturday. Otherwise, why would you give away 40% to >50% of your hourly rate to a middleman? In this new environment, if you somehow get caught in an ICE raid while selling your car for pennies and puting all your belongings that dont fit in luggage in the dumpster or whilepacking your bags, you might get shipped to jail inspite of not violating a single law before you got fired. The companies oppose these fixes because they will less leverage over their employees on visas and they might job hop more if underpaid or overworked. Fix these problems instead of creating weird custom rules against staffing companies and the problem will fix itself for the most part.

tracer4201 8y ago
Even if you give the visa to the employee, now you run the risk of employers sizing up an employee's status (are they a citizen or an immigrant who needs a job to stay in the country) and hiring or offering salaries based on that. It'll still lead to the wrong behaviors. Citizenship questions are illegal but still get asked. Are you going to outlaw asking about an employee's immigration status? Good luck enforcing that.
- belltaco 8y ago
  My point is that it will make it easier for employees stuck in a bad spot due to employee abuse to switch jobs. Lets say they join the company you cite and the boss dumps 80 hours a week worth of work every week and doesn't pay overtime. Currently it's a huge hassle and risky to switch jobs, so that employee may continue thus hurting the job market. If you give the employee the visa, they can shop around for jobs like citizens and the company they left will have to find someone else to replace them, hopefully at better market rates this time. The biggest leverage the companies have on immigrant labor is the threat of being fired and deported, if you make that less costly and not turn their life upside down in a day, the problem will be lessened and make the job market more fair and competitive for everyone looking for jobs, and also greatly hurt staffing companies. It also lets the employee say "No." more easily when asked to work 80 hours for the fourth week in a row with no extra pay. This is the reason companies lobby against making this happen.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    In my company most H1 workers that come from Infosys and others are mainly there because they are cheap and not because they are "highly qualified" as the intent of H1 is. If Infosys just had to pay market rates they would lose competitiveness and open up visa spots for the people who truly deserve one.
    - belltaco 8y ago
      If you make it easier for those folks to switch, they will switch away from Infosys to a better job after spending a month or two working for cheap, as you say. If that happens a lot Infosys will stop bringing in new people since they mostly leave early but they already paid for their immigration costs which add up. The employees also will be less inclined to work 80 hrs a week for Infosys to rake in the profits. If they want to retain people, Infosys will have to increase their salaries to close to market rate by charging the client more, which means the client is less likely to hire from Infosys. Either way it's a win.

rajeshpant 8y ago

Although staffing companies have abused the visas but given the way industry is structured, staffing companies do fill a lot of positions for contract workers & consulting roles. Strictly speaking in terms of law they should be able to hire people on visa as well. The most idiotic thing here is giving a visa to a company based on lottery. As the original comment pointed out, there should be a point system where you are graded based on education and experience.