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Trump fires CEO of TVA over replacing US tech workers with H1B workers
- ianlevesque 6y agoWell, that was the easy part. Where's the funding going to come from to pay domestic workers?
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoIf the TVA is anything like the state level government I'm familiar with the answer is likely "the former salaries of politically appointed middle managers who can be sacked now that the CEO is gone and who's roles will not be back-filled". Depending on the union situation (union roles vs non-union job roles) that might not be possible though.
- gerbal 6y agoThe TVA is government owned, but self funded. Apparently it's turned a healthy profit since the 70s.
- pstuart 6y agoAnd there we land on the real reason for this: privatizing the TVA. The US jobs thing is just an excuse to take control. Edit: for the downvoters -- a citation to back up my assertion: https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/president-trump-renews-effort-sell-grid-assets-pmas-tva https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/president-tru...
- zaroth 6y agoIt’s illegal to pay H1Bs less than the prevailing wage.
- davidf18 6y agoH1-B is only for jobs where there are no qualified Americans to fill the job, for example, a PhD + post-doc physicist in condensed matter physics who has a masters in CS.
- phnofive 6y agoLoopholes aside, what possible motivation could an employer have for bringing in an H1B than lower cost? The H1B worker is beholden to the employer and the increased supply of labor would necessarily decrease scarcity of that skill.
- amf12 6y ago> what possible motivation could an employer have for bringing in an H1B than lower cost Skills for one. The way H1B was really meant to be used. I am not arguing TVA did this. But there ARE reasons to hire H1B workers other than cost. Case in point Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
- zaroth 6y agoThis is exactly the stated purpose--and indeed the legal requirement--of H1B visas, to gain access to uniquely skilled workers that are not available through the local workforce. It's supposed to be an essentially merit-based path to immigration, and if true, that would make it exactly the kind of program that Trump should 100% support. To the extent that H1B accomplishes this objective of highly skilled labor at prevailing market wages, I think it's a useful program that has a place in the overall immigration system. From a macroeconomic view, even when limited to bringing in skilled labor to fulfill a specific market shortage, this will still depress the prevailing wage in that market, which theoretically prevents the market from correcting when rising wages induce increased local supply. Fundamentally something is broken with the wage market when real wages have not grown in decades. Partially this is a problem with the measurement not correctly accounting for significantly increased cost of [healthcare] benefits covered by the employer share. But I believe even when accounting for the full employer-side cost of wages, this number has not grown as expected, and low-wage work visas are part of the problem.
- commandlinefan 6y ago> to pay domestic workers Wait, so they were underpaying the H1B workers the way they're explicitly prohibited by law from doing?
- dpoochieni 6y agoThis is easily avoided. Plenty of loopholes, hard to prove and enforce
- cosmie 6y agoYou can see the salaries of the H1B workers here[1] (at least their initial salaries). Electrical engineering related hires had salaries between $47k - $55k. Looking at other H1B salary data for those years (2001 - 2003)[2], and the TVA salaries seem on par with other H1B hires(they're neither the lowest, nor the highest). Chattanooga where all these hires were at also has a fairly low cost of living, so $55k sounds like a decent wage for the area. The more recent hires were all managerial level, and range from $90k - $130k. Not sure how competitive those were with domestic hires at the time (last H1B hire was in 2008), but overall they're fairly high salaries. And these were all in Nashville, where that wage is enough to support a family living in the well-to-do suburbs of the area. [1] https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALLEY+AUTHORITY&year=&minsalary=&state=&worksite_city=&job_title= https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALL... [2] https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=ELECTRICAL+ENGINEER&year=2001&minsalary=&state=&worksite_city=&job_title= https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=ELECTRICAL+ENG...
- gerbal 6y agoThis is off the AP Newswire, here's the AP original with a bit more detail: https://apnews.com/0336437987fec77627c17ca9a4c781bc https://apnews.com/0336437987fec77627c17ca9a4c781bc
- ipsin 6y agoTrump acknowledged that he was made aware of the issue after seeing a television ad ... that aired in prime time on Fox News. ... The ad, Lynn said, had an “audience of one,” aiming to persuade Trump to stop the TVA from outsourcing much of its information technology division. I wonder how many other Trump administration policy decisions can be linked back to an ad buy on Fox News...
- Alupis 6y agoThis is nothing new. Take a political ad out on a major network it certain to get attention from any administration - even if just to look into the premise.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Whinner 6y agoAccording to the article linked, Trump wants the new CEO to make less than $500k/year. Yet, according to this article from 2019, the CFO, COO, general council & chief nuclear officer are all making well over that. Who the hell is going to take the CEO job? https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2019/nov/15/tva-pays-record-amounts-top-executives/508316/ https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2019/nov/15/...
- one2know 6y agoAre you kidding? Most people make $50k not $500k. Lots of existing CEO's don't even make $500k.
- 6y ago
- jedberg 6y agoI think the administration is solving the wrong problem here. If the TVA is using H1B just to save money, then they are violating the H1B program. The administration should be cracking down on H1B violations.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoFiring the CEO of a federally owned corporation for abusing the H1B program is cracking down.
- jedberg 6y agoThey didn’t abuse the program. They hired American companies who violated the rules.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoWhitewashing the abuse through vendors does not absolve you of responsibility. It is your job as a CEO to know what is going on in your business. Implement better HR and vendor controls if you want to keep your job. The abuse was brought to light (by the non-profit U.S. Tech Workers), and the executive branch executed on that information against a federally chartered corporation's chief executive. Whether it's selective or not is immaterial. Some violators will get away (unfortunately!), some will not. Try complaining to the officer as they write the ticket that everyone else was speeding too. Everyone else was, but you were the one who was pulled over and is getting the ticket.
- Retric 6y agoNo, a minimal amount of selective enforcement is never cracking down. It can be an excuse, publicity stunt, etc but cracking down requires a wide scale enforcement effort. Let’s suppose ~5% of all H1B’s are problematic... That’s ~9,000 per year so catching 1% of cases would be ~900 over the last decade.
- stale2002 6y ago
- whoisjuan 6y agoAll this bullshit over 10 positions, the last one filed on 2008 (12 years ago) and the first one filed on 2001? And for specialized jobs nonetheless. https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=Tennessee+Valley+Authority&year=&minsalary=&state=&worksite_city=&job_title= https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=Tennessee+Vall... He fired the first poor bastard he found to rile up his base on the idea that he is protecting American jobs. This is not only absolutely stupid and unjustified. It also shows how petty are politics in this country.
- aaomidi 6y agoThe CEO probably pissed him off...
- cordite 6y agoThis is prior to his administration though?
- dpoochieni 6y agoWhat's your point? Something wrong was done a long time ago so by now it's no longer wrong?
- jedberg 6y agoThe H1Bs in question were hired by contracting firms so you wouldn’t find them in that list.
- whoisjuan 6y agoYou know how many government agencies hire contractors that use H1-B workers?? I know at least 3 people that worked as sub-contractors for government agencies while they were on H1B visas. The three worked for state agencies, though. One was the DOT of NYC, if I remember correctly. Still, this is hardly the issue. This is hinting that any government sub-contractor should abstain from hiring H1Bs and there's no written law that prohibits this. Again pure pettiness.
- 6y ago
- omarhaneef 6y agoNot going to take a side on the politics but I think every CEO would like clarity on what the rules are. Is the policy not to higher H1B workers for public entities? Let the government issue a clear policy and then hold people accountable. It would be tough to run an organization and have to guess at what is not countenanced.
- bilbo0s 6y agoIs the problem not knowing the policy? Or is the policy different depending on the political winds? Two very different issues. If the policy is one way for one administration, and different for another, you're still in trouble. In fact, the policy can be one way for an administration, and then an election comes up and that administration needs some political points.
- omarhaneef 6y agoWell, if and when a new administration comes in, they can announce the new policy and then you have to abide by it. The new administration ought not to be able to punish you for the old policy. My whole argument is premised on what ought to be. I don't disagree with you on what the case may actually be.
- epicureanideal 6y agoIt seems like this is a government owned corporation, so most private sector CEOs don't need to worry about this. If you're a CEO of a government owned corporation, it seems like it has become a good idea to go out of your way to either a) hire local workers, or b) make sure you have a paper trail to prove you really needed those contractors for a reason other than cost savings.
- goodluckchuck 6y agoI have a hard time believing that that CEOs can't understand "Buy American; Hire American."
- DuskStar 6y agoConsidering that part of the TVA's original purpose was to provide jobs for American workers during the Great Depression, "don't hire H1Bs or send jobs overseas" actually seems like a reasonable stipulation.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoSomebody needs to tell him about the shit Disney tried to pull.
- chrisco255 6y agoThe TVA is federally owned. Disney is not.
- normand1 6y agoDisney still needs to abide by the H1-B hiring requirements
- ExThermoGuy 6y agoHe can't fire the Disney CEO. He can't even sic his AG on him.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoWannabe dictators won't let these small details get in the way.
- chrisco255 6y agoWas it dictatorial when FDR set up the TVA in the first place, placing a huge chunk of the South's power grid under federal control?
- ExThermoGuy 6y ago- Trump cannot, legally, go over Disney. - Trump goes after TVA and not Disney. - Trump is a dictator. - Dictators do as they please. - Trump should go after Disney. - Trump has not gone after Disney. I wonder where the problem is with these set of assertions? Question. Name me something Trump did that: 1. Is obviously unconstitutional. 2. He continued doing is after courts found it unconstitutional. 3. Isn't something previous presidents did. I'm willing to relax #3 if you are willing to acknowledge that previous presidents were just as dictatorial in their disregard for the constitution, and therefore Trump abuse of power is a non-issue.
- ascales 6y agoWhile getting some US developers back on the job might be a good thing, taking steps to dismantle a government chartered public utility is not. This isn't about the 10 H1-B visas, this is low hanging political fruit that Trump will use to attempt privatization of the TVA.
- dpoochieni 6y agoThanks for sharing the President's thoughts.
- pstuart 6y agoAgreed. This administration doesn't care about US workers, but it does care about their personal profit.
- moomin 6y agoNow make it unprofitable for the Trump Organisation to do the same thing and we’ll talk.
- yesplorer 6y agoTrump Organization is private, the TVA isn't.
- fabian2k 6y agoFrom the AP report on this (https://apnews.com/0336437987fec77627c17ca9a4c781bc https://apnews.com/0336437987fec77627c17ca9a4c781bc) > Trump acknowledged that he was made aware of the issue after seeing a television ad produced by U.S. Tech Workers, a nonprofit that wants to limit visas given to foreign technology workers, that aired in prime time on Fox News. It does seem truly scary that by far the easiest way to get the US president to do something is to put an ad on Fox News. If you can package your cause into one of his pet topics, you have a good chance of something getting done. A US president that is so easily manipulated is terrifying.
- jaywalk 6y agoYes, of course. Obviously the President of the US should have already been aware of the hiring practices of contractors at some regional utility provider.
- hundchenkatze 6y agoI don't think the person you're replying to was implying the President should already be aware of the issues. Rather, that it's concerning that the best way to convince him to do anything is through a TV ad instead of a more appropriate means of communication.
- jaywalk 6y agoWho cares how he learned about it? The President has hundreds, probably thousands of people asking him for stuff every day. He has teams of people who filter requests through the "appropriate means of communication." Seriously, it's irrelevant. When he learned of a federally-controlled entity working against the best interests of Americans, he took action. That's really all that matters. I don't care if he saw a TV ad, a billboard, or any other unconventional means of communication with the US President.
- davidf18 6y agoBiden is anti-American: He wants to increase the number of H1-B Visas which harms American STEM workers and STEM students and discourages Americans from going into STEM. Sen Kamala Harris, whose mother is from India, is the Democratic sponsor of Bill S.386 which doubles the number of Indian STEM workers coming to America from 1 in 14 to 1 in 7. Both Biden and Harris and other Dems are anti-American, pro-globalism, putting foreigners ahead of American workers.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoGood. The TVA was created during the Great Depression to help the Tennessee Valley region develop (at the time one of the poorest parts of the US). Changes like this will help it get back to that original mission.
- jariel 6y agoIt's always interesting when unsavoury politics is mixed with the difficult realities of such programs. The neoliberal benefits of H1's make sense, but the context has to be clear. I think it would also make sense if at least public agencies should be required to employ Americans, because the H1 program is not supposed to be for the purposes of 'saving money' and it's hard to fathom what kind of 'highly specialised expertise' is needed in governmental IT operations. Perhaps on a consultative basis. If there are legit R&D needs, i.e. if they were designing new chips for NASA or whatever, fair enough ... but most of this is pretty squarely in the domain of 'off the shelf' IT work. Again - even then the benefits are possibly positive 'on the whole' for the economy, if not for the workers who otherwise did not get a job ... but it's public money ... I think it makes sense to hire locally and I don't think for a second Americans would have a problem with that. Of all the things everyone likes to argue about (i.e. taxes, unemployment benefits) - I suggest there would be at least some easy consensus here.
- cosmie 6y ago> but it's public money ... I think it makes sense to hire locally and I don't think for a second Americans would have a problem with that. TVA is a government owned corporation, but it's fully self funded. So they're not spending public money other than insofar as TVA costs get passed to the electric bills of anyone whose local electric utility is purchasing electricity from TVA. TVA has over 10k active employees and has only ever had 10 H1B employees (all hired between 2001 - 2008)[1]. And all of their H1B hires fell into either electrical engineering or product/financial risk analysis, and all located within Nashville, TN or Chattanooga, TN. Their usage of H1B employees seems far more indicative of localized hiring difficulty, rather than some pattern of H1B abuse. I've lived in both of those places, and they both have risen in popularity and desirability throughout the last decade. Having hired in Nashville before, people have become far more willing to relocate to Tennessee over the last few years. But that doesn't mean their was similar interest in relocating to TN for work 12-19 years ago when they filled these roles with H1B hires. [1] https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALLEY+AUTHORITY&year=&minsalary=&state=&worksite_city=&job_title= https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALL...
- 6y ago
- imglorp 6y agoIt's okay to hire illegals though, so you don't have that pesky H1B paperwork. Trump properties are doing this now, not a decade ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/undocumented-housekeeper-trump-golf-bedminster.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/undocumented-housekeep... __ edit__ if someone's downvoting, maybe they could come out and indicate if (a) you can't detect sarcasm, (b) you approve of hiring illegals, or (c) you think Trump should be allowed to break the law while grandstanding on an old H1 question?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tibbydudeza 6y agoIt is easier to fire people of some federal agency that nobody knew about than tackling a serious health crisis.
- I90Runner 6y agoyou can do research on companies hiring h1b employees and salaries here. You can see some of the outsourcing companies paying very low. https://h1bsalary.online/ https://h1bsalary.online/
- I90Runner 6y agohttps://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALLEY+AUTHORITY https://h1bsalary.online/index.php?searchtext=TENNESSEE+VALL... .. Looks like they don't have any latest hiring on H1B.
- leetrout 6y agoWow look at the misdirection in TVAs statement: All TVA employees are U.S. based citizens. All jobs related to TVA’s Information Technology department must be performed in the U.S. by individuals who may legally work in this country. So all _employees_ are citizens. All _jobs_ (hello contractors) are by authorized individuals in the US.