4 ms·
H1Bs are slave labor and the program is used primarily by sweat shop consultancies who pay them less than Americans. This will be incredible for Americans looki
by 0xy 1y ago
H1Bs are slave labor and the program is used primarily by sweat shop consultancies who pay them less than Americans. This will be incredible for Americans looking for work. They don't have to compete with artificially cheap workers.
- sylens 1y agoThe order allows for exemptions at the executive’s discretion. Aka, the biggest companies will bend the knee and get their way
- Muromec 1y agoWhat you are replying to is a not even a critique of the policy itself, so defending it is a bit misdirected on your part
- rjh29 1y agoWhen I think of slavery I usually think of working for free, not H1B tech worker salaries which are insanely high on a global scale. It's also something people actively sign up for.
- brazukadev 1y agoThe free part of slavery is about freedom, not payment. It was not uncommon for enslaved people to buy their way out of enslavement.
- Aurornis 1y agoThe defining feature of slavery is the involuntary part of it.
- seadan83 1y agoQuick googling (could be wrong), thousands bought freedom, approx 4 million were enslaved. It would have been uncommon, ballpark 0.1% (which still seems high to me. The issue is a very large denominator)
- sarchertech 1y agoSlavery was around long before the US existed. In Ancient Rome it was much more common for slaves to buy their way out of slavery..
- seadan83 1y agoSure, but the context is America. It would have been helpful to make clear you are referring to other systems of slavery (for which i would still want to see data for). Again, the resources I found in a quick search state about 5M slaves in Rome, and buying freedom was uncommon.
- 8organicbits 1y agoTo echo a sibling comment: freedom, not salary, is under question. Agreement should not be given one time at sign up, it needs to be given continuously. High cost associated with being compelled to leave the country upon quitting, low mobility between employers, etc. reduce that freedom. Worth reading about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour, it's not just the practice of chattel slavery, and various forms are still legal in the US.
- Aurornis 1y ago> H1Bs are slave labor How did we get to a point where people casually call H1B tech workers often earning $120K or more “slave labor”?
- 0xy 1y agoWhen their identically leveled peers earn $300k.
- Cheer2171 1y agoEven assuming that is true, is that unfair? Yes. Unjust? Yes. Exploitative? Yes. Racist? Usually. But slavery? Absolutely not. Or give me your definition of slavery.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 1y agoSlavery is a spectrum. H1B are more enslaved than natives, because they have less freedom to quit, change jobs, argue with their superiors etc.
- Cheer2171 1y agoNope, sorry but words have actual meanings and definitions. Slavery is when a person is owned as property. Slavery still exists in the U.S. for prisoners, for example, where the U.S. Constitution explicitly carves out an exception. Now, I don't disagree with your assessment that people on H1Bs have less agency, autonomy, and rights than natives. But you dilute the meaning of the term 'slavery' when you apply it to someone who has a 100% legally protected right to leave their place of employment and country at any time, without having to pay anything but the cost of a ticket. If an H1B employer holds a worker's passport and makes them work in slavery-like conditions, then that's illegal. If an employer treats an H1B like an indentured servant and makes them pay off the cost of their hiring and immigration, then that's illegal. It does happen in the US, which is bad. It happens far more often to immigrants in places like Dubai, whose conditions often are slavery. Slavery is really fucking terrible. There is a reason we react so strongly against it. By saying H1B === slavery, you're being intellectually dishonest or using black-and-white thinking.
- thisisit 1y agoAs I posted in another thread people seem to be stuck on this point. Lets agree - some H1B was exploited by sweat shop consultancies who pay less than Americans. And this might be incredible for Americans looking for work. But in what world does this kind of policy implementation is justified? How is this a functioning bureaucracy in a functioning democracy where people can suffer like this?
- happytoexplain 1y agoExactly. At this point, I think American businesses need to be forced back toward hiring Americans at legal gunpoint, with the exception of extremely high-skill immigrants (we still need to attract brains). But of course there was never a chance in hell this administration could implement such a complex thing without glaring holes, incompetence, and cruelty.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> This will be incredible for Americans looking for work. No, it won’t, jobs (especially local jobs) aren’t a fixed commodity that are going to get filled. This will kill jobs overall, and result in more of the jobs (including jobs that didn't take H-1Bs to fill but were associated with businesses that had such positions) that remain being outside of the US as a direct result, and those direct US job losses will knock-on effects that will kill even more US jobs.