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Lawsuit: Oracle called $50K 'good money for an Indian'
- sizzle 13y agowould he be coming on a H1b visa?
- tlogan 13y agoI'm not a lawyer and I would love the hear opinion about this. Do companies use L-1 visas to workaround H1B requirements? As far as I understand L-1 visa (which is probably used here) has no prevailing wage requirement. They can even still be on payroll of Oracle in India (or whatever Oracle's entity in India is called).
- stickydink 13y agoAn L-1 currently requires working continuously for 1 year, for the same company in the original country. Has that always been the case?
- otoburb 13y agoFrom what I can see, it's been (for a while) that you needed to work 3 years for the current company, of which at least 1 of those years must have been in the original country of origin.
- diogenescynic 13y ago>I'm not a lawyer and I would love the hear opinion about this. Do companies use L-1 visas to workaround H1B requirements Yes, often they come over under the veil of a 'temporary assignment' so they remain on foreign payroll. They can stay up to three years before having to renew/reapply. I worked for an immigration law firm and I saw wages as low as $15,000/year coming from South Korea to work at Fortune 500s.
- southphillyman 13y agoThis is a strategy used by Accenture's ATS division. Teams of 100+ engineers deployed in the US, being bused to hotels and given meal vouchers at night, while earning Indian wages.
- eitally 13y agoTHere's a huge secondary benefit (to the employee) for L-1s, though. Spouses pretty much automatically qualify for an L-2, which allows them to work at-will in the US, too. So, even if the L-1 worker is severely underpaid (based on prevailing wages in their home country), their spouse can apply for a job paid using the US salary standards. L-1 also allows for immediate Green Card application, and is a much smoother path toward permanent residency than H-1B.
- cowls 13y agoI think this is fine if it actually is temporary. As they're getting general living costs on top of their regular salary. ie accommodation and food
- bib971 13y agoAnd are these 100+ engineer forced to accept that term? Or more likely they think it's a good deal for them (i.e. living in India earning Indian wage)?
- fleitz 13y agoCompanies use the path of least resistance. (unless they like making life difficult for themselves) If an L-1 is easier to get they will do that, if a TN is easier they will do that, etc, etc, etc. Immigration is highly particular to an individual case.
- noonereally 13y agoThis is not correct. I work on H1b and have tons of friends on L1 visa. When employee is transferred from India to US, they are supposed to get salary based on US County ( that's right, its COUNTY) they will be working in. Before coming to US ( or filing visa) lawyer is supposed to file LCA ( called Labor Condition Application) which mentions prevailing wages for that particular job title. If anyone is getting paid less than what is mentioned as LCA then its blatant violation of law. You can call USCIS/ICE helpline and within 24 hrs action will be taken and most likely employer will be fined severely.
- badman_ting 13y agoLabor costs, labor costs, labor costs. (And racism, of course.)
- etanazir 13y agoDiscrimination based on race and discrimination based on the foreign nationality immigrant status are very different things, no?
- dictum 13y agoXenophobia is racism's twin sister.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoI don't believe anything in the article indicates this was Xenophobia. It sounds entirely plausible that it wasn't "offer him less because he's brown", but rather "offer him less because he lives in a lower-cost-of-living and lower-average-income country". i.e. this might be akin to saying "that's good money for someone from Alabama". It's not about race, it's about location. I'm not saying there's a ton of evidence in favor of what I'm saying, I'm just saying it's a possible explanation.
- gyc 13y agoThe story says he wanted to move the Indian salesperson from India to California.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoOh I see - yes I agree that is different
- dictum 13y agoI understand your point: different countries have different costs of living and different average income values. Even though it's entirely hypocritical of me (I'm somewhat okay with Chinese companies paying lower wages as long as they're above the average Chinese income), I still can't let go of how "it's okay, he lives in India so he doesn't need that much money" sounds like "it's okay, she's black, she doesn't need that much money and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway" or "it's okay, he's Asian, I bet he's frugal enough not to need the same wage as our white employees".
- powertower 13y agoMy first impression was this person attempted to inject race into everything at Oracle and higher-ups simply just had enough of it and fired him. 50K is unthinkable of an offer while but 60K is not... Whatever. It's clear the offer made was 50K because the employee was willing to take it to get the benefit of working US-side. Not because he was being discriminated against. The only issue was someone said something stupid.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI think this story is missing some key pieces (it seems like it was created by the plaintiff's lawyer). Still if the commentary suggested is true, then Oracle could be in trouble. The technicality that I wonder about is that this guys wasn't "harmed" by being told to pay the foreign worker less, (mental distress complaint aside) and the foreign worker presumably doesn't know this happened and so isn't suing Oracle. And all of that is conflated by the fact that the person is already hired so it isn't a hiring question, it is a pay question. And at least in the several "managing legally" I've been to, paying people differently doesn't get you into legal trouble like not hiring or firing them does. That said, at one of the companies where I worked there was a suggestion for engineers to go to India to help train local engineers, and having their salary be the same as their peers would have in India. (as opposed to California salaries) It was controversial to say the least.
- Jochim 13y agoI think his argument is that he was fired for trying to prevent Indian employees being discriminated against, which might be considered unfair dismissal. In the UK being fired for exposing wrongdoing within the company counts as unfair dismissal, I don't know if the US has a similar system in place to protect workers in situations like this.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- DanBC 13y agoWhen your company breaks a law and you try to prevent them breaking that law or you whistleblow a out them breaking that law you are protected.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoI wonder how well that law works for Government employees (or contractors)? /s
- 13y ago
- cognivore 13y agoOracle will get kicked in the buffalo packet on the point of "retaliation." Essentially, they fired him because he was questioning them - you can't do that, especially in California which has hugely employee slanted laws. The point of whether the Indian sales hire was being discriminated against is not in the senior salesperson's domain - it would be the Indian's lawsuit to file.
- sequoia 13y ago...buffalo packet?
- free 13y agoYou get what you pay for. The only people joining would be the one's who have no other option. They'll only harm themselves in the long run I think.
- tinkupandey 13y agoUsually how does one prove such verbal comments with evidence? Does this guy need someone witness attesting such and such comment was made?
- gopher1 13y agoYes, the so-called "shortage" of STEM workers is just an excuse to relax immigration laws in order to pay foreigners less than domestic workers.
- johnpmayer 13y agoWell there is certainly scarcity, and I don't think an isolationist approach will help. We need to protect the H1Bs and equivalents coming to our countries; give them better rights, increase their leverage. This will make it harder for employees to drive down their, and by extension our, salaries. This is because foreign and domestic workers are substitute goods from an HR perspective.
- gopher1 13y agoI agree with you on the immigrant protections, but not everyone agrees on the scarcity point: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoRedacted.
- gopher1 13y agoYes, I edited for clarification.
- unreal37 13y agoThis article was basically written by the plantiff's lawyer. Of course it's heavily slanted to one side. Would want to hear the other side. Even what is written doesn't sound lawsuit worthy. In the end, the company was offering an existing employee a raise to $50K per year and this one unrelated guy thought $60K was a better offer. It's a fine line. I can't see the guy winning his suit based on only $10K difference to an employee that doesn't even know this conversation is happening. Companies are always trying to pay less than they have to, regardless of race. I've seen countless times employers being happy that a candidate, when asked how much salary they wanted, came back with a low number. Everyone in the hiring process knows the candidate is under-pricing themselves to the market, but lo and behold the offer comes at what they asked for. "More money to get the next candidate"
- fleitz 13y agoYeah, no kidding, welcome to negotiating, if you're getting what you asked for, you're asking for too little.
- chetanahuja 13y agoI don't think the numbers themselves are the problem. The problem is (if proven) that the hiring manager said those fateful words "...enough for an Indian".
- jedmeyers 13y agoUnless the hiring manager wrote this somewhere like an email, I doubt it will be proven at all. Anyway for now it is nothing more than just hearsay.
- bonemachine 13y agoEven what is written doesn't sound lawsuit worthy. May or may not have been, but sounds like you didn't even read the article, judging from your response. Hint: It definitely was not about a $10k salary difference.
- enscr 13y agoBesides salary difference, getting fired for raising concerns like these are sufficient grounds for a lawsuit.
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but $50k actually is good money for an Indian right? Pretty sure this is just a way for everyone on HN to vent their outsourcing frustrations under the thin guise of political correctness.
- gnu8 13y agoThere's no excuse for underpaying employees because of their location or the color of their skin. The proper salary for an oracle employee is probably several million dollars per year, based on their sales, but most of it is stolen by the shareholders and top level executives.
- rgbrenner 13y agoThe proper salary for an oracle employee is probably several million dollars per year, based on their sales Oracle only pulls in 300k revenue per employee. Interesting how that makes each one worth 'several million' a year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation
- supercanuck 13y agoAgreed. The janitors should sue for their rightful piece of the action.
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoThis is not meant to offend, but your response is essentially socialist in nature. If we keep this discussion within the capitalist framework, then the proper salary is simply $1 more than a competitor is willing to pay said employee. Thus it is arguable that this particular employee was extremely overpaid.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago> This is not meant to offend, but your response is essentially socialist in nature. You say that like it's a bad thing. I'm not sure I agree, anyway. Paying people according to the sales value they create leads to pretty unequal outcomes; janitors, clerks, and other unrespected jobs may be forced to scrape by on less than a living wage. Sounds a lot like capitalism!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- chollida1 13y agoThis seems to be in really poor taste. I don't think we should start a witch hunt here. Please consider deleting your post.
- ck2 13y agoIf this outrages you, wait 'til you hear about all the jobs corporations ship overseas just to pay a fraction of and write it off. You mean there are a-holes in the business world?
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoWhat's your point? We shouldn't fight against bad things because worse things also exist?
- abc_lisper 13y agoNot sure what is going on here. A person on a H-1B visa, should be paid atleast 60k in the US. In California, it is somewhat higher. Either this guy is coming on B-1 visa, or something is wrong here.
- konceptz 13y agoI'll just comment on an experience that someone had while interviewing at oracle. A friend, recently graduated from my school, was flown to their headquarters for a final round of interviews. She asked "What does your company look for in a candidate?" She got the one word response, "Testosterone." She did not get the job. Coincidentally my friend is Indian.
- packetslave 13y agoIf that really happened, your friend likely has grounds for legal action. I have a hard time believing that even at Oracle someone would be stupid enough to say that to a candidate.
- potato1 13y agoPlease don't act like Oracle is the only SV company doing this. The free markets decided that pervasive racism in compensation is OK in SV.
- suyash 13y agoagree, there are several companies in SV who are paying full time employees even less than 50K working in technology.
- noonereally 13y ago50K in california will be like 2K in saving after being ultra-frugal.
- ashwinaj 13y agoIt's 2014, it's a globalized world. There are thousands of Americans living in India and vice-versa (probably more Indians in the US). The "good money for an Indian" if true, is clearly a despicable statement to make about a fellow employee with regards to his/her pay. I understand the posts about salary negotiation, but he/she wasn't directly engaged in it nor should someone's background/living standards shouldn't be taken into consideration when being posted in another country. Where are all the company moral values? Or quite simply where is human decency? Shameful, if true.
- known 13y agoGlobalization is Zero-Sum. Amend your Constitution accordingly. Otherwise your future generations will regret.