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The parallels with the music industry are very interesting: The music industries decided to fight file sharers with government intervention (just like what many

The parallels with the music industry are very interesting: The music industries decided to fight file sharers with government intervention (just like what many want to do with businesses now with H1B workers). File sharers just figured out new ways of getting music for free and now we have things like Bittorrent and the Piratebay. The music industry was forced to complete and yes, they make less money, but at least they can make a living. The same can be said of American workers wanting to compete with overseas workers: Figure out how to compete or you will be crushed due to the now global marketplace.

pm24601 11y ago
Exactly what did this workers do wrong? As was noted in the article, a number of them did such a good job that they were expecting a raise. > “The first 30 days was all capturing what I did,” said the American in his 40s, who worked 10 years at Disney. “The next 30 days, they worked side by side with me, and the last 30 days, they took over my job completely.” To receive his severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my job correctly.” > In late November, this former employee received his annual performance review, which he provided to The New York Times. His supervisor, who was not aware the man was scheduled for layoff, wrote that because of his superior skills and “outstanding” work, he had saved the company thousands of dollars. The supervisor added that he was looking forward to another highly productive year of having the employee on the team. > The employee got a raise. His severance pay had to be recalculated to include it.
geoelectric 11y ago
I don't think this is an issue of competing with overseas workers, per se. American companies like H1Bs for two reasons: One, they're generally paid less. I think this is usually justified by the employers because of the up front legal costs around the sponsorship, but those costs amortize over time since the salary stays lower each year. Two, they're locked into the job. It's not trivial to get a new sponsor; you can't just randomly job hunt. So when things get bad, the sponsored employees stay when the standard ones leave. And regardless of thoughts around global markets and whatnot, H1Bs are supposed to come with a simple rule: there is no available domestic resource to do the same job. At the point where you have the prior workers training the new workers, that's plainly being violated. It's not supposed to be "nobody to do the job at the sub-market price you're willing to pay." I'm all for global marketplaces, but this isn't really that. This is importing artificially cheap labor into a domestic marketplace. That's a bit more questionable.

pm24601 11y ago

Exactly what did this workers do wrong? As was noted in the article, a number of them did such a good job that they were expecting a raise. > “The first 30 days was all capturing what I did,” said the American in his 40s, who worked 10 years at Disney. “The next 30 days, they worked side by side with me, and the last 30 days, they took over my job completely.” To receive his severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my job correctly.” > In late November, this former employee received his annual performance review, which he provided to The New York Times. His supervisor, who was not aware the man was scheduled for layoff, wrote that because of his superior skills and “outstanding” work, he had saved the company thousands of dollars. The supervisor added that he was looking forward to another highly productive year of having the employee on the team. > The employee got a raise. His severance pay had to be recalculated to include it.

geoelectric 11y ago

I don't think this is an issue of competing with overseas workers, per se. American companies like H1Bs for two reasons: One, they're generally paid less. I think this is usually justified by the employers because of the up front legal costs around the sponsorship, but those costs amortize over time since the salary stays lower each year. Two, they're locked into the job. It's not trivial to get a new sponsor; you can't just randomly job hunt. So when things get bad, the sponsored employees stay when the standard ones leave. And regardless of thoughts around global markets and whatnot, H1Bs are supposed to come with a simple rule: there is no available domestic resource to do the same job. At the point where you have the prior workers training the new workers, that's plainly being violated. It's not supposed to be "nobody to do the job at the sub-market price you're willing to pay." I'm all for global marketplaces, but this isn't really that. This is importing artificially cheap labor into a domestic marketplace. That's a bit more questionable.