H-1Bs coming under attack from laid off workers

[AU Tiger]

U.S. workers taking H-1B issues to court

Article describes how U.S. Citizens (from various backgrounds) are filing complaints with the US government regarding the H1-B visa program and how companies abuse the program.

I agree with many of the issues raised in this article and feel strongly that something needs to be done regarding H1-Bs and how companies use them. My experience with H1-Bs has been that the workers have been extremely underpaid for the same work that I was doing. Getting paid $20 an hour when the company was billing them out at $75. I recently turned an application I developed over to another contractor for support. He was a H1-B holder who had entered the country only a week earlier. The company brought him in rather than find someone locally. It is hard to believe that the company was unable to find someone locally who had VB and Oracle experience.

 

[nord1899]

I have a conflicting view on H1-B's, although the company I work for has a lot of people over here on H1-B work visas.

Basically, I view it an indendured servitude. The employee is over here at the companies expense as the company pays for the visa. They are unable to work at any other company (well legally anyway). And if fired from the host company, they have to leave the US in a short period of time, I think its 30 days but I could be wrong.
So essentially, they have to put up with whatever the host company does to them. Get a pathetic pay rise, tough luck. Working lots of overtime, tough luck. Complain too much, well you get sent home.

And then there is the aspect of these workers taking away jobs from US citizens. But the catch-22 here is that if the company didn't import these workers, they would most likely export the whole job (and possibly the company) to another country to get the cheaper labor. Thus preventing US citizens from getting the job anyway.

So from the US worker perspective, its lose-lose. From the foreign worker perspective, they win because they get paid better than at home, but lose because they get exploited relative to their US citizen co-workers. And for the companies its win-win.

So its a tough situation here. Hard to draw lines.

 

[manly]

I feel nord1899 pretty much nailed it on the head.

The only thing that bothers me about the H1B program is how the tech industry aggressively lobbied Congress, lying that the U.S. didn't created enough tech employees and that there were tens of thousands of unfilled jobs that needed foreign workers to fill. Congress bumped the annual limit for 65,000 to 200,000 and now it's obvious tech companies abused the program to control compensation costs.

In a way, I see a parallel with major league baseball. Don't drive salaries high & then complain about the level of compensation. With the tech industry limping along, there are plenty of job applicants willing to work for below the "prevailing market rate".

 

[AU Tiger]

Originally posted by: nord1899
And then there is the aspect of these workers taking away jobs from US citizens. But the catch-22 here is that if the company didn't import these workers, they would most likely export the whole job (and possibly the company) to another country to get the cheaper labor. Thus preventing US citizens from getting the job anyway.

This too is an unfortunate reality. Bank of America is moving towards 40% of their IT work being done offshore. They are one of many companies doing this.

 

[Goosemaster]

"WORK IS SUCK:|"


Seriosuly, I see where many people are coming from regarding corporation-based flagrancy and indeed VAGRANCY.

Here I sit studying to be an engineer and I might have to deal with THIS CRAP!!!:|

 

[fluxquantum]

damn foreignors no offense. funny you bring this up. all the foreignors in the company i used to work for are all on the H1-B visa program. when it came time to lay people off i and some others who are all u.s. citizens were the first to go. i kept in touch with a former co-worker and he told me that they are all still there. oh well.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Back in the mid 90's, I noticed that many employment ads specified a high level of knowledge (Grad work and/or 5-10 yrs) at a low level of $$$.

I had asked the state employment office about this.

Comment was that the jobs were tailored for foriegn students/workers that the company had already identified.
Companies have to show that US workers are not available for a position before they can go H1B. They advertise the position if trade papers to fufill the requirement (in case they get audited) knowing that the $$$ are not market rate. AFter no takers, they then go crying to the Feds stating that they need a H1B.

The Feds do not question the request because all the paperwork has been checked off.

When there is a shortage, the H1B is valid, however to manipulate numbers to create a impression of shortages is immoral.
Congress has the power to stop this, however, H1B is a valuable company resource and companies provide political $$$

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I have worked for an immigration law firm. I have done dozens of H-1B petitions.

Companies in america abuse the hell out of these people. They pay them far less than they would pay a USC with comparable experience / education.

The system is in dire need of reform.

 

[SuperTool]

Also, when it comes to layoffs, the managers know that if they layoff an American, he'll just go look for another job, but if they lay off a H1B, he'll get deported. That's a lot of emotional pressure. I am the only non H1B guy in my group, although some of mycoworkers have progressed onto greencard status. I will say that they are great workers. I think at least my company provides descent compensation for its workers regardless of status.

 

[StageLeft]

My company has several H1Bs. They were going to get me one but are not for the time being (business slow down!).

I should let everyone know if you don't already that the number of new H1B applications has sunk through the floor. I saw some numbers and way way less H1Bs are being applied for now than a few years ago. Way less.

An employee on an H1B is fairly screwed if they lose their job and can't find another one quickly and I'd expect that many companies do abuse them. Thankfully mine doesn't. I believe that the immigrants in mine are paid as much as a local person would be paid and they don't take us for granted in the least; sometimes I feel like they should (cause they have us by the balls - and by us I mean anyone on a visa), but they don't!

I've heard that in a little while the number of H1Bs available is going to be restricted a lot, which doesn't much matter since so many less people are applying for them - at least in IT, which is what you all are complaining about.

I agree that in many cases the system has been abused. It seems silly to hire a foreigner when somebody 10 miles away has just spent 4 months out of work for the same position, but I think this is less of an issue now than it was in the past, since now the companies know the local guy will work for what the foreigner wants

 

[vi edit]

Well, they could just do what one of my previous employers did - hire interns. My former employer had about 50 interns in an office of about 300 people. The interns were working full time hours, doing full time positions that a normal full time employee would fill, yet the employer only paid them 1/4 what a full time person would have been paid, and they didn't have to pay out benefits.

 

[athithi]

The H1-B program is widely abused. But OTOH, some US citizens appear to have an inflated sense of their skills. I've had a US citizen co-worker tell me that he would get paid more if people like me didn't come from other countries and drive down the billing rates. Turned out, I was making nearly twice as much as him and every other day he would find himself in my cube asking me to solve some problem or the other for him

I personally know a few H1-B folks who have no business being in the proximity of a computer. But most of the H1-B people I know work their butts off and directly provide more value to their employers than citizens.

But the catch-22 here is that if the company didn't import these workers, they would most likely export the whole job (and possibly the company) to another country to get the cheaper labor. Thus preventing US citizens from getting the job anyway.

You don't know how true this is! This is actually happening today. For the kind of work that I do, my clients in the U.S pay my employers in the range of $60 - $70 per hour per programmer (after recent rate cuts!). The same work, done by equally competent people back in India, woud probably cost my client about $7 - $8 per hour, with a liberal estimate. And back in India, the employers are a totally different breed. Most companies there operate 44 - 48 hours a week instead of the 40 here and there is almost always never a concept of overtime! Why wouldn't they move their projects off-shore!

 

[mithrandir2001]

If your representative voted a few years ago to raise the H1-B limit, write them a letter explaining how your vote is in jeopardy because he/she does not value high-paying American jobs.

Companies who sell out and ship IT jobs offshore will learn the hard way. Foreign labor may be cheaper but you get what you pay for. Non-English-speaking code monkeys don't grow a business, home-grown technology professionals with American college degrees do.

 

[athithi]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
If your representative voted a few years ago to raise the H1-B limit, write them a letter explaining how your vote is in jeopardy because he/she does not value high-paying American jobs.

Companies who sell out and ship IT jobs offshore will learn the hard way. Foreign labor may be cheaper but you get what you pay for. Non-English-speaking code monkeys don't grow a business, home-grown technology professionals with American college degrees do.

Probably true of most foreign countries, but specifically not India.

EDIT: And hindsight is 20/20. When H1 quotas were raised, there appeared to be a valid reason. Now that your economy has sunk, you should probably ask them to reduce the quotas rather than blame them for what was largely preceived to be an appropriate way of handling the demand for skilled workers a few years back.

 

[nord1899]

Originally posted by: athithi
The H1-B program is widely abused. But OTOH, some US citizens appear to have an inflated sense of their skills. I've had a US citizen co-worker tell me that he would get paid more if people like me didn't come from other countries and drive down the billing rates. Turned out, I was making nearly twice as much as him and every other day he would find himself in my cube asking me to solve some problem or the other for him

I personally know a few H1-B folks who have no business being in the proximity of a computer. But most of the H1-B people I know work their butts off and directly provide more value to their employers than citizens.

But the catch-22 here is that if the company didn't import these workers, they would most likely export the whole job (and possibly the company) to another country to get the cheaper labor. Thus preventing US citizens from getting the job anyway.

You don't know how true this is! This is actually happening today. For the kind of work that I do, my clients in the U.S pay my employers in the range of $60 - $70 per hour per programmer (after recent rate cuts!). The same work, done by equally competent people back in India, woud probably cost my client about $7 - $8 per hour, with a liberal estimate. And back in India, the employers are a totally different breed. Most companies there operate 44 - 48 hours a week instead of the 40 here and there is almost always never a concept of overtime! Why wouldn't they move their projects off-shore!

I do know how true it is. Looking around me at the 30 or so people sitting next to me, probably 10 of them are H1-B's or were before they got green cards. Some are worse, some are just as good, and some are better than their US citizen co-workers. Heck, my roommate, who works here, is a H1-B visa guy from the UK. Most H1-B's here are either from Asia or Sub-Asia. My company has sent a few hundred jobs over to India in the past few years. But its all the menial work, nothing really special. But they were US jobs before.

Overtime? What the heck is that? Or you mean where you get paid extra after going beyond 40 hours or so. Must be nice. Guess what, if you are salaried, you don't get overtime pay. Regardless of H1-B or not.

Why wouldn't they move off-shore? Hmm, lets see. The main company, the executives and the people in charge of designing things stay in the US. The grunt work, aka programmers, are now in lets say India. Do you realize the time difference? Do you realize the language barriers? The companies productivity will go down for a while until those things are worked out. Only to save some money in salaries and benefits. Not to mention all the horror stories of the code quality of stuff coming from there that I've heard about. Including code I've personally seen coming from Asia. Nasty nasty stuff that I am required to support.

But the H1-B program is needed. There are very intelligent and good tech people overseas that want to work in the US for better pay. This is the best way to get them here. If not, the companies would just export as much as they can, screwing over the US workforce.

Remember, all that US companies care about are shareholder value. Which means cutting costs as much as possible. There is no loyalty to the worker anymore from the company perspective.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Originally posted by: athithi

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
If your representative voted a few years ago to raise the H1-B limit, write them a letter explaining how your vote is in jeopardy because he/she does not value high-paying American jobs.

Companies who sell out and ship IT jobs offshore will learn the hard way. Foreign labor may be cheaper but you get what you pay for. Non-English-speaking code monkeys don't grow a business, home-grown technology professionals with American college degrees do.

Probably true of most foreign countries, but specifically not India.

EDIT: And hindsight is 20/20. When H1 quotas were raised, there appeared to be a valid reason. Now that your economy has sunk, you should probably ask them to reduce the quotas rather than blame them for what was largely preceived to be an appropriate way of handling the demand for skilled workers a few years back.

It was a manufactured "crisis" and everybody knew it, but the economy was on fire and the complaints were muted. If the worker shortage was so acute and compensation was so allegedly high, the free market - over time - would automatically allocate more workers to these jobs. Why be an accountant and get $40K when you can write software and earn $80K?

There was indeed a shortage of top talent: the gurus, the geniuses, the technologists who make it all happen. But do you think going overseas is going to solve that problem? Please. Sure, you'll get labor that will knock out code cheaply but that still doesn't solve the real problem of acquiring scarce top talent. I hold that foreign outsourced labor are not superlative businesspeople. They can code, but they don't seem to have the business acuity that some American technology workers have. Coding represents the nuts and bolts, but the real driver of business value comes from visionary leadership. You can't just buy that for $6-8 an hour overseas.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: nord1899

Remember, all that US companies care about are shareholder value. Which means cutting costs as much as possible. There is no loyalty to the worker anymore from the company perspective.

While you're right that reducing costs is the name of the game, "maximizing shareholder value" is one of the most ridiculous excuses in American business today. It's used to justify mergers and layoffs, shady accounting, throwing ludicrous sums of money/options to top execs, and in this case, totally misrepresenting the actual shortage of tech workers to expand a short-term visa program by a factor of 3.

Believe it or not, I'm all for immigration and even shipping jobs overseas but lets not lie about the premises all in the name of corporate profits.

 

[nord1899]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: nord1899

Remember, all that US companies care about are shareholder value. Which means cutting costs as much as possible. There is no loyalty to the worker anymore from the company perspective.

While you're right that reducing costs is the name of the game, "maximizing shareholder value" is one of the most ridiculous excuses in American business today. It's used to justify mergers and layoffs, shady accounting, throwing ludicrous sums of money/options to top execs, and in this case, totally misrepresenting the actual shortage of tech workers to expand a short-term visa program by a factor of 3.

Believe it or not, I'm all for immigration and even shipping jobs overseas but lets not lie about the premises all in the name of corporate profits.

I'm not saying I believe in that statement. What I am saying is that for a majority of the large publically traded companies it is the motto of the day.

In fact I believe it is one of the worst things to ever occur to corporations. The emphasis of shareholders above anything else screws everything else. The employees get shafted every which way. The quality of the product decreases. And the CEO/Chairman gets insane perks when the stock reaches certain prices.

I mean look at Enron, WorldCom, Xerox, etc... This is essentially what happened to them. I'm surprised more companies aren't falling due to it.

The H1-B visa was one way to cut costs, thats why it got increased. Its main purpose, bringing highly intelligent and skilled foreign workers to the US, was diluted. Instead you got people who were no more skilled than their US counterparts but were cheaper.

 

[athithi]

But its all the menial work, nothing really special. But they were US jobs before.

Menial? Relatively speaking, I am sure what you are doing is menial to someone else Fact is, you need a basic qualification and some aptitude to do any programming. Also, when jobs go overseas, the software might be architected here in the US, but each project is managed directly in India. They way some of you put it, it sounds as if some Godlike American is sitting here and shouting instructions to Indians and they run around and type 1000s of lines of code. This is plain wrong!

Overtime? What the heck is that? Or you mean where you get paid extra after going beyond 40 hours or so. Must be nice. Guess what, if you are salaried, you don't get overtime pay. Regardless of H1-B or not.

Where I work, a certain amount of overtime is mandatory for salaried employees as it directly reflects on the size of their bonus. Bonus? Do you know what the heck that is? It is what salaried employees get and contractors don't - same goes for performance appraisals, incentives and benefits.

Why wouldn't they move off-shore? Hmm, lets see. The main company, the executives and the people in charge of designing things stay in the US. The grunt work, aka programmers, are now in lets say India. Do you realize the time difference? Do you realize the language barriers? The companies productivity will go down for a while until those things are worked out. Only to save some money in salaries and benefits. Not to mention all the horror stories of the code quality of stuff coming from there that I've heard about. Including code I've personally seen coming from Asia. Nasty nasty stuff that I am required to support.

Just as in any industry, you get what you pay for. Pay a couple of dollars more per hour and go to a better established software house in India and you will get better code. Some of the worst coding and design I've seen comes from "blue-blooded" American citizens, so there India has the 4th largest pool of skilled workers and most of them can speak, write and understand sufficient English to do this work. Language barriers are not as huge as you imagine them to be when you are dealing with Indian programmers. Sure, you can make fun of their accent But bottomline is they can understand you and you can understand them. It usually takes very little time to work out any problems you have understanding their accent, or they yours.

But the H1-B program is needed. There are very intelligent and good tech people overseas that want to work in the US for better pay. This is the best way to get them here. If not, the companies would just export as much as they can, screwing over the US workforce.
Remember, all that US companies care about are shareholder value. Which means cutting costs as much as possible. There is no loyalty to the worker anymore from the company perspective.

Beyond this point, you and I are pretty much saying the same thing - obviously with slight biases So, I'd rather leave it here.

 

[athithi]

Coding represents the nuts and bolts, but the real driver of business value comes from visionary leadership. You can't just buy that for $6-8 an hour overseas.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Here's what I think: Americans make very good managers. They are disciplined, honest and very dedicated to their work. Indians make very good programmers (including designing and coding). They have very steep learning curves and can handle multiple development platforms better than their counterparts from the western world. They do lack discipline and leadership qualities. But they've come through a far more competitive and challenging education and career path than most Americans. If you think coding is just nuts and bolts and that any idiot with typing skills can do it, you are mistaken. As always, there are exceptions to both sides. All this IMO!

 

[StageLeft]

You can't blame some companies for going overseas with it. If you have some simple development work, perhaps even managed by somebody from your company at the overseas operation, why not pay $10/hour to have it done? In many cases overseas isn't viable. You need analysts, and often developers on smaller projects interfacing right with the client to get things done but if I was running a massive project I'd certainly consider sending some of my managers overseas to india to get the job done cheaper there as long as they were overseeing it closely.

 

[athithi]

The H1-B visa was one way to cut costs, thats why it got increased. Its main purpose, bringing highly intelligent and skilled foreign workers to the US, was diluted. Instead you got people who were no more skilled than their US counterparts but were cheaper.

I agree 100% In 1998-99 I came across fellow countrymen from India who had never used a computer until 2 months before they landed in the US :| Body-shopping assumed it's true meaning mainly in that period

 

[nord1899]

Okay menial was the wrong word. The jobs that were moved over were call center jobs. Level 1 call technicians. People who answer the phones, follow a script, and hope to solve the clients problems. No offense to the call center people on ATOT (Nik, Viper, etc...) Basically, jobs that people take because better ones haven't presented themselves yet.

Bonus? I don't get bonuses. Not in this economy. And yes I am salaried. The only thing I currently get that hourly people don't is paid benefits. Which granted is a huge perk.

Code can suck regardless of who writes it. Origin doesn't really matter. I'm just sayings it easier to enforce quality control if the coders are local rather than on the otherside of the world.

Again, I stress that the H1-B visa program is, or rather was, useful. Its just been used and abused and doesn't fulfill its original purpose anymore.

 

[athithi]

Originally posted by: nord1899
Okay menial was the wrong word. The jobs that were moved over were call center jobs. Level 1 call technicians. People who answer the phones, follow a script, and hope to solve the clients problems. No offense to the call center people on ATOT (Nik, Viper, etc...) Basically, jobs that people take because better ones haven't presented themselves yet.

Bonus? I don't get bonuses. Not in this economy. And yes I am salaried. The only thing I currently get that hourly people don't is paid benefits. Which granted is a huge perk.

Code can suck regardless of who writes it. Origin doesn't really matter. I'm just sayings it easier to enforce quality control if the coders are local rather than on the otherside of the world.

Again, I stress that the H1-B visa program is, or rather was, useful. Its just been used and abused and doesn't fulfill its original purpose anymore.

If I remember correctly, Call Centers were moved to India not only because of costs, but also because of the time-difference. Simply put, when it's night here, it's day there and that apparently makes it easier and cheaper for U.S companies to provide 24/7 support. But moving operations which primarily require communication skills out to India does not seem to be a very bright idea IMO.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: nord1899

Remember, all that US companies care about are shareholder value. Which means cutting costs as much as possible. There is no loyalty to the worker anymore from the company perspective.

While you're right that reducing costs is the name of the game, "maximizing shareholder value" is one of the most ridiculous excuses in American business today. It's used to justify mergers and layoffs, shady accounting, throwing ludicrous sums of money/options to top execs, and in this case, totally misrepresenting the actual shortage of tech workers to expand a short-term visa program by a factor of 3.

Believe it or not, I'm all for immigration and even shipping jobs overseas but lets not lie about the premises all in the name of corporate profits.

Well, there is a problem with this, even though I completely understand your logic.

Public companies are charged, under law, to maximize shareholder value. It's not just an overused phrase, there is some real legitimacy to it. Shareholders actually own the company so their interests come first (actually, bondholders come first) sometimes at the expense of employees. There are plenty of valid reasons why cutting costs and reducing the workforce is very good economics. Witness inefficient Socialist government-owned industry. There's no motivation to maximize shareholder value so the product is overpriced and often not what the consumer wants. At least you can say that the American economy produces goods cheaply and matches what consumers want.

The problem is that the pendulum has swung too far toward profit above all. In a theoretical sense, there is not much wrong with this but if a worker gets displaced because of profit maximization, he doesn't have the theoretical mobility to simply get another job instantaneously. Until our economy is purely free market, companies have a social obligation to produce good jobs for American workers. After all, these are the consumers who buy the companies' products. You can say that corporations exist for two purposes: capitalistic profit motivations and employment. The second purpose is hanging by a thin thread right now.