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Sun Sued Over H1-B Workers
heli0 writes "The Boston Globe is reporting: 'A lawsuit filed yesterday in California alleges computer giant Sun Microsystems Inc. laid off thousands of American high-tech workers in order to replace them with younger, lower-paid engineers from India.' Could this be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back?"
No.
Hey Sun, since you're an American company working mostly with American companies, how about employing some Americans? Sux it down Sun. Have fun with the lawsuit. System.err.print("We're being sued. HELP!!!!")
One of the suits already got dismissed.
If, on the other hand, Sun looses this one, then bye bye US jobs and hello nice fat contract for Sun India. Which would be even worse.
Hyperom.com
What is H1-B? Is this the Visa that allows foriegn nationals to work in the US in high tech jobs?
rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Is this illegal? Isn't that sort of the way business has been done for a million years now? (letting go of expensive help and hiring cheaper help) It's not like the auto industry hasn't been doing this for years by building plants in other countries to take advantage of their cheap labor.
I have to wonder if the USian labor force isn't partly to blame by pricing themselves out of the market.
All the best,
--Bob
How exactly does this fall under the category "Your Rights Online"?
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
As long as they are compensated and treated the same as Americans. Humans are not a commodity. H1B's generally come from desperate situations so of course they _will_ work for a lot less than Americans, but that doesn't mean that it's ethical to exploit the desperate situation in which they came from.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Could be worse...
I think you should expect Sun's US branch to shrink and Indian branch to grow accordingly if Sun loses the case.
Indian enginners are said to be quite good and damn cheep if I recall well.
As the booming years are away, we can expect tech industry to go down on its costs. Like an other industry would.
...if I was a younger, lower-paid engineer from India.
Think about it this way: for the money you pay an American worker, Sun probably hires two Indian engineers and still makes a profit.
The two Indian engineers will be able to support many more people and relieve them from poverty whereas the American engineer would probably waste a large part of his money on the unnecessary things in life.
If you are not a racist and think that Americans are better than Indians, then you should applaud Sun. If you are either a customer or shareholder of Sun then you should also applaud them: they either make more profit or able to sell at lower prices.
Long live capitalism!
I don't see why they should enjoy the protection import taxes and such bring them against global competition when they have no penalty for exporting jobs. Tax imported goods, tax exported jobs. Don't tax exported jobs, don't tax imported goods. You can't have it both ways.. corporations want protection from countries without labor laws becase they can't compete with sweatshops or massively underpaid workers, but they also want to reap the benefits of those same workers. I don't see why my employers job should be any more protected than mine.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I don't see this as being so evil. I have always been of the opinion that if someone else (or a machine) can do your job better and cheaper, have fun at the unemployment line. If this is the case, then, sorry for the unemployed, but I doubt they would have taken a pay cut. Hell, they're lucky that Sun took so long to figure out that there are a lot of highly trained Indian coders.
Then again, maybe Sun will regret firing such a huge experience base. That may be.
I will say one thing - I don't hear people complaining about when overpaid middle-management types get canned for a new batch of college grads (from this country). I hope we're not indicating that we're bitter about foreigners taking American jobs? Because that would be a bit silly.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I thought one of the contingencies of hiring an H1B worker is that the employer has to prove that they cannot find a worker of equal skill in the US job market. If they US workers have the same skill set but are just more expensive then this is a violation of the H1B processes.
That being said, my wife is currently here on an H1B, and I am fairly sure that there are not many people that can do her job and I believe she is working via an H1B on all legal issues.
I mean, capitalism's worship of profits would never mean tossing people out on the street in search of a lower-paid employee, right?! (Especially an evil foreigner!)
And even if it did -- that cannot happen to college-educated professionals! That sort of stuff only happens to eighth-grade-educated blue-collar manufacturing workers, right?!
Say it isn't so...
And the US is invading Iraq because of the rock-solid connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda's terrorism, and our heartbreaking concern of the human rights of the Iraqi people too!
In a free country, you're free to employ whoever you want to - this shouldn't be illegal.
:)
However, I'm just as free to stop using Sun equipment. Which I am.
and get's proved in court I hope Sun goes under. And I like their stuff a lot.
This
One of the problems I have seen recently with all of the outsourcing (to whereever) is that project management and documentation become really badly cludged. Yes, I know of companies that outsource lots of programming and documentation to India because of the cheap labor, but their products are starting to suffer. Note: this has nothing to do with any particular ethnic group, rather it has to do with outsourcing work to folks completely outside company systems and workflows. I have seen the same thing happen with project outsourcing to other American companies staffed by lots of pasty white people.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
This would not be a problem if the law concerning H1Bs was enforced. If these people were paid comparible wages, then companies would need a legitimate reason for bringing them in.
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
This doesn't make much sense. Why would Sun lay off people here and try to import H1-Bs when they could just expand staffing at their India Engineering Center and ship development over there, as they have already done for their HPC ClusterTools software? Oh wait, they're already doing that. And also why did my submission of this very same story get rejected three days ago?
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
But I bet a lot of the people complaining are all for "free markets" and "capitalism" when it means forcing 3rd world countries to destroy their economies by allowing imports of subsidised american products (think foodstuffs), but as soon as it bites closer to home they get all protectionist...
This is a fact of life given economic globalization. It baffles me that Americans get so pissed about international economic regulation, then complain about situations like this.
> " As long as they are compensated and treated the same as Americans. Humans are not a commodity. H1B's generally come from desperate situations so of course they _will_ work for a lot less than Americans, but that doesn't mean that it's ethical to exploit the desperate situation in which they came from."
So whats the point of hiring em in favor or US workers?!?!?
In the context of the issue, this is Pretzel logic at its finest...
> Could this be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back?"
What back? Why? Make people stop buying Sun? I don't think so. All companies exist to make money, one way to do that is by hiring cheap labor. H-1B lets companies do that. Deal.
One such law suit has already failed, the others will as well. Now getting rid of H-1B might help solve these disgruntled ex-workers problem, but that's another kettle of fish.
Steven
It is obvious to every businessman that when you hire someone, you hire the best person for the job. With the quality of american programmers going down, is it really surprizing that companies turn to other countries to find qualified computer professionals? And as for the pricing, well, if they want to work for less, it is their prerogative. It is as normal as having one of your competitor companies slash prices in order to drive you out of the market. That is life, and that is justice. To tell the companies that they must hire americans is as dumb as telling them they have to hire blacks solely for their skin color, even when they are not qualified to do the work.And to tell the companies that they must pay everybody an equal wage is clearly a communist sentiment, the inevitable result of which is well described by Ayn Rand in "Atlas Shrugged". Read the story of the Twentieth Century Motor company.
this would be the right time for it.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
USian and need a tech job? Move to India and then become an H1B worker. Heck, the US company that hires you may even pay for your move back home.
Speak truth to power.
the US exploits most of the third world, it only seems fair that they should get some of the benefits of the free market as well.
Although it may be very fair, from a business point of view it makes sense. One could argue that the same rules could apply when a company would force someone into early retirement and higher a young kid to replace them. It's life, deal with it.
It is supposed to be temporary for a quick need to fill skilled positions; in this case I don't think H1-B is being used properly.
Karma whorin' since 1999
..like in the textile, apparel and shoe industries (Sneaker sweat-shops in Asia, anyone).
The sales pitch is that solutions can be developed in an off-shore "Software Factory". Really clever methodolgy can substitute for having smart, creative experienced developers on-site to interface with the business types directly, etc. etc.
This, of course, is bullshit.
In what way is this different from a company that thinks Indian companies charge much cheaper rates and outsources most of its work (that it earlier did in-house) to them? For those who think outsourcing is not that significant, here in India, outsourced jobs from US companies form a really significant part of companies' revenue. There even exist companies that do purely this work.
;-)
Anyway, I dont understand why a company can be taken to court for having a policy like that. I might be a total maverick for all I care and I might run a company and I may like only blonde-haired sharp-nosed thick-lipped people, how does that come in the way of justice?
For people like me in India, this is good news, though
This sig is empty.
It's about friggin time. Companies that do that sell out our country. Its not bad to hire from overseas, especially if the person is more qualified, but for god sakes, fly them over here, make them citizens, and pay them what they would any American worker, that way at least they are pumping their salaries back into the American economy. Otherwise, keep it in the country. Its a good thing I boycotted Sun a long time ago, I hope they lose the suit, have to pay up, are forced to close down, and then their crappy half assed programming language and crappy OS go with Scott McNealy to live under a card board box that I can kick and piss on while I point and laugh at his mis-fortune. You'll have to excuse my rant, I hate Sun after all... but really, I hope they lose and this makes an example for other companies that are forcing American workers who went to school for jobs like these out of work.
all my life they tell me to go into computers, I'll make the big bucks. and now american techies can't get jobs. I swear my guidance counselor couldn't have steered me wronger if she told me there's a bright future for gas station attendants.
everyone likes to put down microsoft, but this isn't something you see them doing. and somehow they still manage to compete.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Not the lawsuits, but the hiring of H1B's over US Citizens. I work in a small company (no, not the one linked to in my URL) and there are maybe 15 coders in our office.
Three of them are US Citizens. I am one of them.
We will see job postings go up in our break room, and submit the resume's of people we know who need jobs, but the job listings are basically a reprint of the resume of the H1B that the company has selected. So, they have all this extraneous stuff that you wouldn't use in that job, but they are considered "job requirements" and THAT is how they can tell the INS that "We can't find an equally qualified citizen."
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't work for clients and have to travel on site, and many of our clients will ONLY want US Citizens. So, that leaves the three of us to do ALL of the travelling, even if there has been a personal tragedy in our life. (And one of us has a newborn child, so she's not travelling either...)
I guess I can look at this a few ways. A) My life is a wreck right now because I can't stay home, but B) I have insane job security, something that is a very good thing to have in today's economy.
When I call sun for support over the last few years, it seems that they are more often indian and difficult to understand. I really can't stand having to ask for the same instruction 5 times to be able to understand what they are telling me. I think perhaps this is why an indian speaking support engineer is 75% more likely to email me the procedures they are asking me to perform.
I would hang up and try to get someone who speaks english more clearly if I had the time to do so when the raid array on the oracle server is acting up and I have lots of people pissed off.
My opinion of the (very expensive) support sun offers has taken a turn for the worse because of this. I don't mind speaking to an indian or any other person as long as they speak english clearly when I call the english support line.
Regardless of the importance or interest in this topic, I fail to see how it relates to YRO (Your Rights Online). I'm anonymizing(?) since this will undoubtedly be dinged as off-topic.
My previous company did this in order to stay afloat. And the company before that tried to farm off as much as possible to their office in India. Initially they were farming out to India in hopes that they would do the work while we slept, and vice versa... but it turned into a logistical trainwreck - so instead they would have them write the bulk of the code and then we would go through and clean up where they messed up. The particular programmers we had over there sucked ass, so largely we had to rewrite everything that they ever did.
Where I work now is very weird in that we are all dirty Americans.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
H1-b Visas
a little more in depth
Right now H1B workers are basically indentured servants to the corporations who hire them. Corporations can make them work in tiny cubicles for 80 hours a week and the workers' choice is basically to suck it up or to quit and risk being sent back. The corporations are not upset with this situation.
The reason for getting an H1B is that the worker supposedly has skills that cannot be found in America. In reality, most of the time this skill is the ability to work for meager pay. If we follow the spirit of H1B, the worker is valuable to the US economy because of his special skills, not just to one corporation.
It's time to let H1B recipients have the right to change jobs, demand more pay, and be treated like [american] humans. US workers should not fear this unless they lack skills themselves - all it will do is dry up the pool of conscripted foreigners. US corporations should not fear this, unless they intend to treat H1B workers poorly - good corporations should be able to retain American and H1B employees.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
americans are unproductive?
fuck off indian mother fucker go back to the hell hole you came from.
The H1B visa program should be suspended and/or severely limited due to the current state of the economy and unemployment. Any time the local labor is being replaced by foreign labor something illegal must be happening. Sure, if the locals are a bunch of lazy and strike-prone union members, and no other local will cross the picket lines, then hire whoever is available. Otherwise skilled local labor should always be hired first.
check it here, where he made the same claim in 1993:
z %2 2&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=1993Mar18.15305 3.28942%40samba.oit.unc.edu&rnum=2
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Walter+Kru
someone show me statistics that proves suits like this aren't the result of bunch of whiners who lost their job.
Why don't we bring these people into America?
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Immigrants back then got citezenship. H1-B is a slave labor law. They can not vote. They can not form unions. They are here based on their masters whim. Not exactly 1840 when the Democratic party had immigrants voting in the next election.
This is not surpising. Take my company who shall be namelss for an example. They are going to hire more people in India, however, in order to balance the department budget, they are saying if people from US leave the group for whatever the reason ("UNDERPERFORM", quit, leaving for another group), the job will be shifted to India. The logic is that the salary of an US engineer is equal to 3 Indian engineers. The management claim that this is an international company therefore we all have to deal with global economy.
My personal opinion aside, I wonder how much India managers gets paid vs. US managers and maybe it's more cost effect to shift the management jobs there too
My company regularly places H1-B workers in contract positions.
In order for a company to use an H1-B worker ( and hence displace a US worker) they have to show that no US citizen is able to do that job.
Sun merely broke these rules that are there to protect US workers rights.
However it is a 2 sided coin. In order for the H1-B workers to stay and work in the US they have to be sponsored, and once a company sponsors you , you are pretty much an indentured servant until you have a green card (5 years ???). Many H1-Bs work on a 1099 basis for low wages without medical insurance for this duration until they have a green card. Many are sent home because these sponsorships are almost impossible to transfer from company to company (in case of layoffs)
The upside for SUN is that once an H1-B worker is in place they have a fixed wage for quite some time. And possibly someone who will work harder because so much more is riding on thier job status.
The downside is the US workers are *actually* being displaced by those ready to accept 3rd world wages and no benefits.
*
I am not Indian. I am American. You can suck on my huge cock.
And yes Americans are unproductive. Go read some studies fucker. It is a known fact. The British, German, Japanese and even the French are mor productive than the Americans.
Why do the Eurpeans get so much time off - for vacations, like 3 months? Cuz they are productive. They earn it.
So once again you can suck my cock
They obvoiusly didn't bring in any efficiency experts to help with this decision. This is certianly not good for the company.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
as found on this [doleta.gov] site. Foreign labor certification programs are generally designed to assure that the admission of foreign workers to work in the United States on a permanent or temporary basis will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages and working conditions of American workers.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Where do you think that OpenOffice comes from?
I can't help thinking that companies might be shooting themselves in the foot here. If you fire your workforce and move all the jobs to India then who is going to buy your products in the US? Presumably you'll have such trouble selling your stuff you'll need to cut costs even more and move everything to China!
It has been going this way for years and I wonder how long it will be before we have an economic collapse that will make todays woes look like a tea party.
H-1B visa are fine and dandy when there is a shortage of workers. However at this time there isn't such a shortage. Unless of course you count wanting to favor a certain group or find the cheapest possible workers.
Now now. I quote from the article to defend my first claim.
citing as evidence statements made this year by Sun's Indian-born cofounder, Vinod Khosla, on the CBS television program ''60 Minutes.'' Khosla was quoted as saying that at Sun, people from India ''are favored over almost anybody else.''
The second is this site www.fuckthatjob.com. Some of those reports are just sad... Companies want everything for as close to nothing - and some want it for free. Work for us for free till you find a job keep your skills sharp.
Of course companies will just move operations totally overseas. They do it to avoid taxes they'll do it to pay a real wage. Of course eventually whatever country they move to will catch up. That or the customers will get tired of asking "Could you repeat that please".
I'm interested to read about the terms of their severence packages. Many people who want the package must also sign a waiver to not sue or come against the company, its partners, or its interests.
I've been laid off before in the software sector only to find that the company began a new hiring spree a few months later - but the severence package was extremely generous all things considered.
*shrug*
Ayup
Oh sure, it's the American Workers fault. What about the CEO, CIO, CFO, and FUCK-O that is paid an exorbitant salary/bonus/stock package. Now, factor the American way of life. Is it that far off to expect a higher salary too? Since IT is the nerve center of any business, are tech worker any less-valuable than accountants or lawyers? No. Now, how about these "Consulting" companies that bill-out at $100-$300 per hour...and the fact that many of these "Fresh-out-of-college" mba monkeys are on-par (or lower) with the companies own IT staff. With that...what do you expect? Yea, life's a bitch, then you learn you can make more money with a union job than engineering a multi-tiered, distributed, web-based, enterprise application.
If they take our jobs we'll turn their sacred cows into hamburgers.
If someone spends half their day reading /. instead of working, then a company has good reason not to keep them on. And this guy just sounds pissed off as a hard working indian is now doing his job and probably more.
By the way, it _is_ possible to get $4.00/hr and pull down 5 digits... Although I don't think at that point it would be termed "pulling down". More like "scraping by". Cheers -- m
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Of course you are an American, you posted this during the work day... Go fill out a TPS report...
Businessweek says employers have lots of loopholes, not just H1-B
with Sun, the computer *is* the network.
I am angry that
1) they got somebody who was obviously less experienced but apparently cheaper (willing to live off beans and rain water) and
2) was not honest to me about how this layoff pained them so badly to lose someone of my great performance and "customer focus."
I eagerly await their company's demise.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I expect to be moded down for this, but as a white, male American programmer who has also spent several years in India--seeing what goes on on both sides of the world--my experience with programmers in India is that they are smart, highly educated and a lot more of them than there are of us. In short, American programmers have heavy competition from India. Practically speaking there is some computer training institute on every street corner or in every hole in every Indian city with more than 500,000 people.
Programmers from India, on the average, do tend to be better educated than American programmers. Not that there aren't highly educated and skilled American programmers, but there are more from India, though.
If you were an HR person, or an IT manager, and you had to choose between hiring a less-educated American who charges more and a better educated Indian who charges less, you would have to be a socialist (or a nationalist) not to choose the Indian.
In any case, we should stop whining and meet the competition--whether it is from Russia, Poland, India, etc--by ourselves being more competitive than we are right now.
India and America are more than five years apart, I guess. anyway, it's a simple matter of how the US dollar shapes against the India rupee and according to all existing indications, it is only going to rocket. And so, it is *always* going to remain profitable for US companies to outsource ;-)
.... :-)
Our fun ride continues for ever then
This sig is empty.
First off, with so many tech workers out of work. It seems fishy to me that they *can't* find someome else to fill the job. Secondly, H1-B's can be hired as long as 1) the position can't be filled (already noted this) 2) No one is laid off to bring an H1-B in. 3) No one is fired just to bring an H1-B in. (can be hard to prove)
If what was said is true, and with all the uproar lately about H1-B. This may get ugly, and even stick.
Personally, I've started to have issue with a few things Sun has done. I don't hold any of that against them. I just don't use their products if I have a choice. If *this* is true, I would hold it against them and begin to advocate that others also not use their products.
Low wages are not, those damned Indians will just use it to build more casinos...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Get me someone who speaks English mother fucker.
I think it is time our goverment looked at the H-1B situation again. I think SUN is using the system to it's advantage but should realize there are unemployed techies out there who would take 25 to 50 percent less than what they were making a couple of years ago just to have a job.
I don't mind H-1B's when unemployment numbers are low and there aren't many qualified candidiates available. But right now I have a lot of buddies chomping at the bit for any kind of gigs like SUN has right now.
I would be interested to see how many H-1B's are at M$ and IBM since they both have a big presence in India as well.
From the New York Times ...
The economy has fallen into its worst hiring slump in almost 20 years, and many business executives say they remain unsure when it will end.
The employment decline has become even worse than it was at a comparable point in the so-called jobless recovery of the early 1990's, according to recently revised statistics from the Labor Department. The economy has lost more than two million jobs, a drop of 1.5 percent, since the most recent recession began in March 2001, as layoffs have continued despite the resumption of economic growth more than a year ago. The decline was 1.3 percent at the same point in the business cycle a decade ago.
About one million people appear to have dropped out of the labor force since last summer, neither working nor looking for a job, according to government figures.
The surge in discouraged workers is the most significant since the months immediately after the recession's start. This suggests that the pain of joblessness has worsened even though the official unemployment rate, which counts only people looking for work, held steady at 6 percent in December.
"Last year," said Tom Koehn, 50, who lost his job at a machinery maker in South Bend, Ind., in May, "I heard a lot of people say, `Come back after the first of the year; if the economy picks up, we might hire some people.' But so far, I haven't found anybody who's hiring."
The shortage of jobs has also slowed wage growth so that only workers in the most affluent groups are still gaining ground on inflation, ending a six-year streak of broad increases in buying power.
Manufacturers of durable goods like computers, furniture and steel have made the deepest cuts, with one of every nine jobs in these industries eliminated since early 2001. Airlines, brokerage firms and makers of clothing and textiles have also each cut at least a tenth of their work forces. Government agencies have been among the few employers that continue to expand, although many states are now laying off employees to close budget deficits.
Executives say they have been disappointed too many times by the halting growth of the last year to begin hiring workers in significant numbers. While the government is likely to report tomorrow that the economy added some jobs in January, many executives are still waiting to be convinced that business has regained a solid footing after the collapse of the bubble of the late 1990's.
The possibility of a war with Iraq and an increase in oil prices offers another reason for hesitation, they say. Many companies have also used new technologies and management techniques to produce more with the same number of employees.
"This is what I call the new reality," said Robert M. Dutkowsky, the chief executive of J. D. Edwards, a software maker in Denver that has kept its work force at 5,000 people for the last few years. "The environment we're operating in is what it's going to be like for a while."
In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush called the improvement of the job market his "first goal" for the coming year and asked Congress to pass a $670 billion, 10-year tax cut.
"We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job," Mr. Bush said. "With unemployment rising, our nation needs more small businesses to open, more companies to invest and expand, more employers to put up the sign that says, `Help Wanted.' "
Most economists say that the tax plan and another $4 billion in help for the jobless would have only a small effect on the economy this year.
The number of companies cutting jobs has spiked since November, with AOL Time Warner, Boeing, Dow Jones, Eastman Kodak, Goodyear, J. C. Penney, McDonald's, Merrill Lynch, Sara Lee, and Verizon all announcing new layoffs. Barring a sustained rise in oil prices, however, the cuts appear likely to taper off in the coming months as the economy continues its slow recovery, most forecasters say.
By the many arms of Vishnu, I swear it is a lie.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
It is of most vital importance that it be made clear to Joe-six-pack that heavy users of H-1B visas are going out of business during the economic down-turn faster than their rivals who did not rely so much on H-1B visas -- and that the use of H-1B has not been the solution -- it has rather evolved into the problem.
H-1B visa opponents are not savvy politically and therefore have to meet extraordinarily impressive standards of evidence that H-1B visas are destructive -- the standard of evidence they must reach to show their case is vastly in excess of the standards that are applied to convince executives to displace their US employees with H-1B visa programs. All the H-1B advocate has to say is "The H-1B programmers don't cost as much." Those H-1B advocates never have to answer for the destruction wraught on the companies by the H-1B visa employees then hired. They're protected by political favoritism toward those that promote "diversity", "anti-racism", "global markets", etc. The corporations destroyed by executives who are so shallow as to presume H-1B visas will raise profits need to have no excuses handed to them at the last minute.
Seastead this.
As sick and disgusting as your racial slurs are, it should be noted that you should hear them speaking about americans. It's not much better.
So both peoples should just try and be a little less worked up about it.
I shouldn't have responded to that A hole. My orginal post was not to piss of working, productive employees.
./ during work does not make us productive - unless you spend more than half of work work time on ./
Posting on
Unproductive means an employee takes much longer to do a task because of laziness or unwillingness.
I mean if it takes someone 1 minute more to do a task that orgianlly required 1 hour - that is not unproductive.
But if a person takes 2 hours to do something that normally takes and hour - that is unproductive.
And yes in general Americans are unprodctive. There are studies out there.
We are the most rich country because we also have the most hard working citizens.
between lawsuits like this that is real and correct, and lawsuits that are the result of whiners who lost their job hoping to make cash ?
z %2 2&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=1993Mar18.15305 3.28942%40samba.oit.unc.edu&rnum=2
for example, the man bringing the lawsuit, Walter Kruz, has been fired before, and made a stink about it before:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22walter+kru
Why are so many Americans of the impression that America has a greedy Labor force just because somebody in taiwan will work for beans???
The company is selling the product for the same price, regardless of where the labor is. The only difference here is how much money the American CEOs et al. can squeeze out of their own people. If they can not squeeze enough to buy that extra fleet of jets, fire the Americans and hire elsewhere.
How does one come to blame the Labor force for this level of greed???
Why dont we fire the CEOs and hire some from China? We'd save a lot more money...
I here that people like working for Honda in Ohio assembly plant a lot more than they like working for the Big3...
Ever wonder why and how Indians get their high-tech training? The companies are supporting their education by supplying equipment, infrastructure and education. Its a clear conspiracy. In the 90's high tech workers were in demand and were paid well due to their scarcity, often more than executives. So the impetus for exploiting the H1-B program is there. They support the training and education of a poor third world country with expensive equipment and create the situation we have now. This is a clear exploitation of a law that is supposed to help companies in need. THAT is illegal. And one reason they have not been stopped is because for some reason the high-tech industry has avoided unionization of the workforce perhaps by the forces of the conditions that same workforce enjoyed just a few years ago. Im no commie, but unions may be something to look at. I prefer dragging these companies out, finding the execs who pull this crap, and prosecuting these scum to the fullest extent.
The United States, quite frankly, has a right to protect its own interests (i.e. American workers having jobs) in cases where companies are hiring workers who will work and live in its own borders. All this about it being justified because third world developers will work for less is a bunch of crap, quite frankly.
.com bust, those people are gradually returning to other lines of work, and I'd say the quality of the average American programmer is actually going up because of this. I can attest after having had to find a new job a year ago (and a tough time doing so even with a CS degree from an accredited U. and 2 years exp.), there are a large number of very qualified American high tech workers available.
Your argument holds if the company is based in some other country, and is told by its government to hire only American workers. Obviously there is no justice there.
I'll say again, the United States government has a right, perhaps even a mandate, to protect American jobs for Americans. After all, if our government is not out to protect the interests of its people, what good is it? The United States government was _founded_ on the very idea that the reason for its existence is to serve the interests of its people. Clearly allowing jobs generated by American companies, on American soil to be given to foreigners when qualified American workers are available would not be protecting the interests of the American people.
I also disagree with your assessment "...the quality of american programmers going down...". Though a number of unqualified American programmers exist after the
Overall, I'd say your post is tainted by your own bias. Consider if the same situation were occurring in your own country. Would you want your government to allow jobs in your country to be filled by low paid foreigners, or would you rather your government protected your interests?
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
..flying over their countries with a full bomb load!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
You have NOT lived on what these jobs are paying, let alone less than. I've been so poor that if I didn't wake up with a hard-on, I had nothing to play with all day.
People do not have a right to two cars, a huge house, overseas vacations, etc. They do however have a right to a government that looks out for the well-being of their own nation, their own people.
Why the fuck do I pay taxes? It's for services rendered. One of those services is that my government does not sell me and my community out so that one guy can have twenty-two cars, a huge home abroad and a two week vacation here.
It isn't about making a profit at all costs for these companies. It's about ensuring the well-being of ALL people, both here and elsewhere. If these people were to get paid comparatively, then their standard of living would go up, but instead you insist on bringing MY standard of living down.
You can fuck right off, and take your fucking multinationals with you.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
"What" was the reaction when I read this.
- There is nothing that says you can't fire someone to replace them with someone that will do the same job for a lower pay, especially if the current employee refuses to lower his pay to the other emplyee's level.
And the fact that the new engineers are from india doesn't matter at all, if they went to IIT, they have better grades than most MIT engineers anyway.
I'm not against foreigners - actually in this case, I am more pissed off at the Americans. Really, this is not much different from the assraping that medical doctors have to take on a daily basis.
If you don't like it FORM A UNION and fight for your rights.
Theres a reason wrench monkeys at the auto makers make ridiculous money and have pretty much eternal job security, and UPS drivers start off at 1.5x the salary of a newly graduated engineer.
Why ? They realized that there is power in numbers, and they stuck together to make sure that the company they work for doesn't take advantage of them.
That take real, honest to goodness balls, which far too many debt laden, middle-class, complacent engineers just don't have.
For some reason the higher income people in the US seem to feel that they are above unions, but you can bet your ass that if all the tens of thousands of engineers that Sun has went on strike for just one day, they would sit up and listen pretty damm fast.
Read this: "A lawsuit filed yesterday in California alleges computer giant Sun Microsystems Inc. laid off thousands of American high-tech workers in order to replace them with younger, lower-paid engineers from India"
as: "..., lover-paid engineers from India"?
..uh oh... better buy that plane ticket! But to where? I was born in New York!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
My ancestors came to the US from Europe as indentured servants a 150 years ago. How is are companies bringing over H1Bs any different?
Speak truth to power.
Mmmmm. Networked nuclear weapons.
1. Sun loses suit...
US companies have to hire us folks; competitive pressures force innovation to stay competitive or they die/merge/go bankrupt...
2. Sun wins suit/has it dismissed...
As more jobs move overseas, domestic markets dry up (who is working? who can buy?). Watching the US market die is not good for a company...will lead to global unemployment...
I have no qualms with new jobs being created overseas (hey, that's capitalism at it's best), but reducing headcount (and hence customers) in your biggest market is not too swift...
My vote: first option for existing jobs and get innovative. The US didn't get this dominant (economically) simply by copying what others do...we figured out how to do it better and new ways to do it (quick nod to Britain and the EC members for various technologies-like radar and jet engines-that we licensed and enhanced)...
And if a company can't innovate, should they be left to die? Maybe...
But one thing that must happen is that company need to focus more on their long-term survival instead of always pushing to improve short-term profits. This is a major driving force behind this exodus, and it will continue to kill many companies until this unhealthy view stops. Profit is essential for a company, but not at the expense of it's future.
How to change focus, you might ask? More R&D but also have management really monitor it; and have marketing do real market analysis, not sales and sales support.
Look back in the pre-80's business and economics textbooks...they had it right and it still is right...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
Work is being continually outsourced to cheaper markets, leaving those semi-skilled laborers in more developed nations jobless. Remember when there was a push to have autos, blue-jeans, and knick-knacks of all sorts manufactured in the states (I apologize for the Americentricism here)?
Unfortunately, with engineering, there isn't an obvious physical commodity produced upon which we can slap a "Made in the USA" sticker. Stick that in your code comments and noone will ever see it.
Friends of mine who are in large consulting firms such as KPMG tell me stories about US consulting companies going into an engagement, determining what sorts of technologies should be used, and then outsourcing all of the work to India. This doesn't offend me, but it sure scares me something fierce. That work that's moving out-of-country? That's what I do for a living too!
What are our options?
Move into management?
Get a job at an auto factory?
Become a world famous, tightrope-walking, flaming-chicken-juggling, one-man-band?
I'm all for spreading the wealth around the planet, but I'm just afraid that our work-well might dry up as a result of this. What to do? What to do?
What are your fears and plans, /.-ers?
This seems to be more about blatant racism then immigration issues. I mean, the cofounder is Indian and said that sun favors Indians. That's totally illegal under US law. On the other hand, it does make some sense 'protect' H1-B visa holders from being fired, since they would then need to find another job or leave the country, while americans can just go on unemployment for a while.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If you run a company and have a choice between hiring two PhDs for the price of one BSc and select latter, you failed as a manager. As simple as that.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
As a native-born US citizen, my job in the US should be protected at all costs from competing foreigners. Why? Well, 35 years ago my country came to me and told me I had to put my education and career on hold so I could go fight a war in some far away country. I dutifully went, and did my country proud. So today, on the eve of my retirement, I am working in an office with our company's first H1-B. Management hasn't even tried to hide the fact that this guy is going to be taking over all my duties, and I expect I'll be out on the street looking for work inside of a year, almost age 60, with no retirement benefits to tide me over. I'll get a few crisp 20's each month in Social Security, and that's about it. So I ask you, is this is the reward I get for being a patriotic American? Maybe the next time they call a war, nobody will go.....
I worked at Sun a few years back ... and one of the factors
that led to me quitting was when my (Indian) Director kept
promoting Indian co-workers over more-deserving non-Indians.
(Another was being fed up with
an organization that was so focussed on empire building
rather than delivering what customers kept asking for.
But that, and other such reasons, would be offtopic.)
It was clear bias ... these were people
that didn't have a track record of producing results.
They did have a clear record of obstructing other
workers who did produce the results
consistently, on-time, under-budget, and high
quality (low bug-count etc); results that successfully
got the company into some rather big markets.
These were significant promotions (E-12 for
those of you who know what that means), given
to folk with track records of not being innovative,
delivering late, and having big overruns and
buggy results. (Quick quiz: Which approach
is better for the bottom line? Which is better
for empire building?) The managers
in the groups hushed some of the promotions
up for months,
since they were so obviously unfair to other people
who were clearly more deserving.
(But who didn't happen to be Indian, like that Director.)
And yes, I know exactly how the "Indian Contractors" end up being so popular. Part of it is that they can be hired/fired on short notice; another is that they're relatively cheap. And then, big surprise, they have a leg up on becoming full-time ... as opposed to someone
who didn't need a visa, but wasn't already
"part of the team". Then lo and behold, when it
comes time to cut costs, do you think the lower-paid
workers are at the top of the layoff list? Even if the law
about their visa status says they should be???
To be clear: I've had plenty of Indian co-workers I'd work with again. Some of them were a pleasure to work with. But never would I work with that director who had such blatant biases in promotion policy; and never with the people that got such undeserved promotions.
With the Human Resources department backing such actions in at least one part of the company, I can't possibly believe that one of these lawsuits shouldn't eventually succeed.
Go read some studies yourself. What you say is true, but it's not true anymore:
f
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/06/art4full.pd
Many companies will contract the labor out to an Indian company to get around the equal pay problem of H1-B's. Rather than have foreigners work over here, they work for an Indian company, in India, and take two-month business trips here to train.
A lot of work is being shifted offshore like this, and it's purely for economic reasons. An Indian engineer makes a small fraction of what an American one does, so the Indian company can underbid any US outsourcing firm.
Paul Porter is closing the door on his engineering career - even though he's only 29. In recent weeks, his wife and five close colleagues were added to the more than 50,000 employees axed by his employer, Nortel Networks. That was the catalyst that prompted the New York native, already disgruntled with his choice of profession, to look into attending either business or law school.
"I spent seven years in school, and it resulted in a six-year career," says Mr. Porter, who feels his master's degree in engineering is little more than "a base."
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It's a pattern that's recurring with surprising, and disturbing, frequency in a profession long known for job security.
Dissatisfaction with the field is growing rapidly. Layoffs, the influx of foreign workers, and offshore outsourcing of jobs have caused the pocket-protector set to either leave the profession in large numbers or seek new careers after being laid off.
And if that isn't enough to make engineers' neckties curl in Dilbert-style desperation, there's the nature of the work itself. In an era when high-tech gear becomes obsolete almost as fast as dairy products, many in the field feel they must advance at a steady pace or risk being cast aside.
It's a far cry from the era when engineering skills were a ticket to a lifelong salary and, some say, raises questions about America's ability to remain at the forefront of technology.
"For people who view this as a career, engineering is in worse shape now than it's been in years," says LeEarl Bryant, president of the Institute of Electronic and Electronic Engineers (IEEE-USA), which represents 235,000 professional members.
The downturn in the profession has taken many by surprise. In the '80s many felt there was an engineering shortage in the US to compete with Japan's dominance of technology markets. Then, the commercialization of the Internet created a hiring frenzy in which high-tech corporations gave huge bonuses to new hires and the employees who referred them. The IEEE-USA reports that such bonuses pushed the median salary for its members to $93,100 at the peak of the dotcom era.
Tough times; huge layoffs
But all that changed with the dotcom bust and the recession. This year, for example, telecommunications and computer makers have already slashed nearly 400,000 workers - and that's down from last year's 500,000 layoffs - according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Even Dilbert creator Scott Adams, himself a former engineer, has an eye on the trend. "The general balance of power has swung. Engineers had it for a while, now the bosses have it back," says Mr. Adams, whose comic-strip boss has hair shaped like a pair of horns on either side of his balding head.
Adding to the frustration of some engineers are the numbers of foreigners competing for jobs. In 2000, near the end of the high-tech boom, industry CEOs convinced Congress to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, allowing up to 195,000 skilled workers from India and elsewhere into the US. Some engineers contend that those CEOs kept many of those H-1B workers while cutting higher-paid US citizens.
"About 80,0000 engineers were unemployed a few months ago. If you take out the H-1Bs who came in, you'd have jobs for all of them," the IEEE-USA's Bryant says. The organization is lobbying Congress to lower the number of H-1B issued.
But US companies may continue to rely on foreign workers as the number of people entering the profession shows signs of decline. Demand for engineering courses is down in the US, according to the National Science Foundation statistics. In 2000, there were just over 59,000 engineering graduates compared to 63,000 students in 1996.
Not everyone is gloomy a
"everyone likes to put down microsoft, but this isn't something you see them doing. and somehow they still manage to compete." Microsoft is jumping on the India bandwagon like everyone else. They have a development center there. The development of JUMP isn't taking place in the U.S. Bill is very concerned about programmers learning other products than MS stuff. In addition to exporting work to India he has been going over there and donating large sums of money, etc.
I think congress should seriously consider some news laws. If countries want to outsource all of their work to overseas offices. Fine. However by the same token, they should not be allowed to sell back over here, unless they pay a huge tariff, just like any other OVERSEAS company!
Sounds fair to me.
The real sad irony of all of this, as more and more companies resort to cheaper labor overseas, especially highly technical labor, then that means there will be that many previously affluent employees who will not be purchasing and driving the economy. Its a vicious spiral... downwards. Pretty soon, all of these companies, the economy itself will tank, becuase it consists of consumers who can't afford to buy anythign becuase:
1) They were laid off by companies finding cheaper labor overseas.
2) They are those people working overseas only making $.85/hour.
Its one big fucking joke, if the end result wasn't so damn serious - A global Deflationary Depression.
Planet P Blog
www.enthea.org
I've worked as a contractor at many companies in the past five years, and some of them used H1-B's while others just outsourced work to "subsidiaries" in India. The H1-B's were largely pretty decent (this was during the dotcom boom when companies were really struggling to fill cubes) though generally not as adept at the business analysis side of development. The code we got back from outsourcing would've embarrassed the students at the local community college's "intro to programming" class. It was invariably horribly convoluted and bug ridden. On the off chance it would actually run without a major rewrite, it was usually wildly unstable. You get what you pay for.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
... there might well be a bright future for gas station attendants.
Twice in the past year I've had minor medical issues that just didn't warrant the hell that is trying to get into my regular doctor on short notice, so I went to the "urgent care" center.
Each time I was worked on by a doctor who was obviously not an American. The first guy was Egyptian and the second woman was Bulgarian. I can't say that the care was substandard (a bottle of amoxicillin each time), but their English was *awful* and their bedside manner was almost rude. And not that it matters, but their personal appearance was pretty shoddy -- bad, slept-in-my-car-in-my-clothes appearance.
I found out from a friend who is a doctor that this particular chain of urgent care centers specializes in bringing in foreign MDs and certifying them as US doctors. I dunno if there's some gimmick or not (ie, a fully certified doctor "on call" or what), but I'm sure the overall trick is that they will work for $30k a year, shitty hours in order to become American citizens and doctors.
Anyway, the AMA is losing this battle or at least winning a pyhrric victory.
Think about it in the longer term... if outsourcing to India is effective, there will be more demand for it, and the price of tech labor in India will naturally increase.
There will always be a demand for workers in the U.S. itself; companies always need wokers locally, and will be willing to pay more for them because of the convenience.
even the "knowledge" part of "knowledge based economy" seems to be leaving the west..
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
Okay, I'm a Texas-born white guy, middle-aged and essentially "under-employed" as I can't get a job as a network administrator these days. The industry has changed and IT employment is insanely high.
Economic times are hard for more than just the IT sector. The government has a responsibility to its people. U.S. companies have a responsibility to the U.S. and its people.
We can talk about law and legalities all day long but none of it takes away from the moralities that are being seriously violated. As U.S. companies sells out the interests of its own people and ultimately its own country, there is clear indication that short-sighted gains at the expense of something larger is a large-scale problem in the U.S. There should be some very stiff penalties when companies commit fraud against the U.S. Specifically, I speak of clear violations of law surrounding the H1-B visa program which should include permanant disqualification of its use. Perhaps that would be a fair deterrent of the program's abuse.
Abuse occurs and should be punished.
I've been writing software for nearly a decade, and I've seen this transition happening more and more.
The reality is that what has happend in manufacturing is now happening with IT type posistions. Now that other places in the world (noteably India, but China, Malasia, and Phillipeans are up and coming..) have the knowledge, training and infrustructure to support the types of development predominantly done in the US, these jobs will be transistioning to the lowest bidder, both in the US and outside it. The fact that major businesses could lead congress to believe that there was a huge demand for tech help is a no brainer (here congress puppy ... catch the $$$) - I used to be able to pretty much name and get my salary. Since the .com meltdown, the extra H-1B visas are no longer 'required', but they lower salaries in the US to more business tolerable levels. It also takes a -long- time to change anything via congress
1) Business costs go down, making the products more competitive world-wide.
2) Will some in the US get a raw deal? You bet, but try and prove it. The definition of 'underperforming' is different for everybody.
3) Don't forget the realities of the global market. Companies must continually grow in order for the stock price to go up. That means they must find new markets to sell their products in. What better way to do it than hire some cheap foreign labor here (H-1B), filter down to the prime candidates, then customize their products for the home markets of those foreigners. Global companies need insiders to make that transition.
4) It costs many times more to live in metro-US than in various parts of India/Brazil/etc, so US citizens will require higher wages, regardless of how frugally they live.
5) Don't give me that 'workers from place A are simply better than from place B' nonsense. I've seen all shades of grey from everywhere.
6) Will everyone lose out to lower cost markets? Nope. There is something to be said for quality local talent in each market the business operates in.
6) If you are a US IT worker, either make sure you are personally valuable to your company, or prepare to be replaced - same as every other market.
Howdy,
Most of the comments so far are from the point of view of the displaced worker, but the H1-B program has a lot of pit falls for the foreign nationals who come to the USA.
First, H1-B is a temporary visa. People come here, settle down, buy a home, start a family, become part of the community. But unless they take steps to achieve a more permanent status, such as citizenship or having a green card, they can be kicked out of the country at a moments notice. And with the current political climate, I wouldn't recommend overstaying your visa in the USA right now.
Second, H1-B is sponsored by a company. The worker only has the legal right to work for that company. Don't like your working conditions? Don't think you're getting a fair wage? Fine, then leave your home, family, and friends and leave the country. H1-Bs can't quit a job and look for other work. It's hard not to get settled in and used to a place after a couple years, so there are plenty of stories of people who thought of themselves as permanent residents getting shipped off.
Third, part of the requirements for H1-B is workers get paid prevailing wages. One of the ways companies get around that is bringing in people with little experience. "Sure, the H1-B doesn't get paid as much as the citizen engineer. But one has 1 year experience and the other has 10, so you can't make a direct comparison." But what happens as the years go by as the worker with the visa gets more experienced and worth more in the marketplace? As the disparity between the prevailing rate and the H1-B's salary grows, the company as two choices. They can give the guy a raise. Although if they wanted to do that, they could of kept the original citizen worker that got laid off.
The other option is to ship the guy or gal back to India and replace with a fresh new import. I'm not knocking India, but remember, this worker has spent years in the USA. May be married. May have kids who are citizens. But if that worker is H1-B, and the sponsoring company says buh-bye, then worker is taking a little one-way trip.
Abuses of the H1-B program hurt the native workers here in the USA AND the foreign nationals who come here.
"Could this be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back?"
What does this have to do with perl?
...suspend the program temporarily, IMHO. There are plenty of unemployed programmers and engineers in this country.
For the Record ! The pro-H1-Bers are the first to play the race card. This always happens on any immigration discussion.
Advocating a major reduction in the number of H-1B visas issued and enforcement of our immigration laws shouldn't be construed as advocating hostility toward foreign workers. Even those who've violated the terms of their visa should be treated with respect. Ultimately, the excesses and abuses of the H-1B visa program are the fault of the Congress which has bowed to the high-tech lobbyists.
Two new laws are required: 1. US companies who give contracts to India/China/whatever for SW/HW/HDL development must pay custom fees as automotive industry pays for every car imported. Nowdays IP is a product. 2. H1-B workers must have a protection plan. If company misused them they should be able to go to INS and inform about it without threat of beign deported. The best way is to give permanent residence to every H1-B worker who reports visa fraud. Most H1-Bs are sick and tired of their own countries and wants to become Americans.
2,500 substandard employees??? (or whatever the quoted number was)
I could understand 50, maybe 200 substandard employees, but this is sheer genocide of their workforce. They are most certainly excising the higher paid americans to go with lower paid H1-B's. Why else have all these barriers to the american workers?
Don't be a fool. Just taking Sun's "substandard employees" comment at face value is ignorant.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
To all of those who keep saying such irrelevant things as "Americans are lazy" or the job belongs to the person with "better skills" etc, SHUT THE HELL UP. You are under the mistaken impression that your uneducated opinion matters.
The issue is that companies are exploiting H1B to allow non-US citizens to enter the US and illegally fill positions for lower wages -- Shrugging off the cost of doing business and driving down salaries -- or "to save money and make the shareholders happy." If the position is advertised in the US market and skilled applicants who are capable of filling a position are turned away in favor of cheaper imported labor, that is a violation of law and the companies should be punished.
This is not the same as a corporation's ability to outsource jobs to another country.
These are two distinctly separate items.
If you and a thousand of your coworkers were laid off for financial reasons, and then the corporation imported 2,000some H1B workers to do your jobs, that is illegal.
If you and a thousand of your coworkers were laid off for financial reasons, and then the corporation outsourced your jobs to another country, that is completely within the law.
SO SAY SOMETHING EDUCATED OR SHUT THE HELL UP.
This message paid for by supporters of SHUT THE HELL UP, a subsidiary of I HATE YOU AND WISH YOU WERE DEAD, Inc.
I used to own a steel company, and while the unions are a pain in the ass, a good deal of the competition comes from countries that are run by dictators who pay their people in a meal a day. You can not compete with a country whose work budget is next to nothing, and the workers are forced to do their jobs or starve to death.
A good deal of the Russian steel companies do just this. Most of the small countries that were part of the former USSR were overtaken by mafia and the people have no choice but to work. Actually, I am surprised that no one really ever talks about this - seeing that so much attention is given to human rights problems in China.
Besides, Chinese steel is shit. Unlike the Japanese, the Chinese send over the steel they don't want. Nobody uses Chinese steel unless they really have to.
By the way, I used to fight like hell with the unions. I made my money off of mostly foreign steel, but I still know that American steel companies are damn competitive.
And again I say bravo!
National preference for jobs, benefits etc. is completely legitimate. This concept is too often criticised by the caviar leftists of various persuasions, who often live in the chic neighbourhoods in the capital cities, let it be said.
Americans first in America and so on. It's quite simple really.
It is an issue of an AMERICAN company not hiring AMERICANS who are qualified and there is a large pool of these people and instead finding a way to undercut the fair market value of a humans work. How are the people in this country going to compete, how will they feed thier families, pay the rent, Americans have a lot more debt. Quality will probably suffer because I think American Universities do better than Banglore Tech.
So because you are "in college", you understand economic principles so well that you equate capitalism with completely open borders for human labour. I'm not going to even waste my time on you.
It's not just H1-B visas that they are screwing
us with. See the following link for yet a another
visa program that you probably haven't even heard
of. I hope Sun get's walloped.
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/l1_visa.htm
All I have to say is I hope it goes through. Too many times whether contract, part time, or fulltime I see the H1's slowly taking all the jobs in an office where to regular John and Jane jobs start dwindling. H1's are to supplement a workforce that is not able to meet demand, but if we have huge supply like right now then there is no reason to hire the H1.
What with California now firing its elementary school teachers, being charged the highest per gallon for gas, and highest level of unemployment, its nice to see people putting their foot down. Hopefully something happens for the better of the average Joe.
Can't leave MS out of this. Check out http://www.washtech.org/docs/html_ppts/01.php where MS's Sr VP Windows Division pushes for more outsourcing. On slide 6, he even talks about a "twofer" of Indian "heads".
'course MS may have to do this since the FASB may decide by the end of this month that stock options have to be treated as an expense, so the only two profitable divisions at MS may not look so profitable any more. (yeah, I know this was hashed here, but the discussion I saw was pre-Enron, and before Intel, Amazon and a bunch of other companies voluntarily saying they would treat options as an expense.)
And H1-B is only half the story. Check out this article on L1 (and H1-B): http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/12/123 733.shtml
Cost of living and average salaries are lower in India. The American worker has to feed his family too.
At the extreme end of the spectrum, sending work overseas to countries with lower cost of living is self-destructive. Your workers are your customers' customers. If your workers can't afford a U.S. lifestyle in the U.S., then your customers have fewer customers... which means they don't need your products.
But... it's a screwed up game that happens again and again in capitalism. It is to everyone's mutual bennefit in the U.S. if the jobs stay in the country. However, the first corporation which can export the jobs has an unfair advantage, allowing them to squash the competition while reaping huge profits. If there is nothing there to stop them, they can't be blamed for doing it. It is as much self-defense as corruption.
The same forces unfortunately apply to government too... the first governor who takes the kickbacks for allowing such a thing to take place could be made be rich enough that they don't have to care how poorly the country fares.
I'm sure that if I knew anything about economics, I would know a name for this pattern.
nt
We need an IT union, how about that.. I'm sick and tired of getting crappy wages. I propose a walk-out by all IT employees across that nation, see how that affects their bottom dollar...
You get what you pay for, getting cheap labor nets cheap results.
While the law may be flawed, it is what it is and SUN is clearly in violation.
I am not an economist, so forgive my ignorance... BUT, I wonder about whether or not one could argue that the existance of H1B visas had a material impact on the economic recession we're currently in.
.... whatever they're doing, buying new technology is not what they're interested in.
... fill in the blank. But banks sell to consumers. CNN sells to consumers. If the consumers aren't switching to use technology delivery of those services, then the banks and CNN and ... aren't going to buy from Sun (et al).
Here's what I'm thinking, and if you ARE an economist, please correct me!
It's generally accepted that the current recession is a consequence of the fall of the tech sector. Right? And the tech sector fell because of unrealistic P/E ratios on stock prices. In an effort to get those P/E ratios more in line, one of two things had to happen, either the price had to drop or the earnings had to increase. One way to do that is to cut expenses. For almost EVERY company the single biggest expense is human resources. If you can cut labor costs, then you can get your P/E ratios up w/out having to actually sell more.
So Sun, et al, lobby congress and get the H1B visa program passed, and they cut expenses. P/E's can be improved... eventually. First you have to fire all those people. Those people increase the jobless rate. The market sees this, and reacts negatively, putting more pressure on realistic P/E ratios. And now the only way to increase P/E ratios is to actually sell something that someone wants right now. We can't wait anymore because we need to get those P/E ratios fixed now.
Except for the fact that the biggest technology consumers are the technology workers, and larger and larger numbers of them don't have any jobs. And those that do, are worried about their jobs, or are about to lose their jobs, or are accepting pay cuts or
Kaboom! P/E ratios do not get back to a sane level, and the market jumps ship, killing lots of companies and unemploying tons of workers, curtailing the spending of all of those people. Now, couple that with Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and Adelphia.
Of course, you could argue that Sun (et al) doesn't sell to consumers. They sell to banks, to CNN, to
Ok, so I'm an idiot. I know that. Does this hold any water?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
We already do this with cars and other manufactured goods. We just need to start applying some old techniques to the new world.
Simple...
And that way I don't have to give Johnny Five Angels (my Italian-American Union Rep) 10% of my paycheck for nothing.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
If this keeps up I can imagine some interesting repercussions. 1. What kind of damage could and army of disgruntled, out of work hackers do? 2. Would Open Source suddenly find many more volunteers to make companies products worthless? 3. What about the possibility of economic terrorism by programmers comming into this country via H1Bs?
History is so yesterday!
"People come here, settle down, buy a home, start a family, become part of the community." First mistake. It is temporary with no guarantees. Rent until you are sure you can stay. "Don't like your working conditions? Don't think you're getting a fair wage? Fine, then leave your home, family, and friends and leave the country. H1-Bs can't quit a job and look for other work." H1-Bs are in many cases making a lot more money here, have exponentially more opportunities, and better working conditions. They know the risks. A H1-B is just that, a temporary permit. Temporary means temporary. Don't want to take the risk then stay in your country.
Oh how I want to meta-moderate this moderation... The poster not only does not know about H1Bs, but obviously he never thought about reading the article either.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Seriously look at how many employees they hire from U of Waterloo and pay a fraction of what an University graduate from the US makes.
The real problem isn't that there is too much freedom for companies to search for workers worldwide, the problem is that there is too little freedom for employees to do the same. H1Bs and other job exports should require employee supplying nations to provide work visas for an equivalent number of workers. That way the employee can choose the work culture/pay/cost-of-living/work-life balance that best suits their talants and personal preferences. A few silicon valleyish areas within the U.S. have very competative pay compared to rest of world, but when you start looking at vacation, benefits, health insurance, job security, cost of living, flexibility... most silicon valley companies can't compete with counterparts overseas.
This link is union afiliated, which I'm ambivalent about, but it is a way to give ourselves a voice and let the politicians know that we're concerned about America's middle class being gutted.
Note that presidential candidate Gephardt is now talking about going to the WTO to establish worldwide minimum wage requirements. So there are some politicians who seem to be thinking about this.
yea i stole your sig- whats the big deal, it sucked anyway.
Someone please explain to me why it is o.k. to buy foreign products (which supposedly deprives american workers of jobs in the industry that produces said product) but it is not o.k. to hire foreign labor.
Don't both actions deprive americans of jobs?
Or does either?
available here....
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
Don't buy their shit anymore. Use Linux/Intel instead. Why use expesive Sun boxes when a low cost PC with Linux can do the same job faster.
Is the ability to not worry that when you come home, someone is standing there saying "this house and your land is mine" (apart from the bank of course...)
If one person can't take care of him/herself, then how do you expect a small group of people like the government to be able to take care of a much larger group like whiny IT workers?
If people are not personally responsible for themselves, then the government wont be either. That's just how things are.
If Jobs go overseas, then do something else!!! People are always complaining here that the music industry is like the horse and buggy making industry - are you saying the government should lock down those jobs and makes sure the music industry lasts forever just as it is? Those jobs aren't even going to go overseas, they are just going Poof!! At least with the jobs overseas companies still need a US liaison to oversee what is being done.
As for jobs, you said it yourself - you can always go work in a munitions factory. Or join the army and do something that really protects your family instead of whining how your $80k a year IT job might go overseas.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://jobsearch.monster.com/
I think there is another ascpect to this that
many people are over looking. Yes, dollars is
a big part of it but there is also the mult-
cultural (race) aspect. This is an opportunity
to engage in multi-cultural (re)engineering.
The H-1B fiasco is not the problem, it is a symptom of the problem. This is yet another reason massive immigration reform is needed.
The INS wants to deport Hitesh Tolani, but gave renewed the 9/11 terrorists visas - AFTER 9/11! The whole system is bad and needs to be reformed from the ground up.
Then we can talk about solving this problem.
Many of the multinationals are skipping the "middle man" so to speak and are simply moving whole departments to India...
There really isn't anything illegal about this and they get to take advantage of a much lower wage/hr...
Of course, when enough tech employees are employed in this way, the wage will go up and the monetary advantages will be less...
Try designing computer equipment with these people, trust me you will be very confused, seriously it will take these HB1 people 5-10 years of living here to effectively communicate, seriously it is better to hire people living in America for these jobs and make life easier for programmers and management.
What proof do you have of this?
Even if you have proof, do you really believe that Sun had 2,500 lazy workers? 2,500 lazy workers that helped make Sun the company it is today?
Look at the evidence. The tech market is slowly dying, Sun is in big trouble. It makes sense for them to cut off the leg to save the patient, and they are doing it in an illegal manner by hiring these H1B workers to replace a LARGE portion of their workers.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Given these facts, why is it a surprise that companies outsource most of their IT now, or send in lower-paid workers to do an equal job? If you want to stay in IT, you need to do one of two things. You can prove you're an added value to the business you work for, not the same as the security guard or night janitor. Or, you can work for an outsourcer. Believe me, that's no fun; I've done it. They work you like crazy for peanuts.
Also, a lot of people suggest unionizing. I'm from working-class stock, so I know how effective the unions can be in protecting basic workers' rights. They can also price themselves right out of the market.
Fasion models don't count as "specialty occupations", but rather the law applies to both people in specialty occupations and fashion models!
... or (c) who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform services as a registered nurse,...212(m)(1)
h1-B says:
in a specialty occupation described in section 214(i)(1) or as a fashion model, who meets the requirements for the occupation specified in section 214(i)(2) or, in the case of a fashion model, is of distinguished merit and ability,
214(i)(1), which defines 'specialty occupations' says the following:
(i)(1) For purposes of section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) and paragraph (2), the term "specialty occupation" means an occupation that requires-
(A) theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge, and
(B) attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States.
Good thing the federal government took time to consider the plight of fashion models.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Doctors are numerous all over the world. Why don't they come here and charge half? Because of the AMA."
Why do you think medical care is so expensive in America? In a large part, because the AMA deliberately restricts the supply of doctors in this way.
Now, I'm not sure about you, but I certainly have no desire to support an organisation that deliberately works to prevent the poor from getting good medical care at a decent price.
have you seen the poverty in india? these guys dont keep the money, they send ALL EXTRAS back home. you greedy americans take what you have for granted...
you white guys are bery bery lazy. we will work harder and be smarter than you.
The H1-B Syndrome
==================
Companies suffering from H1-B Syndrome will begin with an IT department
staffed with skilled, educated American workers who know what they're doing,
and take pride in their work. They are payed well, happy, and loyal to the
company.
Once they get everything working to perfection, a shithead beancounter
upstairs who can't tell the difference between a server and a refrigerator
decides it would be "cost effective" to replace the American IT workers with
a sixpack of Hindus who will work for $0.38 cents an hour.
A shithead Department Manager, sensing his opportunity to make it big, will
get wind of this from the beancounter, pinkslip his workers, and hand over
the keys to the sixpack of Hindus half a world away who could give two fucks
less than half a rats ass about doing the job right.
Meanwhile, the executives upstairs will shout "This will save the company
millions!!" and pat eachother on the back for thinking of it . They'll go
home early, buy another minivan, and take the kids to Disneyworld.
Over the next 6 months, the Hindus on the other side of the planet slowly
fuck everything up to the point where the company's systems are on the virge
of collapse. They aren't held accountable for their actions, so they drop
their service contracts and move on to the next dumb-ass American company
who thinks outsourcing their IT staff is a good idea.
The executives get home from Disneyworld and discover this, so they fire the
guy who suggested the Hindus, and fire the Department Manager that OK'ed it.
Meanwhile, they work on calling the original American workers back in to fix
the problem.
The American workers then scramble to fix the mess that the $0.38/hr Hindus
left behind, trying desparately to meet the company's deadline in the hope
that if they do so, they can stay employed at the company. Six months later,
the new Project Manager will complain to the new Department Manager that the
project is behind schedule and over budget. So the new Department Manager
picks up the phone, pushes a few buttons, and calls up the beancounter (who
STILL doesn't know shit about IT ) asking for a way to be more "cost-effective".
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Bowie J. Poag
1. Employer is requred by law to advertise the position, a job already filled by an H1-B holder. These ads are easy to identify, they are very, very specific, and are low-cost small-type ads. They specify US citizenship required.
2. Clueless folks that can't smell these ads send in resumes.
3. Employer is required to document why each and every respondent doesn't qualify.
3a. Some resumes are so far off that an HR drone can check a box and file the resume in a drawer.
3b. Hiring manager (ie, the schmuck knowns as "yours truly") gets to phone interview all the rest. Are you a US citizen? No? Buh-bye. Then a list of very specific questions, all referencing the ad. No recent experience with very specific CAD tool? Buh-bye. Schmuck checks appropriate box, ships stack of paper back to HR.
4. Immigration lawyer completes paperwork.
At my employer, salaries for H1-B were the same as anyone else. Nothing except "what have you done lately?" mattered at salary time. We had a lot of H1-B's, and a lot of open reqs, so no jobs were going to H1-B's that would not have gone to citizens. But of course, times were different then....ie: hot. I'd hate to see the stack of resumes an H1-B ad would pull today.
IANAL, nor an immigration specialist. :-P
Karma whorin' since 1999
By the way, it _is_ possible to get $4.00/hr
Not in the US - that's well below minimum wage.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Which is exactly why companies that heavily rely on H1Bs are so evil...not only are they depriving our own citizens of jobs, they're also mistreating and exploiting the foreign labor that comes to replace us. They do it because they can. Indians will let themselves be worked 60-70 hours a week for the same salary that the cute white little administrative assistant is getting (hell, probably less) because, well, it beats the alternative which is sitting in a pile of your own filth in India hoping to get a job that pays enough so you can eat.
After world war II, there was a big grassroots movement to buy only American made cars and such. I'd like to see it taken one step further and only buy software, hardware, or services from tech companies that replace thousands of american workers with cheap exploitable foreign labor.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
An interesting point, and this process is more advanced in Europe where European Freedom of Labour laws dictate that all workers in the European Union are free to move between the various member states and have the same rights as local workers.
So for example, an Italian is free to go and work in Ireland, a German can be employed in Spain, an Englishman in France etc.
Things will move further along this path next year when the EU is expanded from 15 to 25 members, with countries like Bulgaria and Romania joining. However Turkey will not be joining yet as the current member states are concerned that Turkish workers would flood Europe with cheap labour.
The only barriers to this type of economic migration are cultural and more specifically language differences.
Suck figs.
while some of you are wanking on the right stand of your (jew-owned) government.
Hey dudes, you are living in america. The land of opportunities.
Just imagine how big the opportunity must be for a Indian engineer,
to receive a better wage in another country.
America is so liberal,
right wing and free, its eating its own children.
Yeah, enjoy the party as long as you can.
And die with honour, in true Roman style!
But don't whine like a jew.
Stats for Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto care of h1b.info
More can be found by searching for Sun at http://h1b.info/lca_search.php
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Would you rather pay someone $240 a day for 10 hours of work, or $4 for two people to put in 16 hours of work a day?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
All that software sold on the promise that it would decrease costs BY REDUCING LABOR,
built by those whose jobs are threatened now - threatened by actions ALSO designed to reduce costs.
The irony.
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
They should not be fired, farmed out or otherwise. Qualified engineers are underpaid and overworked. My father is the CFO of a company, and the most under appreciated and underpaid employee is the Civil Engineer who my father says is one of the smartest people in the company yet is payed less than people in the construction department who are almost incompetant and have no college degree. This guy has a 4 yr degree and is a Publicly Certified Engineer. They also replaced an Arcitect with an indian immigrant who was willing to work for less, guess what they are regreating it now no one can understand what the guy is saying, he is good at his job but he and the constomer can not talk about what is needed in a building. The truth is companies are inefficient, business people are overpaid, there is too much concentration on quantity not quality. Companies should hire the best and pay them accordingly.
You expect that what ever government entity that determines [skill shortages], to be better than the patent office is at finding prior art?
Amen!
There is almost zero provision for enforcement. IIRC, the company simply has to sign a paper saying that the positition requires hard-to-find skills. After that there is no followup, no inspectors, etc. It is a blank check.
Table-ized A.I.
I'd mod your ass up.. but alas, no points.
Again, we have another H1-B/Jawa story and the Tiger Penis Soup troll is nowhere to be found!!! Come back to the SlashTroll community TPS Troll!
The guy at sun in charge of this stuff is an Indian and he said that sun prefers Indians to Americans. If that's true then it's racism and totally illegal.
The other issue is that sun is subverting the H1-B program by hiring H1-Bs at lower cost then american workers, which is also illegal, by H1-B.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
In my (very large) company, they're offshoring work and laying off American employees. The CIO wants to look good by cutting costs. By sending work to India, they don't even have to go through the effort of getting a visa.
Doesn't anyone know the numbers on this apparent "crisis" ? How do you know that the anger over H1 visas aren't the result of some whiney people who lost their job ? How do you know you weren't fired for some other reason ?
This is not a new idea, having cheaper people work for you. It's not just technology. From what I've seen on the job boards these days, NO one will take H1 visas because it's too much hassle.
To say that US companies are going to fire their higher paid citizens so they can hire foreigners is not only simplistic, it's very naive and short-sighted.
If it's not, then why do I still get contract jobs ?
I'm glad that someone is finally taking this system to court. American corporations have been abusing this system ever since it was introduced in the late 1990's. Is it a coincidence that Sun was applying to bring in 2,400 H1-B workers at the same time it was laying off American engineers? I doubt it.
The truth is that H1-B workers not only work for less than their American counter-parts, they are also much less likely to complain about working conditions, number of hours worked, etc. because they know that they can easily be sent back to wherever they came from. Far too many companies bring in H1-B workers rather than investing in re-training their current employees. It's time that American high tech workers started fighting back against a system that is designed solely to enrich corporations at the expense of American workers and the communities they live in.
Then, there is the national security aspect of the situation. Are these H1-B applicants subjected to background checks prior to being allowed into the country? Not that I have ever heard of and I've worked with a number of H1-B workers over the years. Do we really want to entrust the electronic infrastruture of this nation to depend on people whose first loyalty is not to the U.S.?
BTW, I have no quarrel with the people who apply for H1-B vaisa. Everyone has, or should have, the right to try to improve their position in life, and H1-B workers are trying to do that. My quarrel is with those corporations who use H1-B workers to fill positions for which qualified Americans are available.
My big question is - who do the corporations that abuse the H1-B system expect to purchase their products when they are busy laying off anybody who can afford to do so?
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P
Sure - we are not "owed" all the luxuries Americans get, I'll agree with that. However, you are missing something: Neither is the corporate CEO. When a company like sun gets rid of American workers that they actually have to pay and hires H1Bs they can get "half-off", where do you think all that extra money goes?
Does it go to help starving babies in africa? no.
Does it go to help starving babies in china? no.
Does it go to help starving babies in the US? no.
Or even:
Does it go to Sun's R&D dept? no.
The money goes into the wallet of the rich men who did it in the first place.
We have hired the government to "promote the general welfare" is how it is worded in the preamble to the constitution. For this service, we pay taxes. The government is supposed to defend the common man from the powerful and greedy. That includes greedy corporate executives willing to remove the big screen tv from your living room and put it in his own.
If you think losing your job to a foreigner with an H1B is nothing to get upset over - try doing it yourself sometime.
Most people in this thread are missing the point. It's not about racism. It's not about losing our jobs to the "damn foreigners". It's about protecting private citizens from corporate greed. That's one of our government's jobs, and they're sucking at it.
It is perhaps a sign of the times that the same principles do not apply when it comes to immigrant workers.
It is astonishing to me that the same people who want free, open markets when it comes to selling American products abroad (including software), want a protected, closed market for employment in US alone. Why this hypocrisy?
For those who argue that every foreign worker who gets a job is taking away an American's job, can I say the same thing about American exports? Everytime a foreigner (individual or company) buys software from America, many jobs are taken away from that country! After all, if the same software had been written in that country, many of them would have been employed!!!
Let us do this - let us stop all immigration and close the borders completely. All jobs will go only to (native-born) Americans. Hooray! However, we should also stop exporting software to other countries so that they can enjoy the same benefits. How about that?
Seriously though, if you want foreign workers to demand a higher pay, abolish H1B visas and other such bureaucracies. Give a green card to anyone who comes to work in America. This way, without the noose of H1 visa, foreign workers will also demand a higher pay as per free market dictates.
All your favorite sites in one place!
I do not understand the fuss. Who is hiring H1-B's anyways in this economy?? [oh well..who's hiring *anybody* in this economy...?] I know of many fresh foreign CS grads who cannot get a job becoz NOBODY is ready to sponsor an H1-B anymore. No recruiter is ready consider a guy on an H1-B...the program is as good as dead!!! Worry abt outsourcing if u will ..but I do not think many fresh H1-B's are being approved by INS...
My fiance was an H1-B worker, so we've had to deal with the INS for awhile now.
Contrary to popular belief, an H1-B visa does not guarantee a green card. These are two different things... H1-B allows you to work in a special field for up to 3 years (with extentions if you're getting your green card), after which you get sent home. A green card can be aquired either through your company, or through marriage. A green card allows you to be hired and fired like any american worker. It's permanent.
I've looked at both methods for getting his green card. We were lucky his second company sponsored him, and we were able to continue it when he was later laid off because he was in the third stage. Had he been in an earlier stage, he would've been sent back.
Getting your green card is a very tough process. It took us three and a half years to get his green card through his company. If you do it through marriage, it's supposedly shorter - but then they question your marriage, your relationship, pull out your wedding photos and ask him to identify a guy in the back row, etc. I'm glad we didn't have to go that route.
Now the REAL problem for Sun here is, if they bring in a significant number of H1-B visa people to replace their tenured staff, then they're going to get a brain drain when in 3 years, all those people have to return to India. There's a population cap for green card applicants based on your country - it's very hard to get a green card if you come from India. So every 3 years they'll have a massive turn-over when all those immigrants go home for the mandated one year, during which they'll bring in new h1-b visas.... costing them lots of lawyer bills and a general loss of accumulated knowledge.
Not a smart move for Sun. Save a buck today, loose important knowledge and spend money on lawyer fees tomorrow...
Tepp
If I think that it's wrong for Sun to 'prefer' people because of their race (Indian) that does not make me a racist. Quite the opposite, really.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
>Would they have a problem with, say, a Canadian citizen, or an Irish, British, or Australian one?
:), can be brought home to an American woman's family without her Archie Bunker father throwing a fit, might even know who Archie Bunker is ...
Australians, Canadians, British, and Irish, are all de-facto Americans (in that order, decreasingly so,) generally with funny but mild accents.
They eat American food, can be understood on the phone by other Americans, bathe daily (well not sure about the Brits, but
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
It's reasonable and inevitable that given the same skillset, the lower-rate worker is preferable. I've had the opportunity to work with engineers from India, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and they're damn good usually, and they don't whine or throw out attitude like some north americans. I enjoy working with them
How I personally compete and keep my rate up is by:
1) skip the attitude. I love to code, and I try to show it. I jump when an opportunity presents itself. Stay current, be useful.
2) leverage your north american knowledge. I use my business contacts, my local experience, my knowledge of north-american culture and resources, customer expectations, business practices etc, to make myself more valuable to my north-american employers.
If you think that you're owed a high-paying job just because you were born here, welcome to the global economy.
.....as they are legally required to do, then I think a lot of these H1-Bs would suddenly look a lot less "skilled". The h1-B program should be handled like the draft. Call them up when they are needed, but pick from the existing job pool in times like this.
Why don't you learn more about America before you comment on it, you ignorant fuck!
And will this set a precedent that the rest of us can use?
US Companies aren't supposed to hire H1-B's unless they can't find US talent to fill the position, right? Well, if a company is so desperate to fill a position, I say let them pay a hefty tariff per H1-B employed. Something around 50-100% of the H1-B's salary should be about right. This will do 2 things: It will make certain that a company is really desperate before they hire an H1-B, and it will make them more likely to hire a citizen and train them, the costs would be far less than paying the tariff. Also, it would ensure that H1-B's hired to fill a temporary need don't become permanent workers (they aren't supposed to be permanent anyway, right?).
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
First, H1-B is a temporary visa. People come here, settle down, buy a home, start a family, become part of the community. But unless they take steps to achieve a more permanent status, such as citizenship or having a green card, they can be kicked out of the country at a moments notice. And with the current political climate, I wouldn't recommend overstaying your visa in the USA right now.
If you don't persue citizenship, then you don't really diserve it...I mean, even those born here had ancestors that went through something similar (or are Native Americans/etc)...why should H1-Bs be different?
Second, H1-B is sponsored by a company. The worker only has the legal right to work for that company. Don't like your working conditions? Don't think you're getting a fair wage? Fine, then leave your home, family, and friends and leave the country. H1-Bs can't quit a job and look for other work. It's hard not to get settled in and used to a place after a couple years, so there are plenty of stories of people who thought of themselves as permanent residents getting shipped off.
Umh, I think they actually allow 30 days for you to obtain another H1-B job...and if you honestly posses the credentials required for an H1-B, then it should be no problem for you to find another job...
Third, part of the requirements for H1-B is workers get paid prevailing wages. One of the ways companies get around that is bringing in people with little experience. "Sure, the H1-B doesn't get paid as much as the citizen engineer. But one has 1 year experience and the other has 10, so you can't make a direct comparison." But what happens as the years go by as the worker with the visa gets more experienced and worth more in the marketplace? As the disparity between the prevailing rate and the H1-B's salary grows, the company as two choices. They can give the guy a raise. Although if they wanted to do that, they could of kept the original citizen worker that got laid off.
Umh, from what I hear, a lot of H1-Bs don't even posses the skills they claim...they instead have obtained certifications that aren't worth much (but noone else knows that) and they simply learn on the job...
Of course, the whole thing could be fixed by requiring the company to pay for an independent assessment of skills before they are hired as an H1-B.
While I was really speaking in the mathematical sense, note that minimum wage for workers in the US who receive more than $30/month in tips is actually $2.13/hr. The current US minimum wage for other non-exempt workers stands at $5.15.
Of course under some circumstances, salaried workers can also end up making less than minimum wage, depending on salary versus actual hours worked.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I think, more than anything, that much of this would be fixed by a national attitude adjustment.
;)
American Labor Unions are killing the U.S. For example, a chemical plant I worked for (as a scientist) settled the last union labor negotiations with the union folks making $33/hour. Largely, these were unskilled, high-school educated (maybe) people.
In contrast, most of the lab personnel supporting the plant had at least undergraduate degrees (Chemistry, Biology, etc.) and many were contract employees making $12/hour.
The math? Straight up, the laborer makes $68,640/year. The contract lab worker makes $24,960/year. But the clincher is that the union folks make mandatory overtime at 1.5 to up to 3 times the normal rate. Overtime comes in when you work something more than eight hours per day. The story is likely the same everywhere in the U.S.
I don't think the problem is at all about foreigners working for less money. Rather, I think the problem is that many Americans simply expect too much for what they're really worth, particularly uneducated, unskilled laborers. Anyone can screw a bolt into a damn car, and people in other countries are willing to do it longer hours and for a lot less, likely without medical benefits.
Unfortunately there's not an easy solution to the problem other than to start realizing that rampant over-consumerism under the guise of the perceived need for luxury SUVs, sprawling homes, and other unnecessary materialism is the real culprit. Spend less, need less. That's really hard to do once you're spoiled
Behold the huge sucking sound Ross Perot spoke of. As
Americans, your time at the top is over. It's all downhill
from here. There will be no high paying jobs unless you
are an executive of a multi-national with all it's employees
being offshore (or government). For the rest - shovels,
brooms and McHappy meals. Ain't capitalism great.
You white collar workers sound amazingly like the blue collar labor of 20 years ago. American workers were losing jobs to Asia and Latin America while many of you were still crapping your diapers. Tech workers have avoided substantive discussion of labor rights anywhere on this board unless it affects you and your skill set.
Why? Because you like to get cheap electronics, automobiles (relatively speaking), and food.
Where were you when Kenworth shipped their jobs to Mexico? Where was the outrage from tech workers when automotive assembly jobs were being shipped overseas?
Face it: Your skills have become a global commodity that can move to regions of lower wages just as easily as the employee working the assembly line. The only way you can preserve your jobs for Americans is to purge yourself Free Trade rhetoric and start signing the song of protectionism.
But that would eventually end up costing you more of your annual income. When you get protection for your profession, other industries will be lining up to get theirs. Pretty soon you are paying $8US for a head of lettuce because you have to pay minimum wage to a US citizen rather than $2/hr to an illegal.
And as has been already been pointed out by other posters, these people need to make a living too. The money they send home improves the standard of living in their own country which stabilizes their society and lessens the possibility that the US will have to intervene with foreign aid, or worse, the military.
When you push on one side of the balloon, the other side starts to bulge.
There are no easy answers to globalized labor.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Assuming worst-case scenario where everything that can move to India does, what has to stay here?
I do think that some areas of IT are less vulnerable than others. I hope that I've guessed correctly.
p.s. This page may be a surprise to many of you. Digital Equipment Company is alive and well in India, and many of the 20,000 people that HP laid off (thanks Carly) were replaced by H1-Bs from this subsidiary.
Relize only East Coast/West Coast/ Big city programmers make $50+ yr salaries. Where I live once you get 40-50 miles away from the city wages drop 25-50% for the same job. I get worried about this stuff because it's the internal people that get hit first...after all my boss will get cheap and have the audacity to stop raies or cut pay long before the big city bosses do because he thinks he can get away with it. It think that's true with most small businesses.
I'd venture more programmers are living on 35-45k/yr without all the perks that there are in all the other "hi-tech" jobs.
Maybe compaines will grow up inland rather than in silicon valley. Caifornia is over-rated as a tech area--the main reason is close to the port to catch imports! Personally, I lime in Michigan, and think that the inland states will soon recapture many of the industries that ran away in recent years. If only for skilled people refusing to play the HI pay/stress/real estate game and stay home to work. Wages won't go up, but only a few parts of the US make the big $$$ of SUN or MS, and consumers still live there.
Also, if there's such a lack of US workers, why aren't the companies doing more to educate US youths? Properly Trained US workers still kick the pants off most of the rest of the world in terms of innovation and creativity. What I've seen is that most US kids barely get a chance to explore careers before college. Not all of it has to do with companies, but they could do more to insist on education goals for US students--of course then they would have to hire them! Kinda the point though, educate to get good pay. Local people need to see the need for tech education as well. Most US schools are viewed as "Providers" of education to student "Consumers" rather than as a mutually benifitial environment to learn by both parties in.
My fiance' owns Sun stock. After reading this article, she's decided to sell off all of her remaining shares. Why? Simple. She doesn't want to have anything to do with a company who openly desires to shaft people like her soon-to-be husband. You guys might want to think about doing the same. Ask yourself, do you hold stock in a company that wants to shaft you in the same fashion? If so, why are you helping them ream you?
Bowie J. Poag
This is no surprise whatsoever... in fact, it's hilarious for anyone's seen that 60 minutes special on IIT. Those guys were literally saying, "If we didn't get into IIT... we'd have to fall back on US schools like MIT and Caltech." Whoa! now they're a hot commodity on the US job market.... WHAT A SURPRISE!
And Yes, better and cheaper should get the jobs. C'mon, we always love to boast how we're at the cutting edge of the tech industry, well surprise, surprise... we better continue hiring the top people out there, regardless of whether they're American.
If your employer is breaking the law, call the DOL, call the media, and call your mom.
This is from the American Immigration Lawyers Assoc site:
EMPLOYERS ARE REQUIRED TO
Protect wages: Employers are required by law to pay each H-1B employee a wage that is the higher of either the typical wage in the region for that type of work ("prevailing wage"), or what the employer actually pays existing employees with similar experience and duties.
Protect working conditions: Employers cannot use H-1B professionals to break a strike and must notify their U.S. workforce when hiring an H-1B professional. Employers cannot make the H-1B nonimmimgrants work under conditions different from their U.S. counterparts, including hours, shifts and benefits.
Recruit in the U.S. and not displace U.S. workers: Employers who use a lot of H-1Bs must first try to find U.S. workers before they can hire an H-1B. They also must attest that they are not hiring the H-1B if they have laid-off or displaced a similarly situated U.S. worker. Employers must attest to the above protections by affirmatively filing with the DOL and by maintaining a file available for public access.
Subject to penalties: Employers who fail to comply with DOL regulations may be subject to investigation, civil and administrative penalties, payment of back wages, and even debarment from participating in key immigration programs.
putting on pants and taking of you turban doesn't make you an american fucking sand nigger. troll on americans and you won't have a cock to offer. we should cut all your cocks off and put them in your turbans so that you can't tell americans off mother fucker. once again go back to the land shit and piss mother fucker and take your pencil dick with you before some one cuts it off.
In order to make things right again, we should all get to have hot sex with Sumi Das. Me first of course:-P
n es/sto ry/0,23350,3393782,00.html
Sumi Spy Cam:
http://www.techtv.com/interact/behindthesce
"hand over the keys to the sixpack of Hindus half a world away who could give two fucks less than half a rats ass about doing the job right.
Perhaps, it's time to reevaluate the effectiveness of Slashdot moderation. This is supposed to be an internation forum, so there's no way in hell something like this should be modded up.
>Management hasn't even tried to hide the fact that this guy is going to be taking over all my duties, and I expect I'll be out on the street looking for work inside of a year,
... ) about three days before the court hearing the guy's Lawyer (Nelson Sharp in South Texas, scumback lawyer, for the record) was found dead, an apparent heart attack.
So take his punk ass out into the alley and kill him, sprinkle some powdered sugar around to make it look like a drug deal gone bad.
I was in a vehicle wreck about 15 years ago and the guy hired some high powered lawyer to hassle me ( he was blatantly wrong, the accident was obviously his fault but his daddy had lots of money so
Strange enough, the punk kid couldn't find any other lawyers to represent him.
Is it time to take off the gloves?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
The current limit is 195,000 new H-1B visas per fiscal year. Employers lobbied for this temporary increase back when workers had the market advantage. The cap will revert back to 65,000 this October unless business does something about it.
Tell your rep in Congress what you think about the cap.
Fucking EUians are fucking retards.
I am going to buy a whole bunch of land, buy a shitload of tents, and bring people in by the boatload from impoverished countries to make clothing. You think it is competitive now? Wait until I cut out shipping costs.
There are a number of dictators willing to sell their people still, and I bet that more than a few former Soviet Block countries are willing to give me a few people. Why not - if American workers aren't competitive enough to compete with foreign workers living in tents and getting paid in food then they don't deserve to have jobs.
You probably mean the United States of America, don't you?
"Nothing is stopping the next Sun or Microsoft or Oracle or Intel from sprouting up as a home-grown venture in India, or wherever, given the supposed incredible talent and work ethics. Why haven't they?"
They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I don't like the original spelling.)
Remember that most heads of technically oriented companies are not technically knowledgeable enough to know whether a programmer is doing a good job. They hire on the basis of price and a little understanding.
What hasn't become apparent to the companies that hire Indian programmers is that they aren't getting the same quality of work as they would from U.S. citizens. Good programming requires someone who constantly asks whether what he or she is doing makes sense. Good programming requires constant creativity.
There are, of course, many Indian programmers who are excellent in every way. But most are the followers that their culture requires them to be.
The result is that programs are being written that will have to be re-written, and much sooner than they would if they were done by programmers from a culture that prizes independent thinking. The real cost of Indian programmers is higher than U.S. programmers, not lower.
The U.S. has been through something like this before. In the early 70's it became fashionable in the U.S. to hire PhDs. The reasoning was that better educated people would be better employees. But, after about 12 or 15 years, companies realized that people who had PhDs were often robotic crank-turners. Sure, some PhDs were interested in education, but most had just put in their time getting an advanced degree. The policy of hiring PhDs brought about some spectacular failures; they often did not have sufficient knowledge outside a narrow field.
We are seeing a wave of self-destruction in the United States. The U.S. government has killed perhaps 3,000,000 people and bombed 14 countries in the last 35 years. (See What should be the Response to Violence?.) United States companies are destroying themselves. (Microsoft is, for example, driving people to Linux by annoying its customers: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.) The U.S. is becoming a country in which law is disregarded and disrepected. (See Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.)
H1B does NOT require that a company prove that no American workers are available to do that job -- that is needed when applying for the Green Card. H1Bs only require that the employer pay the prevailing wage for the position.
Also, it is possible to change jobs while in H1B status -- the future employer simply needs to apply for an H1B transfer for the candidate.
-AnonCoward
[ex H1B who was paid the prevailing wage and did change jobs while under the H1B status]
a nativist policy of restricting IT employment to US nationals will simply accelerate the export of these jobs to foreign contractors. People need to realize that India , southeast asia , and eastern europe are emerging IT powerhouses. What's now primarily a pricing advantage is quickly evolving into a quality and price advantage ( or at least quality parity and price advantage ). In 10-20 years it's likely that the majority of software and IT services will derive from these regions. The commoditization of IT services is being accelerated by the presence of foreign competition , but derives fundamentally from factors of scale , replicability , and diminishing marginal utility - don't blame the Indians , they're just lubricating this process.
A better solution is to empower the H1-B worker by liberating them from the single sponsor model. Make the H1-B status portable so that H1-B's are not endentured to a single employer and can negotiate for competitive salaries. This would inspire companies to hire H1-B's primarily on merit , not the assumption that they can be coerced into working for below market wages. Those H1-B's that remain will be the cream of the crop and more than compensate for the native workers they displace.
The other thing the US needs to do is to get serious about math and sciences education at the primary and secondary school levels , but this probably won't happen any time soon.
Some Indian programmers are excellent and very smart, others good, but the majority are mediocre and don't have a clue and have no earthly idea of what communication is.
Companies can and do routinely outsource their IT departments to save a buck, but that's a big mistake in my opinion. Why not just outsource the whole company? You'll save more. Why not just get a cheap Indian CEO, you'll save even more? Hell, why not just outsource the entire country?
Isn't America a great place to live???
And some of us wonder "why do they hate us?"
Eventually the corporation will end up in africa exploiting the natives.
First) They cannot be kicked out of the country on a moments notice, one wont be working for the company anymore but he is still listed as an employee of the H1 consultancy that sponsered his visa. I know a lot of friends who dont have jobs for the past 6 months on H1 visas.
/.
Second) You dont have to leave ur home, family, friends, and leave the country. What u do is transfer ur visa to another H1 consultancy or another employer. They can quit jobs and look for other work as they can transfer the visa, and there are H1 consultancies a dime a dozen that will agree to transfer ur H1 visa. No one is shipped off, they go back only if they are pissed off as they dont get a job for a long time or they find a good job in India and decide to leave.
Third) Wrong again. No one demands a raise. Many H1s work for the salaries with minute increases in salary for three or four years. The difference between the experienced-H1 guy and the green-horn-H1 guy is so negligible it is not an issue with any company 99% of the time( doubt it ? call ur H1 friends ).
Finally, this is not called abuse. This is called competition, the very thing that America stands for, the best one gets the cake. It doesnt hurt Indians, because if they had to go back to India after all many companies will lovingly embrace them because they have onsite experience and are ingrained with the American work system.
I dont see how u got 4 points with so many factual errors. You really should check ur facts before u post something on
On one side corporates try to increase their profits by stretching the rules as much as possible, on the other side workers try to improve their standards as much as possible without losing their jobs. Goverment sides with the corporations, so they are much more powerful than the workers. However, goverment doesn't want to lean towards to one side and tip the system out of balance. Workers have some rights, union etc. It is a constant struggle, most of the time workers come from way behind. Like any other balanced system this has its own time constant.
Now in reality this may be more complicated because of the globalizations. Globalization gives both sides another chance. Since other countries are not at the same level in terms of capitalist system, companies abuse laws (or non-existing ones), workers in poorer countries try to improve their situation and future. It doesn't come for free. For example, companies get burned because they need to train people in other countries, absorb the cost caused by miscommunication, difference in business culture, etc. They may not be able to see the profit of their investment, if for example the 3rd world country goes to war, decides to nationalize companies. The lack of laws may fire back, too. So it takes time to transfer business to other countries, it is not like kicking a beach ball. If the internet/IT boom and collapse hadn't been so quick, the disturbance wouldn't be at this level. The system would have had enough time to settle.
You can complain, sue, curse etc. All that may help to improve the workers' case. But the time constant won't change much.
I agree with this post. Mod parent up +5 Insightful.
It is not at all like setting up shop in foreign countries. Rather than moving to a shitty foreign country and having to deal with corrupt governments, extreme poverty, military uprisings, and shitty healthcare these companies are bringing the workers over here where they can still pay them shitty wages and have all of the benefits the US offers.
At least when you set up shop in a foreign country you have to accept the instability of the environment as part of the cost.
I don't know where you get that idea but it is not true. I am European and on an H1-B. I make $104,000 a year and work in R&D. I have a very flexible working environment and I make around 35 - 40 hours/week. When the time when the job does not interest me any longer, or they do not need me any longer, I will just go back to my home country without it being a drama.
You know, that image of starving people with high education from very poor countries doing anything to enter the US and work for peanuts is something that is not always the case. In fact it is not the case at all. Most of the Indians coming to the US on H1-B's are from middle-upper class.
I did read it. But did you read it?
The paper is mostly about the growth rates of the countries. The annual growth rates for productivity and output have increased in the USA in the last decade (1990-2000), but still as far as total productivity and output, we ranked towards the bottom.
So we our productivity and output is increasing. But like I said we are still behind the G7 countries in totals.
We need you.
I don't think this is really a problem with immigrants getting paid less, or overseas outsourcing. It is really a problem with how the performance of management in most corporations is measured. They make bad decisions that result in lower profits for the company, but they still get bonuses. This whole h1b thing that Sun did is probably a good example of this.
As far as the cop-out "be good at what you do and there will always be a demand for your skills." In general, being very good at what you do doesn't mean that there will be demand out there because those doing the hiring and firing are not really qualified to determine the true value of your skills.
This guy is suing over something that happened over 1 year ago?
He only worked for Sun for 1-1/2 years? Sounds expendable in a sinking economy.
Hiring younger people is cheaper, and less benefits are needed/wanted.
He is in his 50's and probably finding that nobody can afford to pay him the salary "he deserves."
His idiot lawyer wants to turn this into a class action lawsuit! Someone is looking for headlines.
Indians and the H1-B sounds an awful lot like a excuse to create a crime. I am not sure, based on this article alone, that anything was done wrong by SUN.
that worry me. I'm fine if they can come over here and work. I've had a lot of international friends. What ticks me off the most is when they come over and piss all over the american people.
I have a couple roomies, one is upper-caste Indian, doing a PhD. Well, he wrecked my other roomie's car, and in the courtroom had the nerve to say to the judge "You know, I like America, but the American people suck." F@cking bastard nearly got contempt, wish he would have. No I don't get along with him, but I have dozens of other Indian friends who aren't so arrogant.
My point is this. It's fine if you come over to work or get your education. Sure you may take jobs from Americans. That's life. But if you come over here and start bitching and moaning about how bad it is over here and how the american people suck. Then get the hell out of here. Go back to your homeland where it is "better".
Posting AC because I'm a concientious objector. You know, a coward.
Why would I want to join a union? I have skills that companies are willing to pay a premium for, so what possible reason would I have to want to group myself with a bunch of losers who don't?
Unions make some sense for industries where skills are low and workers are interchangable, but no sense in a skill-based industry like IT.
...here is a good deal of the comment content defending the H1B program that simply skirts reality.
AZspot
You'd rather see these jobs migrate to India or Russia, right? Not those highly skilled Hindus and Russians migrate to the US and bring down ridiculously overinflated salaries of .com workers. It is for some reason impossible to reduce the salary for a worker in the US. During the dot-com era, you had to pay your workers real well, especially in California, to keep them. If you couldn't or didn't want to, you had to lower your hiring standards and hire morons. Guess what folks, those days are over and forgotten. I think Sun just can't pay $120K+ salaries anymore. They can't also tell their workers "starting with the next paycheck you'll get $85K", so they just fire them and hire cream of the crop from India for some reasonable salaries. I personally met some unbelievably bright Indian developers, so it's not like everyone is a cheap moron over there.
If you'd rather see these jobs migrate to India, write your senator NOW. But when there are no jobs left here, let me tell you, you won't like it in India.
..flying over their countries with a full bomb load!
Pakistan might just do that for us. They and India are both growling at each other right now.
Table-ized A.I.
That's right, sue to keep your job. That's a
sure way to success.
There is no issue here. An ambulance chaser
is suing Big Corp America, because a crybaby
hurt his feelings.
Get a new job and stop whining.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill stupidity
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Why does anybody think that stopping immigration of engineers would protect American jobs? I have seen several posts here talk about immigration and outsourcing to other countries as if they are the same thing. They are not.
Immigration keeps the jobs in the US, which ultimately is good for the US engineering industry. Outsourcing overseas sends the jobs elsewhere, which long term is very bad for the US engineering industry.
If the H1-B program was cancelled and not replaced with something else (killing off employment related immigration, since this is the only mechanism there is) what do you think would happen?
Despite all of the screams about record unemployment, EE unemployment really isn't that high. I know, of course, that for any individual there are only two levels of unemployment: there's 0%, which means you have a job, and 100%, which means that you don't. But the current level of EE unemployment is still sufficiently low that most companies struggle to find the right people. Today, both Europe and China outstrip the US in terms of EE graduate and PhD production rates. If US engineering companies were restricted any more in who they could employ in (and bring to, if necessary) the US, their reaction will not be to hire more US engineers. It will be to move whatever centers they need somewhere else. If you really think that "restricting the supply of engineers" (in the words of the IEEE-USA) will make for a stronger US engineering industry and greater levels of employment for US engineers, you are truly deluded.
H1Bs can go CHOKE on a COW
I have read 100 posts that say that these guys are being paid akin to McDonalds help to program complex systems. At least from where I stand all the H1B's in this part of the Country do just as good as the next guy. (They drive cars and live in Houses/Apartments that no fast food jocky would be able to afford.) I have hired over 40 contractors over the last 4 years (about 1/2 H1B) -- and I can say that price was never a deciding factor....(wages were all pretty much the same -- maybe a dollar or two either way)....The biggest factor I have noticed is that in India they are generally better educated and their schools seem to have more of a focus on quality learning. And you can bet your ass at the age me and you were chasing tails and drinking brew in high school and college -- these guys were studying by candle light to come over here and take your job.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
With regards to obsolesence, I'ld bet that in the early days of plumbing and electricity the pace of change was equivalent to programming as it came into its own. I think that the rate of change in programming tools (languages included) is slowing down and becoming more standardized. Programming is going through a similar change as the toolset becomes more standardized and "visual" tools become more common.
If you really want to make the big-bucks, go into a profession where licenses are mandatory for doing your job. Examples are actuary, doctor, and lawyer.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I think the majority here seem to believe that there is an upper limit to the number of jobs available and that if jobs are 'lost' to another country or people there is nothing left for Americans to do.
The fact is that the creation of jobs is a continuous process as technology progresses limited only by the creativity of people. If you believe in the creativity of Americans then you do not have to worry about 'losing jobs' to outsiders although there is going to be some pain in the short term.
Let me also point out that Indians who came in on H1B have later created thousands of jobs here in the US both directly by building great companies and by using their wealth to consume american products. Some famous examples are:
- Vinod Khosla who is behind Sun, Google, and many other companies.
- Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail
- Sanjiv Sidhu of I2
- Vinod Gupta of InfoUSA
- and many many more.
Then there thousands of Indians who have quietly produced miracles while working for giant corporations and the professors and scientists who continue to make critical contributions at the universities.
The US may be now the richest, most powerful country in the world but that never lasts for ever. Closing our borders to the outside world will only bring about the end of the US reign much sooner. In fact according to Chairman Greenspan, the best thing for the US economy is more immigration.I feel that while at the top it is in our best interest leave a legacy of a more open world.
The fact is that increased H1B's were lobbied to congress because of the threat of unionized engineers. The Boeing engineer strike of the early 90's was the trigger. The executives and VC's in Silicon Valley saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided to become "politically active."
BTW, I have worked for a company where we had 3 H1B visa workers who represented a skillset (computer vision and AI) that was not available in the market. They were paid the prevailing wage (close to 6 figures at the time). They were sponsored by the company, however, and not some outsource body shop. They were from China and Italy.
I believe the average USian is doing more than nothing...
Reuters
Productivity Up, Job Scene Looking Bleak
Thursday March 6, 4:55 pm ET
By Joanne Morrison
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. worker productivity rose last year at the fastest clip since 1950 as wary businesses extracted more from their workforces -- a trend that has lingered as lines for jobless benefits lengthened last week, government reports showed on Thursday...
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030306/economy_11.html
let me explain:
First of all where you have neatly included a placeholder, he didn't complete the sentence with the name of a nation, he actually named a religious group: Hindus.. or more precisely Hinduism. That is the ignorance part of it. The racist part of it is that he remarked that this sixpack of Hindus don't give a shit about their work.. this is a prejudice remark applied to a group of people... in other words, it's racist!
What you're claiming is just plain ignorance because it appears you think Hindus describe all the people of India. sorry buddy, but there's also non-Hindus (Muslims, Catholics, atheists, etc.) living in India.
So, yes I would cry foul if he said "sixpack of some other primarily white nation"... and yes, HE is racist.
I have been in H1-B for the past 6 years , There are some gross misconceptions about the H1-B workers .Here are some facts
9 out of 10 Tech companies reject workers who are not either citizens or Green Card holders
H1-B workers coming to united states for the first time(visit) have been reduced drastically, I have not seen anyone to come on H1-B
for the first time to the US over the past 2 years.Many of the H1-B workers who are here are in fact the best and the most experienced and have been here in for quite sometime.
It is extremely diffcult to do green card process for H1-B workers.
Many Big corporations have stopped doing Green Card process for H1-B workers.
Foreign students who are in american univerisities do not get jobs easily .So there is not a lot of H1-B workers coming out of colleges.
A H1-B worker cannot stay more than 6 years in the united states unless his company initiates the Green Card process.
American companies are outsourcing in a big way so in due course of time H1-B will be a relic as there won't be a need to bring foreign workers into United States ..
You are an idiot!
Our govt is our *servant*, our *employee*. We, the American citizens, OWN this country, and everything in it. We HIRED the govt to do OUR bidding.
Just as if I own a store, and hire a manager, then that manager had DAMN well better work to benefit me, the owner, and not someone else, like someone from INDIA. It doesn't matter if I, the owner, am lazy. I OWN the damn business! If I want to be lazy, that is MY prerogative.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we American citizens made this country a place where there are jobs available, and if our elected official and/or civil servants give away those opportunities and jobs to non-citizens, then we need to fire them and put them in jail--or worse.
The govt and the civil service workers and the elected officials owe me and you fair value in return for what we pay them in salaries and benefits. And they had damn well be getting me every opportunity available.
And if they are selling out the American workers, they try them for treason and hang their asses!
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
For all those people who are getting pissed about the meager trickle of H1-Bs coming into the country and "stealing" jobs, please pick up *ANY* product from *ANY* supermarket/store in the country and check the "Made in" label. Please feel free to use all your fingers on your hand to count the objects made in the US.
Think about how many of those jobs should be brought back here.
There is an inaccuracy in that Boston Globe article.
In the article, the author stated that Sun's cofounder, Vinod Khosla, said on 60 Minutes "that at Sun, people from India 'are favored over almost anybody else'." This quote has been taken out of context. The 60 Minutes piece in question was a report on a very prestigious technical college in India, the Indian equivalent of MIT. When Mr. Khosla said certain people were favored, he was referring specifically to graduates of that university, not to Indian people in general. If you read the transcript you will see this. His statement was no different than saying Harvard Law School graduates are favored at law firms.
It's a small but important point.
They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I don't like the original spelling.)
I really, am opposed to the view that, Americans are under informed about other cultures and countries, but, I got to say, some people are too stupid to appreciate other cultures!
A Hindu.
For all those people who are getting pissed about the meager trickle of H1-Bs coming into the country and "stealing" jobs, please pick up *ANY* product from *ANY* supermarket/store in the country and check the "Made in" label. Please feel free to use all your fingers on your hand to count the objects made in the US.
Think about how many of those jobs should be brought back here.
I'd argue that the H1 program should just be *enforced*. H1Bs, as written in law, *require* the visa holder to be paid prevailing wages, and *require* something called 'Labor Certification', which supposedly proves that there are no available native workers in the local market who can perform those functions.
Well that sounds just lovely on paper... but how do you think companies go about making sure that there are no native workers available in the local market who can perform the job? They make a very specific job posting where they specify the requirements in such a way that no one (or perhaps only the H1B they have in mind) has the right mix of qualifications, for examples see the recent article Take This Tech Job and Shove it in Salon.
The plaintif sounds similar to many displaced middle aged people. When times are tough, the middle aged, who are better paid, claim they are laid off in favor of the young.
I doubt the national origin of the workers had anything to do with this. It is just a convenient screen.
That's a pretty tenuous argument. With just a little thought, I could come up with a reason why living in and accepting the allegedly dysfunctional Hindu caste system may in fact help programmers. It goes something like this:
People living under the Hindu caste system have to work around a dysfunctional and sometimes arbitrary set of rules and structures that they are unable to remove without drastic consequences. This greatly resembles the Win32 API(or C++ or Java or whatever), and as such, in order to get around the limitations and stupidity of a language/programming construct, it is beneficial to be practiced at getting around the limitations and stupidity of social constructs.
In short, I see no compelling evidence for your point of view (or mine for that matter.) Its all just idle speculation with no basis in fact. If you can offer me actual evidence supporting your claim, then we can talk, but to me, this is mostly I-Really-Wish-It-Was-True reasoning.
"It's Dot Com!"
Sure appears to me that Sun is doing something
it shouldn't. These H1-B workers come from
countries where making any salary offered here
would be a huge step up by comparison. I believe
that companies operating in the USA should hire
American workers. Period. I'm sure plenty of
folks out there will argue this, but thats my
opinion, and being in a position to influence
purchases, I will do my best to steer purchases
away from Sun! If you are of a like mind, then
do the same. If you are of a different mind,
take your argument somewhere else, as it will fall
on my deaf ears...
put the DOT in DOTcom.
Again; enforcement.
:)
The government should *require* more proof of unsuccessful local recruiting. At the moment, they just require a copy of the advert, and proof that it ran for five days or so in a local paper, and a note saying "...and no-one suitable applied".
While it would be wrong to have a government employee second-guessing an HR department, they could at least require that the jobs adverts be written and listed the same way as other, similar job adverts. Also require maybe the resumes of everyone who applied for the job, but didn't get it, along with a note from HR about why they were unsuitable. It's pretty obvious, looking through the wanted ads, to spot those written for a specific visa application.
It may not stop small-company abuse, but it would certainly but a damper on large companies abusing the system, as the local INS office would be wading through *thousands* of US citizen resumes, all for jobs with the same company, that apparently don't match a particular job position. Makes it a bit harder to claim that there's no-one out there for it.
But anyway, my point stands. If they just enforced the laws, it wouldn't be so bad.
I've been so poor that if I didn't wake up with a hard-on, I had nothing to play with all day.
Aren't you able to get an erection other than by chance? You may be impotent. If you consult your doctor you may be able to get Viagra that will remedy this problem.
Yours,
John Thomas MD
That's great and everything, but Phd's were more expensive than their counterparts, not less. Thus, there was an incentive to fire them.
There is very little incenctive to fire an employee that you only have to pay ten cents on the dollar to keep. American workers would have to be ten times as productive, and I'm sorry, but even if we do buy into you somewhat elitist interpretation of 3rd world worker productivity, I have seen from my own experience that most Indian workers are just as good as American workers at churning out code. Maybe you are right and perhaps on AVERAGE they aren't as productive as American workes, but they would have to quite a bit less producive to encourage businesses to move industries back here.
I think the problem is that you are looking for the wrong solution to this problem. We live in a democracy, and democracy comes first. If our economic system is causing gross distortions and a huge separation between the haves and have nots, the solution isn't to pray for the market to correct itself. The solution is to address the government to fix these grievances. And, if our economic system proves to have huge flaws, which I believe that it does, then the ultimate solution is to create a new one, or heavily regulate it. Capitalism is not some natural phenomena, it's an artificial system, and flooding the labor market with more employees has predictable results. We have to ask ourselves if this the result we want.
Don't you mean Tiger?
An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters still wouldn't repost stories on
> mediocritomaton
Hey, watch your mouth!
I agree. We should start by replacing the software written by that Finnish kid (Aren't they all a bunch of Socialists in Finland anyway?) with the software from the company founded by that All-American Harvard dropout!
It's already started in Thailand, and the phillipines. It's not the US dollare vs the Rupee, it's the US dollar vs the world. And when your standard of livng goes up - you'll lose.
As you are to the US, other will be to you. Count on it.
JON
Is it legal for them to close down a division or department and move it overseas or just lay off people and contract the work overseas?
But it isn't legal to do something effectively equivalent that means some of the cash stays in the country.
irony I said and Rony said "Hi" back
I know for a fact that Eastman Kodak is attempting right at this very moment outsource ALL of its IT resouces to India. They are doing this because the Indian programmer only costs 40% of what the American programmer costs, plain and simple. My wife has been dodging layoffs now for over two years and the future doesn't look too hopeful for her. Kodak calls these Indian workers "Code Cutters". Not only are they outsourcing their programmers, but also system admins, network people, and their e-mail support (Lotus Notes) helpdesk has already been moved there. The truth is, today's American companies are ruled by greed. The only reason this is happening now is because we now posess the technology that makes outsourcing possible.
H1B if enforced is actually a very good law. But we also need something which gives U.S. employees the same flexibility that H1B gives their employers. That is, if my job is exported overseas, I should have the right to follow that job and have a work visa in the target nation. Nations which export employees to the U.S. should be willing to import employees. The idea exchange which would take place would be benificial to all. You might think Americans wouldn't work in "sweatshop conditions", but working conditions can actually be better overseas. Ask a French employee how much vacation they get or how much notification is required before a layoff. The answer would make most Americans cry. Gross pay is the only benefit where American companies can compete globally, and then only companies in large U.S. cities. Vacation, flexibility, family friendliness, telecommuting and other worker right issues are better in almost every other first and second world nation. True capitalism would allow workers to flow to where they receive the best benefits to match their needs.
Beyond the H1-B fiasco and the spineless Congress that won't stand up to the big (fat lying) corps, I'm very concerned at our lack of esteem of our own profession. Programming is difficult, highly specialized, and best done by intelligent, talented people.
We best start thinking this way or we will lose the profession we've come to enjoy so much. We are members of a profession, we are highly trained, we are in demand.
We work in the tradition of Turing and von Neumann. We should be proud.
so does this mean everyone's going to stop buying cheap foreign electronics and cheap foreign sneakers and shirts and.... ... oh, I guess it's too late. Hurts when it's finally you, doesn't it?
Actually, the reason that hiring PhD's became "fashionable" in the early 1970's is because there were a lot of them. Due to unemployment and hiding from the Vietnam War, more people stayed in school longer. Since there wasn't as much incremental demand for academics when these folks graduated, they naturally went to industry.
it's about corporate greed
Let's take a look at the definition of the operative word in your argument, greed:
"excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness"
Well, that just begs the questions: What is "excessive"? What is "reprehensible?" Guess what? They are both completely subjective concepts. Ask 1,000 people what exactly is "greed" and you'll get 1,000 different answers.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
That in itself is a bit frightening.
Allow me to take the point of view of pure self-interest for the moment.
If we want to try to stave off the end of the domestic technology industry in the United States, we need to eliminate H1B's, open our borders, and offer immediate, permanent citizenship to skilled technology workers. No questions asked. Friendly service at the airport. Maybe even throw in some tax incentives. 50% off for the first year! Give us your rich, your skilled, your ambitious. We'll take them all.
Follow along closely.
If a programmer is going to compete with me from India, they are going to be able to charge 10-20% of what I charge and work remotely. This is a simple fact of the currency market and the cost of living. That is what's happening now. In addition, unlike cars or textiles, there is no way to tarrif the product as it crosses a border. Remote work in a foreign country has problems, but none serious enough to offset an 80% discount. Left unchecked, this will simply end the entire technology industry in the 1st world as we know it.
H1B's exacerbate the problem, because they come with a time limit. They are basically a self-help industrial espionage program for every 3rd world country in the world. An H1B says, come to America. Make (let's be honest here) 80-90% of what a citizen makes. Mingle with America's best and brightest, and learn on the job. Then, in four years, take your newfound skills and experience back home, and go back to charging 10-20% of what Americans charge. Welcome to your home country's new middle class.
H1B's have one purpose. To accelerate the destruction of our domestic technology industry. Just natural forces alone weren't quick enough for Microsoft, IBM and Sun. They needed to speed up the process, and H1B's were how they did it.
If we opened our borders now while our quality of life is still high (at least in a few parts of the country), we could use it to brain-drain the 3rd world, to suck the talent out of where it can charge 10% to here, where it will charge 100%. If we did this 10 years ago, we might have staved off the current tech industry disaster - a disaster which at this point I believe is driven almost entirely from overseas outsourcing (understandably everyone is keeping numbers about this process quiet - so we're all speculating on this issue. Nonetheless, I'm very, very confident I'm going to be bourne out on this one as the figures come to light). Even if we did this tomorrow, we might see very gradual improvement in the tech job market here over the next 5-10 years. Long term, though, it's probably already too late to undo the damage.
So make no mistake. H1B's are the most pernicious thing ever contrived against the American technology worker. Ironically, not many have grasped why.
Now all that said, even as someone who is losing their livelihood (I am already headed back to school to change careers), I don't know if it matters. At the end of the day. I respect anyone who improves their lot through learning and hard work - individuals and nations. The economic game being played that makes it easy to exploit labor in the 3rd world is cynical and certainly contrived, but we are all relatively lucky to be allowed to play when you take it in the context of history. I feel a brotherhood with my colleagues in India and elsewhere, and I cannot help myself from being happy at their success. In the end it may all be for the best.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I agree with the last part. However, I think that you are saying that this is stopping with corporations, but it does not. It stops with the owners of corporations, and they know what they are doing. They aren't concerned that eventually this will slow the economy. The economy does not affect those with billions in the bank. As long as there are police to protect them and a desperate pool of labor, they will be fine. What it is about is consolidation. Consolidation is an effort to shift wealth away from the American population at all costs, and into the hands of the owners. Flooding the labor market while at the same time ignoring the already consolidated wealth and power that is acting through consolidated businesses such as Microsoft is creating an imalance in competion. So, we've increased the number of desperate workers, and are reducing the number of companies that are desperate(if there are any) to hire them. The result is predictable. There will be a leaching of wealth from the majority of the world population, and then that leaching will move into the corporations themselves, with the end-game being that a very, very small percentage will come away with the goods, while many will literally starve.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=52446&thresh ol d=0&commentsort=0&tid=98&mode=thread&pid=5198618#5 201316
Here are some other comments I have posted in the past, the text I am replying to is in italics:
Firstly, what exactly are they supposed to do about it?
That's the whole point, free trade makes it nearly impossible for governments to set a fair wage for it's workers. It effectively reduces worker's rights to zero. It gives all the power to corporations to shop for the cheapest labor, while keeping the barrier to market entry extremely high for businesses in 3rd world countries. So, the end result is that 3rd world countries are not enjoying the profits from this labor, since they aren't the ones that own the businesses.
Secondly, how do you figure that it's $60,000 worth of work?
How does a price for anything get set? It's a balancing act of supply and demand and competitive pressure. When there is no longer a balance, then certain things end up being grossly undervalued, while others are grossly over-valued. So, for example, with a huge amount of labor, and competition, wages are kept low, and are getting lower. However, on the top end, businesses are consolidating and are giving people less and less options. The end result is that the current system is creating an artificial imbalance, and yes, it is by design.
I once met a fellow (suburban Chicago) who had a lawn cutting business and worked with VMS systems. The lawn cutting business during the season was earning him more money than the computer work. He had 8 or 9 trucks going out and cutting for him.
It's important to dig deeper and ask why this is so. After all, computers and technology have far more money flowing in than lawn care, so doesn't it seem absurd to you that he is making more mowing lawns? You act as if it's a good thing. Where is all that money going? Can you answer that?
Basicly what you are saying is exactly my point, even though it might not be obvious. I've been talking over and over about the devaluation of labor. And, you are backing my point up by showing that someone can make more money by owning their own lawn care business than by working in an industry that is awash in money. The reason is that the money in the tech industry is going to the owners? Why is it going to the owners? Not because they deserve, even if in some cases they do, but the reason it is going to the owner is because competition at the top is small, while at the bottom it is huge. Then there are barriers to entry in this market that are making it difficult for people to make the jump from employee to owner. The end result is a system which rewards those with power, while undervaluing labor. The way
And you really should learn how to spell "you" before posting to Slashdot.
While I agree with your post it is not true that H1's cannot look for another job. An H1 Visa is transferable. The hiring company just has to go through the same paperwork and you are hired. You do not have to leave the country.
A Transmission From PlanetJIM.[end trans]
So you think people should appreciate the idea that some people are born superior to others? Since all us non-Hindus are therefore "untouchables" since we don't have a caste, does that mean we're supposed to "appreciate" that we're inferior to you?
I have about as much appreciation for that type of culture as I have for the Nazi idea that non-Aryans are somehow born inferior to Aryans.
I think that your use of the phrase "churning out code" says it all - I wouldn't buy your software.
Perhaps if I had hired them, or you had hired them, you might be on the right track.
As it is though, no-one has HIRED them at all. Government was created by people long dead to us, and ever since then it has simply BEEN - after all, if they were our employees then we could close positions, right?
So where's the option to vote no-one into office? The answer is, there isn't any - the office is there and we just get to choose who goes in there (among a pool that WE DID NOT PICK).
If you really believe government "works for you" in any way you are operating under a dangerous illusion that is going to cause you problems at some point. If you simply think of them as a separate entity that subsists based on what we give them, then you at least are starting to understand the nature of the relationship you are in... frankly I even find it beneficial for the most part, I just don't believe they in any way "work for me". They do not. Their obligation to do anything for me ends (actually, it never existed) the moment they enter office. All that we can say after that point is that we voted for a person because of certain beliefs they expressed, basically like letting loose a pre-programmed robot built for politics that watch form afar but only have indirect control over. Government as "employees of the people" is a dangerously wrong metaphor.
Now this part is choice:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we American citizens made this country a place where there are jobs available, and if our elected official and/or civil servants give away those opportunities and jobs to non-citizens, then we need to fire them and put them in jail--or worse.
I am speechless. How did elected officials give away our jobs? They did not. Companies made THAT choice. The article in question was Sun allegedly (I'll make no statement on guilt or innocence here) cheaper H1-B workers. Here's the thing - they still have to live here. That means that they are making wages that people in the US could live on, because they are living on them. I'm assuming this is what you mean by "giving jobs away". If you're talking about shipping jobs overseas, that's a whole other matter and a case where the government doesn't enter into the picture at all. If wages lower here because of H1-B visas, then so be it!! I'll survive.
If you don't like americans loosing jobs to H1-B visa people, then start your own company and don't hire them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's called the "invisible hand" theory, my friend and you REALLY need to read up on it.
The LAST thing you want to do is introduce governmental control on a free market.
Indians will let themselves be worked 60-70 hours a week for the same salary that the cute white little administrative assistant is getting (hell, probably less) because, well, it beats the alternative which is sitting in a pile of your own filth in India hoping to get a job that pays enough so you can eat.
Dude, I don't have anything terribly insightful or interesting to say here, but what I'll definitely say is that reading such comments makes me feel ASHAMED to be part of a community like Slashdot.
Yes, I am an Indian. No, I don't sit in a pile of my own filth (though I'm only middle class) and No, I don't plan on coming to your country. Couldn't imagine living with people like you.
is to outsource all the politicians.
Apologies from Natasha Cohen to W.S.
"Say it with me now: 'socialism'!"
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
For there to be a disparity between the haves and the have-nots is hardly artificial. It is survival of the fittest.
My goodness CNN have done a good job on America's unsuspecting.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
IANAL yet, still have yet to pass the bar- Doh!
This sounds almost like a classic disparate impact case. The case that first treated this issue was Griggs v. Duke Power Co.; in that case, the company instituted a high school degree requirement. This H1b case sounds strangely like it, except here the H1B visa holders are, if I am reading the facts correctly, exempted from a requirement that American workers are subject to. If nothing else, this might be discrimination against Americans, and it is not legal to discriminate on the basis of nationality, whether one is a foreign national or american worker.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G702.htm is an interesting case, chiefly in that it said that animus was not necessary in this type of case
It seems that in my company, Indians can get away with this sort of thing because they are protected as a minority group, and no one dares to cite racism against a guy with brown skin. Minority group? Indians run the whole company, only promote and hire other Indians, and make it impossible for this minority white guy to break through, despite the awards and recognition I have received. My company must be 50% Indian and 25% Asian. I'm the minority here; I am the target of their racism.
I'm all for affirmative action to correct the years of slavery and oppression imposed on the African-American race. But Indians do not need or deserve such preferential treatment, especially since they come from the top crust of their own caste system.
I don't think this one will hold water.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I took a quick look at the Australian and NZ regulations. They both have a similar program but with an interesting twist. Because both countries have government sponsored insurance programs companies do not pay for your health insurance? In effect if you're on the equivalent of an H1-B in either of these countries you have to pay for your own, which is pretty much a non-starter.
So a teacher or a nurse could come here to work (my wife's a nurse and we know of lots of Aussie and NZ nurses here in California). But she couldn't go work there? That doesn't seem quite fair. Am I reading the regulations wrong?
Can anyone confirm how these programs work in other countries? Thanks.
- ordinarius
I know this is somewhat tangential to the issue being debated, but... I find it interesting that you define yourself according to your skin color. It is as if you are perceiving this conflict as between whites and browns rather than between employers and employees. Or maybe I am mistaken and you created this slashdot id long ago.. but my first sentence still holds true.
I found your login id interesting because for example, *I* would never think of defining myself as a Light Brown Guy, angry or not. LOL. My skin color has no part in how I define my identity, nor does my ordained nationality.
I can hardly wait until this smug little shit gets tromped on by globalization.
A large fraction (around half) of all Ph.D's in physics granted in America
are to foreign nationals. They come on student visas. Afterwords, they
take H1-B visas and get jobs here in America. Yes, they probably suffer all
the abuses which have already been discussed: lower pay, working longer hours, far more dependance on a particular employer, etc.
However, the alternative is to send them back to their home countries (where, in my limited experience, most do not want to go) with a PhD in physics.
To get the nice, comfortable American way of life they saw (but sure as hell didn't have) while they were here, might they build their own governments weapons?
Perhaps we should either make these students offers of citizenship (or perminant residency) or not accept them at all - but neither of these options is going to happen any time soon. H-1B is pretty much all we have (that or marrying Americans...not very likely, especially for the men, in Physics departments).
I think the way these employees of Sun were treated is incredibly badly. Tossing out the entire H-1B system might also have problems.
Just FYI.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Yes, and the invisible hand theory is wrong, at least in our current situation.
Our current market has huge problems, with huge imbalances in competition.
I understand the national pride. And I agree with some of statements made that are pro-American.
:)
Personally, I'm on H-1B. To be honest, I pay Federal Taxes, Social Security (even though I'm a temp worker and don't have any intention of getting old here), I pay Medicare (even though I don't qualify to use it), I pay all my bills, make car payments and so on. Whatever's left is spent on the local goods. All my saving are for a rainy day (here).
Occasionally, I spend $15 to get a foreign CD. And sometimes, I send $2000 to my sister so she can buy a ticket to come visit me here in the States. Once, in the last 7 years I sent $1000 to one of my Uncles who could really use that much. Most others I know buy houses and stick around. Pay property taxes and are happy.
99% of my money is put right back into the American economy.
However, I would like to say that the big corporations are not so greedy that they think so short-term. They wouldn't just love to make money but also to ensure that the money keeps coming in. They probably do their best to make sure the American economy still stays on top one way or another. Otherwise, they would all be out of business or at least fall behind some other economic power. Even if they make decisions that may seem rather un-partiotic (for lack of a better word), realize that their perspective and qualifications as CEOs and directors is much different from ours.
Even if it becomes hard to hire foreign nationals as long as there are American workers, I think the situation will not change that much. If a teacher can live on $35K/yr so can you. If a foreign IT professional can, then so can you. Even if locals are hired, I doubt that jobs will going at the demanded rate, anymore. The times, they're a-changin'. The corporation would say, I have a job for $35K/yr. If you don't want it there's a nice Indian with his name on it. Whether you take it or not doesn't change the fact that your skills are worth the prevailing market rate regardless of the nationality of the workforce. This still leaves one with the dilemma of whether to get off their high horse and do with a smaller house or to teach the Jones' a lesson.
Outsorcing to another country, would be much worse for the local economy. Since now, they no longer need to paid in terms of cost of living in the States but rather in their home town in some third world country. This money saved is not going to be philanthropically re-distributed among the compatriots. While eliminating jobs in the local market it will also eliminate the middle class.
Those are my personal views with the utmost respect for the country that let me in and shows a great deal of hospitality.
The system is designed and created by men, and is therefore not natural. That is obvious. So, when a corporation get a huge governmetn bailout, it's "survival of the fittest", but when someone that is poor needs money to survive, they're on there own. The hypocricy is obvious and stunning. If you can't apply the same standards to yourself as you do to others, then you have no right to talk about right and wrong or good and evil.
I am an American, and I live in the U.S. Those of us who are not dicks-- which really is quite a lot of us-- mostly live with people like this guy by ignoring them or mocking them mercilessly.
Hope this helps.
That's why I would love to see a complete overhaul of the H1-B visa system. I'm not against immigrant works. The US is a great country because over the past 200 years we have taken in anyone willing to work hard and better themselves. Let's give them more incentive.
1. Make H1-B visas transferable (not tied to a specific company) so workers can't get screwed by companies. Also, remove company sponsership of H1-B visas entirely.
2. Make it easier to get to get permanent resident status for an H1-B work after a couple of years, which could lead to citizenship. I believe someone who's spent a few years working here has proven themselves.
3. Tie the number of H1-B visas issued directly to the unemployment rate. The higher the unemployment rate the fewer the visas issued each year. Perhaps refine this by industry. However, no retraction of existing visas when the employment situation gets bad. Just a couple of years ago the tech industry bitched and moaned (and bribed) until the number of visas were increased drastically. No more of that. The unemployment tie-in must be ironclad.
4. When issued an H1-B visa, the worker is given a temporary visa (3 months? 6 months?) to enter the country and find a job. Can't find one in the specified time? Tough shit. Go home. You may reapply for a new work visa in one year.
5. If an H1-B worker finds himself unemployed (shit happens) due to layoffs, give him a decent amount of time to find a new job. I'm not such a bastard that I would kick someone out the day after their employer went bankrupt.
I'm sure my suggestions could use some refinement. I'm also sure they would never be considered by our congress-critters.
-- Will program for bandwidth
You, wouldn't buy my code, and I don't care.
"Gee, I can't think of anything to address his arguement, so instead I'll come up with a stupid ad-hominem attack, that'll show him!!"
Boy, you sure taught me a lesson.
... have you looked at their stock lately?
Now, in the article it claims...
(sun founder) Khosla was quoted as saying that at Sun, people from India ''are favored over almost anybody else.''
Now, if some white guy ran a company and said white people were favored over everyone else, he would get crucified by the liberal media.
The fact is the H1-B is being abused. There is no lack of qualified tech people in the US right now. I'm all for them bringing them in as long as they PAY them the same exact amount they would pay an american worker if not higher, plus pay some kind of tax on top of that (since customs has to deal with people coming over here). This would prevent the H1-B from being used in any case except a company not being able to find someone with that skill set in this country.
It's a joke to say there aren't enough qualified tech people in the job pool and out of work now to hire from.
If it was any other group getting their jobs taken away from them, there would be a huge uproar about it. But since IT workers are largely white males, we get to take it in the ass because if not we are labeled as "racist".
It's a pathetic situation.
If you saw the show on 60 Minutes, you'd know that Vinod Khosla was talking about IIT grads (the whole segment was about IIT) since it is such a demanding program and has produced some great leaders at american companies. Not Indians in general.
You don't have a right to an exorbitant salary. Companies have a right to make a profit, and they have a right to make business decisions that maximize their wealth-creation potential. This is the basic tenet of capitalism, which is the socioeconomic backbone of our country. If you don't like it, you can pack up and move to Cuba or North Korea or another "worker's paradise" where overbearing governmental regulations can guarantee you a lifetime of mediocrity and conformity.
If you (or any of the other pinkos complaining about H1Bs in this story) had real talent, you would be in demand. You wouldn't have any problem securing employment. Don't blame capitalism for your personal and professional shortcomings.
MORE code isn't the same thing as BETTER code.
I've only got anecdotal evidence, but I haven't seen any H1B people who had much skill. Many *thought* they did though.
I currently sit near one hindu who is very intelligent, and doesn't require hand-holding. He's not an h1b though. But he spends less time providing actual solutions than overly complicating systems.
The H1-B system is not about freedom. It's about giving employers another tool to exploit their employees.
"Seriously though, if you want foreign workers to demand a higher pay, abolish H1B visas and other such bureaucracies. Give a green card to anyone who comes to work in America. This way, without the noose of H1 visa, foreign workers will also demand a higher pay as per free market dictates."
I thought I entirely disagreed with your post, until I got all the way to the end of it. Opposition to H1-Bs is not hypocrisy. While it's inevitable that some people will want to be protectionist about our labor market (short-term self-interest is a very powerful motivator, after all), I think some of the opposition to the H1-B program is the abuse it allows.
It's hazardous to tie someone's thinking about the H1-B situation to their overall opinions on freedom of immigration, because it's a bad system that artificially drives wages below their market value. How can even the most ardent free-immigration supporter agree with a system that enables exploitation of the immigrants at the same time as it decreases quality of life for citizens?
So, yes-- H1-B is strictly inferior to granting a green card to the foreign worker for everyone except the employer, who of course is quite happy with the additional leverage over their employee.
re: 30 days....
Its actually 10 days. 10 days to get a new job and file for a H1B or leave the country. Not much time at all.
Being a H1B is a form of indentured servitude. It's not pretty. H1Bs aren't subject to the same rights americans are - they are taxed by the US, but can't vote (taxation without representation, sound familiar?), they dont have freedom of speech (the ins can revoke your H1B without much fuss), and so on.
Re: finding another job in 30 days - obviously you've never looked for a tech job lately - even if you are excellently qualified it can take significantly longer than 30 days just to land 1 interview, let alone get an offer that you take. Try to do that in 10 days - no way jose!
In reference to H1Bs - most of us them have advanced degrees. To get a H1B job you basically have to have at minimum a Bachelors, and many others have Masters and even some PhDs. H1Bs aren't rubber stamped by some fly by night technical institute.
just fyi.
* i worked at sun thru the 90s
* i worked with one large team with many folks
from india (i really enjoyed working with them)
* i worked with a smaller team with the majority beging from india (another great group of folks)
* i talked with folks from india, and many said they would like to change jobs but cannot because they must stayed employed by the same employer for 6 yrs to obtain a green card. this is where the things are not apples-to-apples. a citizen can change jobs and not have to consider the consequences the H1-B person does. they have to be very careful. what i observed is that there is less movement by H1-B people working at sun. i perceive this as a captive audience, and i percieve management being very aware of this situation
* i dont think sun is breaking any laws from my experiences. the rules that are applied have undergone quite a challenge and require an extensive review and adjustment based on our economic conditions
* sun has enough trouble trying to execute, this is the least of their problems
I'm posting this in a bit more prominent place because it needs to be read.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=52446&thresh ol d=0&commentsort=0&tid=98&mode=thread&pid=5198618#5 201316
Here are some other comments I have posted in the past, the text I am replying to is in italics:
Firstly, what exactly are they supposed to do about it?
That's the whole point, free trade makes it nearly impossible for governments to set a fair wage for it's workers. It effectively reduces worker's rights to zero. It gives all the power to corporations to shop for the cheapest labor, while keeping the barrier to market entry extremely high for businesses in 3rd world countries. So, the end result is that 3rd world countries are not enjoying the profits from this labor, since they aren't the ones that own the businesses.
Secondly, how do you figure that it's $60,000 worth of work?
How does a price for anything get set? It's a balancing act of supply and demand and competitive pressure. When there is no longer a balance, then certain things end up being grossly undervalued, while others are grossly over-valued. So, for example, with a huge amount of labor, and competition, wages are kept low, and are getting lower. However, on the top end, businesses are consolidating and are giving people less and less options. The end result is that the current system is creating an artificial imbalance, and yes, it is by design.
I once met a fellow (suburban Chicago) who had a lawn cutting business and worked with VMS systems. The lawn cutting business during the season was earning him more money than the computer work. He had 8 or 9 trucks going out and cutting for him.
It's important to dig deeper and ask why this is so. After all, computers and technology have far more money flowing in than lawn care, so doesn't it seem absurd to you that he is making more mowing lawns? You act as if it's a good thing. Where is all that money going? Can you answer that?
Basicly what you are saying is exactly my point, even though it might not be obvious. I've been talking over and over about the devaluation of labor. And, you are backing my point up by showing that someone can make more money by owning their own lawn care business than by working in an industry that is awash in money. The reason is that the money in the tech industry is going to the owners? Why is it going to the owners? Not because they deserve, even if in some cases they do, but the reason it is going to the owner is because competition at the top is small, while at the bottom it is huge. Then there are barriers to entry in this market that are making it difficult for people to make the jump from employee to owner. The end result is a system which rewards those with power, while undervaluing labor. The way to get rid of this imbalance is by fostering competition at the highest levels. You do this by heavily subsidizing and promoting businesses that have less that 5% market share(yes, the 5% is somewhat arbitrary, but it's important to keep it small, but not too small). By promoting competition on the supply side, and among the owners of businesses, they will be forced to compete. This will ultimately increase the number of businesses, which will increase demand for labor, lower prices, and help rebalance competition.
This is my whole problem with free trade. It is effectively removing barriers to entry that third world workers have in the labor market, while at the same time keeping the barriers to entry that third world businesses are faced with in place. It is further tilting the balance of competition in favor of business owners. While they may be able to start their own small businesses, I won't even laugh at the absurdity of what you are saying. Who cares if they get crumbs if they are not given an equal chance to compete in the more lucrative businesses? What you are saying is that they will get some crumbs and that they should be
They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I don't like the original spelling.)
If only "dysfunctional" were the limit of your ignorance. Tell me, what do you actually know about the Hindu caste system? Where did you get your 3M number? Something like this:
But most are the followers that their culture requires them to be.
is racism, pure and simple.
evoke Godwin's Law
This post was, an excellent example of, excessive use of commas, and an Ad Hominem attack.
My roommate was from Bangladesh. He gave me a sobering view on world culture. But I won't get into that.
I was just reading the comments from approximately a thousand people and the more I am reading the comments the more I am get a feeling of Xenophobia! This battle is no more on Sun getting sued, it has rather become a medium for criticizing a community. What a shame.
But let me put up some points too to become a part of this ridiculous battle. H1B's getting paid less and being classified as "cheap labor" and slaves is all B.S. This is a completely wrong notion. They are paid exactly equal to the citizen and Green Card holders, and job positions and salary negotiations don't go with the visa status you have rather it goes with the capability and aptitude of the person. Half of these people on H1B visa are Masters or PhD students from the most reputed colleges in the U.S. They are definitely more qualified than most of the citizens working here. The technical skills that they possess supercedes most of the others and that is why in such a bad economic time they are still surviving here in the U.S. And for everybody's information when layoffs in companies are announced the H1B's are affected the most. Citizens can even grill burgers in a fast food joint to survive here, but H1B's have to leave the country and everything they have possessed till now. Think more humanly guys!
the phrasing is maybe not excellent but it surely touches the core of the problem.
:
The problem is indeed not the the workers and is for sure not only an american problem.
I work in a huge R&D department in europe and the last year I 've seen local workers being fired on a daily basis and being replaced by indian people (sometimes by multiple people iso 1 guy)
The real problem is indeed the CEO's which are almost always LOCAL people. In this bad economical climat they do whatever it takes in order to save THEIR jobs.
At this point, all of them ar going for cost reduction. Hiring foreign people is one method
- no huge taxes being paid to the local government (less financial obligations)
- no complaining when they are asked to work more 12 hour's a day (less social obligations)
As a short term vision this makes sense. However most of them fail to see that this is a disaster in the long run for the compagny itself and mostly their jobs. Most foreigners won't stay for years and the compagny wil have to repay each time over the money they lose when one leaves with his collected knowledge and experience. After a while the compagny is an empty can with no in-house knowledge.
Fireing expensive, short term thinking CEO's and replacing them by less expesive ones would be a good thing but wouldn't realy matter.
I'm afraid we'll just have to wait until economics go that bad so that long term vision pays of better than short term stock market.
Awww. Da wittle boy fouwnd out his mommy and daddy don't know if you cusses and throws out obscenities online so now he's gonna go play. I hope you mature more as you age. If you're already an adult: just give it up. You'll never amount to anything with those communication skills.
You're ashamed to be part of Slashdot because your country is still marginally 3rd world? My girlfriend's sister lives in India, I've been there to visit....I've seen droves of your little kids playing in sewer water and families with nowhere to go just propping up tents in abandonded areas of the city. I'm not trying to insult the people of India, I'm merely pointing out that the reason many of your citizens are coming to the US is because they don't have to live in squalor here, even on substandard wages. You're part of the Indian middle class...hooray for you...that's what, like 10% of your population that has that standard of living? If it's so great in India, why the fuck do so many of your professionals have a hard-on the get out of there?
I'm glad you're not planning on coming to the US...the last thing we need is yet another foreign national coming here for our jobs then getting all bent out of shape when people say something negative about their home. So go have a Coke and a Vindaloo and shut the fuck up.
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Open Source and Linux are arguably creating jobs, based on a recent /. article I'm too lazy to reference. At the very least it's not causing noticable declines in employment levels. Overpriced software on the other hand raises IT overhead and makes for more company layoffs and closures. There is no comparison between Linus creating the Linux kernel and Sun firing thousands of employees to replace with H1Bs. Your argument is neither logical nor founded in reality. Nice try though.
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We want to stop maniacal leaders having the option of using weapons of mass distruction, but we'll keep our nukes, thanks
That is right, we don't care if normal countries that don't mass murder individuals have WMD. We do care if some wacko who would actually USE them on innocent people during a time of peace has them. We aren't invading pakastan or india because we know they won't just pop off a nuke at someone if they get mad.
Competition and free enterprise is the one true way, as long as it doesn't threten our jobs or our standard of living even if we can;t be bothered to get off our fat, lazy arses and work harder and/or innovate.
Really, this has to be a troll. Most people don't mind competition. I don't care if I lose my job to someone more qualified. I do care if I lose my job because a company is cutting costs by hiring someone from over seas for half my salary and who has half my job skills. As for the "fat" "lazy" and "lack of innovation". Where exactly do you think most of your IT stuff came from?
Maybe with something similar for I.T. it'd be harder for things like this to happen, is it time for that?
- Plus it'd could all be opperated online
You're pronouncement cuts both ways. Just because companies can pick and choose between H1B's doesn't mean they won't choose a cheaper H1B resource over an American every time.
If you're putting "I require H1-B sponsorship" on your resume, you might as well print below it:
"I am aware that the visa process poses considerable paperwork and expense, so I'll be grateful for a job, I will work for considerably less than an American can afford to, and I am legally constrained from jumping to another opportunity after you've trained me, unlike those fickle Americans who bail as soon as they decide you're company sucks."
America outlawed indentured servitude with the 13th Amendment. It's time to stop pretending that a worker who can be deported at a moment's notice isn't subject to a coercive employment situation.
Well if WMD are so evil, why does the US have them: nukes, biological and chemical in vast numbers. The US has killed more innocent people with WMD than anyone else. Did you forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Where exactly do you think most of your IT stuff came from?
Taiwan, Japan, China, Korea. The only US product I have in my house is your crappy TV, which I manage to avoid most of the time. Except the Simpsons maybe, but, of course, that's produced by an Australian company.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
That's main reason why they don't hire as many americans..
when you talk just about "productivity" as if it's a speed of producing you are missing another factor: you are producing problems at a given rate as well. The question is what future problems are you creating and how complex are you ensuring their solutions must be.
Having said that, I have found indian programmers I have worked with to be to run the complete spectrum of ability, but if anything with a higher minimum ability for logical reasoning and analysis. Their reputation for a more passive demeanor in general is really just a cultural politeness, a more brash and assertive "american" sytle is not nec. a more effective way to influence the bigger picture.
However, I think considering the HB1 program, companies are abusing it and local workers.
It's not about bringing them here, that's fine imo, it's about the indentured quality of the program. Let them come and be citizens, then they are immigrants like us all. But the HB1 and other work visa arrangements put those workers on a lower rung of power than a citizen, so it's a way for companies to have unfair influences on their workers. Local workers will have to yeild ("volluntarily") their own rights to match, to be competitive in the market. That means people giving up their rights as citizens.
I understand if you were offended. But are you here to say the caste system isn't racist itself? Is it no longer an influence? how is it really, then?
Question is, what could be done in order to improve H1-B, or is it just defunct in a down-turn market?
I would add another point, which is that a recurring discussion in my family. The US has often done a rather poor job when it came to skilled labor. (I'm taking masons and such here.) The fact is that these skills were killed off during the advent of assembly line production, and the country has imported most of these skill sets ever since.
Computer professionals often have similar "handcrafted" work to be done, does the US handle these skill any better now? Since there are few professional guilds does this skew the argument? Europe has more protection, and a long history of professional organizations and apprenticeship.
So Americans have no problem poaching foreign nationals for top positions in our national sports teams. Half the ice-hockey team is made up of Russians? Who cares. 30% of the athletes in professional baseball aren't from the continental US? Who cares, just as long as the team in your city keeps winning their games.
What about the American athletes who can't move up from the minor leagues? No-one cares as long as the team keeps winning and people can shout "USA, we're number 1".
Manufacturing jobs moved to Mexico ? Who cares, I just want my DVD/MP3 player for less than $100.
(sarcasm)What, you mean the IT industry is going the same way ? Oh woe. Quick, where are the tar and feathers, we're going to have a lynching.(/sarcasm)
A manager at one of our strategy meetings made the comment that there were "Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians..." (indicating that there were too many Team Leaders and not enough people to be led.
Someone at Sun Human Resources might have misunderstood this and started a recruiting drive...
Its actually 10 days. 10 days to get a new job and file for a H1B or leave the country. Not much time at all.
Ok, it still should be enough if you have the kind of rare and valuable talent that the H1B program was designed to fill...
they are taxed by the US, but can't vote (taxation without representation, sound familiar?)
Umh, that's because it's temporary employment...if you want representation, then apply for citizenship...otherwise, it doesn't bother you enough...
Of course, then again, I'm sure you don't use any of our roads or public schools...right???
OTOH, it could be argued that the same thing holds for those too young to vote as well...
they dont have freedom of speech
Oh, please...
Do you actually think that publicly stating your opinion on domestic issues will get you deported?
Re: finding another job in 30 days - obviously you've never looked for a tech job lately - even if you are excellently qualified it can take significantly longer than 30 days just to land 1 interview, let alone get an offer that you take. Try to do that in 10 days - no way jose!
No, as a matter of fact, I just got a job after being unemployeed for a period of time...
To be honest, my previous statement still holds true...if you can't find a job almost immediately (even in the current market), then there's probably a citizen with the same or better skills out there...
In reference to H1Bs - most of us them have advanced degrees. To get a H1B job you basically have to have at minimum a Bachelors, and many others have Masters and even some PhDs. H1Bs aren't rubber stamped by some fly by night technical institute.
I'm not saying all, H1Bs are "rubber stamped by some fly by night technical institute", but there are a signifigant ammount of H1Bs with these degrees...probably more than in the citizen market...
Some H1Bs are here because of inside connections and have little skill...but others are here because they honestly posses a much needed skill...I've known both kinds and to be honest, the talented H1Bs should be happy to see more limitations put into the system...it will at the very least improve the public opinion of the program...
...but I can't help feeling like "globalization" is entirely one-sided due to the geographical constraints of most people vs. most corporations - i.e. multinational X can shop around for cheap labor in country Y, but I can't reciprocally go to country Y to pick up cheap consumer products. especially with enforced geographical constraints such as region encoding on multimedia discs, companies get to keep the differential in their favor, paying the cheapest wage and charging the highest price. as foreign jobs ship overseas, we will eventually be put in a condition of earning the cheapest wage yet paying the highest prices.
H1B's generally come from desperate situations
BS... Many of them are upper-class university-educated sons and daughters of prosperous families. They grew up with f***ing servants in their house. They are elitists and have a lot of trouble adjusting to American democratic meritocracy.
Many of the posters seem to be under the delusion that employers must "prove" that they cannot find anyone to do the work or that they are paying the prevailing wage rate. In fact the are only required to provide a signature to that effect. The distinction is not lost on any major corporation. Another common delusion is that the H1B workers have the skills required in the job posting. Do they really think that it is difficult (or expensive) to get whatever credentials are required in India? The American applicant is required to provide references that will surely be checked. Corporations obviously create phoney requirements that no American with the skills will accept at the stated rate. When no one applies, they are free to hire overseas and get careless on examining skills. My favorite ( I applied for this to see if I would even get a reply ) was when a major high tech company in Portland advertised for someone with 5 years previous experience in SAP including succesful implementations and 10 years of Oracle experience and offered $35,000 per year. For god sakes, they don't even pay day care workers at their plant that little! One of the biggest delusions is that it is legitimate to pay an H1B worker the same as an American for the same job as if it all comes out even. No way. The H1B worker is going to drive to work on the roads I paid for, be protected by the police my property taxes support. receive justice from me sitting on a jury for $11 per day, and be protected from having all his property taken from him by my arms. The last represents an extremely high cost to me. I spent two years as a draftee in the U. S. Army, including one year in Viet Nam. I didn't run into George Bush jr, Dick Cheney, Bill Gates, any HB1 workers, or any corporations working for $245 per month while I was there. Another delusion is that people who oppose H1B workers are racists. In fact, the program discriminates on the basis of national origin because it does not guarantee the same rights to Americans. If you think otherwise, go try to start a business or get a job in another country. You'll quickly find out that you won't receive the same rights as their nationals. Long term the biggest delusion is that this is in any way good for America. It is really just a repeat of the '50s and '60s when the Japanese sent representatives to study American manufacturing and in the '70s and '80s took over industry after industry. The first stage has already taken place with the move major bread and butter software development and support overseas. The H1B's are just a minor part of the trend. They are only required because some jobs cannot be moved. That's why we have all these HB1 NT server and network administrators filling positions that Americans are to uneducated, old, or stupid to do. The next step will be the move of the application systems to overseas siting as bandwith expands. The final step is the most dangerous and has nothing to do with jobs. It is the move of bank records, medical records, academic records, criminal records, credit records, marriage and divorce, etc to flags of convenience. At this point your Constitution isn't going to do you much good because people will be deciding you are the wrong color or eat the wrong kind of food in a country the employers right to do anything they want is considered sacred. The Senate will happily sign away your civil rights under a Treaty and you will have no recourse. ( I found out about an obscure item called something like the Japanese American Maritime Treaty just before a RIF at a former employer. The gist of it is that if you work for Japanese company they can replace you with a Japanese worker without any justification. Funny thing about it, they didn't lay off any Japanese -- just Americans, Mexicans, Vietnamese, and any other group they could find.) One of the strangest delusions I've seen among younger workers in IT is that somehow think they are players in the game and can stand up to multi-billion, multi-national corporations as individuals. Almost
If you can't compete, you die. That's life. Sorry folks, but you can't tell your boss who he can hire and who he can't hire. It's none of your business, and your livelyhood comes from your particular talents, not to some "obligation" that your employer has to keep you happy. Union organizers would have you believe that they can stop the world from turning.
Java sucks anyway, I'm using gcc and kdevelop!
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
This is really a double edge sword. The complaints about the H1B is really related to where the workers are comming from. There seems to be two factions, first world H1B workers and 3rd world H1B workers. I have some friends that are H1B workers, both from Canada, they get paid like Americans and pretty much fit american profiles (one is a physist, the other an accountant). In one case, the company likes to hire H1B workers for the position because of the traveling required with the job. Seems most american workers don't want to leave home and travel the world. Guess they figure that H1B workers are more open to this, since they did leave their home to go work in the US. I have never heard anyone say negative things to them about working in the US.
The second set of workers are the people from 3rd world nations that come over and receive less pay then an American and are basically servents of the companies that they work for. The are treated badly by the companies, and receive less pay for more hours of work. The only way to stop this is for these workers to stop taking the jobs (doubt this will happen since they can make more in a week in the US then they could in a year in their own country) or for the the Gov't to crack down on these companies that are taking advantage of this situation. I also recall there being an indian saying something like 'The eldest son must die for the family', which basically relates to they must work their ass off even at their own happiness to support their family. There are a number of workers who come over, get a dirt cheap place, crappy car and send back a good portion of their pay check to the family. They work and save up enough to in those 6 years to not have to work again in India.. they are betting on it. Some fall in to the traps of Americanism don't want to leave and to aquire stuff.
Oh.. ever wonder why there are so many forigners running the convience stores? they work over here as owners, don't pay taxes to the US, send all the profits back home, and when the time they are allowed to live here expires, they transfer ownership to someone else in the family who come over and work the store.. repeat process till America is bleed dry..
I'm looking to go work in Europe.. where 4 to 6 weeks of vaction time is mandatory! oh.. and no one works weekends like a religion. Americans should really watch "Office Space" and really take notes.
With regards to programmer productivity:
Individual worker productivity on software projects is somewhat hard to measure(this doesn't stop people from trying of course), but team productivity is a little more approachable. It has been shown time and time again that different teams can vary by orders of magnitude with regards to their productivity. Somewhere close to half of all programming projects still fail by most accounts. If developing your application using domestic resources will cost you 1 million dollars, but you know it won't cost significantly more, and you know fairly accurately when it will be completed, that may be a lot better than having the project done in India for a tenth of the price and not knowing when, or if, it will be completed. Note, that this doen't just apply to outsoucing to India...
Sun's board and shareholders would do good to fire the management of the company. Sun has never made good revenues from software development efforts and their hardware/OS isn't anything you can't get from IBM or HP at competitive prices.
Their stock is down under 4.00 and headed for the penny stock market.
They gave away the one good software product they have..Java..and the fact that it's become a better product over time is due to the contributions of developers from other companies...the ones that make profits from it.
McNealy's MS bashing is the same failed management defined strategy used by Jobs at Apple in the 80's and Netscape in the 90's. Apple took a big fall after that and we all know where Netscape is. Bashing the competition as a sole marketing strategy for your new product is a sorry excuse for a marketing campaign. I don't doubt that their new 'web services ide' isn't just as much hype as their previous attempts at software product development done without the assistance of engineers from more competent companies and put up for sale.
The fact that multiple former employees are bringing suit is just a PR burn undoubtedly created by bad management decisions. It just shows a complete lack of loyalty between Sun and it's employees and given the debacles at Eron/Worldcom etc it's that's just plain bad PR for the management of the company.
The strength and quality of a company's products is definitely reflected in it's relationship with its employees and requires maintaining loyalty from a company.
Laying people off isn't just bad PR, it shows an incompetent management team that is incapable of marketing and selling products...and obviously too stupid to keep the people that make the products making them. The fact is the management team is unable to get people to produce good quality products that customers need and desire and get those products marketed and sold and that's why they call upon the God Economy and use it as an excuse for their own failure.
The fact is computer systems are used to increase productivity and income so a bad economy should be a better market for computer systems.
Here's the catch, composer777...
The H1-B didn't come about because of lassez-faire, capitalist economics. It came about because of GOVERNMENT REGULATION. The government passed a law which made it possible for companies to hire foreign workers and pay them below market wages. Because H1-B workers can't switch jobs easily, they have no leverage in negotiating salarys. In effect, this is govermnent subsidy that benefits corporations.
I would argue that the solutions is to have the government stop passing regulations and give H1-B workers the freedom to ask for a raise or leave for a better job.
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
Oh boy! Another phat-dumb-and-happy American ready to bail on his/her fellow Americans - not unlike the power elite who are hiding in Belize to avoid paying US taxes. This is the kind of selfish attitude that is going to doom Americans. Say, you might want to grab that "nest egg" during this brief pro-war bubble in the market. The market will again continue it's downward spiral once the reality of our poor economy, high unemployment, and increasing inflation set back in. Once our government dips into the pot to borrow more money for the war and rebuilding the interest rates will soar along with inflation. The H-1B program and off shore contracts only make this worse by reducing payroll tax revenue in America. Don't any of you get it? Our entire country is funded by payroll taxes. The only reason our economy didn't crash after the factory jobs were shipped overseas in the 1980s is because the tech boom took up the slack. Now there is nothing to take up the slack for the lost IT jobs. This whole globalization pipe dream is going to catapult America into a deep economic depression. This is only the beginning.
Unfortunately the same technology that is enabling telecommuting for some employees _is_ sending their job overseas. Yes, there are still cultural differences and locality in development still makes a huge difference (yelling across a cubicle wall is faster than email), but that huge difference in wages is the apple tempting many executives. It can't happen here? Tell that to memory manufacturers. How about popcorn logic parts? The largest fab houses in the world now are in Taiwan. The U.S. still has the lead in microprocessor manufacturing, but has surrendered all other chip arenas. You don't think the same thing will happen with software? He who controls the hardware eventually controls the software.
I'm an H1-B holder, and I can assure you I pay taxes on my $130k...
The comment form isn't very user friendly.
I'm testing now to see if Plain Old Text doesn't screw up the formatting.
I don't want to be wrestling html tags every other sentence.
Yes, the Plain Old Text option doesn't lose paragraph formatting.
(whew)
"The second AC has not only misinterpreted the first AC, but additionally has come to believe that technology is all that's preventing cannibalism. "
What I am trying to say is that this whole idea of an 'economy' and 'jobs' and 'competing or else you die' is as obsolete as a vacuum tube computer in an era where technology has given us (us= human race, lest you misinterpret my words as a misinterpretation) vastly increased food supply, scientific understanding of diseases and processes never before (before = last few hundred years, I take a long view) understood, etc..
I think the only thing between us (us=human race) and a very good existence for all (all=human race) is *ourselves* and our insistence on applying an outmoded model (capitalism) to a world were its (capitalism's) basic tenets are, well, untenable.
I hope you won't misinterpret that.
I'm sorry; but right off I have a problem believing an H-1B is earning $130k net right now. Could it be you just want to make me jealous? Could it be that you want to evade the clear fact that H-1Bs in general earn less than American counterparts? Surely you take advantage of the nonresident alien formulas at the IRS. You can skew these formulas by taking frequent trips out of the country - even day visits to Mexico. Oh, and what about the H-1Bs who live here on tax-free expense per diems while the bulk of their salary is paid in their home country? This is a common mode of operation for Tata subsidiaries. You can pull the wool over the eyes of our dumb politicians but your jive won't work on American techs. We work next to you guys. We know your games. Fortunately, many of your fellow H-1Bs are much more honest about how they are really paid and treated. More than one has confided in me about breaking away from their current contract because thay can barely survive and are tired of working overtime for free. They came to me because I was an independent American contractor with my own Subchapter S corporation.
I would argue that the solutions is to have the government stop passing regulations and give H1-B workers the freedom to ask for a raise or leave for a better job.
That means more power to people who are desperate to immigrate. Obviously, the govt. and many current citizens would dislike that. So there is no way but to reduce the rights of H1b's. And that ends up giving the corporations more power over workers (both H1B and local). The good always comes with the bad.
I'm sorry; but right off I have a problem believing an H-1B is earning $130k net right now. Could it be you just want to make me jealous? Could it be that you want to evade the clear fact that H-1Bs in general earn less than American counterparts?
Surely you take advantage of the nonresident alien formulas at the IRS. You can skew these formulas by taking frequent trips out of the country - even day visits to Mexico.
Oh, and what about the H-1Bs who live here on tax-free expense per diems while the bulk of their salary is paid in their home country? This is a common mode of operation for Tata subsidiaries.
You can pull the wool over the eyes of our dumb politicians but your jive won't work on American techs. We work next to you guys. We know your games.
Fortunately, many of your fellow H-1Bs are much more honest about how they are really paid and treated. More than one has confided in me about breaking away from their current contract because thay can barely survive and are tired of working overtime for free. They came to me because I was an independent American contractor with my own Subchapter S corporation.
I mean, sure, you want to cut costs and look for cheaper labour, no problems but don't do it in such a stupid manor, I mean, why not set up an office in India and then gradually strink down the US operations?
btw. Labour costs are the only problem, how about getting TI to cut down on their manufacturing costs, or better yet, move it to UMC and TSMC. As for assembly, why assemble SUN stations in the 3rd most expensive country to do business in? that is no smart! Outsource production like all the other manufacturers have done.
Coy comments coming from another FDH (Fat Dumb & Happy) American.
I'm a Vietnam vet. My father was a WWII vet. Now my son is going to be called for Iraq.
But, I lost my job to an H-1B worker from India. He won't have to risk his life for America nor will his sons and daughters. Now I'm facing bankruptcy and can no longer send my son to college.
No, I'm way past worrying about ripple effects. I'm at the point of picking up my M-16 and fragging some folks!! For me, this is a war!! I was ready to die fighting as a soldier to protect your freedom. I'm sure darn ready to die fighting to save my family's well being!! And the first folks in my sights are going to be H1B-loving Americans!!
DAMN YOU WHIMPY WEASEL TRAITORS!! YOU WOULDN'T LAST ONE DAY CRAWLING ON YOUR BELLY IN A RICE PADDIE!! YOU'D DIE WITHOUT YOUR CELL PHONE, PDA, AND STARBUCKS!!
Other contries complain about it, and individuals do get around it. Do you mistake complaints and exceptions for a trend?
You are arguing in the face of massive, incontrivertible evidence that contries like India, for instance, have no shortage of talented people even for the highest levels of the software and hardware engineering fields. Where's your brain drain? It was a brain loan.
Even if we opened our borders and invited their people to come here, not all of them would; there are bigger trends at work over the long haul. But that doesn't mean you want to encourage the opposite with a stupid policy. If you're self-interested you have to at least try, eh?
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I'm a Vietnam vet. My father was a WWII vet. Now my son is going to be called for Iraq.
But, I lost my job to an H-1B worker from India. He won't have to risk his life for America nor will his sons and daughters. Now I'm facing bankruptcy and can no longer send my son to college.
No, I'm way past worrying about being good. I'm at the point of picking up my M-16 and fragging some folks!! For me, this is a war!! I was ready to die fighting as a soldier to protect your freedom. I'm sure darn ready to die fighting to save my family's well being!! And the first folks in my sights are going to be H1B-loving Americans!!
DAMN YOU WHIMPY WEASEL TRAITORS!! YOU WOULDN'T LAST ONE DAY CRAWLING ON YOUR BELLY IN A RICE PADDIE!! YOU'D DIE WITHOUT YOUR CELL PHONE, PDA, AND STARBUCKS!!
Why is the parent modded up? It is merely spouting thinly veiled racist stereotypes.
I am an Indian (and nominally a Hindu by birth). There is no such thing as a standard "disfunctional Indian Hindu culture" among Indians. It is similar to making the claim that Americans have a "loud, fat, Christian warmongering" culture.
Indians, just like people of all other countries, come with a wide variety of mindsets.
If Indians were merely sheep who followed management/leadership directives blindly, they would lack the initiative to run an advanced space program, independently develop nuclear technology or even remain a democracy for more than 50 years.
The real reason why we're not seeing the next Microsoft or Intel start in India is that most Indians with the talent and initiative choose to start or join Silicon Valley firms, since India lacks a lot of the infrastructure necessary for these kinds of firms to be based in that country.
Give India another 10 years to get its act together in terms of infrastructure and education, and I guarantee you'll see corporations comparable to Intel or Sony start up in India.
Krishna
--- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to study for a Turing test.
TCS, aka Tata Consultancy Service, has been using the L-1 visa program for the same purpose since clamping down on H1-Bs.
FACT: GE Medical Systems signed a $35M/year contract with TCS in late 2001. In 2002, they had brought over 800 H1-B and L-1 employees from India to work in Milwaukee, WI. During this period, there were multiple downsizings of American employees.
H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER: www.ZaZona.com
Here is another article that discusses the class-action lawsuit against Sun Microsystems. As many as 2,400 ex-Sun workers may be involved so
this is a huge lawsuit. Considering the size of this lawsuit you would think that it would be all over the California newspapers, but that's
not the case. So far the newspapers are keeping the lid on this story. Perhaps they have some Sun stock to dump first.
There is a sweet irony in what is happening because that awful "60 Minutes" story on Bombay University (IIT) will be used in the lawsuit.
View this excerpt from "60 Minutes" and you will see what I mean:
LESLEY STAHL:
Vinod Khosla got into IIT about 30 years ago. After graduating, he came to the U.S., co-founded Sun Microsystems, and became one of Silicon Valley's most important venture capitalists. He's one of thousands of
IIT graduates who've made it big in the U.S.
How significant would you say the impact of IIT graduates has been on the American technology revolution?
VINOD KHOSLA:
It's far greater than most people realize. Microsoft, Intel, PC's - Sun
Microsystems - you name it, I can't imagine a major area where Indian
IIT engineers haven't played a leading role.
LESLEY STAHL: Leading role?
VINOD KHOSLA:
A leading role. And of course, the American consumer and the American business in the end is the beneficiary of that.
LESLEY STAHL:
It isn't just high tech; the head of the giant consulting firm McKinsey & Company is an IIT grad, so is the vice-chairman of Citigroup, and the former CEO of US Airways. Fortune 500 head hunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree.
VINOD KHOSLA:
They are favored over almost anybody else. If you are a Wasp walking in for a job, you wouldn't have as much pre-assigned credibility as you do if you're an engineer from IIT.
LESLEY STAHL:
Ninety percent of IIT students are male, and the young men we met in Bombay know they're hot commodities. The American companies love the
kids from IIT.
****************
In that interview Khosla flat out admits that Sun prefers Indians from IIT, and of course most IIT students in this male dominated society are
almost exclusively young men. Lesley Stahl adored Khosla too much to question his bigotry or arrogance. His racist comments about WASPS
would have caused an uproar if they were made about any other minority group, and it's puzzling why the National Organization for Women isn't all over Stahl for that statement on how those IIT males are hot
commodities.
Vinod and his "frat girl" interviewer Lesley Stahlor, probably never imagined that this interview would be cannon fodder for the lawyer
handling the lawsuit. During Guy Santiglia's court hearing Sun totally denied that they preferred H-1Bs, but they admitted that they
understand that if they did, it would amount to discrimination. Here is a choice quote:
Sun spokesperson Diane Carlini said the company didn't take national origin, visa status or salary into account in cutting its work force from about 42,000 to 35,000 beginning about 18 months ago. To have considered national origin or visa status would have amounted to discrimination, she said.
Carlini was referring to Guy Santiglia's complaint in the article below
when she said that Sun has been cleared of similar charges that its H-1B practices violated labor laws. "It seems similar to what we've
seen in the past where we have been cleared." There is one thing that isn't similar, this class-action was filed by a very skilled attorney
by the name of James Caputo. You can bet that Carlini will be working overtime on her next bit of spin doctoring because this Caputo will
have Sun sweating.
Obviously Sun has a policy of preferring IIT grads because they are Indian. If they were truly superior students this might be justifiable, but here is a point of view that "60 Minutes" doesn't care to air:
Dr. Norman Matlo
My mother is a technical recruiter with a medium size company and when I said something about H1Bs working for less money she told me that in fact many of them are very demanding, salary-wise, and basically that just wasn't true at all. Of course that's just her company.
:-)
But hell, I gotta believe my Mom.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Isn't that why Nikes are so much cheaper now than if they were made in the United States?
Cheaper prices don't come just from cheaper labor, it also comes from supply and demand. I'm stating the obvious, but supply is high for tech jobs and demand is low; therefore tech workers are a cheap commodity. Corporations just view us as machines that can be easily replaced. This is the way it has always been and will always be (so this is capitalism?)
I hope you enjoy the rest of your life in the cube farms wage slave.
You have a very good point about the relative unfairness of globalization. Hopefully this won't get lost in the shuffle.
Until we can easily obtain cheap products from India, and other H-1B countries, the program isn't fair at all.
This is not the "fair and equal treatment" I expect from my government.
IT'S TIME FOR A NEW-ERA BASTILLE DAY!!
jobs....and kick the Indians and Chinese out of our CS programs!
H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER: www.ZaZona.com
Here is another article that discusses the class-action lawsuit against Sun Microsystems. As many as 2,400 ex-Sun workers may be involved so
this is a huge lawsuit. Considering the size of this lawsuit you would think that it would be all over the California newspapers, but that's
not the case. So far the newspapers are keeping the lid on this story. Perhaps they have some Sun stock to dump first.
There is a sweet irony in what is happening because that awful "60 Minutes" story on Bombay University (IIT) will be used in the lawsuit.
View this excerpt from "60 Minutes" and you will see what I mean:
LESLEY STAHL:
Vinod Khosla got into IIT about 30 years ago. After graduating, he came to the U.S., co-founded Sun Microsystems, and became one of Silicon Valley's most important venture capitalists. He's one of thousands of
IIT graduates who've made it big in the U.S.
How significant would you say the impact of IIT graduates has been on the American technology revolution?
VINOD KHOSLA:
It's far greater than most people realize. Microsoft, Intel, PC's - Sun Microsystems - you name it, I can't imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven't played a leading role.
LESLEY STAHL: Leading role?
VINOD KHOSLA:
A leading role. And of course, the American consumer and the American business in the end is the beneficiary of that.
LESLEY STAHL:
It isn't just high tech; the head of the giant consulting firm McKinsey & Company is an IIT grad, so is the vice-chairman of Citigroup, and the former CEO of US Airways. Fortune 500 head hunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree.
VINOD KHOSLA:
They are favored over almost anybody else. If you are a Wasp walking in for a job, you wouldn't have as much pre-assigned credibility as you do if you're an engineer from IIT.
LESLEY STAHL:
Ninety percent of IIT students are male, and the young men we met in Bombay know they're hot commodities. The American companies love the kids from IIT.
****************
In that interview Khosla flat out admits that Sun prefers Indians from IIT, and of course most IIT students in this male dominated society are
almost exclusively young men. Lesley Stahl adored Khosla too much to question his bigotry or arrogance. His racist comments about WASPS
would have caused an uproar if they were made about any other minority group, and it's puzzling why the National Organization for Women isn't all over Stahl for that statement on how those IIT males are hot commodities.
Vinod and his "frat girl" interviewer Lesley Stahlor, probably never imagined that this interview would be cannon fodder for the lawyer
handling the lawsuit. During Guy Santiglia's court hearing Sun totally denied that they preferred H-1Bs, but they admitted that they
understand that if they did, it would amount to discrimination. Here is a choice quote:
Sun spokesperson Diane Carlini said the company didn't take national origin, visa status or salary into account in cutting its work force from about 42,000 to 35,000 beginning about 18 months ago. To have considered national origin or visa status would have amounted to discrimination, she said.
Carlini was referring to Guy Santiglia's complaint in the article below when she said that Sun has been cleared of similar charges that its H-1B practices violated labor laws. "It seems similar to what we've seen in the past where we have been cleared." There is one thing that isn't similar, this class-action was filed by a very skilled attorney by the name of James Caputo. You can bet that Carlini will be working overtime on her next bit of spin doctoring because this Caputo will
have Sun sweating.
Obviously Sun has a policy of preferring IIT grads because they are Indian. If they were truly superior students this might be justifiable.
There are still computer jobs around, and still will be - as I said even if you move jobs overseas, you still need liaisons.
But really, I see the whole oversea outsourcing thing is a fad. Not because programmers in India are not as good as US programmers (there are a few H1-B people from India on my team and they are really quite good) but because having your development that far removed from your business is idiotic. Either businesses will realize that and pull back some jobs to the US, or they will not and wane as competitors eat them for lunch.
That's just overseas jobs - cheap H1-B workers here just mean lower salaries for IT workers here. But as I said before, those H1-B workers need to live somewhere and eat just like you and me... so they can't take the $6k salaries the overseas programmers might take.
Companies are terribly short-sighted right now. I'm not sure what to do about that other than start up small companies that take advantage of that short-sightedness...
Even so, like I said, there will be jobs, even if fewer in number (or then again, perhaps not once companies start hiring again).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Any H-1B earning more than $50k right now is as doomed as the American IT workers. I was on an ASP project and the project manager bragged about getting off shore programmers to code ASP pages for $7 per hour - just before he canned us all. You see, the H-1Bs have artificial salary protection right now. The employer doesn't dare cut his/her salary while still under sponsorship. So the H-1Bs even have wage protection above-and-beyond American workers!! I'm so ticked right now I could strangle your scrawny unpatriotic pencil neck. Especially if you're one of those upper-caste apartheid racists from India!!
Its disgusting to see Indians boast so much. What is there to be proud of when the only job prospects of the graduates of your 'best' universities are in foreign lands?
In the meantime half of all indian children are malnourished, the country is a cesspool lagging behind almost all other nations in socio-economic indicators.
Indians, especially the english speaking colonial servant types, are probably the cruelest, most callous bunch of bastards in the world. Ask them next time if they have done ANYTHING to better their own country.
Mr. BS:
The H-1Bs that you have been so gleefully giving my job to are probably not being paid anywhere near what your American workers are paid.
Just like all the cheap labor lusting IT managers, you just don't get it. All you see is the GROSS rate charged by your local IT pimp service. You don't see the paltry net rates paid to H-1B subcontractors.
But you don't care about them just like you don't care about fellow Americans like myself. All you care about is your own greedy little pocket and your own little budget variances. God help our sons and daughters in Iraq if they all had attitudes like yours!
It is apparent that you didn't read it. It clearly puts U.S. productivity near or at the top for the 1990s, which is the most relevent decade for this discussion. If we're talking 50s-80s, then you have a point, but not for the 90s.
Almost all H-1Bs are upper-caste Hindus from the most racist and sexist apartheid regime in the world.
No wonder IIT does so well. Common Indians will never be admitted - especially lower-caste "untouchables". Yes, upper-caste Hindus hate very dark skinned African-Indians so much that they consdider them "untouchables".
The NAACP already knows that SUN and other heavily H-1B companies in IT have terrible records for hiring African Americans.
Lower-caste women are treated like dirt in India. Actually all women are treated like dirt. They can be stoned if they don't submit to arranged marriages.
So the H-1B program is rewarding racists and sexists.
Because American could also mean a Mexican or Canadian, for example. YOU IGNORANT IDIOT!
Most Indian and Chinese make lousy fucking programmers. They have no creativity. The outsourcing phenomenon is being driven by business managers, not technical managers. In time, they'll realize that their costs for outsourcing have actually increased due to constant fucking code rewrites and poor coding performance. Trust me. Been there, done that.
Must be a cultural trait. They keep posting on internet message boards ridiculously exaggerated statistics of how well they are doing in America: how many doctors, motel owners, engineers etc their community has and how their per capita is higher than white americans and so on. But you never hear about these jerks trying to do any good for their own country that they escaped from like rats from a sinking ship.
The best favor you can do for the starving children of India is to do what the Ugandans did, kick them out....and make sure no other country accepts them. They need to be forced to go back and invest in their OWN country's future.
I have a feeling that this will happen. And soon.
Stop playing that phony racism card. I'm a Hispanic-American and Indian H-1Bs treated me like lower-caste dirt.
The majority of H-1Bs are racist upper-caste Hindu males from India. India's apartheid regime is worse than South Africa's was.
Other H-1B countries aren't much better. Almost all of them foster some form of racial, sexual, or religious intolerance that is illegal in the US.
Evidently you believe in preference based on race, religion, and sex - which is exactly what the H-1B program does.
(You moderators otta think long and hard about this one before you tag this note with a low score. It will bely your own views on racism, sexism, and religious intolerance. Does SLASHDOT support discrimination against African-American techs? Labor statistics already prove that they have been disproportionately displaced by H-1Bs.)
I dont see any difference. The differences are slight and are regional not related to caste. Most brahmins are blacks by international standards. Hindu gods like Rama and Krishna are black too.
I think it will help to shake them out of their colonial racist self-delusions if they were to be called blacks regulary. You will be doing them a favor...kinda like slapping a hysterical person into sense.
Oh boy! Another phat-dumb-and-happy American ready to bail on his/her fellow Americans - not unlike the power elite who are hiding in Belize to avoid paying US taxes. This is the kind of selfish attitude that is going to doom Americans.
I'm sorry, but I can't blame him. He's already been sold out by those power elite, and the power elite that is still in power here, at the tops of corporations and government. He's also been sold out by all the common people of this country who stood by and did nothing about the situation, voting in people who made it worse. Our elected leaders, over many years, are to blame for this situation, and we, the people, are to blame for electing these people into power. I can entirely sympathize with him wanting to leave this rapidly imploding society while he still can.
The same thing happened centuries ago when people left badly-run countries in Europe and elsewhere and came to the US. Most of those places later cleaned house and fixed their problems, but how long did it take? Usually longer than a generation, after lots of people got fed up and left. Why stick around and live in a hellhole for the rest of your life waiting for things to improve (which probably won't happen until long after you're dead, if ever), when you can go someplace better?
Upper caste Hindus don't give a rat's ass about starving, malnourished, lower-caste children.
Other Asian H-1B countries aren't much better.
We are rewarding the most racist, selfish class of workers in the world with H-1B visas.
Is largely correct, but the idea that businesses are trying to become robber barons is childish. They aren't that well thought-out.
Please show me where these "international standards" on skin coloration exist. I'm really curious.
You are so typical of uneducated Americans. You don't understand the intricacies of the Indian caste system. It isn't solely based on skin tone - there are complex layers of classism that loosely follow skin tones - not unlike the apartheid system in South Africa with it's "Blacks" and "Coloreds". These words mean the same thing to Americans - but they denoted a wholely seperate caste class under their apartheid system.
So obviously there is no "international standard" regarding skin tone terminology.
Lower-caste Dalits (Untouchables) in India are decendents of negroid Africans that migrated there centuries ago. They generally are extremely dark skinned and have typical negroid features. They are African-Indians just as Blacks in America are African-American. The only difference is that it happened so long ago (millenia) that skin tones have mixed despite rigid class separation. The Hindus are decendents of ancient light-skinned arian tribes from the North.
Please ask your Hindu friends how many Dalits (African-Indian "Untouchables") are adimitted at IIT? How many are H-1Bs? Then ask them if they would mind sharing a cubicle with an "Untouchable".
And, I double-dog dare you to call them Blacks.
You list your skills in terms of programming languages, and then wonder why no one wants you to work for them.
You sound really bright. You must have thought it through. What's wrong with you and your resume?
You are the ultimate in "racist biggot pigshits" if you are defending the largest remaining apartheid regime in the world.
You're such a petty little chicken shit that you have to post as a COWARD. You're probably just an upper-caste H-1B who can't wait to get back to India and legally flog his lower-caste servants.
How come you keep thinking Indians are smart and well educated.
Everyone of them has a master's in math from some Indian university, which seems to be less rigorous than 2nd year math at an American university.
Oh. I guess that makes me racist.
yeah, these guys do this singy-song english which is like nails on chalkboard. But i'm supposed to tolerate it to be PC? right. Call me racists I guess.
You really are a dumb MF'er.
"You paid for support in "English". If the person really has poor English then you've got a legitimate complaint. If it's just that you can't make the adjustment to a slightly different dialect from yours then that's your problem."
No, he paid for support.
And Sun can probably give him martians from jupiter and claim they're speaking English.
But as a customer, I'll simply refuse to use Sun support. And if I can't get suppot from Sun *to my satisfaction*, then I might as well pick Microsoft.
So its a move that will save Sun a few million now and put them out of business in 5.
Hopefully, you didn't pay too much for that fancy education because you're as well thought out as a typical high-school senior.
To recap:
In your view, if I pay for support and I can't understand the support, its my fault because I'm not worldly and accepting enough.
I honestly honestly can't get over how dumb you are.
What are the ramifications of going to war in a situation in which much of the technical and financial infrastructure of a country are under the direct control of foreign nationals and other recent immigrants?
Sun and Oracle are both major military contractors. The larger accounting firms are also major users of H-1b labor.
We already have at least one example of a major user of H-1b labor, Enron, in which a large amount of fraud took place. Of the $12 Billion stolen from Enron shareholders, at least $3 Billion wound up in India.
I can think of dozens of ways an enemy of the US government can exploit the current heavy use of H-1b labor in the US. Here you have a lot of guys away from home, with relatives that can be easily threatened(keep in mind about 20% of the Indian population is Muslim).
At the same time, the H-1b fiasco has made it really clear to US techies that their citizenship rights just didn't count for much compared to political donations(which is how the ITAA companies got that 96-1-3 vote in the US Senate).
Ooo. Another supporter of the racist apartheid regime in India. You are supporting racism when you support upper-caste Indians - which is what most of the H-1Bs are.
I bets ya'll good ole boys in Canada don't want nun of us low class Americans workin' for ya - even though we saved your pussy asses in WWI and WWII.
You're probably just a sour French-Canadian. Go kiss Saddam's butt with your Frenchie pals.
Like if I said "yanks" instead of "hindus", you'd be crying like you are right now. Uh-huh. Goddamn hippy.
PLEASE shut the hell up? Please?
And stop wearing that fucking "petrouli" oil. It makes you smell like like (asscrack and roadkill)^E+99.
Bowie J. Poag
As an experienced Oracle DBA and programmer I can tell you that the threat posed by foreign H-1B visa workers and foreign off shore workers is huge.
w ar .html
This is just as dangerous as missiles in Cuba - but since there are no simplistic black-and-white aerial photos our dumbfounded leaders just can't comprehend it.
I was a contractor at Lockheed Martin just before 09/11 and they had all kinds of foreign contractors. They didn't do any background checks on them. NOTHING. They didn't even have to take a drug test. (Boy, did that ever tick off the LM employees!)
They could have planted all kinds of encrypted time bombs in guidance systems and what not. Even NASA gives their backdoor passwords to hundreds of foreign nationals. This often happens through third-party subcontracts that they don't even pay attention to. Now it seems that dozens of foreign visa workers were involved with the recent shuttle disaster.
Imagine if air traffic control systems had simultaneous cyber-attacks? It could make 09/11 seem small in comparison.
What about power grids? Banking systems? Hospitals? Nuclear plants? EVERYTHING IN OUR NATION IS DEPENDENT ON COMPUTERS!! They all use the same Windows operating systems, which is a hacker's dream come true with it's poorly secured registry and it's plethora of easily hacked dlls. Gee, I didn't even mention its vulnerability to ActiveX objects and COM modules.
You would be surprised how poorly secured many of our networks and databases are. At Lockheed/Martin the administrators even failed to alter the vendor-supplied default passwords for Oracle databases??!! I also worked at a state government office that was even worse! You could remotely hack into their Oracle database via ODBC - even without a password! (Their Lead Oracle DBA was an H-1B from India. So much for superior tallent.)
Please take a look at this link. You can read how much the people of India hate us and our war on Iraq.
http://india_resource.tripod.com/oppositioniraq
Are these the people that you want programming the military and aerospace systems that your son's and dauther's lives depend on? Do you think an Indian off shore programmer, with this hateful attitude towards America, would think twice about taking a $100,000 bribe from Al Quada?
And what about all of the disgruntled American techs? They have the backdoor passwords too. If just one of us were to snap it could get much worse than somebody "going postal" with a 9mm.
But saving a couple bucks an hour by screwing fellow Americans out of their jobs is just more important to our corporate elite than national security.
It will come back to haunt them. It is only a matter of time.
I've been working in the U.S for almost 2 years now, all on TN Visa's. I've had 3 different jobs, I've never been laid off, and I've always been able to find a better oppurtunity. Guess I'm just lucky.
Maybe I'm missing the point of the whole discussion. Is Sun laying off positions in the U.S and hiring the equivalent position overseas? If that's the case there's not a whole lot that can be done about that is there?
Or are they laying off positions in the U.S and importing H1-B's to live here in the U.S? That sounds a little shady, but are you surprised by the moves corporations make to save a couple bucks? What would people say if they laid off Americans to replace them with cheaper Americans? I do admire the H1-B recipients for packing up and moving thousands of miles away from their family and friends to try and make a better life for themselves.
My current employer just went through a round of lay offs, I'm on contract and a visa so I thought I'd be gone for sure. Instead they let a full time person go. Do I feel bad that I'm taking an American job, not really.
Think of the current times as weeding out those who know from those who don't. If these senior people know what they're doing they shouldn't have a problem finding new work somewhere.
In any case I think that the world job market should be more like the E.U, being able to work in any coutry without the need for a little piece of paper authorizing said work.
There's a lot of divergent opinion about H1-B's. I think it comes down to a philosophy of what corporations responsible for, i.e. what is the purpose of a business?
One side suggests that business is responsible for job creation. But this is no better than the school of thought that says business' sole responsibility is to make a profit. It's a chicken-and-egg argument: companies don't make money, companies make shoes.
Another side suggets that business is responsible to its customers, i.e. to the market. Businesses exist solely to create customers. To fill needs for the market in an economically efficient manner, measured by profit.
If it's about serving consumers, globally, then arguably labour force should be global as well.
I don't think H1-B's are a bad thing, as they represent the "free movement of labour". ABUSE of H1-B's is rampant, and must be curtailed, but the laws as-is are fair.
Let's also not forget that NAFTA has effectively created a "North American Free-Trade-Labour Zone" with the TN-1 VISA program. University graduate Canadians and Mexicans can work in the U.S. at ANY TIME, for an UNLIMITED (yearly-renewed) amount of time. This is the direction of American policy -- freer trade in goods, services, and labour. IS it really a bad thing?
My bias is that I was Canadian under a TN-1 visa in the U.S. for 3 years, along with several of my collegues from university. We certainly weren't underpaid (if low 6 figures in California and NYC is underpaid). And the main reason people hired us was because management felt we were better educated and offered a better value than comparable U.S. citizens that they could find.
I don't know if they were lying, but that's the jist of what I hear from people wanting to use Indian H1B's and offshore development. Indians are educated almost as well as Americans, and sometimes better -- why not use them? It's about a combination of money and skill. Companies are going to make a tradeoff among that continuum to hit the right sweet spot.
Offshore has a host of problems relating to communications and hence will probably not work beyond narrow projects with slowly changing needs or requirements. The timezone difference, communication gap, and cultural differences make for a very difficult collaboration. This makes H1B programs palatable.
Protecting labour markets is a long history in the U.S., and there's a lot of inconsistency in it. I would suggest that markets will be protected or opened based on which group has the most local political power -- the farmers, the unions, etc. on one hand, or the technology lobby groups on the other hand. But the general policy of the past 2 administrations has been "freer labour trade".... and I'm not sure that's going to change.
-Stu
Boycotts are one of our only remaining weapons in the battle for the welfare of our families and friends - some of whom now have relatives at war in Iraq.
There are many companies to boycott which have shown preference to hiring workers from less-than-friendly nations over skilled Americans:
American ExpressBank of India...er, I mean America
Motorola
Hewlett Packard
Intel
Microsoft
IBM
Heck, we'd have to boycott darn near everything. BUT, if we target just one company at a time we might have an impact. Some of these companies are worse than others. I threw away all of my American Express cards. Regardless of their preference for off shore and H-1B workers, I don't like the thought of having foreign nationals looking at my balances and personal information. They could easily steal my identity (and money!) and the FBI and local law enforcement couldn't do a thing about it. (I sure saved myself a bundle in annual service charges too.)
Just say "NO" to products from companies who are exploiting foreign workers at the expense of American taxpayers' jobs!
There are thousends of fullfilling occupations out there, you people always make it appear like the alternatives are starvation and flipping that pseudo-meat that goes into the BMs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
sun, say ain't so. :(
To be honest I don't really care that much about the topic. Life goes on
.44 = $33,000 in lost annual payroll tax revenue per displaced American
if jobs are won or lost.
Ah, to hear the words of a caring fellow American (I assume). Let's see though,
if there are roughly 1 million H-1B and L-1 workers (there are actually more)
and only half of them avoid payroll taxes, including FICA, Medicare, FUTA, State
and Local, etc., let's do the math. We will assume that they have displaced
American technicians earning an average of only $75k per year.
The combined payroll tax percentages for a taxpayer in this bracket would roughly
be as follows:
Federal: 20 percent
FICA: 15 percent (remember the matching contribution by the employer - which
is also lost)
Medicare (included in FICA percentage)
State 6 percent (this is low for states like California)
FUTA 2 percent (the employer pays this one too - but it will also be lost)
Local City/County 1 percent (once again, this is low for some areas)
Combined Payroll Tax percentage = 44 percent
Please remember that much of this burden is paid for by the employer - which
has a lot to do with why they hate American Payroll taxes and love foreign employees.
Now let's calculate:
$75,000 x
taxpayer
500,000 x $33,000 = $16.5 BILLION in lost payroll tax revenue PER YEAR !!!
Yes, it's BILLIONS in lost tax revenue! Is it no wonder that our governments
are running deficits at every level?
So any American that ignores this situation is either very mathematically challenged
or a complete buffoon.
I haven't seen Iraqi military attacking the land I happen to be occupying,
so no one is defending me from anything.
Talk about an unpatriotic attitude as our sons and daughters march into
harm's way. Evidently 09/11 was just another ho-hum day for you.
Smug words coming from a comfy Canadian whose own country protects it's "labour force" much more staunchly than America.
Can I waltz into Canada to steal a job at any old time on something like a TN visa? Hell no!
And now you French-lovering Canadians don't even have to send your sons and daughters to war. Our sons and daughters are risking their lives for your safety too!
It was late. I'm a an American myself - maybe not so well educated either (only a BSCS).
Actually I pretty much agree with the other comment, and I meant to use the phrase "uninformed Americans" because it really is amazing how many of US believe that upper-caste Hindus are Blacks. This is no more correct than calling dark brown skinned Latinos "Blacks". I'm also surprised at how few Americans realize there is an upper-caste apartheid minority in control of India, with class lines drawn by race and religion. The antithesis of our own constitution.
THANK YOU for printing the education statistics. This proves my point perfectly. Minorities (lower-caste citizens) and women are treated like dirt in India - not much differently than the Taliban; and actually worse than countries like Iraq and Iran.
I'm glad you turned out to be an American, and that you weren't basically saying Americans were uneducated... Actually I found most of your post fairly informative. Interesting stuff.
I agree with you about India's internal organization. I sure wouldn't want to be a part of that society. Interesting note: did you know that Indians consider ALL foreigners to be untouchables? That's you and me. Untouchables. Kind of eliminates any lingering desire to visit there, doesn't it?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
My logic isn't faulty at all, but you're missing the entire point. This is not about tax revenue at all; it's about personal income for those in power. If they can make more money by pandering to big corporations, then they don't really care about the lack of payroll taxes and the resulting deficits.
.44 = $33,000 in lost annual payroll tax revenue per displaced American taxpayer
Obviously you don't understand our democratic system. Our politicians, as well as corporate leaders, will eventually care about resulting deficits.
You should be careful not to let your anger and hatred cloud your view of others. I can't imagine what made you think I was an H1B from my post; it should have been obvious that it was a complete slam against the rich politicians in power showing how they'd sell out the people they serve so they can become richer.
My family is at financial risk as well as at risk from war. I've got plenty of reason for my anger. Your blatant H-1B bias combined with an antiestablishment undertone (rich politicians in power), along with atrocious grammar, betrayed your foreign origins. Are you an H-1B? If so, from where?
Perhaps these numbers will help explain why our rich politicians in power can't ignore payroll tax revenue...
Let's see, if there are roughly 1 million H-1B and L-1 workers (there are actually more) and only half of them avoid payroll taxes, including FICA, Medicare, FUTA, State and Local, etc., let's do the math. We will assume that they have displaced American technicians earning an average of only $75k per year.The combined payroll tax percentages for a taxpayer in this bracket would roughly be as follows:
Federal: 20 percent
FICA: 15 percent (remember the matching contribution by the employer - which is also lost)
Medicare (included in FICA percentage)
State 6 percent (this is low for states like California)
FUTA 2 percent (the employer pays this one too - but it will also be lost)
Local City/County 1 percent (once again, this is low for some areas)
Combined Payroll Tax percentage = 44 percent
Please remember that much of this burden is paid for by the employer - which has a lot to do with why they hate American Payroll taxes and love foreign employees.
Now let's calculate:
$75,000 x
500,000 x $33,000 = $16.5 BILLION in lost payroll tax revenue PER YEAR!!!
Yes, it's BILLIONS in lost tax revenue! Is it no wonder that our governments are running deficits at every level?
So any American that ignores this situation is either very mathematically challenged...or a complete buffoon.
Evidently you're another H-1B worker posting as an Anonymous Coward.
So you hate Americans so much that you consider the war in Iraq a "cakewalk" for our sons and daughters??!!
Talk about a redneck!!!
Obviously it is high time we expelled ALL foreign guest workers - ASAP. Especially those who are limited to a foul, un-Christian, four-letter-word vocabulary.
It still amazes me. We have a bigger threat than nuclear missiles in Cuba - right in our own backyard - and nobody wants to do anything about it.
Did you know that APS (Palo Verde Nuclear plant in Phoenix) employs dozens of foreign guest workers under the H-1B visa program? Theses foreigners from less-than-friendly countries like China, India, and Pakistan have been given access to the computer networks that control the Palo Verde nuclear plant. Our leaders have given the backdoor passwords to foreign nationals who are here on visas similar to those used by the 09/11 terrorists.
In today's highly technical world it is naïve to think that terrorism will always be wrought by gun toting, knife wielding terrorists in a violent fashion. Our computer networks are extremely vulnerable. The Palo Verde nuclear plant is fully dependent on computers in every aspect.
In Pakistan and India, where most of the H-1B workers come from, upwards of 90 percent of the population despise America and the war with Iraq. Even the India Times, which is very pro-American, conservatively reports that 87 percent oppose Bush and America. Both India and China have now joined in condemning our military actions.
Do you think these foreign nonimmigrant workers might be more willing to accept a bribe from Al Qaeda? Foreign visa holders have worked on virtually all of our military computer systems via companies like Lockheed/Martin, Boeing, and others. Often work is done by foreign computer programmers that the defense contractor doesn't know about - via third party contracts. Foreign cyber terrorists have had ample opportunity to infect our military guidance and/or peripheral software and hardware. The lives of our sons and daughters in Iraq depend on these systems. Does it bother you that our leaders have allowed foreigners to work on these systems - often with nary a background check?
Most of you realize that computers are very complicated and susceptible to viruses and bugs. When a foreign programmer is given full access to a computer network, the potential harm increases a hundred fold. He/she no longer needs to hack into the system since they are given the backdoor passwords. This is kind of like giving the key to the hen house to the fox. This open access affords them unlimited resources and time to implant encrypted time bombs. These bombs would be virtually impossible to detect within the menagerie of the Windows operating systems. When they "explode" the cyber terrorist could be safe and sound back in his/her home country. They wouldn't even have to risk their life to kill thousands of Americans.
Don't brag about being an American - after giving away who knows how many jobs to foreign workers - and call ME a fool.
How patriotic can it be to support foreign workers at a time like this. My nephew is in Iraq and he wants to become a software engineer. But he sees that new grads aren't getting hired because of unpatriotic IT managers such as yourself.
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