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Sun Sued Over H1-B Workers

Posted by michael on from the revenge-of-the-nerds dept.

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?"

3 of 1,002 comments (clear)

  1. Unlikely by saikou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  2. This happens everywhere. by Blackwulf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:Sux it down Sun... by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So what is your point? Sun operates in the US, taking advantage of the H1B, because of the security, lack of corruption, good healthcare, etc. They are deriving definite benefits from operating in the US, and clearly it is their first choice over completely moving overseas. In essence Sun is having their cake and eating it too, abusing a system that was created because of the theoretical (and completely unproven lack of talent). Note that I'm not an American, nor do I live in the US, but given the supposed reason that H1Bs exist, one would think that every single H1B technology worker would have long been sent home. Instead companies like Sun keep using it as a bargaining tool to unfairly take advantage of the little guy. Of course this will hurt them as many of us have a real distasteful impression of Sun : I wouldn't touch their products personally.

    BTW: Before everyone yaps on about how the US worker had better suck it up and deal with it or they'll relocate to India, let me give you a more realistic scenario - 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?