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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?"
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
Yes.
It was originally intended to allow employers to fill jobs when they cannot find legal residents to fill them.
To be able to use this, the employer must certify that they not only are unable to find an employee who is a legal resident. They are also supposed to certify that no terminations would happen to the non-H1b employees because of this hire (ie. termination/layoffs shortly after).
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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.
So if I go to college, work my ass off, get a degree, and get employed by Sun, continue to work my ass off, I shouldn't complain when I get fired because I was underbidded by quasi-slave labor? And if I complain I'm a racist? And for some reason, because he has more children than I do, he deserves the job more?
This is capitalism at its worst, not its best. In America, we hire Americans. We don't sublet to another country to save money and backstab our own people. At best, this is an atrocious act of business and a slap in the face of ever American. At worst it's an act of slavery and the exploitation of both our countries. I hope Sun gets dragged over hot coals on this one.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Clearly you don't understand the situation. It's not like programmers are saying "boo-hoo, these damn Indians are willing to work for $60K/yr, I can't live like that!", they're saying "these damn Indians are willing to work for $6K/yr, there's no possible way I can live on that". Yes, there is exaggeration in those figures (but when it comes to outsourcing... not really), but it is NOT a matter of Indians working for just a little bit less than Americans are willing to work -- they're working for significantly less than we could comfortably live with. Programming is not akin to working at McDonalds -- it's skilled, technical work. Why should programmers have to settle for an unskilled laborer's wages simply because there are poor workers willing to work for unlivable wages?
"The H-1B visa allows a professional worker from abroad to be employed by a U.S. employer" with a couple caveats. It requires workers be paid prevailing wages, so it shouldn't be used as a tool to get cheap workers. It's a temporary visa--it's not meant to permanently replace citizen employees.
And most importantly, it's meant to fill positions for which qualified legal workers are not available. If the Rolling Stones want to tour the USA, sure, let 'em in. No one here does quite what they do. However if a company is not only laying off workers and replacing them with folks with H1-Bs, but also not paying them the prevailing wages citizens get, that company is breaking both the spirit an the letter of the law.
In the end this case boils down to who has the better lawyer. Sun has already had similar suits dismissed.
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)
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.
What the company does owe is the government of this country. They are under legal obligation to follow certain rules (one of them being to hire a US worker instead of an H1-B worker if a US worker is available for the job) that they agreed to in order to get the benifit of operating thier business in this country.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
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
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!
Moreover, the consistant argument CEOs and top officers make for their huge salaries and generous bonuses (in spite of drops in profits) is that they posess talents that are in short supply (leadership, strategic thinking, etc), and that the short supply demands large wages.
If that's the case, why isn't Americas marketing and executive class full of H1-Bs? If India is competant at generating engineers then I'm sure they're highly skilled at generating MBAs and marketing people, too.
The fact is that H1-B is solely an excuse for corporations to keep engineering pay low. There's just no other logical conclusion you can reach.
I've had this discussion with numerous marketing execs before and in the final analysis they have the idea that engineers are ALWAYS worth less than marketing and must always be paid less, and that much of their motivation for seeking H1Bs has been driven largely by the fact that they can't justify driving marketing salaries any higher in response to market-driven increases in engineering salaries.
The market-driven reality should have been that marketing salaries went lower than engineering salaries, simply due to market demand. But this didn't happen, due to some weird class system that values the marketing/executive class above all others, even when the market will not sustain it!
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")
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?
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.