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The Sopranos Meet H-1B In New Jersey
theodp writes "We smack this IT geek around a little, take him for a nice car ride, threaten to 'take care of him' if he doesn't recant his story, give him 5 G's for his trouble, and badda boom, badda bing, case dismissed. Federal prosecutors allege that an H-1B visa-holding IT employee who was owed some $53,000 in back wages was threatened in meetings at restaurants and in his home if he didn't change his story. However, the victim captured some of what happened on tape, and two employees of an Illinois-based IT staffing company — not named in the indictment but identified by the NJ Star-Ledger as ComData Consulting Inc. of Rolling Meadows, IL — are now facing extortion-related charges and a possible 20 years in prison."
Absolutely. And really, this might be how things are done elsewhere, but it is never acceptable. I'm unfamiliar with the Chinese restaurant/massage parlor comment, but these practices need to be stamped out wherever they are. Cultural relativism is criminal when it is used to excuse crimes like this.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Don't. Do. Nothing.
Our Talent Engagement and Management Teams strongly believe in
The capacity of recruiters for absolute BS is amazing. Mind you there are smart ethical headhunters out there, but they're few and far between.
Anyone notice how "careers" is misspelled on their website? That alone would cause me to NEVER use their services, because if you can't proofread your own damn website, what guarantees are there that you pay attention to detail in whatever work you provide?
If they do this, then no one will work for them and they will change names and thrive. See Blackwater (nee Xe), Anderson Consulting (nee Accenture), AirTran Airways (nee ValueJet), Philip Morris (nee Altria), and perhaps as a zombie counterpoint, Caldera International (nee SCO Group).
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They should be able to quickly and easily get a citizen-track visa or green card, but if we just grant citizenship to everybody who wants it, people will just be citizens for as long as it is convenient - say, as long as it takes to acquire the knowledge to offshore a process or function. There is every reason to give green cards to hardworking people who want to live and die in America, but I can't fathom why we want guest workers - except to hold down domestic wages.
When leaving only gets you dragged back and beaten twice as hard for escaping, it's not really an option.
Escape is a gutsy move, sure to piss off the captors and it may even cost you your life.
The lion's share of the burden rightly falls on outsiders who are not as easy to catch, and are in a much better position to summon the cavalry.
Contrary to what you might think, she could leave if she wanted to.
VERY common misconception where domestic and foreign worker violence is involved. No, a lot of the time these people don't believe they have a choice. By the time things have progressed to this point, most of them have it pretty thoroughly engrained in their minds that offering any form of resistance, to say nothing of reporting the problem, will only lead to intensified beatings, to the point of severe injury or death. These people are controlled by fear. Fear of worse beatings. Fear of death.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Here are some examples from today's headlines. And by today I mean this week!
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/17/alec-massey-mine/
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-18/goldman-s-staged-explosion-deserves-apology-roger-lowenstein.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/yesterday-germany-today-uk-tomorrow-world-goldmans-response-lawsuits-everyone-q1-stub-bonuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar_Capital
Why is Snark Required?
And fear of the unknown. Even being beat or dying doesn't hold a candle to the fear of the unknown. When people are in an abusive relationsihp, they often stay because the abuse and beatings they get here are at least known. Comparatively, they don't know if they leave _what_ will happen.
Fear of the unknown stops people from many things: from leaving abusive relationships, to success in business and life. It's also a huge problem for guys wanting to ask a girl out.
Here is an even better idea: Lets change the immigration laws so that if someone wants to work in the US, they can quickly and easily acquire citizenship. I assert that anyone who wants to be an American citizen enough to ask to be, deserves to be. All of this isolationist shit should have died along with the 20th century.
Let me tell this to you as a foreigner.
You can't give citizenship out left and right. What makes your country is your culture (and I don't mean things like country music or apple pie here...), and if you just open your borders, you will be immediately swamped by third-worlders (like me) who want their piece of the quality-of-life pie. They don't care in the slightest how the pie came to be there in the first place, or what they have to do, long-term, to keep it - well, some will, but they are the minority. Most just want to have it.
Therefore, for immgiration to be productive, rather than detrimental, to your society, you need to make sure that, however many people you take in, they are assimilated into your culture - and that's your upper limit. And the relatively straightforward way to see how good the immigrant is assimilating is observing how they do when they're still on worker's visa. It also gives them time to learn the language, as well as basics of living in a new place (you'd be surprised to know how many things that are mundane to you are strange and alien to a newcomer), and see what the society there is really like, and decide whether they're really sure they can be a proper part of it.
To that extent, the process of acquiring permanent resident status (and eventually citizenship) from worker visa shouldn't be too simple - you need some gates there to control it. The biggest problem with your program as is is twofold. First, there are no established terms or guarantees. In most other countries that have similar programs in place, you are eligible to apply after working in the country for a certain specific period of time, and the process is straightforward in a sense that there are usually point-based systems with published evaluation criteria, so, for the most part, you know in advance whether you will be approved or not (unless you don't pass a security background check - but that isn't typical, though chances of a "false positive" are higher in today's terrorism-crazy world). The amount of time that processing of the application takes from the moment you submit it is also generally known fairly well.
In contrast, applying for a green card from H1-B is very much a gamble - you never know if they approve you or not, nor how long it takes - and it can take really, really long. I know of people waiting for 7+ years to get there; for comparison, in Canada, the whole process almost universally takes less than 3 years from the moment you first set foot in the country (including 1 year on worker visa so that you're eligible for fast-track permanent residence).
The second problem is just the one GP noted - that H1-Bs are severely disadvantaged, because they're tied to their employer, and, should he kick them out for any reason, they have to start packing right away - no chance to find another job (in practice, quite a few people actually break the law and overstay to do so - but this is also very much a gamble). Yeah, in theory, employers have to prove that the wage they offer to employee is above market average for this position - but there are many well-known tricks on how to legally do this for practically any number. And, once hired, the employer has both the carrot - raises - as well as the stick - termination of employment - at his full disposal.
If a citizen is denied a raise that he believes is rightly his, he can just quit and go look for a better job - and, if his assessment of his worth was correct, he'll find one. An H1-B just has to suck it up, because however bad he has it, it's usually still way better than what he'd get back home. Ditto for overtime.
And, of course, it screws both H1-Bs them
True, they just oppose a government powerful enough to do something about it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.