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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."
Geeks live for this sort of crap, so don't try it.
You will lose.
[End Of Line]
When I was an undergrad I used to eat across the street from the Engineering building at a small Vietnamese restaurant, it was cheap and hot.
One particular late night I came there with a few hours of Hydro HW, sat down and ordered some Pho and started taking my stuff out of my backpack when I heard this inhuman scream and a slap. I thought they were being robbed or something and froze there in terror until I started hearing the crying and "shhhhhh" sounds I remember all too well from a Catholic school upbringing, someone was being beaten in the back and whoever was doing it was trying to stop other people from finding out. I am ashamed to say it but I went outside and smoked a cigarette, ate the Pho and left as quickly as possible. I think I even left a tip. The next week I came in during the day to get something and the woman behind the counter had a fading welt in the shape of a belt across her face and she was smiling.
So, after that shameful moment of realization I went to the Women's Resource Center on campus and told them. Never found out what happened though, that woman's face behind the counter haunts me to this day. Too many of just do nothing when we know the shitty situation those workers find themselves in.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Email to info@comdataus.com. If you have hiring authority, promise never to use them. If you don't have hiring authority, just remember the name and badmouth them to anyone who does.
Think global, act loco
20 years for extortion, and how many years for falsifying the need for entry level IT workers? I can name several unemployed people who could easily fit the task of "web development, information technology and software development" mentioned in the article. Specialized skill, yeah right.
Judging by the content of recruiters e-mails that I get, it is not possible to get an IT related job in the United States right now unless you are an H1-B visa holder.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I remember years back being lured to a new job with one of the incentives being that the job included health insurance. Turned out that they 'had' it terms of it was offered, not included. It was an awful plan with no employer cost coverage. The cost for my family would have been a grand a month if I had paid for it.
I explained that I was one phone call from going back to where I came from and that the recruiters deceptive words were going to have a cost. In the end they ate the cost of the insurance, and I stayed where I was. Some people will bully you unless you stand up for yourself. All that being said, in today's economy I don't know if that is still good advice.
How about accountability in H1B with public records? That would solve this kind of problem for the poor guy who was owed so many back wages. Those in the states who are losing out to H1B's would better be able to make the case that their are Americans who can do the job. Those that do come over could avoid being turned into virtual slaves, I have met far too many H1B's who were worked 80 hours a week for wages less than half what an American would take. They would do it too, whether it was because their passport was confiscated or because such wages were still that much better than what they made at home.
As it is, having a h1-b or having to physically move overseas or creating some sort of relationship over there, has kept us from sinking that low - but it will happen eventually. I don't see the World's economy growing fast enough to account for all the labor being added as more and more countries start trading with the rest of the World.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
There are two aspects of law that apply to audio recordings.
First, you can't use it as evidence (without having a warrant that says that a specific recording can be made). So, while you couldn't take it into court, you certainly could use it to go to the police and convince them very effectively to investigate further. And if the criminals are using such amateurish standover tactics, then odds are pretty good that basic police investigating will be enough to charge them soon afterwards.
Secondly, it's an invasion of privacy. Even - for some funny reason - in a public place (hey, I didn't write the law). But, odds are extremely low that you'll be charged criminally, since the DA has better things to do than charge victims, and criminals aren't usually going to go to a civil court to say that they've been recorded illegally when the illegal recording in question identifies their own much more illegal activities.
I'm not saying I advocate means-to-an-end/fight-evil-with-evil solutions; I'm just saying that, pragmatically, someone who makes an audio recording of a crime doesn't have much to worry about on account of the recording itself. So you're completely correct, but none of what you're correct about matters very much in practice.
Also; that's not what happened anyway. It was a recording with a warrant (and not in Illinois), so none of what either of us said applies.
I lived in a small town on the Jersey shore and the tourist industry was controlled by organized crime. There were things like pizza shops that stayed in business without customers, suspicious fires, business owners being "encouraged" to sell, etc. Each summer an army of Mexican workers would appear out of thin air to staff the restaurants, hotels, and beaches. I figured it made sense with New York City near and the promise of work.
A few years ago, it came to light that the local mob was working with Mexican mobs to traffic in seasonal workers across the state. They were working for next to nothing, usually tricked or coerced into service by Mexican criminals.
Like you said, it was revolting. A lot of them were teenagers or young families with kids. It was a very small town, but we never saw them in school or playing outside. Police found homes with 70+ people crammed in every room. They were apparently told to stay out of sight and spent months with young children shut inside day and night.
The idiots from the IT outsourcing firm should have done it the "dot com" way. Under pay him by the same amount but promise him lots of stock options with absurd vesting requirements. Too bad if the the stock options go under water and then disappear through a corporate buyout.
You may have better odds striking it rich in Vegas or by playing the lottery but stock options in lieu of salary are legal.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
> but most Americans complain about these things for perfectly rational reasons.
ha haha do you really believe that? No they don't, they do it for one of two reasons:
1. They are racist, even if they don't want to admit it (though to be fair, it's usually more ignorance than racism)
2. They are scared that they are going to lose their job to someone else.
I remember when we had a lot of upgrade related tedium that nobody at my company wanted to do, so we hired an Indian company do do it. The white trash people in my company (who, remember, didn't want to do the work), started making silly complaints:
"Doesn't India have like a 24 hour time difference?" No, and if they did, 24 hours would mean 0 hours. They don't mind working different hours to humor us, and it's better if they work off hours anyway, so they can get stuff done when we're sleeping.
"But do they speak English? Probably only Indian" - yeah, there's no language called Indian, brianiac. I guess they didn't know that the official language of instruction at many many places in India is English.
Also, the whole "Our Jobs" concept is bogus. There is work to be done. There is no place where god or satan defined which work is "our work". There's work to be done, and people willing to do it. If I live in New York, does that mean I should say people can't come from New Jersey to do it "My" New York work? I mean, get real. Bitching about people coming to the US to work will only result in the work being moved overseas instead, and the US will decrease in relevance.
Oh yeah, Americans love a free market, when it works to their advantage. As soon as it goes against your advantage, then you don't like it. Part of capitalism is that you will earn the market price. With the world shrinking, and a lot of people overseas willing to work harder than americans for less pay, that market value is falling for many basic jobs. That's the way it is, get used to it - or you could just bitch about it some more instead. There are ways to insulate yourself from it and prepare, though. I suggest you read "the world is flat" for more about that.
Anyway, as an American who had to go through a lot of hurdles to get a Visa somewhere else, I agree that the H1, and similar programs are not great - but in the opposite way. There should be no such requirement to get a Visa. That's just a hurdle to free market dynamics. I would vote that people should be able to move between countries in the future like they do states now, as the world shrinks. All the visa processing mainly just creates headaches for everyone. If anyone could simply move to the US or any other country they wanted (so long as they pay taxes, etc.), then a lot of people would come to the US, and realize that working at McDonalds there isn't any better than working at McDonalds in China or India, and go back. People with true skills would be able to get employed with less hassle, and if you ever got tired of bitching about how immigrants stole "your" jobs, you could go somewhere else and steal theirs. Some countries have taken a step in this direction (The Working Holiday program, which includes Canada, Autrailia, Japan, New Zealand, and a few others) - and it's been good for them in general. It hasn't lead to an explosion of illegal immigrants and the fall of society.
There is no shortage of citizens that are capable of doing the job - they just have the problem of being a US citizen.
Cancel the program and make it impossible to ignore the citizen until there is a real problem (long-term & short-term unemployment under 2%). Make it so that permatemping/temporary work does not count towards that 2%. Then reinstate with a sufficient amount of people(whom are paid a wage that discourages bribery) to enforce that law.
When you hear "shortage" used to describe the amount of citizens in a needed part of the private sector(whether it is IT or most non-temporary forms of employment in the US), the source is lying through their teeth.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Your point is valid to an extent, there are a few diamonds among the ruff and there are some piss poor american programmers. But (in my experiences and most anecdotal experience I've heard) most native India indian programmers cannot program the simplest stuff. I've come to the belief that it is a culture thing, the ways we think and process stuff has got to be completely different here compared to there. I don't know what's so hard about thinking logically but trying to explain something (with pictures and everything, I spent 6 months in Hydrabad training a team) always seems to fail. Honestly I don't know why that entire country is mostly full of fails.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
It's good to see the Department of Labor putting some teeth into labor law again. During the Bush years, too many regulatory agencies were out to lunch. The SEC, of course, we know about. Less well known was the attitude at the Labor Department. Now they're catching crooks again.
Also, Obama just made two recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB was down to two members, and couldn't do anything. Now the NLRB is back in business. It's going to be easier to unionize.
US wage and hour law, as enacted by Congress decades ago, is quite pro-labor. It's the enforcement that's been weak. Looks like that's changing.
"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."
This, of course, is already the story of America. Anyone who isn't a Native American is the descendant of people who wanted a better life. Those of us with families that have been here for centuries have no more right to be here than you do.
This, of course, is already the story of America. Anyone who isn't a Native American is the descendant of people who wanted a better life.
It's not that simple - there's also this whole "freedom, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" thing. Everyone wants a better life, but different people understand that differently, and U.S. has its own definition (that is rather unique in some ways).
You think that's bad? Here's something to think about. It is illegal to import goods into the USA that have been manufactured by prison labour. Not just for sale, but also things that you might have on you during your vacation. Oh, and this goes for interstate as well.
But the US uses prison labour to manufacture various things. Are license plates still made in prisons? If so, that does seem to go against this particular law every single time you cross a state border. How about all the circuit boards that IBM and Compaq have or used to have made by prison labour?
Population growth? How does that affect it much? More people, more people need to provide services to a larger population.
Technology? To a certain extent I guess. As more fewer people can care for more other people. On the other hand, technology has provided new avenues for services. Instead of 2 small grocery shops there is now 1 large and efficient one, but next to it is a cell-phone dealer...
Free market and capitalism? yes. most certainly. here in norway the minimum wage, while absent in law, in reality is over $15/hr for unskilled labour. Even with a much higher tax-rate than the US that still leave plenty of money for a single person to support themselves frugaly... Yes, eating at a restaurant or even fast food frequently is prohibitly expensive here, but that's because even those people working there makea decent salary.
The low cost of many products and services in the US is based on those providing them being payed really low wages./P
my dad has better gear there then most of the local contractors / workers
Maybe he should hire a couple of impressionable young people, teach them honest business practices (and how to do the actual work of course) and start his own contracting company.
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