Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.