D.C. Awards Obamacare IT Work To Offshore Outsourcer

dcblogs writes "Infosys, an India-based offshore IT outsourcing firm, recently announced that it had won a $49.5 million contract to develop a health benefit exchange for the District of Columbia. The contract was awarded to a U.S.-based Infosys subsidiary, Infosys Public Services. That's one of the larger government contracts won by an offshore outsourcing firm, but it's unclear whether any of the work will be done overseas. The District isn't disclosing any contract details. An FOIA request for the contract has been submitted. Infosys is one of the largest users of H-1B visas, and has been under a grand jury investigation for its use of B1 visitor visas."

Comments

Yet another great argument...

[Moryath]

for why the H-1B system ought to be massively reduced and US contracts should be awarded only to actual US companies instead of shell-game "subsidiaries."

Re:Yet another great argument...

[penglust]

Nice sound bite. Too bad it is only that. We have never had, and should never have, true free market capitalism. The government has always provided many services to the businesses that make up our economy.

Even if they had not, out taxes are paying for these contracts. Our government is supposed to represent the citizens. It is in the best interest of the citizens on this country to get people back to work.

Re:Yet another great argument...

[Moryath]

How does that fit into the free market capitalism that made America great? If someone else can do the same job cheaper, hire them instead.

You mean to say, "If someone can be hired for slave wages and locked into a single-employer contract with no chance to move jobs rather than hiring people on an equal footing."

This is about as far from "free market capitalism" as it comes. The H-1B system deliberately alters the agreement and creates a semi-slave labor deliberately paying under-market wages.

And then there's all the fraud in the system. Including falsely inflated skills listings designed to keep anyone from successfully applying for the jobs later salted to H-1Bs with far less than the originally advertised qualifications. And of course the demand for H-1Bs rather than actual EB-5s where they would have legal right to leave for better employment if it was offered by another company.

Don't you dare use the term "free market capitalism", you fucking slavemonger. It's nothing of the sort.

What an inflammatory submission

[GodfatherofSoul]

Obamacare + foreign workers = WIN! (for you click-whoring editors)

By this logic, probably every government IT project has some element of either outsourced labor or parts manufactured overseas. Right now, I'm trying to find an article that I can reduce to a headline with big tits, gun rights, and failed Bush foreign policy in it...

Dey took are jerbs!!!

[meta-monkey]

It would be great if immigration policy could be decided based on something other than the interests of suppressing wages and controlling the workforce.

Agribusiness loves cheap labor from Mexico. Keep 'em coming, but keep that deportation threat over their heads so they don't get uppity about those "wages" and "working conditions" things.

Then the wealthiest companies America need tech workers and don't want to pay American wages. Since they can't pile in illegals to run the data centers, get those h1bs rammed through congress. There we go, cheap tech workers who are nice and easy to control because they don't want to get deported after two weeks if they lose their job.

Feudalism. Fascism. Whatever, it's a racket.

Re:Why?

[penglust]

Number? Studies? Actual data? I keep hearing this kind of crap. The problem is every time a project I was on got associated with off shoring it ended up costing time and effort here to cover up the screw ups.

Again, present actual facts. I am sick and tired of the same old sound bites that just never seem to be true.