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Infosys Fined $35M For Illegally Bringing Programmers Into US On Visitor Visas
McGruber writes "The U.S. government fined Infosys $35 million after an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department found that the Indian company used inexpensive, easy-to-obtain B-1 visas meant to cover short business visits — instead of harder-to-get H-1B work visas — to bring an unknown number of its employees for long-term stays. The alleged practice enabled Infosys to undercut competitors in bids for programming, accounting and other work performed for clients, according to people close to the investigation. Infosys clients have included Goldman Sachs Group, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. Infosys said in an email that it is talking with the U.S. Attorney's office, 'regarding a civil resolution of the government's investigation into the company's compliance' with employment-record 'I-9 form' requirements and past use of the B-1 visa. A company spokesman, who confirmed a resolution will be announced Wednesday, said Infosys had set aside $35 million to settle the case and cover legal costs. He said the sum was 'a good indication' of the amount involved."
I'm sure Infosys made more than $35mln by bringing those programmers in the way they did. Aside from not having to pay for the H1B visas, they could pay the programmers much less this way. Of course nothing will change. They'll start doing the same thing again. These settlements show when you have enough money, anything is legal.
When is the punishment going to be "No, you're out of business, you fraud. You don't play fair. You cost us jobs. You're GONE."
These bastards *made* more than 35 million off the scam. They're turning a profit off it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Anything to get rid of those pesky American workers.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
For each and every position which they did not higher industry median wage for they should pay 3 times the difference in wages + benefits (including pay-ins to the government) that were not disbursed. Further they should also have to pay some type of fine per position, per (year/quarter) that the violations occurred.
In other words, they should for SURE show a net loss for this bad behavior. If the behavior is egregious enough those in authority at the time should also face real jail time.
Anything less than that is a slap on the wrist and will not curb this behavior among companies who look at the balance sheet and conclude that the fines are a cost of doing business.
We're missing step #2, which is "And since you're defrauding the government among other customers, you're blacklisted from doing business with them again."
$35m isn't a drop in the bucket.
Dump H1B. Instead of giving out Visa for foreign nationals, we should try to KEEP foreign graduates in this country - make it easier for foreign students graduating from US colleges to live and work in the US.
This is no brainer - many of the best and brightest from all over the world are already here in our universities.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
They are not fining the workers, they are fining the company that brought them in illegally.
The imported employees get spun off and transferred around so fast that the government loses track of them.
Probably find dozens of them working on Obamacare web site right now.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There are both good and bad reasons to grant Visas to tech workers. We should not turn down genuine talent that wants to work here. Having bright minds emigrate, work, live, contribute, and integrate here is probably one of the biggest foundations of America's success.
What we don't want is a bunch of scum fucks importing slave-pay workers to save a buck. I say bring in the IT/tech talent, but on the condition they are paid competitive wages and compensation (And enforce that with some teeth!). You also need to make sure they have freedom and mobility so their sponsor company can't hold their visa over them as a form of extortion.
Granting guest workers MORE privileges and protections will ensure that they're less attractive to unscrupulous outfits looking to save money instead of hiring available domestic talent. Companies that genuinely need foreign talent will happily pay for it.
Infosys is not the only one gaming the system. My fortune 20 company is addicted to these "by the pound consultants" from the likes of Infosys/Tata/Berlasoft/you-know-who-you-are as well. There is zero effort put into sourcing local staff and the company pays substantial sums to these firms (who pocket half or more of the hourly rate) when they could just as easily get local employees for the same cost. Then there's the poor sods that are being raped by several levels of middle men and have to live 10 to a flat to make ends meet. The only real benefit to the local firm is the ability to extract hours out of these poor saps that local employees would balk at...as well as the ability to hire/fire on a whim rather than engage in any significant long-term planning.
The end result is a revolving door of consultants, poor productivity, poor knowledge retention, and poor morale on the part of both the "wage slaves" and the local staff who are interacting with them. And it's readily apparent that this local firm could hire local staff for approximately the same money and improve productivity and morale at the "cost" of not being able to bully wage slaves into working 60 hour weeks for a pittance (once the contractor firm cut is extracted).
Let's end the practice of enriching the TCS/Infosys companies of the world at the expense of college grads in this country (both foreign born and native born).
I think people are confusing H1B (which have their own problems), with the B-1 visas that Infosys was caught abusing...
H1B are for employing people that live HERE to work HERE and are paid at a level to live HERE. B-1 visa are for people that live THERE, but are temporarily working HERE, but are paid to live THERE (which is generally much lower). For example, a person employed with the same company but lives say in India, that needs to come to the US to attend a meeting, or conference, or perhaps for a couple months for training or maybe even negotiate a contract in person would need a B-1 to get into the country (you technically can't do any of these things on a tourist visa).
The duration of an H1B is 3 years (extendable to 6 years), the duration of a B-1 is typically 6 months (extendable to 1 year). Think of the B-1 as a visitor visa to do technical visiting (there is a separate P-visa for an athlete or artist to make a performance in the US for money which is another type of visa).
The abuse that Infosys was doing is that they were submitting manufactured documentation for the B-1 that they were coming to the US to attend training, meetings or conference, but employing B-1 visa folks to work on long term projects. That is a big NO-NO because then you can paying foreign wages (instead of H1B equivalent wages) to people work on projects even though they are here, undercutting everyone (including H1Bs).
Infosys could have gotten the "death-sentence" (which some companies have gotten) which is no B-1 visas for a year, but they are of course big enough to avoid that and only need to pay $35M. This slap on the wrist is what to get upset about, not tangle this up with the separate H1B discussion. At least H1Bs are supposed to get paid a prevailing wage and their numbers are supposed to be limited, so at least on paper, it's reasonable. There are none of the similar statutory limitations on a B-1, so when you are abusing it, you are really going to town.
I can just imagine someone screaming that and suddenly all the programmers running out of their cubicles in panic!
Hint: I am in India, though I do not work for "Indian" company.
All my friends in TCS, Infosys, Wipro etc., went to US through B1 route if the duration was less than 2-3 months. B1 Visa explicitly forbids working, but is for meetings and stuff.
Yet they went on customer sites etc.,
They are even trained to give specific answers to Immigration and say a lot about meetings and stuff. Some are even booked as members on cheap conferences spaced 15-20 days apart so it all looks like the real deal.
These companies are unethical scum, and due to their bottom feeding attitude, they have spoilt the reputation of the "Indian software Engineer". The world now views the Indian software engineer as a low cost labour intensive guy fit for only data entry with the help of a spell checker.
That brush gets broadly applied to us product design software engineers doing real software work, and getting 2-3X the salary the bottom feeders pay.
Speaking of ethics, employees of these companies take their Earned or Paid leave, and then come to office, so that do not lose out the govt sop of leave travel allowance. But any actual leave is hard to come by unless you are on bench.
During their foreign stints, they were forced to handover any allowance in lue of extra working hours given to them by the employer(some US employers used to give sops) to their parent company.
If you are hiring a cheap bottom feeder from India, all I can say is "All the best". The low quality work will blow up in your face 1-2 years from now, and no amount of patchwork will fix it.
Then you will go to a bar after your layoff and lament how you only get cheap unskilled monkeys from India. But the fact is you are the retard who went bottom feeding and found only slime.
Lame, low governmental fines = The Cost of Doing Business. I suspect they could find this amount under their couch cushions.
Major Federal violations such as this should _start_ at 10% of the total corporations' gross profits encompassing the entire time span of the violation, rapidly rising with discovery of any willful cover-up.