Slashdot Mirror
Lawsuit: Oracle Called $50K 'Good Money For an Indian'
jfruh writes "A former Oracle sales manager is suing the database company for what he called racially discriminatory salary-setting practices. Ian Spandow wanted to transfer a high-performing salesman from Oracle's India office to California. When he requested a salary of $60,000 a year or more for the employee, equivalent to what his white American counterparts received, he was told instead to offer $50,000, which was 'good money for an Indian.' When Spandow protested, he was himself summarily fired."
I'm shocked. Oracle has always seemed like one the more reputable companies, willing to compete fairly, not obsessed with gouging its customers, and nary an evil bone in their corporate body. I can't imagine them hiring or promoting people that would act like this.
There is an Oracle office in India for a reason. They're cheap. Defeats the purpose if you bring them all over here on US wages, wouldn't it? Might as well hire Americans, god forbid!
But we need that talent from overseas because Americans don't have the skills do those jobs -- ask Larry Ellison, or Mark Zuckerburg! This is why America needs amnesty and more immigration!
-- Ethanol-fueled
Because that is good money for an indian. Getting off the reservation and its rampant fire water problem is a plus.
Oracle didn't say anything. Some dude that works there said it. The company should be charged for any discrimination their employees say, but don't make it like it was a statement from their PR or anything like it. There are people that saying stupid things like that anywhere, at any given time.
C'mon, get your Indians right, mate!
(yeah, we're all going to burn in hell for these comments)
An Oracle executive, sales manager and human resources manager walk into a court room...
In the US, that's the law regarding H1-B workers as well, but it's not enforced.
According to my employer, workers from overseas that are in the US and want to become citizens require lawyer time which isn't cheap. The article didn't mention whether the person from India was coming permanently or if the position was temporary. If it wasn't an H-1B (temporary) position then the lower wage might have been justified based on the cost of bringing the person over and the subsequent costs associated with sponsorship.
That would mean law is enforced, and that is commie red soshalsism, friend.
If the Indian's didn't work for less, would it disincentivize their hiring?
Or is there also an expectation they will tolerate longer hours in a less hospitable work environment?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It certainly is good money for someone — whatever their race — from India, where that same person was earning much less...
Unless Mr. Spandow's own dismissal was due to racism or some other illegal discrimination against him, I doubt, the suit will be found to have much merit. Bad publicity for Oracle — maybe. But nothing worse. Oh, and a much of folks in India thinking, that he is a spoiled idiot...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Was that they were only willing to offer him $50,000, not even $60,000 in CALIFORNIA. Isn't $60,000 a year under the poverty line there?
Wage discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc is illegal. "$50K/year is good for someone with your skill set" is perfectly acceptable. Telling him to his face that he's not worth any more than that because he's got brown skin and a Mumbai accent is not.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
In the US, that's the law regarding H1-B workers as well, but it's not enforced.
No kidding... As an American, when I worked for a U.S. company a decade ago, the Indians brought over on H1-B visas were paid quite a bit more than I was for doing the same job.
On the flip side, though, I guess I had better job security (being competent and underpaid...)
This was a person who was already working within Oracle... this was not a new hire. I'd dare say that most people in America who already work for Oracle make more than $50k.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
According to http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-nator.cfm it seems like prohibition from workplace discrimination based on national origin extends to hiring. Unfortunately, the most likely outcome of a lawsuit like this one would be a fat settlement for this indivisual, after which, it will be business as usual at Oracle and at other companies with similar hiring practices.
From TFA, he is suing because he was (he alleges) sacked for asking to hire the Indian at a salary they would have offered one of the rest of the team and complaining when they wouldn't.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
In this particular case, he was after transferring an employee of Oracle India who already had worked with the team (albeit remotely) and knew the systems involved, so arguably the pool of equally qualified Americans who weren't already employed by Oracle was probably pretty small.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
It's a little early to pull the old "race card" out. Is the employee an indian (citizen of India)? I can easily interpret that as "$50K/year is good for an indian national."
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
So it goes..
d
That's still illegal.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Really? How?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
short version is it's a snake pit but you can make some serious $ if you can survive in it & produce!
The anonymous coward is correct.
I work for an enterprise software company (security space) and I'm friends with much of our sales team. Exactly the same deal.
When he complained that they wouldn't offer a good employee the good salary because of his race/nationality.
Race / Creed / Nationality - you cannot discriminate on any of these basis.
Same salary for same position, that's the law.
There's no lee-way, no loop-holes, no escape. Have fun at the trial there Larry.
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
I am fairly certain that if they fired a guy for saying $50,000 was a too low, they weren't willing to give anything more.
That guy from India presumably needed a visa, such as an H1B. In order to get this, a company needs to demonstrate to the Dept of Labor that the person in question can command an above-average salary. How do they do this if they undercut people in comparable jobs?
Is this what corporate America is, these days? Someone disagrees in an e-mail with the head office and gets dismissed for that? Oracle would be unethical, but also downright stupid if they fired everyone who didn't share the views of their superiors. I can't believe that...
You just described a business transaction, not a con.
The guy now works at Mongo DB
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ian-spandow/1/739/557
Well, if Oracle or Microsoft or any company wants to find good talent at cheaper rates anywhere in the world, it's fine. However what is not fine is bringing them at cheaper than local rates to another locality/country. As one of the poster already mentioned "Its the Law". That is because it brings the cost of labor down in that locality and everyone in that industry gets hurt. In the long run, even the company who hired the person at lower price since the consumer is not stupid. In some time they will learn to negotiate the product at the lower price.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So 50K is good money for an Indian. Indian maid that is!
Turns out Government of India pays the diplomats at that level about 4500$ a month. The maid misunderstood the line in the visa application where the employer is saying, "my salary is 4500$ a month" to prove her ability to pay the contracted wage to be the wage the maid is going to be paid. She complained she was getting only 1/3 of that money. But 1500$ a month was the contracted wage. Surprised that US Attorney who had successfully prosecuted billionaire hedge fund managers tripped up on that. 54K salary for a maid? Should have rung alarm bells.
Well, she has been allowed to go home. India sent another diplomat back in retaliation.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Reading FTA I noticed a couple of things.
First, it doesn't say the employee was a "high-performing salesman". Spandow was a Sales Manager, but it doesn't say what job was offered to the employee from India. My first thought was that $60K for a high performing salesman is absurdly low so I would guess that this guy is a tech of some kind.
Second, the HR response could be taken a couple of ways. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume someone transferring from a foreign country will be less productive at the beginning. If the HR person had phrased it as "experience has shown that a transferee like this competes with other employees earning $50K" it wouldn't have been a problem
Third, given what was said to Spandow I'm inclined to believe there was discrimination here and that Oracle is in deep doo doo.
They are in the sense that discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or national origin is illegal. If you want to say "let's hire somebody (citizen or green card holder) who is already here", that's fine. Supposedly some laws even encourage that.
I hope he gets enough money that he doesn't need employment.
But we're just talking about the opening offer, aren't we?
We're talking about an initial offer that was lowballed because the guy was Indian. That's discrimination.
Only if the subject is a US citizen or within the US. In this case we are talking about the nationality of an Oracle employee who is a foreign citizen who does not reside in the US.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You didn't say what his visa was, but the H-1B law says that you must pay someone at least as well as someone with the same skills and experience who is not an H-1B. If you believe that's ever enforced, then I've got a bridge to sell you.
As a tech who is unemployed, I will work for that kind of money today!!!
That was the salary for a salesman already experienced with the company, for a job in California.
Do you still qualify?
It said L-2 visa.
Table-ized A.I.
Piling on here. In sales, and particularly in enterprise SW sales, the base salary is irrelevant. Sure, $10K seem like a big deal, but good sales people, who will eat their young to close an order, who blow away quota, can easily clear $300K or more in commissions and bonuses. Oracle will be no different.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
Better yet, help make PostreSql better, create Help sites for it, etc. That's the best way to kick Oracle in the jewels.
Table-ized A.I.
My bad. I don't know the rules for L-2, but L-1 is more wide open than H-1B. Whatever the rules are though, my comment about them not being enforced still stands.
There is no requirement in the law, that the person be a US citizen. Only that the company be a US company and the employee is one employed in the US. It even includes potential employees who are immigrating provided they will be working in the US.
I once got in trouble for sorting resumes into two piles. Ones where I could pronounce the last name and ones where I could not pronounce the last name. I have over 50 qualified applicants and needed a way to cut it down to a manageable number. Seems that is illegal to do.
I ended up laying them out on the floor and throwing 10 pennies in the air then calling in the 10 resumes they landed on. Turns out that random chance is a 100% legal way to sort resumes.
Never mind fixing the problem - fix the situation. Annex India!
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first federal law designed to protect most U.S. employees from employment discrimination based upon that employee's (or applicant's) race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Public Law 88-352, July 2, 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et. seq.)[Emphasis added
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
All the low-priced foreign labor does to the market is make it more competitive. Sure, guys like O?a?l? and I?M are hiring cheap (non-US Citizen) labor whenever they can - it saves them huge amounts of money and they have the size and infrastructure to make effective use of personnel who may or may not be the equal of local talent (i.e., they can absorb considerable amounts of incompetency before any problems actually show). There are plenty of places which can't afford to cut those corners within their organization - and typically, they can't afford the front end expenses associated with hiring personnel on H1B visas anyhow. Let the ?r?c?e's and ?B?'s of the world do what they do best - create the standard and market mediocrity. That leaves room for the rest of the field to concentrate on products which exceed the standard, products crafted by the best personnel money can buy.
No more JAVA, OpenOffice or MySQL for you.
Indian = someone living in India regardless of genetic. $50,000 is good = economic scale statement based on average income in the country. Total racism = 0.
Indian is not an ethnicity.
Oracle just got caught.
Anybody familiar with the corporate-tech H1B propaganda knows that Oracle's view is entirely normal.
Tech companies want the public to think that H1B are extremely highly skilled, and highly paid.
Anybody who actually works for the tech giants knows that H1Bs are mainly a cost cutting measure.
The US GAO even proved this in 2009.
You just described a business transaction, not a con.
In Lefty-World, they're the same thing.
Sure, but the con part is that they can get you to work for less than you are worth. It is what it is..
What about this exception to the Equal Rights law of 1964?
"EXEMPTION
SEC. 702. This title shall not apply to an employer with respect to the employment of aliens outside any State, or to a religious corporation, association, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, or society of its religious activities or to an educational institution with respect to the employment of individuals to perform work connected with the educational activities of such institution.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
how much more should a westerner tech manager expect over their current salary if moving internationally for their company...to a location where the cost of living is higher? just curious.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Yes, the exchage was a little crass but it is nothign new and the reaction is ridiculous. Grow a friggin pair and thiken up that hide. This hypersensitive society is doomed to .. doom us all.
What part of "outside any State" do you not understand? The context here is that the person was to be brought to the USA for work, so that exemption would not apply.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Understood.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
When he requested a salary of $60,000 a year or more for the employee, equivalent to what his white American counterparts received,
Or what his Indian-American counterpart would have received.
he was told instead to offer $50,000, which was 'good money for an Indian.'
I realize this sounds racist, and maybe the person who said it is racist, but people living in the nation of India (i.e. Indians), do traditionally have lower incomes and might be more likely to accept a lower offer.
Companies do this sort of thing all the time for all sorts of things. A company I worked for offered software developers that were not from the Bay Area, less money (because they thought engineers not from silicon valley would be willing to accept lower offers).
Companies care about money more than treating people fairly. They engage in deception to maximize profits. I am pretty sure that if there was a way to offer American employees less money and get away with it, they would do that too.
I think certainly this is a case of discrimination based on nationality. However I think it is a mischaracterization to say that this is racial discrimination with the information in the article.
I think the dichotomy of "Indian vs. White" is a false one. It should be "Indian vs. American" and "Indian/South Asian descent vs. Europe descent". One can be of European descent with Indian nationality, south asian descent living in Europe or America. I think it is important not to conflate these to distinctions.
Your fired what?
Companies complain about the lack of talent in the US. What they really mean is the lack of talent willing to work for less.
I think Google chose Java for Android because:
1) It has the largest developer base
2) It's popular and widely used in academia
3) It's designed to be cross platform
4) There were (almost) mature open source implementation and other tech available
5) Sun was weak at the time, they wouldn't have been able to sustain much of a lawsuit against Google if they wanted to
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I was contacted by a recruiter from Oracle for a position that I was perfectly qualified for and I never got past that interview because according to the recruiter my previous job at a major US corporation didn't pay me enough to qualify me .....
This what happens when accountants drive engineering companies. Remember HP?
Globalization is Zero-Sum.
Amend your Constitution accordingly.
Otherwise your future generations will regret.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Trap
Casteism
A lot of people seem to be forgetting the "National Origin" part of the racial discrimination law.
read the article, they were moving him to their location, not working from India.
It's TRUE because Indian regime is spending $1 billion/year on space research when 50% of its children are malnourished.
http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Every-second-Indian-child-is-malnourished-Report/articleshow/25724848.cms
Casteism
Americans should be worried about creeping Caste system due to H1Bs/Immigrants from India.
Caste is like Cancer. It cannot be cured. It has to be cut-off. Otherwise it'll destroy your middle class.
Google "Companies ruined or almost ruined by Indians".
Casteism
Now slavery by Indians.
Next US will crack on wage slavery by H1B Indians.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devyani_Khobragade
Casteism
This is not "racial discrimination". Whenever anybody thinks about what to offer somebody else they will consider what is the lowest figure they can get away with. That is their job. If he does not do that then he should be sued for being an incompetent negotiator.
In this case he thought, reasonably, that he could get away with $50K because the guy was coming from India where $50K is *a lot* of money, not to mention that he gets his foot in the door in a 1st world country and the clock starts ticking before he can bring his family and become a citizen. THAT IS EVEN MORE VALUABLE THAN THE $10k AT STAKE.
So what we are saying here is that we expect our managers to offer everybody to same salary. Well then it cuts both ways. No more negotiation. Just set scales like in the lower ranks of government.
You know what you will end up with? NORTH KOREA.
What is despicable is that they are hiring foreigners rather than investing in their own people. Sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
we need a better word for what happened, because its pretty clear that what went down had less to do with his race and more to do with his country and culture. It seems it was less "He's brown, he should expect less" and more "He's from a third-world country. $50k is a large fortune to him. he doesn't need $60k." So less racism and more classism? first-world eliteism?
Because it worked so well for Apple selling products built by slaves at FoxxCon
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.