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FWD.us Wants More H-1B Visas, But 50% Go To Offshore Firms
theodp writes: "On the day the U.S. began accepting H-1B visa applications for FY2015, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC stepped up its lobbying efforts for more tech visas even as ComputerWorld reported that the major share of H-1B visas go to offshore outsourcing firms that use visa holders to displace U.S. workers. 'The two largest H-1B users,' notes ComputerWorld, 'are Indian-based, Infosys, with 6,298 visas, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with 6,258.' ComputerWorld adds that food and agricultural company Cargill is outsourcing IT jobs to TCS, including 300 in Minnesota, the home of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, sponsor of the I-Squared Act of 2013, which would allow H-1B visa caps to rise to 300,000 annually."
This is exactly correct. Plus, H1B visa holders are tied to the company that issues the visa. If they leave the company, they must return to their home country. Tech companies like Facebook like to have such indentured servants.
H1B visas serve only to drive down wages for US employees. Additionally, they end up training foreign talent that are later kicked out of the country (after 3 or 6 years, depending upon whether the visa is renewed). They don't help the nation's interests, nor the public's interest. They serve only to increase the profit margins of the large firms.
Get rid of the H1B, and increase the green card slots available to foreign workers, especially the Indians. I've very pro-immigrant, but the H1B visa only provides for indentured servitude.
--Be human.
As someone who worked on an H1-B visa about 10 years back in Silicon Valley, i can confirm that these visas are being misused by IT consulting companies. They take the majority of these visas and then use them as baits in india for IT professionals. Most indian IT companies are nothing but cheap labour shops. If there is a dearth of IT professionals, make H1-B non-employer specific. All it does is make you a bonded labourer for 4-6 years with your employer who promises to process your green card while paying you a low salary. This is a big scam and i hope enough people take notice so that something is done about it. Most people on H1-B won't speak about it cause they don't want to go back home or lose their job. This is what keeps it going.
They can start with the CEO's, who are the most globally uncompetitive. Typical American CEO of a large company makes about 400x the average compensation of employees. In the UK it's 45x, and in the rest of the developed world is 10x-20x. Forget about India - just go to Canada and get a CEO for about 5% the cost of a US one. Similar culture, short travel, little time zone difference ... what's not to like?
Suppose you have a guy leading your Java dev team under the title "Java lead engineer". He is paid $100k pa. You want to cut this cost.
Here's how H1B's work: You decide there is a new role, "Key Java developer", you declare this has all the same skills but it's a "new" role. You declare that people doing this role (which you just invented) get paid $60k pa. Weirdly, no-one applies for a $100k pa job that only pays $60k pa. Damn, there is now a "skills shortage". The imaginary "skills shortage" means you can hire under H1B and pay $60k as you wished. An immigrant is glad to be paid $60k to do the job, and their visa is now legally under your control, so if they displease you then they aren't merely fired, they are thrown out of the country.
And that's how you replace a $100k pa salaried citizen with a $60k pa indentured servant.
At its best it's a nasty cynical way to hold down wage costs. At it's worst it's basically a milder modern day slavery.