Tech Worker Groups Boycott IBM, Infosys, Manpower

itwbennett writes: "Three U.S. tech worker groups have launched a labor boycott of IBM, Infosys and Manpower, saying the companies have engaged in a pattern that discourages U.S. workers from applying for U.S. IT jobs by tailoring employment ads toward overseas workers. For its part, Infosys disputed the charges, saying that 'it is incorrect to allude that we exclude or discourage U.S. workers. Today, we are recruiting for over 440 active openings across 20 states in the U.S.' Representatives from IBM and Manpower didn't respond to requests for comment on the boycott."

Comments

I'm boycotting IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Because IBM advertises on Slashdot and Slashdot Beta sucks.

Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Useless thieves, liars and parasites.

What a world. If I'd have known how people really are (and believed it) when I was younger, I'd have become a plumber or a lawyer. Either way you're dealing with human shit and no one can outsource you.

Fuck tech jobs.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Grishnakh]

Actually, they're outsourcing law jobs to India these days. They can't outsource things like arguing in a courtroom, but a lot of the clerical stuff they can.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[umghhh]

Technically you can still outsource a plumber job to another company. I guess you meant offshoring not being really possible for plumbers and until technology does not replace that job completely this and lawyers stay a good option. Surely due to currently existing legal limitations one still needs lawyers in flesh standing in front of the judge. But research can be outsourced already.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[LifesABeach]

An interesting experiment would be to change my name to Ashokar Gupta, and say I'm an orphan, in the U.S. with a H1B visa. The results would be fascinating.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting experiment would be to change my name to Ashokar Gupta, and say I'm an orphan, in the U.S. with a H1B visa. The results would be fascinating.

That's a great idea. I wish Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild or WashTech - or a newspaper or a government agency - would do the following:

1) Check with your legal department, to make sure you're not doing anything illegal.

2) Write 50 resumes that sound like the applicant is an American. Make sure that the resumes are are generic and forgettable, so that duplicates aren't remembered.

3) Copy the resumes. In the copies, change the contact information and university that they attended, so that the applicant sounds like they come from India (or some other non-US country).

4) Send in all of the resumes, and see which ones get results. If there's a big bias against Americans in the results, publicize the heck out of it.

The hiring companies might reply to the American-sounding applicants just for appearance's sake, but not intend to hire any Americans. I don't know how to test that kind of bias.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea. The funny thing is, it has been done numerous times in the US, but using white-sounding vs black-sounding names, male vs female, etc. Results were as expected and published. How much difference has it made?

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[MoreThanThen]

"...one still needs lawyers in flesh standing in front of the judge"

offshore the judge too

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Captain Hook]

If there's a big bias against Americans in the results, publicize the heck out of it.

Regardless of the outcome, publicize the heck out of it. You don't get to hide the results just because they don't confirm your pre-existing bias.

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[jayesel]

Not exactly. This used to be true a while back, but Lawyers , looking out for their own best interest, unlike tech workers, stopped the practice. Your legal work between you and your attorney or the firm stays put. So no, that is not being outsourced. Until tech workers unionize, which seem impossible due to the libertarian streak that runs in the blood it seems, you can expect a new low cost leader to come on deck. Forget India and China, they are too expensive. South America and Africa are next on deck. Good luck!

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[unixisc]

This!!!

Re:Same Manpower as in Canada?

[Captain Hook]

except that the idea of foreign workers being prefered over domestic, regardless of the reason, is a widely held believe.

Evidence that that is not the case would be just as worthy of publication

Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[Andy_Poloni]

These guys have been doing this for over a decade ... someone's slow to the party.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone figured it out a decade ago. The difference between these guys and people who just bitch about it in slashdot, are that these guys are the first to have the balls to try and do something about, however ineffectual it may wind up being.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[Andy_Poloni]

They may have balls but not apparently a calendar or a watch ... or they just apparently move really, really slowly.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[Last_Available_Usern]

So what you're saying is the second anyone infringes on the rights of a group you belong to you automatically band together in protest, even if it's at the potential expense of your livlihood? Gathering legitmate evidence to make a reasonable case for your claim takes time. Rallying troops together takes time. Planning for possibly not having a job if this backfires takes time. I guess fortunate for you that firing off a [weird] rant on Slashdot doesn't take any time at all.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[umghhh]

I find this funny. Not that people are treated like objects but your statement because it reminded me of a book I read few years back: 'London Hanged'. What was described there was the cycle of recurring violence in London (not sure anymore 16. or 17. century):

1. industry (cloth making or clockwork making etc) just developing, new skilled workers well paid
2. industry well established, workers paid less and less as methods are established and new less skilled workers needed.
3. riots, army on the streets, the particular industry regulated, better minimum conditions secured
4. the industry off-shores big chunk of work to the Netherlands
5. new blossoming industry is being developed - go to step 1 above

The most visible part were riots and there were times in London where these were happening with tiring regularity approx every 20y or so.

The whole thing about how evil humans are is true and at the same time untrue. Some basic regulations are needed so that people are not ripped off. If industry can survive only if they pay hunger wages then maybe it there is no reason for it to exist locally or some helping hand is needed, not necessarily in form of cheap credit or release from regulation but some industrial policy like the one Germans have would do something. OC for that one would need to have educated work force. BTW: Germans complain about missing hands on the floor all the time because people are not ready to work for money that are being offered. Seems to be the same story all over. What seems to have been working for England back then was that once one industry was not as profitable as it used to be a new one came around. The only unpleasant part were the hunger and riots on falling part of the curve.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[CodeArtisan]

So what you're saying is the second anyone infringes on the rights of a group you belong to you automatically band together in protest, even if it's at the potential expense of your livlihood?

Yes. It's called being in a union and something the corporations (with government assistance) eradicated to the point of almost extinction around the same time this behavior began.

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[sjames]

So your point is? Shall they decide since it's been a while that they might as well sit on their asses and moan on /. instead?

Re:Did someone just figure this out *NOW*??

[unixisc]

That's one way, but if the boycotter in question has skills that the companies in question want at the price they want them, and then turn around and refuse to entertain them, that is what sends a message. So how many do it?

Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

Anyone who has worked for any of the three should know by now that they pay their IT workers about 20 to 30% of what they bill the client at best. Avoid body shops like the plague if you want to make decent money.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

Those taxes and insurance are taken out of the sub-contractors already low portion of the billing rate.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

Not a lot of room left over for cricket gear. Hahahaha!

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[retchdog]

i don't understand; were they contractually required to sleep there?

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[BosstonesOwn]

Not true... I worked at IBM as a contractor and was compensated very well.

I chose to leave for a better job/ higher paying role with benefits. The real problem is they are using contractors for a huge part of the us work force but paying pretty good comp for them, so that they don't have to cover all the little things. Like benefits....

I chose to leave after being the primary responsable admin in the group, who was denied a job in that group 4 times, due to "not hiring in the US at this time" their process for this stuff is completely short sighted. They can pay people 1/8th less and cover the benefits, but refuse to because if thier numbers don't look good it's not easy to dump a perm employee, where as a contractor they can just put on furlow or ask them not to come back.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

If you think they can cover the benefits for 1/8 less you are dreaming. Try 40% at minimum and that doesn't cover job security or defined retirement benefits or 401k partial matching.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[TapeCutter]

they pay their IT workers about 20 to 30% of what they bill the client at best. Avoid body shops like the plague if you want to make decent money.

That's very short-sighted advice from my experience. I made truckloads of cash from IBM/manpower in the 90's and they made truckloads off me, the difference is they had to pay for everything out of their cut, accountants, office space, secretaries, coffee machines, taxi's, air-fares, air-conditioning,..... Bottom line is a large corporation like IBM is doing well if it makes 10-15% ROI, ie: from $100 revenue, $30 goes to me, $60 expenses, $10 split between IBM/MP. The fact that I got $500-600/day and they rented me out at $1800-3500/day (depending on job title) amounts to little more than a rounding error on a $100M project.

Having said that, I think there's something NQR with a system that rewards an IT pimp for years simply because they introduced employer to employee. Sure a finders fee is fair, but ongoing commissions are just another form of rent seeking. After the initial hire MP does nothing more than cut pay cheques and sign a contract once every six months or so. Thing is, I didn't pay those commissions, IBM did, if the commission did not exist IBM would keep the money (I know I would). The reason IBM uses (more expensive) contractors is that they can let them go when they are no longer needed, no sick leave, no holiday pay, etc. It's much more expensive for them to keep/sack a full time employee. At some point the contractor becomes more expensive, my guess is 5yrs, since that seems to be the point where they start offering full time employment to a contractor.

At the end of the day when you account for full-time benefits, the contractor and the full-timer are on about the same pay, both positions attract a larger take-home percentage of the profit than the company and the pimp combined. I suppose you could try and cut out all the middle men between you and the end client, but in my experience end clients want the inherent risk mitigation and project stability that a team provides, they may be wary of vendor lock in but they definitely do not want to be "held to ransom" by a nerdish individual with zero business acumen.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, from what I've heard. However, the Indians typically underestimate the cost of living in the USA. They took a job that pays more than they could hope to earn back in India, but in the USA, it's not enough to live independently and send money back home.

So many resort to communal living on the very cheap, and when that's already established, it is easier to introduce new workers to the communal living arrangements than it is to deal with the issues that arise when you let them fend for themselves.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[Anonymous Coward]

would you suffer for 6 years away from family & friends, living like an indentured servant in a nice neighborhood (relative to india), but afterwards you would have enough money to easily buy 3-4 nice homes in a good neighborhood?

consider that many americans risk their life & limb with the military and they don't get that much money.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[KingOfBLASH]

Believe it or not, an employee's "cost" is not the same as his or her salary.

While I have no idea if 20% - 30% is fair, consider that on top of your salary they pay:

1. Benefits like health insurance
2. Real estate -- that cube you work in isn't free
3. Equipment, electricity, and utilities (like some nice fat internet pipes)
4. Managers
5. Support staff
6. Software licensing fees
7. Profit margin -- you didn't think you worked for the march of dimes, did you?

I remember one project I worked on where my employer billed our client several million a year for three of us. Our client would often jokingly refer to us as the "million dollar men" when we came on site, and not so jokingly whenever it was time to renegotiate the fee schedule. However, our three salaries were actually a small part of the actual bill -- most of that was chewed up by things like equipment and software licensing fees.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[KingOfBLASH]

People in Asia often are used to living in much tighter quarters than westerners. What seems cruel to you, is normal for them.

Interesting anecdote from the book Changi, by James Clavell (awesome book, read it if you haven't!). During WWII, the Japanese were transporting Clavell and fellow POWs by ship. The japanese officer showed how "human shelves" works. You get into what looks to be a 1m high bookshelf, and sit cross legged. The POWs absolutely thought this to be insane, and demanded better transportation. The Japanese asked why POWs needed luxury transportation, and couldn't use the same transport as the japanese army.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

Thanks but I've done plenty of budgets in my day. I'm talking about fee for services not being bundled as part of supporting a package.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[KingOfBLASH]

Yeah but that's exactly the point. Your cost is not equal to your fee for service.

And if you dig into it, it's not that you're being paid only 20% of your contract rate, your cost to the company is 20% + x%, with x% being unknown (but could be as much as double your salary)

If you really did believe yourself to be underpaid, why didn't you ask for a raise?

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pigiron]

When did I ever say I was underpaid? I billed directly for years. Had to go through an intermediary once though. Since I was the one who found the position but the government agency with the work required that I bill through a third party I paid them 5% of the actual billing rate. 1099 right to my S-corp just like I was billing directly.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[KingOfBLASH]

What exactly are you arguing for / against?

It seems to me you're just taking pleasure in negating anything I say...

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[donscarletti]

The japanese officer showed how "human shelves" works. You get into what looks to be a 1m high bookshelf, and sit cross legged. The POWs absolutely thought this to be insane, and demanded better transportation. The Japanese asked why POWs needed luxury transportation, and couldn't use the same transport as the japanese army.

You mean the same Imperial Japanese Army that worked prisoners to death building railways and in mines and decapitated or mutilated captured soldiers for trivial offsenses?

The same ones that killed 300,000 civilians and committed 30,000 reported rapes in a few weeks in Nanjing?

The ones that locked vast quantities of women into military brothels to be raped roughly every half hour?

The one that conducted medical experiments on civilians in captured territories?

Of course they are an authoritative source about what treatment is humane according to East Asian norms, which is why the Chinese and Koreans are so much more understanding with the Japanese over the whole war and hardly mention it at all on domestic media or in international diplomacy.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[KingOfBLASH]

LOL

Well if you read the book, the Japanese are not exactly painted as heros. They're at best villains with a few redeeming qualities, and at worst super evil. Clavell surrendered himself to the Japanese and apparently they smiled and offered to kill him. Because, according to bushido, it's more honorable to be killed by the enemy then to be taken prisoner. He preferred being a prisoner and was quite badly mistreated for that reason.

If you've ever traveled to south east asia, you'll see they really do like to pack people in. My girlfriend when I lived in Vietnam lived in a one bedroom apartment with three other people. She thought this was normal, and a lot of other people I met had similar arrangements....

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[msobkow]

This.

Here in Canada, corporations match the personal income tax paid by an employee. Health coverage is not included, and the fees are increasing every year. But the biggest part of the pie by far is the liability insurance for a contract company.

Good luck finding contracts as an individual if you don't pony up for liability insurance.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[msobkow]

Oops. Sorry. It's not the personal income tax that gets matched, it's the unemployment insurance premiums.

Still, when push comes to shove, an employee's "cost" is roughly double their salary here. And that's not allowing for corporate overhead like accounting, management, receptionists, facilities, etc.

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[chrish]

LOL, job security. That hasn't existed since when, the 70s? 80s maybe?

Re:Pay versus billing rate.

[pnutjam]

I think you are referring to "King Rat"

Not very useful

[russotto]

American IT workers boycotting firms which don't hire Americans? They're not even going to notice.

Re:Not very useful

[Andy_Poloni]

Very good point. ;)

Re:Not very useful

[ebno-10db]

They might notice if they still had any American IT workers.

Re: Not very useful

[jd2112]

Shure they will. "See, we told you there aren't any qualified American applicants."

Re:Not very useful

[Darinbob]

Ya this seemed strange for me at first. But I think the real purpose is to encourage clients to avoid doing business with those companies. A boycott is not a stay at home and call in sick ploy, it's supposed to be an active event that can involve picketing a place of business or spreading information. I think that over time people have associated boycotts as being passive things that help them decide what foods to buy at the store.

What does IBM do these days anyway?

[The New Guy 2.0]

I'm not sure what's left at IBM ever since they started selling off divisions years ago. The PC/workstation/laptop division got sold off as Lenovo, their online services never materialized, and there's not much sign as what their products are. Is IBM just a corporate shell remaining?

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[androidph]

I'm not sure what's left at IBM ever since they started selling off divisions years ago. The PC/workstation/laptop division got sold off as Lenovo, their online services never materialized, and there's not much sign as what their products are. Is IBM just a corporate shell remaining?

they still have DB2, Websphere etc. which I think is as widely used as Oracle products.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[digsbo]

The do IT services and consulting in addition to some continued technology development. They buy a technology, and develop it internally, and then sell consulting services to implement it. Think of SAP. Same idea, same questionable (at best?) quality of delivery. But for companies that can't make a project happen with in-house talent, there's a market for so-so IT consulting.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[sexconker]

The do IT services and consulting

So, nothing?

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[TechyImmigrant]

They sell a bill of goods to banks that have plenty of money and no brains.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[idontgno]

Selling "nothing" for a high hourly billable over an extended contract term is the pinnacle of selling. Don't minimize IBM's profit-generating prowess in this respect.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[digsbo]

Company A buys company B, needs to import or marry their two systems. Neither company has staff on hand to do the integration project, because everyone at B got laid off, and A is busy with business as usual. Consultants come in and delivery a badly built, badly delivered "solution". It might even meet some subset of the requirements in a minimal way. I wouldn't say they're giving great value, but it's not nothing.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[Mondor]

Watson, for example. Very promising technology. I hope it will help medics to diagnose diseases, in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[BosstonesOwn]

they have also done a lot of buying of other companies as of late... Big data and cloud services are what they are buying now.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[The New Guy 2.0]

Yep... IBM was an essential brand of the 80s, to the point that all good MS-DOS running computers had to be sold as "IBM Compatible" which basically said IBM advanced the modern computer before handing the lead off to Microsoft.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[The New Guy 2.0]

DB2 is sorely outdated... it still works, but is a lot slower (and especially unable to handle record-level locking) so it can't be used for websites where response time matters.

Re:What does IBM do these days anyway?

[The New Guy 2.0]

Cloud data services seem cheap to setup, and sell at expensive prices. It just takes a computer, some software, and some bandwidth.

I'd be more impressed if I heard of any of them

[Nova Express]

"Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild and WashTech."

Who, who, and who?

As of August 1999, the Programmers Guild had 400 members. Mighty important organization there, if you can't be bothered to offer membership numbers from this century. Which, to be fair, looks to be the last time their web page look was updated.

As far as I can tell, "Bright Future Jobs" is one person Donna Conroy.

WashTech is a union. No thanks.

I suspect that IBM, Infosys and Manpower won't even notice their "boycott."

Re:I'd be more impressed if I heard of any of them

[Anonymous Coward]

I know there are a lot of reservations about unions, but it is dammed if you do and double dammed if you don't.

Without a union, you can watch all the jobs go overseas until the customers start to bail. Then you can watch them try to re-boot with "tiger teams" on shore, but only the leads will still be present, and the new on-shore teams will balk at the utter lack of code quality. If the on-shore team manages to clean up the code, they'll be rewarded by being let go again (for another trip on the merry go round).

It's enough to make you want to join a union so at least you can benefit from the revenue stream you created.

A slight misdirect

[rijrunner]

I did my time at IBM and learned this the hard way.

IBM does not favor hiring foreign applicants.

What they did at IBM Boulder was simple. At the beginning of LEAN in IBM e-Business, they laid off 1/3 of the staff. They moved from dedicated support for a pool of resources. And, as a result of the class action lawsuit, they cut everyone's pay 15%. After a lot of people left voluntarily, they fell well below the level of staff they needed to keep things running.

So, they decided to hire. Not regular employees, of course. Contractors. Only makes sense, yes? So, they opened up a number of junior admin positions at $12/hr. And a number of senior positions at $15/hr. When no one applied, they bumped it up slightly. Eventually, they were able to hire people in, but at a much lower rate than what the people who had left made. The nice thing about this from their perspective is that they also eliminated contracting companies that had things like paid vacation. (There might be a contracting company that still pays vacation, but I don't know what it is. There is one that still offers a small training budget).

Nationality of employee was completely irrelevant.

The color of the cog in the machine is irrelevant.

Cheap. Crappy. Brutal. That is the IBM Way now.

Re:A slight misdirect

[Bigbutt]

Yep. Been in Boulder IBM and had to bail after 2 years. The Cog thing was pretty scary. Managers would just come into a room and 'duck, duck, goose! have your desk cleared out by Wednesday". When they 'Goose'd our Interface to the Customer (2 days to be gone), I figured IBM had blown a gear or something and started looking for a way out. Fortunately found it just up the road and have been here for almost 7 years.

[John]

Re:A slight misdirect

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet strangely, the executives pay only goes up........

Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sector

[ebusinessmedia1]

There is ample evidence that many American corporations have been actively discriminating against American Workers for well over a decade. This is especially true when it comes to STEM work skills. India, China, and Russia have been the main sources of off-shoring (and now, in-shoring). India is the absolute worst, with India's goovernment actively pushing for more H1-Bs because they would rather America hire them than India build proper educational and business infrastructure systems. Indian government is one of the most corrupt on earth (easily as corrupt as some of the worst African states).

Want proof? Unemployment is a problem in America, and so are our sticky problems with immigration. Undercover of helping those immigrants who have so long labored in our agricultural sector, the American IT sector has seen fit to use the sentiment to help agricultural workers to create a Landslide of advantage for itself. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

The H-1B fiasco has cost Americans **$10TRILLION** dollars, since 1975. For anyone who wants to know the truth, read on.

One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley has this to say about the H1-B worker problem http://www.cringely.com/2012/1...

Here's an attorney and his consultants teaching corporations how to manipulate foreign-worker immigration law to replace qualified American workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

H1-B abuse if accompanied by other worker-visa abuse L-1 Visa (H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg). There are more than 20 categories of foreign worker visas. http://economyincrisis.org/con...

Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies on this problem. http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/...

Federal offshoring of healthcare.gov website http://www.economicpopulist.or...

How H1-B visa abuse is hurting American tech workers http://www.motherjones.com/pol...

There is no stem worker crisis in America http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-wo...

Marc Zuckerberg and wealthy tech scions continue to perpetuate this trend http://programmersguild.org/do...

Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs...

Also, little known is the tactic of creating many different kinds of sub-visa categories to "fool the system". There are almost TWENTY different kinds of work visas. The whole thing is a sham and a lie, designed to drag down wages and keep from having to re-train Americans. Never thought I would see this day!

Some of the information presented in the aforementioned links will shock most Americans, because American corporate leaders don't want us to know the truth, and they are paying off policy makers with contributions to keep the truth from us. Bill Gates, John Chambers, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, and many, many others - including the principals of the most prominent immigration law firms, who profit from this outrage, are lying through their teeth. There is NO shortage of STEM workers in the US!!

Manpower's execs have been doing some reading

[compro01]

The executives at Manpower must have done some reading and figured they wanted to be more like Manpower of Mesa.

Yay! Thank You!

[Tablizer]

I've witnessed H1B-related shenanigans directly myself, such as forcing everyone to work without overtime pay at a big telecom company that rhymes with Ate Tea and Pea. The citizens tended to balk, but not the H1B's because they didn't want to rock the boat because their pay was a lot of money when spent back home. It's a lopsided mess; a way for companies to get more labor for less money. The "shortage" thing is lobbyist bullshit!

Re:Yay! Thank You!

[LMariachi]

Why didn't the citizens narc out this illegal behavior? It may depend on the state, but afaik working without overtime isn't something you can legally "volunteer" (read: be voluntold) to do as an employee.

Failing that, gang up and "educate" them. The labor movement didn't buy us a 40-hour workweek and basic safety standards by letting desperate scabs undercut it.

Infosys age discrimination

[Maxo-Texas]

I gave infosys a resume for a friend for a job that required a degree.

They bounced it back to me and said it needed to have her exact high school graduation date. Not the fact she had a high school degree. The date at which she was 17 or 18.

It should be illegal to require a person's high school graduation date on a resume.

Re:Infosys age discrimination

[TheSync]

It should be illegal to require a person's high school graduation date on a resume.

Currently younger people are not a protected class (at a Federal level) against age discrimination in the US. Only workers over 40 years old are a protected class. (Some states may have other age protections).

Re:Infosys age discrimination

[KingOfBLASH]

Yeah but try doing something about it.

The problem with "discrimination" in hiring is you can almost always find a reason not to hire someone.

Re:Infosys age discrimination

[Maxo-Texas]

I don't think you understand. This was for a senior position that required a college degree and years of experience. It wasn't targeted at a high school student or even a recent graduate.

They didn't want to know you had a high school degree- they specifically wanted to know the date the applicant graduated high school.

Re:Infosys age discrimination

[toddestan]

Having to provide a graduation date can just as easily be used to discriminate against older workers as it could against younger ones.

Re:Infosys age discrimination

[toddestan]

Except for maybe a high level security clearance, that's just insane.

Re:Nativism

[LifesABeach]

How about removing the tax loop holes that allow this nonsense to happen?

About time

[junkgoof]

Good. Offshoring is only making money for these middle men. The clients take on loads of cheap offshore people who don't know how to tie their shoes and end up paying other people to do the work if they're lucky or paying their offshorer for even more people to do the actual work if they signed a bad deal. The workers offshore work crazy hours and get nothing, crap salary, no training. The few motivated competent people offshore move on to H1-B or other parts of the industry but most just get dumped on. It's stressful continually failing to do a job you're just not able to do, and it's painful working with these guys, trying not to get completely frustrated. Meanwhile onshore workers get dumped on and we end up doing more work to cover for the offshore guys while salaries drop and it's hard to move because a lot of the big guys are going with the management fad... Code quality is visibly dropping worldwide.

Do real HR in India and the industry drops by 90%. If you actually require the people you hire at $5/hour have some IT knowledge or aptitude (just one or the other, not both, that would be really optimistic) most people will have to leave the industry. Sort of like NA during the boom except clueless people would last 2 days here instead of billing clients for years.

Re:About time

[zeugma-amp]

It's stressful continually failing to do a job you're just not able to do, and it's painful working with these guys, trying not to get completely frustrated. Meanwhile onshore workers get dumped on and we end up doing more work to cover for the offshore guys while salaries drop and it's hard to move because a lot of the big guys are going with the management fad... Code quality is visibly dropping worldwide.

I've been noticing that the offshore 'resources' I've been dealing with have been getting worse and worse over time. In recent years the level of incompetence of both the offshore 'resources' and the H1B folk I've been dealing with has reached levels I'd have never thought possible.

Re:Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all unions in the US are nativist in origin if not in current implementation. No big surprise that the collapse of the unions in the late 60s and 70s coincided with the rise of minorities in blue collar/skilled labor.

Unions for unskilled labor are bad enough, but unions for people who have skill but for some reason think they shouldnt have to compete - fuck them to hell.

Re:Nativism

[pigiron]

Because it's OUR fucking country and birthright you stupid fuck! NO Asian country would ever consider doing this. They actively discriminate against foreigners.

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[msmonroe]

It's kind of a kick in the teeth to people who get a degree and/ or trained to get better paying jobs to further themselves. Get a degree and go into debt and then we will outsource your jobs overseas.
The funny thing at least in India a lot of the people that are working for hardly anything are just starting out or don't have experience. Experienced people in India don't want to work for nothing either.

Why dont we have a national IT union?

[Lumpy]

Like Electricians? companies cant pull this shit on Electricians, if IT people would pull their heads out of their ass and unionize the problem would solve it's self overnight.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[digsbo]

That might work out for people threatened by it, but I'm doing very nicely, and under no circumstances am I giving up the good pay, reasonable hours, and decent PTO policy I'm getting. I'm sorry, but for me to join a union would set me back significantly. I know there are good and bad shops, but w/ unemployment for software engineers at under 3%, I have trouble understanding.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[freeze128]

Likewise, who are these "Tech Worker Groups"? Why don't they organize?

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be old one day. Then you'll understand where and how a union would come in handy to protect you... but, alas, there won't be one.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[retchdog]

true, but that is a perniciously relative standard, as you will probably learn eventually one way or another. :)

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[retchdog]

Generally, programmers think of themselves as artists who happen to be paid a bunch of money for their irreplaceable genius, as opposed to the artists they sneer at and 'monetize'. A union as we know them doesn't really make sense for creative work; some kind of mutualist support system would make more sense. I think the major point is that programmers are the ones automating tasks. Maintenance takes some persistent labor, but at this moment we have a, shall we say, "bubble" of big ideas.

Anyway, this fleeting glory will pass, and probably not exactly the way they think it will.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[digsbo]

true, but that is a perniciously relative standard, as you will probably learn eventually one way or another. :)

You don't know that. Some people are more prudent/aggressive/lucky and don't have that experience. I was lucky in that I had a rough period when my first company was swallowed. From then on, I understood I needed to be competitive. It takes extra work, but it's worth it.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[digsbo]

How is that any different in terms of self-interest from wanting to keep the foreign H1-Bs out? Look in the mirror.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[Lumpy]

Nope. It comes from people that have actual scruples and do not like seeing people being used and abused. I'm highly paid as I have a rare and large skillset, Plus I can step into management easily to avoid it.

But I see that IT really needs a Trade union. First to stop the bullshit of the MCSE morons from polluting the IT pool. second to stop businesses from whoring out people and treating them like shit.

Structure it exactly like the electricians unions and to get in you need to takes tests, spend time on the job under an expert, etc...

I'm guessing you have ZERO clue as to how the electricians union works.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[digsbo]

Wow. Tell me more about what I get, AC. I would not take that deal right now, as it is.

Re:Why dont we have a national IT union?

[Guppy06]

Take a look around here. IT folks tend to view themselves as self-sufficient, rugged individualists who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Unions are for the weak and stifle innovation, and every tech bro knows they're just one angel investor away from Going Galt.

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[LifesABeach]

In order for business to not use H1B's means changing the tax laws that create this unfair enviornment that Americans are becoming more, and more unsupporting of.

Infosys

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an Indian, and I say this with shame.

Indian companies only want to milk America dry and all the while to get rich in the process. They don't care about American workers one iota. That is Indian mentality in general. They live like parasites which feed off host systems until the host dies and then move on to another host. There is no sense of morality, integrity and fairness in the blood. Everything is fair game, if it makes ME rich/happy/satisfied. That is a typical Indian, hence the shitty Indian infrastructure, the constant gaming of the system, the constant backstabbing of the fellow workers. If you are an Indian, and you disagree, you are either a rare breed or you are lying through your teeth.

I wish H1-B visas' would be stopped immediately. There is no freaking shortage of American workers and it is all about making sure that American companies are able to fatten stockholder wallets, and Indian companies making sure America is bled dry while they become the global power house.

Re:Infosys

[Anonymous Coward]

They have learned from their western counterparts well then.

Re:Infosys

[WindBourne]

I doubt that you are India, let alone Indian.
Now, with this said, the manipulation of Indian money vs the $ is where the real issues is. The Rupee should be at around 30 to $1. Right now, it is at 60 to $1. That is nothing but PURE manipulation.
And while India's Indians have become a lot more like what you said, it is also the fact that companies like IBM are ran by the worst, of the worst, that America has to offer.

Re:Nativism

[msmonroe]

Nativism

"Tech worker groups" sounds suspiciously like whites and Asians to me. Why should these high-IQ groups receive advantages when so many other groups don't? They don't need any advantages, they already have them in the form of a culture that values education and two-parent families. It sounds a hell of a lot like racism to me. What would Maya Angelou say about the situation?

You're the racist man! I am surprised that no one has called you out on you're BS!

When is a tech shortage.. not?

[h8sg8s]

IBM repeatedly claims there's a tech shortage so they can import cheaper H1-B and offshore labor to boost their bottom line. This has been going on for over a decade and no one's called them on it. About freaking time.

Re:Nativism

[pigiron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before and it's really wearing thin. Thankfully most real Americans don't pay any attention to the alleged slur anymore despite its repetition at increasingly higher levels of hysteria. You can only cry wolf so many times. Oops, so sorry, that's no doubt a culturally biased reference! LOL

BTW, Asians are among the most racist and class conscious people on earth. The Japanese-Negro inter-racial marriage rate is approximately zero.

Re:Nativism

[ebno-10db]

Nativism is the political position of demanding a favored status for certain established inhabitants of a nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants.

Almost all unions in the US are nativist in origin if not in current implementation. No big surprise that the collapse of the unions in the late 60s and 70s coincided with the rise of minorities in blue collar/skilled labor.

Which minorities are those? African Americans? Since most African Americans have ancestors in this country going back over 200 years, I don't think they qualify as the "newcomers or immigrants" that nativism discriminates against.

Re:Nativism

[RabidReindeer]

Charity begins at home.

We (natives) built this country, developed the land and the infrastructure, defined its laws and its culture and made it a distinct entity. We pay the taxes that keep it all going and keep it defended from those who would take advantage of us. "We" were not a uniform body of people, but a series of waves of immigrants (or invaders, depending on who you ask) and what we were 20 years ago isn't what we will be 20 years from now, but nevertheless, we are unique among the nations of the world, just like everyone else.

It's only natural that people who know and are related to each other would want first and foremost to support each other over any other randomly selected set of people. Every country does this, and while "everyone else does" is a poor excuse in general, in this particular case, anyone who does not is at a disadvantage relative to those who do.

It is a Conservative axiom that people should be self-sufficient, but outsourcing critical resources is a violation of that axiom, whether it's by offshoring or by imported labor. Putting your assets into the hands of people who have no reason by virtue of shared common interests other than short-term commercial ones is simply foolish. Today's friends may be tomorrow's enemies, or at the least, have found some other country to work for instead.

So slapping a label on it doesn't make it somehow evil. It's simply being prudent. We're not talking xenophobia, putting up a fence around the country or anything of that nature, we're talking about strengthening and supporting our native assets. The people whose paychecks get cycled back into the tax base and local businesses instead of flying off to other lands. And who will still be here in 20 years and know what to do when the temps have all moved on and taken their domain knowledge with them.

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[m00sh]

By the same argument then we should not be allowed to import foreign cars because it hurts the Americans who work in the auto industry.

Similarly, made in China products should be banned because they hurt the American factory worker.

And so and so on.

Yes, allowing foreign workers in the US hurts the people in the tech sector here. But, you can't simply ignore the huge pool of people in India and China who are trained to be engineers. This is capitalism and the low cost of labor will put an enormous pressure on the way the systems work by artificially restricting them.

Also competition makes us all better. Why are we afraid of a little competition?

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[SuhlScroll]

`By the same argument then we should not be allowed to import foreign cars because it hurts the Americans who work in the auto industry.`

It actually does, but nobody cares at this point given the Big 3 made garbage for a long time because they had a monopoly on the market. Introducing the foreign manufacturers was a result of people in the gov't getting pissed off with the Big 3 and the Labor Unions who they collaborate with. Had the Big 3 built cars that were worth a crap they probably wouldn't have the competition they do, they just got greedy in a big way and got cut for it.

`Similarly, made in China products should be banned because they hurt the American factory worker.`

They actually do, not to mention hurting people who buy crap with lead paint and pet food that's tainted.

`Yes, allowing foreign workers in the US hurts the people in the tech sector here. But, you can't simply ignore the huge pool of people in India and China who are trained to be engineers.`

Of course we can, especially since the ones in In-juh tend to be trained so poorly. Did you ever ask yourself why so many of them over there are trained to be engineers? Uh, that's so that they can try and attempt all the work that was outsourced from here. Stop the outsourcing and you'll find more people here will actually go into STEM fields/careers.

`This is capitalism and the low cost of labor will put an enormous pressure on the way the systems work by artificially restricting them.`

No, it's crony capitalism where a few people benefit from huge profit margins off of using cheap foreign labor while a lot of workers, taxpayers in general, and the government suffer from loss of income tax revenue ... big difference.

`Also competition makes us all better. Why are we afraid of a little competition?`

Says the guy who hasn't gotten it in the rear from it. It's not competition, it's cronyism, and if you're not the one directly benefiting from it you're probably getting screwed by it.

It's a start

[rsilvergun]

at least they're _trying_.

And fyi, you owe everything you have today to Unions (that and the Cold War putting a halt on outsourcing). For God's sake man, read about what pre-Union life was like for all but the very, very rich. Just go read "A People's History of the United States" and go from there.

Too spread out

[rsilvergun]

the workers are too spread out. It's tough to organize them. You'd need money, and after 40 years of outsourcing and declining wages nobody has that. Also with how bad the economy is people are scared to stand up for their rights. There's a reason they call it "Wage Slavery"...

They're coming for you

[rsilvergun]

It's only a matter of time. Give it 5, maybe 10 years. Immigration reform means 300,000 new H1-Bs, and most studies show that for every H1-B officially given away there are 3 to 4 of those guys actually working. You didn't think they were sent home, did you?

So, what are you going to do in a few years when 1 million new tech workers (all younger than you, cheaper, and who work more hours) hit the market? You'll do absolutely nothing. You'll be too busy keeping your head above water to. Which is exactly what they want.

One last thing. Doctors have Unions (AMA). Lawyers too (it's called the Bar). If your having trouble understanding why a skilled worker would want a Union ask yourself why Doctors and Lawyers have them :).

Re:They're coming for you

[digsbo]

I have no intention of remaining a feature developer; I've said to my boss and his boss outright that if they want me to only do feature work they should fire me and hire two younger kids for half the price. They responded that there's no way they give up the additional expertise I have. Maybe that will change in a few years, but I am constantly upping my game because of exactly the point you are making. At this point it's quite clear that experienced developers are needed. Maybe that will change, but I doubt it.

Re:They're coming for you

[TheSync]

You didn't think they were sent home, did you?

I know an H1-B holder who had to leave the country with his family (and kids who grew up in the US) when it came to and end.

So yes, they do send them home. Why don't you go talk to an H1-B visa holder...

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[the eric conspiracy]

The thing is that H1-B's are much better for America as a whole than not allowing this immigrant labor because the alternative would be more US companies moving off-shore.

If they do tax revenue and the associated secondary business activity in the US goes with it.

H1-B has some bad effects but the alternative is much worse.

Re:Nativism

[Tablizer]

Suppose you were a programmer in India with a decent job, and your company found out they can hire citizens from Timbuktu who are happy to work for 40 cents (US) an hour and work long hours and never complain because 40 cents is a lot of money in Timbuktu.

Over time it appears that many Indian companies favor these Timbuktu workers because they are docile and hard-working compared to Indian citizens, due to their circumstances.

You may lose your job and/or find that wages are going down and expectations going up.

Now, can you honestly tell me you'd be happy with this situation and believe it to be "fair"?

Re:Nativism

[TheSync]

No big surprise that the collapse of the unions in the late 60s and 70s coincided with the rise of minorities in blue collar/skilled labor.

Which minorities are those? African Americans? Since most African Americans have ancestors in this country going back over 200 years

African Americans were actively excluded from unions until the late 1960's, see Unions and Discrimination.

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[StillAnonymous]

My grandfathers fought in a war to maintain our standard of living. They worked hard to improve their country, for themselves and for their children. Now I watch these dirtbag corporate execs piss it all away to people of another country and expect us to reduce our standard of living in order to "compete". These same shitcocks who live opulent lifestyles off the backs of the same people they piss on.

No. If they want to exploit all of this foreign labour, they should be forced to move their headquarters and executive officers to those countries where they do all their work, then import their product as if they were a foreign company. If they want to take advantage of all the niceties, protections, and advantages this country provides them, they can damn well show some support in return. If not, they are nothing but parasites who deserve to be removed.

Re:Nativism

[turbidostato]

"somehow workers are viewed by companies as not having that same right"

In the end there's no more rights than those you can and will defend.

Companies use their big pull to defend their interests. A worker has no such a strengh and -basically voluntarily, they killed whatever strengh they could have as a group the day they ditched unions.

So no wonder.

Re:Why are people so pissed off about this?

[Guppy06]

Americans buy cheap crap from China because their low pay doesn't allow them to afford anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Nativism

[TheSync]

"We" were not a uniform body of people, but a series of waves of immigrants

And the part of the reason the US is the greatest economy on the planet (and also the world's leading culture, which is also monetizable) is due to immigration.

For example, consider these immigrants: Albert Einstein, I.M. Pei, John Muir, Joseph Pulitzer, Irving Berlin, Ang Lee, Cary Grant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eddie Van Halen, Rupert Murdoch, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pamela Anderson, Dave Matthews, George Soros, Sergey Brin, Alexander Graham Bell, Marcus Goldman (Goldman Sachs), Pierre Omidyar (eBay), Theodore and Milton Deutschmann (Radio Shack), Maxwell Kohl (Kohl's), Daniel Aaron (Comcast), Sol Shenk (Big Lots!), Jerry Yang (Yahoo!), John W. Nordstrom (Nordstrom's), William Colgate (Colgate), Nathan Cummings (Sara Lee), E.I. du Pont, James L. Kraft, Charles Pfizer, William Procter, James Gamble, Andy Bechtolsheim (Sun / Arista Networks), Andy Grove (Intel)....

Those are of course the 1st gen immigrants. Think about how many 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants who are participating in expanding the US economy and culture (like me, for instance).

It's only natural that people who know and are related to each other would want first and foremost to support each other over any other randomly selected set of people.

Personally I don't care about people who theoretically share some kind of artificial division of humanity with me. Nationalism is a dangerous feeling that should be relegated to its proper recreational use. Man-made borders of a country are only means to achieving scalable governance.

I only care about the myself and my family and the things and people that are important to me. That is why the US is such a great and open country where people of all kinds can work together to create amazing economic and cultural growth. That is the American way!

All barriers to economic freedom reduce everyone's potential. Everyone is different, and mathematically we know that if everyone can specialize in what they are most productive at (whether that is management, computer programing, being a nanny, being a house cleaner), total productivity of humanity is maximized.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

All goes away once H1B goes away

[Gothmolly]

Don't bitch at the companies, bitch at the corrupt US officials who allow the practice.

Re:All goes away once H1B goes away

[dwpro]

We've allowed corporations to take over the process, and so our security guards are better described as legislators-for-hire. The blame belongs to citizens (us) for allowing the system to get subverted in this way and not voting out the crooks. We can still fix it, but the perverse incentives that exist will not right themselves.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[jedidiah]

> By the same argument then we should not be allowed to import foreign cars because it hurts the Americans who work in the auto industry.

My "foreign" car was made in Kentucky and the wife's in Ohio.

Re:Nativism

[jedidiah]

> Someone explain to me why people who just happened to be born in the bounds of an arbitrary nation should have ANY advantages over someone who was not.

That's the best argument for elminating the H1B visa actually.

You think those Indians are being done some kind of favor? They are not. They are being allowed to become part of an underclass. If we were to be true to your rhetoric, anyone we saw fit to import for their skills would be the equal to any other man rather than at the mercy of his importer.

Creating an underclass is the kind of thing that "Maya Angelou would object to".

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[Great Big Bird]

"My grandfathers fought in a war to maintain our standard of living." What a bunch of bullshit. What war could possibly have had anything to do with standard of living? There was never any credible threat of invasion for almost two centuries. The only thing to improve the standard of living was the exporting of goods to other countries fighting in the war, which doesn't require you actually fighting them.

Re:Nativism

[Belial6]

And who will still be here in 20 years and know what to do when the temps have all moved on and taken their domain knowledge with them.

This is part of why I say that the H1-B visa should require that a US citizen should be required to be hired to shadow every single H1-B visa position at an equal pay. The H1-B visa holder should not be allowed to do any work when the US citizen is not shadowing him and the US citizen should not be able to do any work when the H1-B visa holder is not shadowing him. This way, the cost of hiring an H1-B visa holder will pretty much always be more expensive than local labor and thus employers will only hire an H1-B visa worker when they really cannot find local labor. (which is what the program is supposed to be.) It also solves the problem of not being able to find qualified local labor, as an actual gaps in local labor skills would eventually be filled by the shadowing program.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Nativism

[msmonroe]

No, No! Sorry I didn't mean your racist. I think I was trying to agree with you and add to your remark. Yeah I had a friend that lived in Japan and they portrayed the US as racist then they discriminated against any body who is not a native born person from Japan.

I think my anger was at Nativism because of the

"Tech worker groups" sounds suspiciously like whites and Asians to me. Why should these high-IQ groups receive advantages when so many other groups don't?

Re:Nativism

[msmonroe]

No, No, No. I meant Nativism was a racist.

Nope, it's the 1965 Immigration Act

[sethstorm]

The tax law isn't the problem, it's that guest worker systems incentivize fraud. Get rid of that first, then you can talk taxes.

Nope.

[sethstorm]

No, guest worker systems on the whole represent anti-citizen fraud. They're the 21st Century version of indentured servants.

It's not about competition, it's about compliance

[sethstorm]

Also competition makes us all better. Why are we afraid of a little competition?

Not if businesses are only seeking the most compliant party, not the most competent party.

It's why the US first sought slaves, then Southerners, then Mexicans, and then the rest of the Third World. It's also why businesses want contractors, which gives union-type protections to employers against their own workforce. Workers are more easily controlled in those countries versus developed countries like the US, UK, Western Europe(although contract-based hiring doesn't help), and Australia.

Assembled, not made, from Japanese designs.

[sethstorm]

The only American content in those cars is the fact that they use permatemps to assemble Japanese-designed cars. They're the manufacturing equivalent of guest workers.

Perhaps when the put a bit more car in

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[m00sh]

It actually does, but nobody cares at this point given the Big 3 made garbage for a long time because they had a monopoly on the market. Introducing the foreign manufacturers was a result of people in the gov't getting pissed off with the Big 3 and the Labor Unions who they collaborate with. Had the Big 3 built cars that were worth a crap they probably wouldn't have the competition they do, they just got greedy in a big way and got cut for it.

Lack of competition will make anyone lazy and greedy, including American tech workers.

Of course we can, especially since the ones in In-juh tend to be trained so poorly. Did you ever ask yourself why so many of them over there are trained to be engineers? Uh, that's so that they can try and attempt all the work that was outsourced from here. Stop the outsourcing and you'll find more people here will actually go into STEM fields/careers.

If they are trained so poorly, then why are engineers and scientists from India and China able to become top scientists and engineers in the US?

No, it's crony capitalism where a few people benefit from huge profit margins off of using cheap foreign labor while a lot of workers, taxpayers in general, and the government suffer from loss of income tax revenue ... big difference.

Nope. You are also free to utilize foreign labor to make money. There is no cronyism because there is no special preference given to any group. Anyone can use foreign labor. If foreign labors were restricted only to certain groups of people then that would be cronyism.

Says the guy who hasn't gotten it in the rear from it. It's not competition, it's cronyism, and if you're not the one directly benefiting from it you're probably getting screwed by it.

People born in ghettos and slums are screwed, the people who get horrible diseases are screwed. This pales in comparison to your screwed which is a loss of a small fraction of your income. You were born and raised in a privileged background in the US and have an engineer's education. You are not screwed. You are just whining.

Re:Corporate outsourcing fraud permeates STEM sect

[m00sh]

My grandfathers fought in a war to maintain our standard of living. They worked hard to improve their country, for themselves and for their children. Now I watch these dirtbag corporate execs piss it all away to people of another country and expect us to reduce our standard of living in order to "compete". These same shitcocks who live opulent lifestyles off the backs of the same people they piss on.

Your grandfathers also looted, colonized, killed natives and owned slaves. Your standard of living could also have been due to those.

No. If they want to exploit all of this foreign labour, they should be forced to move their headquarters and executive officers to those countries where they do all their work, then import their product as if they were a foreign company. If they want to take advantage of all the niceties, protections, and advantages this country provides them, they can damn well show some support in return. If not, they are nothing but parasites who deserve to be removed.

Then why does the American consumer buy foreign cars? Why do they buy electronics from China, oil from the middle east and so on. They should move to the middle east if they want to use middle east oil or move to Japan if they want to drive a Japanese car. Or move to China if they want to buy Chinese goods. The American consumer is betraying the US companies by not buying purely 100% American made goods.

Re:It's not about competition, it's about complian

[m00sh]

Also competition makes us all better. Why are we afraid of a little competition?

Not if businesses are only seeking the most compliant party, not the most competent party.

It's why the US first sought slaves, then Southerners, then Mexicans, and then the rest of the Third World. It's also why businesses want contractors, which gives union-type protections to employers against their own workforce. Workers are more easily controlled in those countries versus developed countries like the US, UK, Western Europe(although contract-based hiring doesn't help), and Australia.

From what I know, this has been long solved.

For almost a decade, one can transfer H1Bs. So, if your boss treats you badly or pays you too low, you can switch jobs and keep the same H1B. There are also lots of headhunters who poach H1Bs because the original employer has done all the hard work of getting the H1B, paying the fees and bringing the worker to the US. If they can get them to switch employers, you avoid all the costs of hiring a fresh H1B.

Second there is never ever a question of competence. If there is any local US worker who has even the min qualifications required for a job, they are entitled to take it away from an H1B. All the job descriptions of H1Bs must be posted visibly on public area of the company.

Re:It's not about competition, it's about complian

[BVis]

For almost a decade, one can transfer H1Bs. So, if your boss treats you badly or pays you too low, you can switch jobs and keep the same H1B. There are also lots of headhunters who poach H1Bs because the original employer has done all the hard work of getting the H1B, paying the fees and bringing the worker to the US. If they can get them to switch employers, you avoid all the costs of hiring a fresh H1B.

And if your current employer finds out you're talking to a headhunter or interviewing elsewhere, you get fired and deported. No thanks.

Rapacity is not limited to these companies

[mrhippo3]

I was working for a "minority" company (two women) doing documentation and was billed at some absurd rate where I received 20-30% of the rate. When forced to do mandatory 50 hour weeks (a urination contest between my boss and her managers, NOTE: a 20% increase in output would NOT dent a 1.5 year backlog) I was paid straight time for the overage while the contractor collected double time. I could not protest as this would have left me unemployable in the Midwestern-type city.

When a thinking manager was asked how to cure the backlog, he replied, "Triple my trained staff." While he was being truthful, his candor got him moved to job where he could do no harm.

So they win then

[gelfling]

You've given them what they want. I have no doubt that IBM and others are fully moving to the point where there are zero US employees except for the top layers of management. US employment for IBM is somewhere under 85,000 vs 400,000 (including contractors) world wide. There are more IBM'rs in India than any other country. The largest IBM sites are in India.

Re:It's not about competition, it's about complian

[m00sh]

And if your current employer finds out you're talking to a headhunter or interviewing elsewhere, you get fired and deported. No thanks.

Except that's not how it works.

If you are fired, you have 180 days to stay in the US to find another job. You will only get deported if you overstay after that. Plus, you have all the worker rights of the US and can use legal action.

However, once you have an H1B, you have it for life. You can get a new job on the same H1B years later. So, if you go out of the US, find another job in the US, you can resume on your old H1B without going through the whole process again.

Also in most cases, H1B to permanent resident (green card) is usually within 9 months to a year. Then, if you have a green card, you can't be deported after you're fired.

Caste is not past

[NewYork]

If you meet anybody from India ask him "What Is Your Caste?" If he answers it, then you're doomed. Because he has already injected Cancer into your Country. Caste is like Cancer. Caste cannot be Cured. Caste has to be Cut-Off. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06...

440

[apcullen]

Am I the only one who was shocked that a major firm had only 440 openings across the country?

Lobbying group

[msmonroe]

Yeah I think IT workers need a lobbying group. Everyone else has one. Not sure we need a union.

Re:It's not about competition, it's about complian

[BVis]

Plus, you have all the worker rights of the US and can use legal action

Worker rights. lol.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion