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Skilled Foreign Workers Treated as Indentured Servants
theodp writes: A year-long investigation by NBC Bay Area's Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) raises questions about the H-1B visa program. In a five-part story that includes a mini-graphic novel called Techsploitation, CIR describes how the system rewards job brokers who steal wages and entrap Indian tech workers in the U.S., including the awarding of half a billion dollars in Federal tech contracts to those with labor violations. "Shackling workers to their jobs," CIR found after interviewing workers and reviewing government agency and court documents, "is such an entrenched business practice that it has even spread to U.S. nationals. This bullying persists at the bottom of a complex system that supplies workers to some of America's richest and most successful companies, such as Cisco Systems Inc., Verizon and Apple Inc."
In a presumably unrelated move, the U.S. changed its H-1B record retention policy last week, declaring that records used for labor certification, whether in paper or electronic, "are temporary records and subject to destruction" after five years under the new policy. "There was no explanation for the change, and it is perplexing to researchers," reports Computerworld. "The records under threat are called Labor Condition Applications (LCA), which identify the H-1B employer, worksite, the prevailing wage, and the wage paid to the worker." Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, added: "It undermines our ability to evaluate what the government does and, in today's world, retaining electronic records like the LCA is next to costless [a full year's LCA data is less than 1 GB]." President Obama, by the way, is expected to use his executive authority to expand the H-1B program after the midterm elections.
In a presumably unrelated move, the U.S. changed its H-1B record retention policy last week, declaring that records used for labor certification, whether in paper or electronic, "are temporary records and subject to destruction" after five years under the new policy. "There was no explanation for the change, and it is perplexing to researchers," reports Computerworld. "The records under threat are called Labor Condition Applications (LCA), which identify the H-1B employer, worksite, the prevailing wage, and the wage paid to the worker." Lindsay Lowell, director of policy studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, added: "It undermines our ability to evaluate what the government does and, in today's world, retaining electronic records like the LCA is next to costless [a full year's LCA data is less than 1 GB]." President Obama, by the way, is expected to use his executive authority to expand the H-1B program after the midterm elections.
This trickles down to the US workers too. Here is how it works.
In a downsize you become unemployed. In looking for work, most openings are either entry level or contract positions with no benifits.
You earn too much to be eligable for Obama Care and the company plan is employee paid. If you have a spouse without employment, a mortguage, and need health care, there is a distinct lack of family wage jobs that isn't sucked dry by insurance in excess of 2K/Month. My COBRA insurance is higher than the mortgauge. This payment pretty much sucks up all expendable income normally used for living expenses.
Many younger workers simply forgo the insurance payments. Older workers don't have this option.
The truth shall set you free!
What are you smoking?
The companies listed Apple, Cisco, Verizon pay wages most of America could only dream of -- especially since they typically require only a 4 year degree. According to GlassDoor:
Apple's entry-level Software Engineer title makes an average base pay of $119,268, plus $34kish in additional incentives.
Cisco's "Software Engineer" title has an average salary of $117,326 with about $20k in additional incentives.
Verizon's "Software Engineer" title has any average salary of $100,098. Only one person reported bonus, at $14k. I'm not sure if, like the above companies, bonuses & stock are all but a given.
Since H1Bs are, by law, required to be paid the same salaries as their American citizen counterparts, if anything, the travesty is that we're giving the nation's best-paying jobs to people from overseas. But having hired numerous engineers, I can say that it'd be difficult to staff a large tech company of any size without relying on a foreign labor pool.
There's certainly abuses of the H1B program, but they're mostly from the big Indian "work for hire" shops like L&T, Infosys, etc. They pay way below industry norms, and thus, paying domestic workers the same wage as your foreign workers isn't that big of a deal.