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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.
It's time to organize the world's programmers and make it clear to business that we won't tolerate this treatment any longer. It doesn't matter if we form a union or not as long as we band together to protect our common interests as programmers.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The best thing to do is replace the H-1B visas that are tied to a specific employer and make them a general limited time employment visa.
If the employers say there's a specific need for more workers in a field then the govt can grant a few more of the new visas to those wishing to travel to the US.
This would mean employers would be have to pay the going wage to the newcomers, albeit with the downward pressures on pay that would come from an increased worker pool.
I could be crazy tho.
NOTE: All of the above is the view of a simple rustic Northern Irishman with no desire to move to the US. Well, mebbe somewhere with snowboarding. Seriously, I live farther north than Vancouver for fuck sake, but all winter is just rain and wind. An no. I'm not going to Scotland. Our whiskey is better. If i wanted to drink bog water i'd just drink bog water.
Finally someone else is making this obvious analogy, but in one way H1-B is worse. Two of my great grandparents came to Canada as indentured servants. My great grandparents got married and fled their servitude into what was then the wilds of western Canada where as long as you could work or scratch some dirt for food and kill a little wild for extra you got along. Most of all no one was going to look for you and ship you back because there was no one to DO the work so a body was appreciated in a way, even one that wasn't a slave.
That last word being the key point. They don't want employees, they want slaves. If the free market was driving this to attract the best they would be offering all H1-Bs a premium salary and premium working conditions above local talent which would drive up wages and then supply ... guessing that is not the case.
Hopefully the non-IT, general public will be.
...even in Denmark.
Believe it or not, this isn't much different than some desperate Russian woman seeking a future "husband" in a country with democratic freedom of some sorts, what they don't know - is that everything isn't milk and honey where they come to, they're still going to be second class citizens of the country they "escape" to.
Skilled workers dream of a permanent visa after slaving over minimum wages for 5 years in the U.S. And they pretty much have to accept the conditions, because they know...if they screw up after 3.9 years under slavery, all their efforts would have been wasted, and they have to return home. Don't like the job? No problem...there's 10+ million Asians just waiting to take your job mister so get in line or get lost is pretty much the response they'd get.
You'd believe it would be better in other countries, say...like the richest countries in the world...Scandinavia, but no. I have met a bus-driver that is a surgeon, an hardware engineer from Iraq that has to work at a friends convenience store to avoid being sent home. Several people that collects bottles in our cities, are former health care workers, well educated people, librarians, scientists and many more professional occupations they "escaped" from at home where their beliefs and freedom where suppressed, hoping to find a better life over here.
But all we do, is to complain about them taking our jobs (yeah, the jobs WE DON'T WANT TO DO...), and treat them like dirt.
The whole system has to change. We must modernize this world for the 21 century, we can't keep wasting our resources like that.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The LA Times has recently covered how Electronics For Imaging (EFI) clearly underpaid Indian immigrant laborers. $1.21 an hour in Silicon Valley, 122 hours in a week, and no overtime. Thank goodness EFI got caught!
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
Still, I don't think the non-IT general public knows an industry called IT *labor* even exists. Except for the Obama-care website snafu that is. (Maybe in Oregon, the folks there know about Oracle Corp. by now) Millions of iPhones are begging for greater robotic assemblies, because those gizmos don't build themselves, and it'll happen.
Hmmm... from my salary, which is about 15% off of what the average InfoSec guy with 20yrs of great experience can draw in the Bay area. I wonder at your supposition. In fact, I may spend the day wandering around my 75acres of well wooded land, or perhaps I'll ponder while I watch the soybean farmer that leases the other 75 acres is doing, or perhaps while I wander about my 4600 sqft home...
I lived in SoCal for 10 yrs. My wife is from the West Coast. I make a good living, and live a good life. Every now and then I get a nice offer from some west coast or other company to move and take up the urban life style. We consider it, and then pass. You can't trade knowing the people in your farmer's market by name, having conversations with the local coffee shop about roasting methods over a cigar and whiskey, all while enjoying an evening in which the background noise lacks cars but more than makes up for it with owls, crickets, cicadas, whipoorwills, doves, and all manner of other creatures.
When we want to go to the city... We drive and stay a week, or a weekend. We figure that the money we save on the home (my payments on a 30 yr note on the above property are just above 1100/mo insurance and tax included) and the time on the commute can be used on mini-vacations to the city.
There are things that we miss (an excellent dance school) but not a lot. We have a tutor that teaches my children Mandarin, and piano. They swim at the Y a few times a week, play indoor soccer on weekends. My wife acts in the local theatre companies (one of which is one of the longest continuously running theatre companies in the country). I can still go to the local gaming store and hang out with comic book nerds...
So... If you're pissed about the wage depression, you should probably look at a different profession, or another circumstance. From here, in Cali or any where else, I've never had a problem getting a good wage for the job that I do, nor have I had a problem getting offers for a damn good wage to live in the Bay, or Denver, or San Diego.
All of the above aside... The H1-B program is designed for abuse. It was designed by politicians. It falls under the same type of shit that had all computer workers classified as management/professionals to prevent hourly pay and/or overtime. The above was to point out that if you look somewhere other than the Bay, you can still build new stuff, and have a much better life. The Bay area is a technological sweatshop. Leave. When you leave, take your skills and desire to build with you. Make some other place in the country a great place to innovate. Austin is great, and not a terrible city (esp compared to the West Coast), Houston isn't bad either, lots of great places to live. When you build your customer base, move to a smaller town and enjoy your life, you only get one shot.