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IT Worker's Lawsuit Accuses Tata of Discrimination
dcblogs writes An IT worker is accusing Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of discriminating against American workers and favoring "South Asians" in hiring and promotion. It's backing up its complaint, in part, with numbers. The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in San Francisco, claims that 95% of the 14,000 people Tata employs in the U.S. are South Asian or mostly Indian. It says this practice has created a "grossly disproportionate workforce." India-based Tata achieves its "discriminatory goals" in at least three ways, the lawsuit alleges. First, the company hires large numbers of H-1B workers. Over from 2011 to 2013, Tata sponsored nearly 21,000 new H-1B visas, all primarily Indian workers, according to the lawsuit's count. Second, when Tata hires locally, "such persons are still disproportionately South Asian," and, third, for the "relatively few non-South Asians workers that Tata hires," it disfavors them in placement, promotion and termination decisions.
Not that Tata isn't crooked but I wouldn't be surprised if the number of western programmers applying was lower too. Seriously, if you've worked with Indians before, why would you even consider a workplace that was stuffed with them?
get rid of the H-1B job lock and set a high min wage for them maybe with X2 OT (or ever higher min wage) at 60-80+ hours a week. Then the issue will go away.
Just another speed bump on the race to the bottom.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Unions stand up for union dues. They don't give a shit about you beyond that.
The "actual law" often says that discrimination is behavior towards a member of a legally recognized minority on the basis of their membership in said legally minority. Of course it varies state to state and between municipalities, but that's usually the language of it. It's only the general, unwritten interpretation that provides the vague assurances of "racial discrimination is illegal" or "gender discrimination is illegal" or similar nice-sounding definitions.
Unfortunately, 'male' and 'white' are not legally recognized minorities, so by many actual, written laws, you cannot discriminate against someone if you disadvantage them because they are either white, or male, in the same way that it's not discrimination if you only hire the deaf over the non-hearing-disabled.
The same is true of the legal definition of rape in some states; rape is only defined as a male penetrating a female. All other combinations (man/man, female/female, female on man) is considered a lesser form of sexual assault. In these places, a female can never be charged with rape.
get rid of the H-1B job lock and set a high min wage for them maybe with X2 OT (or ever higher min wage) at 60-80+ hours a week. Then the issue will go away.
What! Are you crazy or something man?!? You can't do that, Zuckerberg, Gates and the Chamber of Commerce wouldn't have it!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
> and people say unions are bad this is what happens when we don't have unions to stand up for workers rights! ... from where I'm from, union is so powerful that they could dictate the outcome of elections. That's how they justify their existence -- have pet politicians who listen to them if they want to get elected.
Yes, we need unions to stand up for the union officials and to justify their existence. Don't believe me
We are getting undercut by those wanting to live the same life as us. What these people don't understand is that they are lowering said life style.
Who's going to stand up and say so, when everyone is so focused on climbing higher in the world themselves to escape the "not as good as it used to be" level they're at now?
A person who wants a lifestyle of "more", for example everyone ever to exist, doesn't really know what that lifestyle of "more" is actually like, so they have no frame of reference to know if they are damaging it. They just know that it's "more" and therefore must be better than what they have now.
In their eyes it doesn't matter how much of that cliff crumbles on the way up, because they are still higher up in the world when they get to its summit. Who cares if it's a foot shorter and everyone standing on it is now a foot lower and angry with you, as long as you can see over the heads of your former peers, right? But wait, there's always another plateau just a little higher up.
That pesky greed thing is innate to human beings. Left to its own devices, it overrides any regard for the wellbeing of others.
It is not that simple.
As an Indian American, I've looked at such companies (Infosys, TCS, Cognizant etc). What they want are cheap IT consultants, and if you don't fit the profile, they won't hire you.
As a senior management consultant at a top firm (think Mitt Romney) and a US citizen, they pretty much ignore my profile, even for pretty neat gigs where my profile matches their needs. Why? Because my asking salary and profile aren't that of a "typical" cheap IT consultant from India.
I was once told that I was "too young", never mind my qualifications and experience for a senior position (I'm 35).
The truth is, they don't just want south Asians, they want south Asians who fit a certain profile. I have many friends and colleagues who are also Indians with exemplary qualifications (PhDs, MBAs, JDs, and MDs from top schools) who are pretty much ignored by these firms. I am an American and Ivy-league educated with graduate degrees, and I am certainly not their type.
Why? Because if you are really well qualified, then you will demand more salary. If you more cosmopolitan, then even if you happen to be ethnically south Asian, you are less likely to be "culturally" brainwashed or pliable to shady or questionable business practices.
That goes against their fundamental business model, and they will not want you.
~m
Actually, no. A common tactic is to take out a classified ad in a low-circulation newspaper. The ad is, of course, poorly written and looks like a scam. (Generally accepted practice is to run it in two news papers one day per week for two weeks) This is to reduce the chances of an American applying to the position. After all, what professional actually reads the classified ads? None that I can think of. And writing the ad poorly and like a scam is designed to dissuade any professional from calling about the job even if they happened to somehow stumble across it.
Nevertheless, sometimes an American will respond to the ad, which is where the "qualifications" section comes in. The company will publish a laundry list of qualifications that no one has. sometimes they'll demand more years of experience with a particular piece of software than the piece of software has been in existence for. (e.g. 10 years experience with Windows 8). More frequently, they'll just chain together arbitrary pieces of software that are totally unrelated. This allows them to trash the applications of any Americans. The foreign workers, however, know to put this huge list on their resumes, even if they don't actually have the experience. Importantly, there is no requirement for the company to verify the experience of any applicant. However, if an American attempts this same tactic, they'll exercise their *option* to call employers and check references to prove that the American is lying.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
For Companies yes. That is why they want more H1-B's to drive wages down to slave wages an help line the pockets of executives. I think companies should have to pay monetary penalties for every H1-B they hire.
My last company I was asked to help my boss write a job description targeted to a specific persons resume - it was a person from India with an H1-B. The person was "submitted" by another person in the company that was an H1-B. I informed my boss that by law he had to look for an American Candidate first. He told me that if an American candidate fit the job description he would hire them. When the job description is tailored to a specific persons resume the chances of someone else fitting it are slim. Been there, done that. I told my boss I could not with a clear conscious help him do something so underhanded. I immediately started looking for another job and found one and started my new job within 4 weeks. I couldn't work for a slimy company like that. Granted anymore, just about every company is becoming slimy.....
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Time to start jailing these H1B abusers - all the way up the chain to Zuckerberg, Wric Schmidt, Bill Gates and anyone else who keeps perpetuating lies about "shortages of American STEM workers". Their agenda is anti-American, ageist, and racist. Of course, the couch their pleas in more sanguine phrases like "this is an opportunity expand opportunity for America", blah, blah, blah. We all know what's going on - a race to the bottom of the wage barrel. Every one of the individuals named above should do jail time for the fraud they have encouraged; this group is especially comfortable with keep skilled older American (over 40) Americans unemployed.