American IT Workers Increasingly Alleging Discrimination

An anonymous reader writes: Some U.S. IT workers who have been replaced with H-1B contractors are alleging discrimination and are going to court. They are doing so in increasing numbers. There are at least seven IT workers at Disney who are pursuing, or plan to pursue, federal and state discrimination administrative complaints over their layoffs. Separately, there are ongoing court cases alleging discrimination against two of the largest India-based IT services firms, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. There may also be federal interest in examining the issue.

Comments

Unionize

[Anonymous Coward]

Fighting this battle piecemeal is a losing proposition.

Re:Unionize

[silas_moeckel]

Because union are sure to draw in the best and the brightest?

Unions have to figure out how to reward the top people you want working for you. So far the best they have come up with is those with the most time make the most etc. Till then it's just a way to force you to keep the underperformers.

Re:Unionize

[Lendrick]

The only thing worse than having unions is not having them.

Re:Unionize

[Old97]

A lot of the rules you're asking for exist, but they aren't enforced. Lawyers put together some plausible but incorrect statements and file them with authorities who aren't eager to check them out. There are videos on the internet showing various lawyers and clients conspiring to do this. To top it off, most in Congress are more loyal to the executives in the IT industry demanding higher quotas then they are to common people. Even when it's been demonstrated that these executives, Bill Gates included, are lying through their teeth about the salaries they pay the H1B's. Your last suggestions hint at a better solution and that is to remove employer sponsorship and control from the H1B process and the visa award completely. H1B holders should be able to change jobs at will and compete for whatever salaries they can get. Currently H1B holders are cheap and compliant due to the fact that they can't change jobs and it is that which makes them so appealing to employers. Free the H1B's and then they will only be valued based on their skills and productivity.

Re:Unionize

[tripleevenfall]

Exactly. Unionizing might solve one problem but would introduce a hundred more.

We need to make companies overcome the burden of proof that there is no one qualified domestically for a job before they can get an H1B. Other countries do this effectively.

We don't need to bring unions in to fleece dues out of everyone, jump in the middle of workplace disputes, destroy advancement based on merit, destroy the incentive to go the extra mile and be a star performer, etc etc. Perhaps if you are a cog turning a screwdriver for a living they are all well and good, but in IT where people work with their minds, it needs to be a creative, innovative, free environment.

Re:Unionize

[Hognoxious]

We need to make companies overcome the burden of proof that there is no one qualified domestically for a job before they can get an H1B.

Also that the qualification is relevant, and that the visa applicant does have it. None of this 15 years on Java 9 with a black belt in origami crap.

Re:Unionize

[drinkypoo]

The only thing worse than having unions is not having them.

The only thing worse would be never having had them. But now they're holding back progress because they are a specially protected class and their wages tend to be whole-number multiples of the minimum wage. Yes, that promotes campaigning for the minimum wage, but it also prevents campaigning for it to be a living wage, because they're not going to get their wages raised that high, thus they're not going to get the minimum wage raised that high. In education in particular it has led to executive salaries which rob money needed for education, and I personally have witnessed both educators (though only a couple) and support personnel (more of those) who desperately needed to be replaced for the good of the institution but who could not be removed because of their union status.

Unions were a wholly necessary step in securing rights for workers, but now they are interested primarily in padding their own pockets and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves. Their answer is "why haven't you unionized yet" but not only is that not realistic for many disciplines but creating more bureaucracy only creates more waste and corruption. We shouldn't need more unions, we need rights for all workers. It's time to move beyond them, not backwards, but forwards.

Re:Unionize

[Archangel Michael]

What we need are rule in place that if you are applying for H1B Visa workers, you have to prove you have done qualified job search for the positions and found NO workers to fill them. Make the Corporations prove they actually need the workers before issuing a single H1B visa. Right now, they just say it, and it is so.

The problem isn't H1B visas, the problem is that we have record unemployment and are still importing workers from outside to take the jobs of those workers still trying to earn a living.

Re:Unionize

[DigiShaman]

Say that to the auto industry that drove almost everything overseas. Right now, the IT industry is having it bad. Unionizing under the current paradigm would be WORSE!. It would be like "fuck it, ALL IT goes overseas, and the US as a nation is but a client purchasing all IT services overseas. There's nothing than can stop that happening now, but unionizing would definitely hasten that to occur.

I'm all about getting organized and having proper representation as a single unified voice to be heard, but unionizing as it's currently known as isn't the answer.

Re:Unionize

[AntronArgaiv]

What we need are rule in place that if you are applying for H1B Visa workers, you have to prove you have done qualified job search for the positions and found NO workers to fill them. Make the Corporations prove they actually need the workers before issuing a single H1B visa. Right now, they just say it, and it is so.

The problem isn't H1B visas, the problem is that we have record unemployment and are still importing workers from outside to take the jobs of those workers still trying to earn a living.

The rules are in place. The problem is, they're given lip service by the corporations and Immigration. Basically, because Microsoft, Apple, Cisco and the heavy hitters all want more H1-B workers, the government says, "sure, whatever you want" and rolls over, because...American competitiveness, or some such reason.
The government has no reason to enforce the rules, and politicians have every reason not to encourage enforcement.

No elected official wants to be the one to yell that the Emperor has no clothes, as it were. If they do, then the corps will all outsource work to China or India and, along with no jobs, there'll be no tax collection either.

Re:Unionize

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not unions. They're licensing authorities and qualification review boards. I don't disagree that they're a good idea, but I disagree that they're unions.

IT workers don't need unions. We need either licensing/qualification organizations, or we need guilds.

These things are all slightly different for a reason.

Re:Unionize

[Killall -9 Bash]

Some smart people by the accidents of birth were born in a country that was not US; H1B remedies this.

Some people, by accident of birth, are born in countries with no middle class. All these countries have are billionaires and peasants.

So, is the solution to their problems to fight the economic injustice that plagues their society? No, they come to America, so that they can bring the economics of Mexico and India HERE.

Unless you think YOU will be one of the lucky few living on Elysium, you might want to stop thinking "America first" is racist.

Apples-to-Llamas

[pla]

"But Your Honor, we didn't get any applicants to our job posting for a minimum-wage principal engineer... We had no choice but to use H1Bs to fill this critical position!"

White males can't be discriminated

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a problem here. You can't be discriminated when you are white, average aged and male. That's the world up side down! Only when you are part of a group of people that have problems with being discriminated you can use the "But that's discrimination!" argument to get what you want.

Re:Age discrimination is obvious

[DigiShaman]

That's OK, because when no one will hire anyone over 40, we'll just be unemployed, poor, and without skills that make us marketable. Guess we will be "retiring" on the tax payer dime thanks to the young whom are employed =).

Pay now, pay later. In the end, WE ALL PAY!

Re:Very little known secret

[dj245]

H1b employees also get displaced by TCS/Infosys. Their official policy is 85% offshore and 15% on shore employees. The onshore 15% exists mostly for co-ordination. An H1b employee's CTC is always higher by at least by 1.5x times to locals. Recently my friend who is on h1b was forced to look for another h1b sponsor because the company A signed a partnership agreement with TCS. TCS provided 3 sysadmins for his replacement but they were not upto the mark as expected by A because TCS's sysadmin's won't know scripting. This H1b guy was forced to train the TCS guys(10 of them) in perl scripting. He did that too but then they quit TCS for better salary and work hours. A new PM from TCS would come onshore every 1.5 to 2 years and he would question why they are employing a h1b guy for 2x the cost of an L1B. In the mean time the h1b guy's extension process etc. would be delayed. He used to be in lot of stress, they would still be search for an replacement and apply for the extension on the last week/day of original h1b expiry and then too they will provide 1 yr extension. Frustrated he quit for another company B. The same story has started to repeat at company B now. There is another category of visas called L1A and L1B(intra company transfer visa) where prevailing wages doesn't have to be shown and qualifications are not a factor. Almost 95% of the TCS onsite guys had either L1A or L1B and they were getting 60k for a 110k job position and their taxes found some loop hole and they were hardly paying any taxes, that is around 4k. The h1b guy was getting 85k and his vendor the rest. CTC was around 140k to the company. L1A visa is also eligible for immediate green card processing under "multinational manager"(eb1) category. The master degree H1b guys on an average wait for 10 years(talking Indian), the bachelor degree holders wait for 20 or more years. L1A guys just 3 to 6 months. For a foreign student he has to become a scientist(Phd + papers etc) to qualify for the equivalent category as "multinational manager". Some "multinational managers" are just 10+3(diploma) qualified. Last year there were around 500 eb1 gc applications(search 485 inventory on google). This year already 13000 eb1 applications have been received. H1b guys are under the Eb2 and Eb3 green card quotas. So companies have figured out the L1 loop hole and bringing in the 15% onsite workers as managers. That explains the huge jump in eb1 category. So the foreign scientists/Phds are unhappy too. The L1As get green cards in 6 months and then are not counted as foreign workers, qualifying the company as less than 30% dependent on foreign workers. Thus they import for L1As. So I would say, the anger is misdirected towards H1b instead of L1x visas.

Looks like an informative story but I couldn't get through it due to the lack of line breaks, excessive abbreviations, and poor formatting.

I'm not trying to be an asshole, but when you write like this, it's awful difficult for others to follow.