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Former Disney IT Worker's Complaint To Congress: How Can You Allow This? (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: At a congressional hearing Thursday on the H-1B visa's impact on high-skilled workers, the first person to testify was Leo Perrero, a former Disney IT worker. He was overcome with emotion for parts of it, pausing to gather himself as he told the story of how he was replaced by a foreign visa holder. Perrero wondered how he would tell his family that "I would soon be living on unemployment." He paused. The hearing room was still as the audience waited for him to continue."Later that same day I remember very clearly going to the local church pumpkin sale and having to tell the kids that we could not buy any because my job was going over to a foreign worker," he said. But a person who made a case for access to foreign workers was Mark O'Neill, the CTO of Jackthreads, an online retailer. He argued that there is a need for more skilled workers. Competition is so fierce for developers "that my developers' starting salaries have risen by 50% in the last eight years," said O'Neill, and "senior positions command compensation that meets or exceeds even that of United States Senators."
If Mr O'Neill and the rest of these corporate leaders were actually so desperate for qualified tech people, perhaps they could consider starting extensive intern programs. If they failed to get adequate enrollment, they could work with high schools and/or community colleges, and even community outreach programs in economically suffering areas. Detroit comes to mind. Broad areas of the south do as well. They could provide valuable skills to people who wouldnt otherwise reach out to get them and reverse what these companies market as a shortage of talent and bloated wages.
Invest in Americans and quit acting the victim.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I don't disagree with the idea that there may be a requirement for H1B visas to fill positions where there are not enough skilled workers, but something doesn't add up when you bring in H1Bs to replace existing workers. You can't claim there aren't enough and displace the ones you have. That's like saying, "I only have 1 gallon of water, so I need to go get another gallon. But, I'm going to dump out my first gallon when I do." If there really is a shortage, the H1Bs should be added along side the existing employees. If there is a need to remove one of the two, there wasn't really the shortage that was claimed.
If A and B are members of the workforce and A isn't enough, you need A+B not B instead of A. If you are bringing in the workforce of B because you can use the H1B process and the individual's resident only because of employment status to keep their salary lower, you are abusing the purpose of the H1B process and the requests should be denied for violating the reason. In fact, one would think such actions are really a case of filing false federal paperwork to get the H1B applicants.
It's the free market at work. If these jobs keep paying better and better, more and more people will get the training to go into the field and balance it out. But that's not happening because...
I teach computer information science at a college. We have a hard time recruiting students into the program because they pretty much all say they don't want to spend years learning how to be a programmer when all of the jobs are being replaced by foreigners or outsourced overseas.
Oh, to be young and naive again. Do you think Hillary isn't owned by the corporations too?
Did you believe Obama would really bring "hope and change" too?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
But a person who made a case for access to foreign workers was Mark O'Neill, the CTO of Jackthreads, an online retailer. He argued that there is a need for more skilled workers. Competition is so fierce for developers "that my developers' starting salaries have risen by 50% in the last eight years," said O'Neill, and "senior positions command compensation that meets or exceeds even that of United States Senators."
So... scarcity equals higher price which is bad for business, except when it's business taking advantage of that scarcity. Would Mr. O'Neill complain to congress that we should allow foreign companies to build more Disney knockoffs, because Disney makes more money than some countries? I doubt it.
Competition is so fierce for developers "that my developers' starting salaries have risen by 50% in the last eight years," said O'Neill
Sounds a lot less if you run the numbers! That is only a moderate increase of 5.2% annually, compared to 2.8%-2.9% you need to adjust the budget by on average (!) for all salary increases.
If there is a demand for more skilled workers, then why are companies replacing existing skilled labor with foreign workers on the H1-B visa program? The CTO of Jackthreads makes no sense whatsoever. The H1-B visa program is all about trying to save corporations money at the expense of domestic skilled workers. The argument about a lack of skilled programmers is baloney.
If they don't want to follow the laws then just refuse to enforce the intellectual monopoly laws. Let's see how they like having all of their characters enter the public domain.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Trump is playing a simple role, just like you said, he's playing into what people said they wanted. But the people who want his ideology in power are driven by a crippling fear for the future. Rest assured, no good will come from a leader who plays on fear, rather than quells it.
I can't believe the bullshit logic.
"We're firing US workers and hiring H1B workers because we need more skilled workers and competition is fierce."
Uh. WHAT?
If they need MORE skilled workers, and the pool of US workers is too small, HIRE FROM THE H1B POOL AND KEEP YOUR EXISTING WORKERS!
But, again, we know this isn't truly about a dearth of talent in the worker pool.
It's actually about a race to the bottom for salaries and the money saved by paying pennies on the dollar to the equivalent of an IT sweat shop. Economizing US workers out of their livelihoods.
And it needs to stop...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
He says what he thinks.
Trump says what an uneducated idiot would say to his buddy in private company. He attacks detractors like a schoolyard bully with a foul mouth, and he is of zero substance.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
50% rise in eight years? That's only 1.5^0.125 = 5.2%/year. That's less than the rise in college tuition. For the extremes of the range, there is the ridiculously low CPI of 10% over eight years and the ridiculously high ShadowStats.com of 100% over eight years (view page source to see the hidden value). The geometric mean of those two extremes is sqrt(1.1*2.0)=48%.
Maybe 50% over eight years (5.2%/year) is in fact overstating actual inflation, but it's far from self-evident. By just stating the number and expecting people to be shocked, Mark O'Neill is, intentionally or not, advancing the wage-suppression-through-inflation scam.
He shouldn't *have* to make sacrifices. What Disney did is illegal. Blatantly so. The H1B program is not meant to be a way to lower costs for companies. It's so that companies can import workers *when no local workers exist to do the job, regardless of the cost*. There were workers available. Disney hired a shady outsourcing company. Black and white, open and shut. If Disney is not reprimanded for this, then our entire legal system and government needs to be torn down and rebuilt because we're so corrupt it cannot be fixed without bloodshed. I'm not saying I condone it, but we're already seeing attacks on government from people who think we are already there.
Since every Presidential Candidate has lied to them since time immemorial, they might as well pick the lies they like the best.
In Silicon Valley it's not uncommon for someone straight out of college to start at 100-110k these days. One of my friends is working -remotely- (while living in the middle of nowhere, so cost of living is super low) for a west coast company as a Sr Engineer and makes 200k~.
I'm on the east coast and while my title is one notch above Sr, I'm still just your every day software engineer, and I make about 230k. I'm not leading a team. I'm not architecting anything large. I used to, and I'm qualified to, but right now I don't.
The market for qualified software engineers is -brutal-, because you need software engineers to do ANYTHING, and the market is getting flooded by "I didn't finish highschool but I went into a bootcamp so I'm awesome at Rails" and "I have an MIT degree so it means im good, right?" peanut gallery folks (even though I do know a lot of good engineers who went that route). Even paying in the 200k+ range, giving every benefits under the sun, giving people everything they want, the hardware they want, the software they want, the money they want, the projects they want, the location they want (including remote), it's STILL hard to find good people.
H1B is supposed to help with this. And the idea is good: if a position cannot be filled locally, get someone from abroad so we're not at a disadvantage. If it worked that way, it WOULD be perfect.
But it doesn't. I know a bunch of TN1s from Canada who are fantastic engineers, and are filling positions that would take forever to fill up, and are commanding 250k+ a year...and because they're not lucky at the H1B lottery, they're stuck with the TN1 leash, year after year.
During that time those subcontracting crooks are using up all of the H1Bs for bullshit that goes against the spirit of the program. And then we allow spouses of those H1Bs to work, so it takes up low skill positions (which the country has a huge shortage of), forcing people on food stamps. Its terrible.
Yes, there is a shortage of H1Bs for the companies that have genuine need for the system in the spirit it was meant for. The solution isn't to increase quotas though, its to make sure it's used the way its meant to be.
..and that's why Switzerland has such an incredibly high murder rate, right?
Which has nothing to do with gun ownership. Every time people claim the folks in Switzerland, or even Israel, have guns coming out their ears which is why they have low murder rates shows their true lack of understanding those country's gun laws.
While this article is not the one I was looking for, you will note the heavy regulation of guns in Switzerland including how much ammunition one can buy and mandatory registration with the government, both of which the NRA howls over any time either subject is brought up.
Second, as the person in the story relates, the people of Switzerland own guns to protect their country as part of the militia, the exact same thing our Founding Fathers said in the Constitution. That people deny this prima facia fact is the result of deliberate twisting by certain groups, not the least of which the NRA who originally held to the Constitutional writing (to use a Scalia-ism).
Also, as to Israel, which some people bring up, this article explains one must have a reason to own a gun. Not that you want one, a valid reason AND you have go back every six months to justify you continuing to keep your gun.
If you want to point to Switzerland you had better tell the whole story. It's not as neat and simple as you and others make out. The government has a heavy hand in regulating firearms in the country, something which people like you fight against every time the subject is brought up.
In closing, I have no problem with anyone owning a gun. I've shot them in the past and have considered owning one but can't justify the cost even though I can easily afford one. Maybe some day.
But this nonsense that using Switzerland or Israel as examples of the notion "more guns = less crime" is shown to be false because of how their respective governments control guns. One might as well use Somalia where nearly everyone owns a gun yet there is crime in abundance.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Bernie is a political hack? I'm a conservative and not really a fan of Bernie's politics but I've always viewed him as one of the very few politicians in Washington with any sort of integrity at all. Frankly I would take him over Hillary any day despite her so called "centrist" policies. The former Senator from Goldman Sachs is hardly going to be a friend to the "people."
Trump is playing a simple role, just like you said, he's playing into what people said they wanted. But the people who want his ideology in power are driven by a crippling fear for the future. Rest assured, no good will come from a leader who plays on fear, rather than quells it.
Not really. They are mostly driven by the experience of being shafted by the politicians who have lied to them for the most of their lives. It's pay-back for what the Republican party has done to their dwindling supporters. It's the hens of dishonest politics, the political consultant class, and the media pundits coming home to roost.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia