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Disney IT Workers, In Lawsuit, Claim Discrimination Against Americans (computerworld.com)
dcblogs quotes a report from Computerworld: After Disney IT workers were told in October 2014 of the plan to use offshore outsourcing firms, employees said the workplace changed. The number of South Asian workers in Disney technology buildings increased, and some workers had to train H-1B-visa-holding replacements. Approximately 250 IT workers were laid off in January 2015. Now 30 of these employees filed a lawsuit on Monday in U.S. District Court in Orlando, alleging discrimination on the basis of national origin and race. The Disney IT employees, said Sara Blackwell, a Florida labor attorney who is representing this group, "lost their jobs when their jobs were outsourced to contracting companies. And those companies brought in mostly, or virtually all, non-American national origin workers," she said. The lawsuit alleges that Disney terminated the employment of the plaintiffs "based solely on their national origin and race, replacing them with Indian nationals." The people who were laid off were multiple races, but the people who came in were mostly one race, said Blackwell. The lawsuit alleges that Disney terminated the employment of the plaintiffs "based solely on their national origin and race, replacing them with Indian nationals."
Now you're unemployable for life.
Uh, no. I was unemployed for two years (2009-10), underemployed for six months (working 20 hours per month), and filed for chapter seven bankruptcy in 2011. For two years I was told by hiring managers that I was overqualified for minimum wage work and told by recruiters that I was unemployable. The day after my bankruptcy got finalized I got full-time work again because the economy turned around and employers needed to fill positions.
I have worked at a few Fortune X (single and low double digit) companies. They have all been addicted to hiring folks from the usual offshore suspects who pay substandard wages and import (mostly) Indian and Eastern European labor for jobs that could clearly be offered to kids fresh out of college with engineering or comp sci degrees in Europe and the US. I honestly can't fathom why. For all the money "saved" there's the SIGNIFICANT wasted productivity and the "meh" value to the business of the average "resource" supplied. Calls take a lot longer, code quality tends to be sucky to average, emails are hard to parse, and you wind up with a "team" who feels like "as long as there are lots of people on a call, we've got it covered." The fact that efficiency measures suck, employees have no skin in the game to improve things, and everything takes a lot longer seems to be ignored.
What is it that ensnares the bean counters to prefer this situation over hiring qualified local candidates? I honestly don't get it. Why is it "better" to pay some unqualified person a low wage, tack on a substantial fee paid to the body shop, and then have everyone suffer through the extended delivery times, angst, etc. It can't be cheaper to do it this way, and if it is, it could not possibly be enough of a savings to merit delaying the delivery of what the business needs in a timely manner. Or can it?
I find the whole thing to be sordid, unsavory, and just demeaning to all concerned. I can't blame the folks who take those H1-B jobs. One trip to Bangalore, Sofia, Kiev, etc and you realize that these are folks that are just trying to make a living. They are acutely aware that many of their co-workers don't like this situation and simply tolerate them. Clearly someone is making some serious $$$ by perpetuating this system. Who? If I was in an industry where the top 20 experts in a particular field were from country X, I could understand. But this is for relatively inexperienced java programmers and sysadmins....clearly not what the H1-B program is designed to help.
What do YOU think?
Their big problem is that they fired all the previous workers because hiring Indian 1HB was cheaper, despite the delusional claims in some of the previous posts. Replacements never are paid equal wages in the real world. However, if Disney goes anywhere near that then they can be sued for breaking the 1HB regulations. Just because the Feds side with Big Business in screwing workers doesn't mean that law has been repealed, so civil suites can still provide an individual with some legal recourse.
This case could really shake things up. In fact, I bet that it never goes to trial and Disney settles out of court because they are terrified what would happen if it got in front of a jury. Unless there is some sort of in court judgement against the workers bringing the suite, you can be sure that this will be the first of a big wave of long overdue lawsuits. I can't wait.
Why is Snark Required?
The ones STILL whining are people who were coasting and now have no relevant skills to keep working for Disney or to go get a new job."
Spoken like someone who hasn't had this happen to them yet. FYI, if you're serious, it's not just crusty old BOFHs and mainframers that are getting this treatment. The loopholes that allow service providers to use H-1Bs to fill non-exceptional positions are basically a cap on salaries. I'm betting the positions that were "found" for all these displaced techies are project managers managing a team of 100 newbie developers replacing the one or two guys who know the internal systems inside and out.
In IT, everyone's skill sets have a shelf life, and you're only as good as the last set of buzzwords you learned. Even if it's a rehash of a concept you worked with decades ago, experience doesn't matter the same way it does in other fields. You don't see this happening to older doctors, for example.
Except if you do it through a third party company that's all at arm's length, and nobody bothers enforcing that law anyway. We all know that's true. So the risk to Disney is minimal.
What they're doing with this lawsuit is hitting Disney where it lives -- reputation. What's going to happen is that if Disney doesn't settle, Disney will win on the basis that it's not illegal to discriminate against Americans. How do you think that will go over?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It seems like it would be a pretty easy loophole to close: If you are hiring H1-B workers, the department you are hiring them into cannot be comprised of more than X% of H1-B workers. If you want to pick up 100 H1-B workers for $5.00 an hour, that's fine. But, you might need 900 non-H1-B workers to qualify for that many H1-Bs. And, if you can't find 900 local workers that are willing to work for the wages you are offering, maybe this isn't the right country for your business and you should move it to where your workforce resides.
It's a loophole that has been abused too many times to count and there's absolutely no sign that it will ever be closed.
This NDTV article states,
President-elect Donald Trump has said he would not allow Americans to be replaced by foreign workers, in an apparent reference to cases like that of Disney World and other American companies wherein people hired on H-1B visas, including Indians, displaced US workers.
"We will fight to protect every last American life," Mr Trump told thousands of his supporters in Iowa on Thursday as he referred to the cases of Disney world and other US companies.
We'll see how hard he pushes Congress on this matter.
No, the easiest way is to feel sorry for the H1B having to leave their homeland and live in the US. They should therefore earn the median computing wage in the area plus a 40% bonus for living expenses. After all, they have no home here, and will have to rent or buy. They should also gain a company car since obviously they can't bring whatever transportation they have in their old country.
Also, free air fare to visit their relatives at least once a month - and on holidays. Can't have them being sad or missing their family.
I would be happy with that in place for H1B's.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
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