Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Will Advise Trump On Business Issues (theverge.com)

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick have joined President-elect Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, which will regularly meet with the soon-president to advise on business issues, the Trump transition team said in a statement. From a report on The Verge: The now 19-member council, established earlier this month, also includes Disney CEO Bob Iger and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Members will "share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his economic agenda," according to the transition statement. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi also joins today. The announcement suggests a new link between the president-elect and Silicon Valley, which has been generally wary of the Trump presidency, with the notable exception of Facebook board member and Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who supported Trump despite controversy and has been working as an adviser for the transition team.

Comments

Visa Fraud

[number6x]

What the rule should be for H1B visas is that one cannot displace existing workers in the organization in order to bring in contractors on H1B status. Don't allow an abstraction layer between the job to be performed and the original company in the form of the middle-man contractor company to allow this kind of BS.

Excellent Idea, and good catch on the 'abstraction layer' BS!

H1B visas are only supposed to be used when an American worker with the same skills cannot be found, yet we keep hearing about cases where American workers train their H1B visa worker replacements before the Americans are fired. This should be a big red flag. The job should not be H1B eligible because there is an American worker available to do the job, the person currently doing the job.

How do employers get away with this obvious visa fraud with no penalties whatsoever? They use the job description equivalent of 'creative accounting'.

1. 1) First, define your current employee with a label of some kind. Say they are a 'Program Universal Design Specialist II (PUDS II)' or some other made up label. Then, define the task that the employee currently does as being a task for a 'PUDS II'.
2. 2) A few weeks later. re-define the task as being a task for a 'Program Implementation and Support Specialist(PISS)'. Make sure to note that you have no employees that meet the skill requirements of a PISS. Note, also, that you can find no American candidates that meet the skill requirements of a PISS, but that the Indian vendor you work with happens to have a few really good PISS candidates, with whatever certifications are needed to back up the claim.
3. 3) Contract with the vendor to bring in the PISS employees on an H1B's. Tell the current American PUDS II's that the company no longer has any tasks for a PUDS to work on, and that their job will be terminated. (If they sign a contract to train the incoming H1B PISS, never [complain|sue|talk about the company disparagingly|steal the office supplies] they can work the next 6 months, get severance pay and will not be denied when they apply for unemployment.)
4. 4) Profit!

With a few simple re-definitions of employee roles and employee tasks you can avoid fines and still engage in blatant visa fraud.