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CS Professor Argues Silicon Valley Is Exploiting Both H-1B Visas And Workers (huffingtonpost.com)
schwit1 quotes Norm Matloff, a CS professor at the University of California at Davis, on H-1B visa programs:
The Trump administration has drafted a new executive order that could actually mean higher wages for both foreign workers and Americans working in Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley companies, of course, will not be happy if it goes into effect... Their lobbyists claim there is a "talent shortage" among Americans and thus that the industry needs more of such work visas. This is patently false. The truth is that they want an expansion of the H-1B work visa program because they want to hire cheap, immobile labor -- i.e., foreign workers.
To see how this works, note that most Silicon Valley firms sponsor their H-1B workers, who hold a temporary visa, for U.S. permanent residency (green card) under the employment-based program in immigration law. EB sponsorship renders the workers de facto indentured servants; though they have the right to move to another employer, they do not dare do so, as it would mean starting the lengthy green card process all over again.
Computerworld also argues this year's annual H-1B visa lottery "may be different, because of President Donald Trump," reporting that the lottery has historically favored the largest firms heavily. "In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers."
To see how this works, note that most Silicon Valley firms sponsor their H-1B workers, who hold a temporary visa, for U.S. permanent residency (green card) under the employment-based program in immigration law. EB sponsorship renders the workers de facto indentured servants; though they have the right to move to another employer, they do not dare do so, as it would mean starting the lengthy green card process all over again.
Computerworld also argues this year's annual H-1B visa lottery "may be different, because of President Donald Trump," reporting that the lottery has historically favored the largest firms heavily. "In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers."
Seeings how they are TRAINING their low wage replacements, exactly how low talent are they??
Anyone who doesn't understand that low talent is the new code word for "we make too much money according to you" needs to wake up!
#noshitsherlock
Let the H1-Bs change companies easily. Those who suck will stay low wage and not be a problem for me. Those who are good can easily find a job that pays them what they're worth.
If you want to end exploitation of H1B visa holders, it seems like the easiest step would be to let visa holders change employers without restarting the H1B process. This would reduce the exploitation factor, since employees could walk away from bad jobs. It wouldn't require guessing what a reasonable salary bound would be, but would let the market decide that, instead.
In particular, there is no early way out and after you have served your time you are free. This really does not match what is going on here.
As to the issue itself, if H1Bs are reduced enough or made economically non-viable, companies will just move the jobs offshore. There really is no way for US workers to win this one and anybody saying differently is a big fat liar, ah, I mean "purveyor of alternate facts" of course!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Then the US government wouldn't allow the company sponsoring the worker to have any control over his status, well at least after some trial period.(Say 6 months) I mean really, if it was about talent would anybody want a talent guy to get the boot back to his country because of the whims of his boss? (Yes, I know it's politics is the real reason they let companies own people under H1B)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Companies like Google and Facebook pay their H-1B workers quite well. Their problem has been that the H-1B visas in recent years have been snapped up by low-paying outsourcing and contracting firms who have spammed the H-1B lottery with applications.
Trump's proposed system gives priority to H-1B visa applications based on salary. This is a big win for Silicon Valley companies, because they pay some of the highest salaries. It's a big loss for the outsourcing and contracting firms.
I guess people have caught on to the fact that H-1B visas became portable long ago and Matloff's "H-1B visa holders are indentured servants" was nonsense, so he had to come up with a new myth. First of all, when you get hired as an H-1B, your employer has no idea whether you will start the green card process, so they have to regard you as someone who can leave at any time, just like any American worker. Furthermore, since 2000, you can usually change employers even while your green card process is pending.
The cost of housing has increased dramatically forcing the disabled and poor on to the streets. A contributing factor for this is the large number of H1B tech workers in the area earning over 6 times the poverty level and over twice the average of non tech workers. When 15% of the workforce are guaranteed to be guest workers and up to 30% at companies are guest workers through partnership and alliances. That brings this group of high wage earners to be a significant portion of the population. Having that much more money causes housing prices to go up. The flip side of this problems is that these H1B workers are being used to replace older engineers and force the wages for all engineers to be reduced.
America needs the best and brightest, but replacing experienced engineers and increasing homelessness by using H1B is not the answer. Increase the quality of public education, lower the cost of collage degrees, create a higher barrier of entry for guest workers is the way.
In the 80’s American companies moved manufacturing out of America, The decline in manufacture jobs causing Trump to be elected. Now education is being moved off shore by importing guest workers. In a few years who will be “elected” because public education is gone?
We will see if Trump is a populist or fascist in dealing with the H1B issue.