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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."
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.
FALSE.
The jobs overseas are *already* much cheaper than what the H1B's are getting paid. If it were possible to have these jobs overseas ---they would already be there---, and that is cold hard fact. The jobs going to H1B are jobs that require face-to-face interaction with people here in the United States.
The 'alternate fact' here is the obvious bluff from tech companies (Let us play by our rules or we'll ship jobs overseas). The only response that has any integrity is "Well, take your goddamn ball and GO home then."
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Did you read anything I wrote? Trump's changes to the H-1B program are intended to change that, so that the visas go to the most high paying, most specialized jobs.
SV isn't "setting policy"; SV backed Clinton, who generally has supported the current lottery program combined with increases in the number of visas. Trump is proposing to decrease the number of visas but allocate them to the most well-paying jobs. That's probably a good thing for SV, but it's not what SV was lobbying for.
The very fact that they are training their replacements means that these jobs are not H-1B eligible jobs and that visa fraud is being committed. H-1B visas should be used when no workers with the skills are already available in the work pool. This would be workers who are already citizens, or permanent residents ('green' cards).
The fact that an American citizen is currently doing the job, and is willing to continue doing the job means that there is an American citizen available to do the job. Therefore the job is not eligible for H-1B visa.
Companies commit this fraud through the Human Resources (HR) equivalent of 'creative accounting'. The company will define a title for the current worker, just a descriptive label that has no legal status, something like 'Systems Design Analyst, Level III'. Then HR will define a description for the job, again a made up label, like 'Programmer First Class level IV'.
The company will say, "Oh boo hoo! We have no "Programmer First Class level IV" programmers and can't seem to find any in the USA! Whatever will we do? Our profits are doomed!" The company happens to work with a partner in India who sources H-1B visa worker, and amazingly this Indian company has a whole bunch of recent graduates with freshly printed certificates that show what good "Programmer First Class level IV' programmers that they all are, and look how cheap they are as well.
The current worker, who is not qualified for the job on paper but created all the software the job entails, is given the option of working for six months, training their replacement, a severance package, and no argument when they apply for unemployment insurance, or getting fired immediately and having the company deny them unemployment insurance.
The very fact that an American citizen is training an H-1B replacement means, in the real world, that visa fraud is being committed. However, there are no laws for truth in job descriptions like there are laws for truth in accounting that prevent companies from easily committing this massive fraud.
If there is truly a talent shortage, higher H-1B wages will help create a drive to train more workers within the USA and will reward any H-1B talent that is brought in to the US for their work. The only reason not to pay H-1B workers more is if you want to commit fraud and replace Americans with cheap labour.
You, like everyone here, get the general intent of the H-1B program correct, but you miss the legal loophole that tech companies put in. It requires companies to prove they're not displacing American workers OR pay H-1B holders $60,000. Guess which option companies choose?
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...
"n 1998—during the tech bubble—lawmakers amended the law to provide more visas at the request of the growing tech industry. At the same time, legislators cracked down on outsourcing companies that were employing large numbers of H-1B workers from Asia, and then contracting them out to American companies looking to save money. Though these consultants are typically called “outsourcing firms,” in a sense their work related to the H-1B visa program is better described as “insourcing,” since what they’re doing is helping companies find workers abroad whom they bring here for new jobs.
Under the amended law, companies that rely heavily on H-1B workers (more than 15 percent of their workforce) would now face additional scrutiny when applying for visas. These companies would have to promise not only that their H-1B workers would not replace American employees at their own company, but that they wouldn’t be used as replacements at firms that the company had contracts with either.
The new requirement would have provided some additional security for American workers, but a seemingly small, yet significant exemption was also written into the law. It allows those same H-1B reliant companies to ignore the requirements about protecting American jobs as long as they pay the foreign workers at least $60,000 a year, or hire a foreign worker with a master’s degree. It’s unclear why this exemption was included, though critics of the H-1B program say tech companies lobbied for it to undermine the new, tougher restrictions that might impact their ability to hire foreign workers. Considering the average IT worker in the United States makes far more than $60,000, that exemption makes it lucrative—and legal—for companies to displace American workers with cheaper H-1B workers. And it effectively undoes the additional protections of the 1998 bill."
passetspike!