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US Law Allows Low H-1B Wages; Just Look At Apple (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If you work at Apple's One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino as a computer programmer on an H-1B visa, you can can be paid as little as $52,229. That's peanuts in Silicon Valley. Average wages for a programmer in Santa Clara County are more than $93,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the U.S. government will approve visa applications for Silicon Valley programmers at $52,229 -- and, in fact, did so for hundreds of potential visa holders at Apple alone. To be clear, this doesn't mean there are hundreds of programmers at Apple working for that paltry sum. Apple submitted a form to the U.S. saying it was planning on hiring 150 computer programmers beginning June 14 at this wage. But it's not doing that. Instead, this is a paperwork exercise by immigration attorneys to give an employer -- in this case, Apple -- maximum latitude with the H-1B laws. The forms-submittal process doesn't always reflect actual hiring goals or wage levels. Apple didn't want to comment for the story, but it did confirm some things. It says it hires on the basis on qualifications and that all employees -- visa holders and U.S. workers alike -- are paid equitably and it conducts internal studies to back this up. There are bonuses on top of base pay. Apple may not be paying low wages to H-1B workers, but it can pay low wages to visa workers if it wanted. This fact is at the heart of the H-1B battle.
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Government benefits from importing cheap labor. Rich landowners (now corporations) benefit from cheap labor. History is replete with rich people trying to get richer by importing slaves and/or indentured servants.
It never works out well for society in the long run, but in the long run you're dead anyways, so might as well make some more money and bribe some more gov't officials while you're here, right?
Doesn't matter which political party is in power, doesn't matter whether a politician is a leftist or a rightist, they ALWAYS import more cheap labor... because they want to benefit the rich (and by extension, themselves). Trump ran a campaign saying he will put a stop to this, and now that he's in power he's already he's backpedaling. He's just turning into Clinton Lite. I'll bet you large sums that if Bernie was elected, right about now he will be finding excuses to import more cheap labor too.
L visas let the employer pay the foreign employee's home town wage for up to a year while in the US. When I lived in China for a couple of years I interviewed with the local IBM office about database consulting. They wanted to fly me to the US on an L visa while paying the local wage of about $1K USD which would be OK there in town but not in L.A. The hiring manager assured me on the 3rd level interview that they did it all the time and it was no problem. Then I mentioned that as a US citizen I couldn't be sent on any kind of visa and I couldn't work in the US for sub-minimum wage. He hung up and I couldn't get him to answer when I called back. Since they wanted to hire and send me immediately but an L visa requires a prior year of employment, minimum, they were obviously quite handy at lying on the paperwork. Think about this the next time big blue sends in a consultant from another country.
If companies would be required to pay at least $120,000 as one bill in the House requires, all the H1b problems go away.
Tech companies don't want to do this.
Why don't we just bring back slavery? It would be more honest.
But there is a shortage of STEMs with 20+ years experience willing to work for 40k a year. It's absolutely impossible to find any.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If H-1B visas really are used to hire the best, brightest, and most rare talents - then a minimum wage of $150k/year should be no problem.
This would solve the problem instantly.
However, I suspect that instead of asking for larger H-1B visa caps, most H-1B visas would go unused.
"but it can pay low wages to visa workers if it wanted. This fact is at the heart of the H-1B battle."
No. This battle is not just about the wages paid the H-1B workers, it is allowing allowing there to be any H-1B workers if there are US workers who could perform the task at any price or do so with reasonable training (in high tech environments new employees generally need up to 12 months to get up to full speed).
H1B workers should not be allowed in to keep current wage levels, to reduce leverage skilled employees have in the local free market, and certainly not to replace/displace local workers. H1B workers are for when local talent does not exist. Period. The same is also true of the back door using accelerated degrees from foreign nations to get student student visas for US grad schools. US schools might be willing to sell out since these students pay max tuition and US companies having programs which then pay for/reimburse the education costs might make this feasible but it isn't in the overall interest of the United States.