Why are we encouraging kids to pursue STEM careers when they might well be replaced by underpaid immigrants on H-1B visas?
This has been going on for years. When I started working in IT around 1990, most of my coworkers were Americans. When I left, most were foreigners who came in on H-1B visas, although many had become citizens.
Funny how the whole point of the H1B is that they are meant to supply a workforce when a local one cannot be found. Wonder how they explained that the guys being let go are training their H1B replacements? Let's make this go viral. Share on FB and twitter.
So, outsourcing has become insourcing? Or a whole new kind of import? Jeez. That is scary. And I agree with Dave; it seems to be an abuse of the system. But, from what I know of Disney, I'm not at all surprised.
Disney did not hire the H1B workers directly, they hired a consulting firm to take over their IT which happened to be staffed with H1B workers. It is a loop hole that needs plugged, H1B is not bad over all. I worked for a company that found it very hard to hire qualified people and on occasion would hire using a H1B. It was expensive and time consuming to do so and only worth doing after trying very hard to fill the position with someone from the US. The consulting firms, I am assuming, hire the H1B in bulk, have a full system in place for the paperwork, lawyers and process required to bring theses folks over, which makes it economically feasible. Maybe limit the number of H1B hires based on the size of the company would help solve this.
norman said:
Funny how the whole point of the H1B is that they are meant to supply a workforce when a local one cannot be found. Wonder how they explained that the guys being let go are training their H1B replacements? Let's make this go viral. Share on FB and twitter.
Nothing to explain. You train and keep you job for awhile or you will be let go for refusing to work (train) with your new colleagues.
H1B does meet the employer criteria meant to supply a workforce when a local one cannot be found at the price employers want. H1B was created at the behest of employers, not workers or unions.
As Nan pointed out, this has been going on for years. You walk in the Manhattan financial district and you'll find most tech workers are H1B.
I was not at all surprised by this article. I have seen it. A good friend of mine, came to work in NY from London on an H1B visa. She was a salesperson. No special technical skills of any kind, and yet she "qualified". The employer just needs to "define" the job in a way that only that individual can qualify for it.
When someone brings up illegal immigration and how illegals are taking away the jobs of Americans, I always chuckle. The jobs illegals take are not jobs any educated American wants. The good paying jobs are being taken by 'legal' immigrants on H1B visas. But because these are 'legal' nobody complains about it.
unixiscool said:
Disney did not hire the H1B workers directly, they hired a consulting firm to take over their IT which happened to be staffed with H1B workers.
That's what they did at a large bank 10 years ago. They hired TATA consultants from India. After a year or two of training they let go the American consultants followed by layoff of employees.
Now they've become more sophisticated. Just like many call centers have been outsourced to foreign countries so have tech jobs. Instead of bothering with H1B they simply have the consultants work at their resident countries.
Why is anyone surprised? Its been happening to manufacturing for 50 years. Now it happens to the tech and service industry.
dave said:
This seems like an abuse of the purpose of H1B visas.
ya think? been going on for decades. I trained my H1B replacement 20 years ago.
pmartinezv said:
When someone brings up illegal immigration and how illegals are taking away the jobs of Americans, I always chuckle. The jobs illegals take are not jobs any educated American wants. The good paying jobs are being taken by 'legal' immigrants on H1B visas. But because these are 'legal' nobody complains about it.
Illegal immigration and their dishwashing jobs that diverts from the real issue, of real jobs being taken away by corporations. That serves the agenda of many.
When I see some politician pontificating about illegals taking American jobs or some whiner whining about it on a forum, I cringe.
Once I did respond to a whiner, asking "Upset are you? Did Jose take away that dishwashing opportunity you were pining for?"
BG9 said:
pmartinezv said:Illegal immigration and their dishwashing jobs that diverts from the real issue, of real jobs being taken away by corporations. That serves the agenda of many.
When someone brings up illegal immigration and how illegals are taking away the jobs of Americans, I always chuckle. The jobs illegals take are not jobs any educated American wants. The good paying jobs are being taken by 'legal' immigrants on H1B visas. But because these are 'legal' nobody complains about it.
When I see some politician pontificating about illegals taking American jobs or some whiner whining about it on a forum, I cringe.
Once I did respond to a whiner, asking "Upset are you? Did Jose take away that dishwashing opportunity you were pining for?"
Exactly!
The issue really isn't that simple. Undocumented workers work in many of the trades, including roofing and construction. Not so long ago these were considered good jobs. For me, the real issue is globalization and its relentless race to pay the lowest wage. Although I support amnesty for humanitarian reasons, our current immigration policy (or lack thereof) is a complete mess. I've never bought the guest worker visa argument either. If there are shortages of skilled labor, then go directly to our high schools and colleges to recruit and train people. Now we see that the H1B visas are not being applied as they were originally intended, but rather as a vehicle to replace midlevel tech employees with lower paid guest workers. Surprise, surprise.
pmartinezv said:
BG9 said:Exactly!
pmartinezv said:Illegal immigration and their dishwashing jobs that diverts from the real issue, of real jobs being taken away by corporations. That serves the agenda of many.
When someone brings up illegal immigration and how illegals are taking away the jobs of Americans, I always chuckle. The jobs illegals take are not jobs any educated American wants. The good paying jobs are being taken by 'legal' immigrants on H1B visas. But because these are 'legal' nobody complains about it.
When I see some politician pontificating about illegals taking American jobs or some whiner whining about it on a forum, I cringe.
Once I did respond to a whiner, asking "Upset are you? Did Jose take away that dishwashing opportunity you were pining for?"
One more point to this is that the programmers I know laugh derisively when the ilk like Bill Gates complain that there are not enough tech people in this country. The people I know say they advise younger people to stay away from the field. What started off as a job they liked and felt were paid decently, has turned into understaffed, which causes too much presssue, and too many inexperienced people who are hired at cheaper wages and then cause more stress for those left who can do the work.
This race to the bottom is led by american corporations, and it will keep working its way up.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-04/bernie-sanders-let-s-spend-5-5-billion-to-employ-1-million-young-people
"In America now we spend nearly $200 billion on public safety, including $70 billion on correctional facilities each and every year," said Sanders from the front of the room. "So, let me be very clear: in my view it makes a lot more sense to invest in jobs, in job training, and in education than spending incredible amounts of money on jails and law enforcement."
Just to chime in that I've also seen the H1B thing in the accounting field. As far as I could tell, it was that recent graduates from overseas were willing to work for less than their US counterparts, and since they're tied to the employer who obtained the visa, they're very unlikely to leave for another job.
"Local workers unavailable," my eye.
This is ironic, of course. I work in the trades. When cheap labor came in and drove many of us out, white collar workers were thrilled to get a cheaper kitchen. Now the mid level white collar workers are going, and management is happy with the savings. Next it will be them.
"Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost."
I'm pretty sure that's simply illegal.
Ah--but the article reports employers are exploiting loopholes.
Legislative remedy needed. Quite apart from replacing American workers with immigrants at lower rates, these practices disguise age discrimination, which is something you also see in Pharma quite a lot:
"One former worker, a 57-year-old man with more than 10 years at Disney, displayed a list of 18 jobs in the company he had applied for. He had not had more than an initial conversation on any one, he said."
The operating principle is Capitalism. A system we have in place that is following a logical progression. I fail to see what the big surprise is. Perhaps read up on Marx to see what else is coming our way.
FilmCarp, middle management has already been losing jobs. mantram, capitalism can have rules and protections built in. That is what a lot of the big fights have been about. How free should all these corporations be? As I write this it seems like we have a bunch of kids on our hands who have had free rein, and don't want the parents to insist on rules like fair play or loyalty, or realizing the whole group does better if everyone benefits in playing together. It is the selfish individualistic, competitive....I don't have to care about the other guy attitude that pervades our system.
This makes me think about the Burns' series on the Roosevelts. Teddy went in and started breaking up monopolies and corruption. FDR created social security. There has been a certain element in our society who has been fighting back every since.
Unfortunately income/ wealth inequality as it stands today has come about as a direct result of the corporate welfare system that is in place. Whatever protections we have are too few and failing.
It's all about money. The greed virus has gone global in a big way, while our decaying two-party system no longer provides a bulwark, if it ever did. Remember the movie Network? The HB-1 visa story was buried at the bottom of the front page of the NYTimes with a not very convincing headline. It needs to go viral. Sadly, Gerryl, I'm not convinced that our legislators will do anything.
I've heard that certain legal work is being sent overseas. Contract review and work of that nature.
krugle Ive heard that too. The horrible thing is that the protections that were put in place were removed like Glass Stegall. Done by Dems.
krugle1 said:
I've heard that certain legal work is being sent overseas. Contract review and work of that nature.
I've hear that. Could explain the lack of jobs for current law school graduates.
Two years ago I attended a seminar on visa strategies for individuals with advanced computer skills. What I found out was that many employees were being brought in on temporary visas to work in key positions in communication, financial and pharmaceutical companies. At the end of their visa period they would receive new visas to work at a different company usually in a different industry. It is not uncommon for some to be here for years and years on temporary visas. The speaker was going through strategies on how companies could set up swapping of these employees to have positions seamlessly filled. Aside from the fact that this was facilitating hiring foreign workers to do work that could be performed by citizens, this is creating a system where these floating foreign employees are gaining unprecedented access to key industries through their IT systems.
mjh said:
Senator Seeks Inquiry Into Visa Program Used at Disney
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/politics/senator-bill-nelson-seeks-inquiry-into-disney-world-immigrant-hiring.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Well, that's all very nice. What about all the other positions that have been replaced by Visas over the last 20 years? You can't tell me our politicians don't know about it.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html
Last Task After Layoff at Disney: Train Foreign ReplacementsORLANDO, Fla. — The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.
While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney Worldticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.
Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.
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