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H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

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Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#131

Post by serge2k »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #61
halflings wrote: post #54

A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US, you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B. I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really i…

The way to fix this and to make sure that the H1-B is used for its intended purpose (to bring in extraordinary talent that is not present in the US) and not just for cheap labor, is instead of a lottery, to give it based on salary. The position that offers the highest salary gets an H1-B visa, then the next highest and so on until the quota of H1-B visas is used up. How much a company is willing to pay is probably th…

> to bring in extraordinary talent that is not present in the US

I don't think that is the standard.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#132

Post by jorblumesea »

I can't believe in this day and age that anyone is arguing H1Bs aren't a means to get access to cheap labor. If you've ever worked with any sort of international company, you'll get connected to their "IT Team" which usually has some tech sound name like cognizant etc. They are super heavily accented, very eager to please, often poorly skilled and are paid far less than any native born person.

If you deny this exists, you don't work in the tech sector. What is this then, if not companies trying to maximize profits by exploiting foreign born workers? It's just mind blowing we keep going over this again and again when the reality is clear as day. The only logical conclusion of importing large amounts of lower skilled workers with poor language skills is that they are cheaper.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#133

Post by serge2k »

LukaAl wrote: post #97
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to fix this and to make sure that the H1-B is used for its intended purpose (to bring in extraordinary talent that is not present in the US) and not just for cheap labor, is instead of a lottery, to give it based on salary. The position that offers the highest salary gets an H1-B visa, then the next highest and so on until the quota of H1-B visas is used up. How much a company is willing to pay is probably th…

No, the Visa you are referring to is the O-1 Visa, it is much more difficult and expensive to obtain, but it is not subject to Visa CAP (I know it well, I'm on O-1). H-1B is for specialty worker, and they are not defined by exceptionality but by the fact that they possess a qualification for a specific job, there's a shortage of US Citizen for that job, and they receive market rate salary. We could agree that the beh…

> E.g.: are we sure that, if System Integration companies have to pay engineers a much higher salary, they will be able to provide prices low enough for other company to pay it?

If you can't sustain your business without illegal (or in this case legal, but certainly exploiting loopholes which shouldn't exist) hiring/salary practices then why should your business be allowed to exist. This type of thing only hurts workers.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#134

Post by serge2k »

1024core wrote: post #92
halflings wrote: post #54

A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US, you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B. I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really i…

> It's a lottery, the most stupid way to pick who gets to enter you country. Instead of a random lottery, rank the applications by salary (decreasing order) and take the top N. Everyone wins: company has to pay more, it ensures that the visas go to really hard-to-fill jobs, and workers get more.

No, big Silicon valley tech companies win.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#135

Post by LeifCarrotson »

1024core wrote: post #92
halflings wrote: post #54

A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US, you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B. I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really i…

> It's a lottery, the most stupid way to pick who gets to enter you country. Instead of a random lottery, rank the applications by salary (decreasing order) and take the top N. Everyone wins: company has to pay more, it ensures that the visas go to really hard-to-fill jobs, and workers get more.

Well, Infosys, Wipro and Tata would lose in that scheme. Whether they ought to win or not isn't a matter of debate here, but it is important to a lot of people.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#136

Post by mseebach »

jjn2009 wrote: post #122
mseebach wrote: post #108

It seems that opposition to H-1Bs is pretty widespread here. Do most people of this position also support deportation of illegal immigrants, and efforts to curtail illegal immigration? If not, why not? Genuinely interested in learning how those positions are compatible.

I think given Tata, Infosys, Disney and Edison electric's behaviour is plenty of reason for people to be critical of how we have setup H-1B. Illegal immigration is illegal so that is a purely indefensible position to have to be in support of illegal immigration. We have democracy and laws such as H-1B which allow us to bring people into the country on our terms (laws which require scrutiny from time to time). Any mig…

I didn't expect anyone to be in favour of illegal immigration - what I'm asking about are efforts to curtail illegal immigration and deport existing illegal immigrants? To the extends that laws around H1Bs aren't working, surely the laws around illegal immigration are working even poorer? The population of illegal immigrants is many time higher than the population of H1Bs.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#137

Post by itissid »

There is another problem that is eating away at the salary numbers of H1Bs its called full time Curriculum Practical Training(CPT). Basically it was intended to be a internship for students on an F-1(student) visa. Now many universities have "Full time CPT[1]" that allows students to work 12 months at a time. This itself is legal[2]. But I have seen many universities are gaming the system like:[3]. Often times no real classes but only "training" is offered for real work preparation. Enrollment bars are pretty low and there is no easy way to determine how big this problem is.

[1] http://international.syr.edu/current-students/employment-ssn... [2] https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/complete-correct-form-i-9/... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-univer...

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#138

Post by st3v3r »

davidw wrote: post #98
1024core wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quota is set by Congress. It was 65K for many years, but I hear during the bubble it was temporarily increased.

Sounds like a 'magic number' to me. What's it based on?

A number that sounds good. There isn't much in the way of reasoning behind it.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#139

Post by gumby »

jorblumesea wrote: post #132

I can't believe in this day and age that anyone is arguing H1Bs aren't a means to get access to cheap labor. If you've ever worked with any sort of international company, you'll get connected to their "IT Team" which usually has some tech sound name like cognizant etc. They are super heavily accented, very eager to please, often poorly skilled and are paid far less than any native born person. If you deny this exists…

> I can't believe in this day and age that anyone is arguing H1Bs aren't a means to get access to cheap labor. ...If you deny this exists, you don't work in the tech sector.

Believe me. I work in the tech sector and I find H-1Bs cost us a lot more, and always have (~25 years of reluctantly hiring H-1B folks from time to time).

There's a ton of paperwork that takes time and costs money and it delays hiring the person. You also have to pay more than the "prevailing wage" which is hardly a burden since I'm already going through all the hassle -- because it's someone we can't find any other way so we're already planning on paying them more. We resort to it when we can't find someone local, which mean we start this slow process after already spending time trying to find someone.

I don't see any problem with this burden BTW (I mean I would like it to be more convenient of course, but the idea that there is a bit of "trade barrier" to bringing in someone from outside rather than hiring a local doesn't seem like a terrible thing). And I'm an immigrant myself.

YES I understand there are H-1B sweatshops bringing in low-paid, not really qualified drudges. They are a problem and they game the system in numerous bad ways (including sucking up all the H-1s making it harder for startups to bring in exceptional people).

But they are two disjoint problems -- the basic idea of H-1 is a good one.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#140

Post by st3v3r »

Shivetya wrote: post #70
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who sets the quota? And how do we ensure the quota isn't lobbied to be resized to the point where it allows cheap labor?

what is going to prevent even further off shoring then? Software development, support, and even project management, are all easy candidates for off shoring and with ever improving conferencing tools, change management, and similar, its bound that there will be more competition. So either the cost come down because they live and work here or the costs drop faster as the work simply goes off shore. Far too many in the…

The terrible experiences that companies are having at offshoring? I mean, there's a reason why they're bringing in the H1Bs, or paying Tata, Infosys, et al for those consultants instead of doing the offshoring in the first place.
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