Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder • Hacker News Board

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#11

Post by eigenvector » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:23 PM UTC

lazaroclapp wrote: post #9

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Ameri…

> I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]).

Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labour market artificially and depress salaries by replacing Americans with foreign workers who are tied to one employer and therefore unable to negotiate for a proper salary. The italicized portion is what we should find troubling, not merely that foreigners are moving to America to work. This results in a transfer of wealth from the working population to employers who no longer need to pay prevailing market wages.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#12

Post by frostmatthew » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

eigenvector wrote: post #11

lazaroclapp wrote: post #9

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Ameri…

> I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labo…

A lot of this would be solved (or at least greatly improved) if H-1Bs were awarded via auction rather than lottery.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#13

Post by tremon » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

sjclemmy wrote: post #10

Free market capitalism. You can't have it both ways.

Then we should not have it at all.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#14

Post by newjersey » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

frostmatthew wrote: post #12

eigenvector wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labo…

A lot of this would be solved (or at least greatly improved) if H-1Bs were awarded via auction rather than lottery.

I'd like to add that full rights for guest workers could possibly solve the problem outright. Let the worker walk out and find a better job the day they land in the airport or cross the border or change status to worker. Make any "bond" illegal and declare the employer may not seek restitution for the worker walking out in search of greener pastures.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#15

Post by colordrops » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

lazaroclapp wrote: post #9

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Ameri…

These Carly Fiorina-style arguments that no one has a special right to a job are ignoring a lot of context. In a world with even handed regulation and no borders, that could make sense. But that is not the world we live in. The current situation is not that trade is completely deregulated and labor is tied up in red tape. What is really happening is that there is a complex surface area of varying degrees of regulation and deregulation that in most cases benefits an elite class at the expense of others. Companies in America take advantage of rights to purchase land, subsidies, government contracts, military protection, tax advantages, tariffs, etc, all funded by American tax payers. Why wouldn't it be fair for Americans to have an advantage in the American market place? I actually agree that in an ideal world nations and borders wouldnt exist. But as long as the majority see benefit in their existence and they are being propped up by the powers that be, why would you kick the legs out from any small advantage you have from being a citizen of one?

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#16

Post by lazaroclapp » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

eigenvector wrote: post #11

lazaroclapp wrote: post #9

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Ameri…

> I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar reasons[1]). Neither of those conclusions are necessary in order to be against H1B abuse. Abusers of the program distort the labo…

> The italicized portion is what we should find troubling

I do too. But I also realize that, right now, scrapping the H1B program means higher barriers to immigration, rather than replacing it with full work-and-residence rights for qualified foreigners. If the choice is between H1B or open-borders/conditional-green-card (e.g. skills-plus-clean-record based), I'd take option number 2, of course. Right now the national dialog seems to be H1B vs "go back to Mexico! We will build a wall!".

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#17

Post by Clubber » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

lazaroclapp wrote: post #9

This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods except labor, or why someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that I feel the same way when Ameri…

The problem is it's one sided.

The main issue is US employees are fortunate enough to have protections under the law, protections hard fought by unions, literally. Those protections cost money but are sensible, such as safety regulations, child labor laws, the right to not be discriminated against, minimum wage, no harassment, physical violence, etc.

When using Indian labor offshore, or any underdeveloped economy really, those protections are mostly gone because India doesn't protect their employees like the US does, which is also unfortunate.

Companies also benefit from the US legal system and infrastructure, including the liability protection from corporations, tax breaks, roads, public utilities, police, etc, all which are paid for by taxpayers.

Of course, to be fair, US corporations who benefit mostly from foreign labor should move their corporation to the country of their labor. Of course they don't want to do that, because of corruption, subpar legal system, infrastructure, etc. They want it both ways. Protection and benefits from the US government and cheap labor where the labor doesn't have the same protection.

It's not just wages US labor is losing. To compete, US labor has to give up all our labor benefits while still paying for corporate benefits through tax dollars. Taxpayers are also on the hook for people who can't find jobs while corporations do nothing but benefit. It's really another wealth transfer from the bottom and middle, up.

Besides it's against the spirit of the law. I'm ok with offshoring if US corporations are OK with losing all their tax breaks. I didn't think so.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#18

Post by revelation » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #4

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I get this - are the workers coming in to replace them actually in the USA physically? Are they staying in the USA physically? I mean is this offshoring / outsourcing or is it replacing with cheaper workers? Why can't the existing employees compete for the jobs? I mean WIPRO must have going through some pretty big pre sales workups, so who else was competing? I think what I mean is that doing this in sec…

Abbott contracted with Wipro, who appears to be performing the work locally, though Wipro claims only 20% h1b labor. Abbott tried to reduce the role of foreigners in the layoffs. Only about 20 percent of the workers brought in by Wipro would be foreigners on H-1B visas, Mr. Stoffel said, while the rest would be American workers.

I thought the idea was 0% H-1B labor? You can't replace an American job with H-1B?

The requirements seem very stringent in writing but apparently utterly useless and ineffective in practice, or clearly both executives for Abott and Wipro would be facing criminal prosecution. You should not be able to circumvent the restrictions by a single layer of contract work.

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#19

Post by warcher » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

Listen, there's no point claiming the H1 situation isn't a rampant clusterfuck. Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo while busloads of cheap, disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited and depress domestic wages. It's a full on disaster.

If you have to have temporary worker visas, fine. But don't tie them to a company. If there's a legitimate need, and they're legitimately skilled, they'll find work, and they'll more than likely find work that pays comparably to a native worker (or they'll get poached, because good help is always hard to find).

Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

#20

Post by johndubchak » Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 9:37 PM UTC

At this point, with both Corporate abuses from American corporations and the H1-B holding companies along with the frequency with which we've seen the more expensive American work replaced with a much cheaper "guest" worker, I believe we need to ask ourselves, do we not have enough surplus American workers that are unemployed such that the H1-B program might not be necessary for a year or two until we've managed to get the unemployed American workers back to work?