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

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by eli_gottlieb »

_audakel wrote: post #30
warcher wrote: post #19

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…

> disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited "exploited" is a matter of perspective. To an onlooker who has lived their whole life in a first world country, seeing people work for $x - (less-significantlyLess) [where $x is what is "typical" for the job] can be seen as bad/wrong/sad etc... I have spent time working in very poor parts of Mexico and Manila. Crime is rampant, I feared for my life at tim…

>"exploited" is a matter of perspective.

No, not really. If the bosses and investors are taking the surplus value, defined as the gap between wages+capital costs and actual revenues, then the worker is exploited.

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

#62

Post by fizzbuzzwoof »

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…

I work for []. They've had various offshored positions for years, working as outside contractors. For the last several years, they've been opening foreign offices and hiring direct employees of the corporation. Last year across some US-based offices, they split the employees into three groups, each roughly 1/3 of the office. Group 1 had their last day of work that day. Group 2 was told that they'd be training their replacements for the next 3-12 months, with large bonuses (60% of their wages for the time) if they stayed as long as the company wanted. Group 3 still works there (except the smarter ones who have bailed).

After* that day, they increased hiring in certain foreign countries known for having lower wages. I've been watching coworkers doing "Transfers Of Information" to the people replacing them.

If we could live in my area on wages similar to what is reasonable in the foreign workers' hometowns, maybe we could compete for the positions.

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

#63

Post by eli_gottlieb »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #50
frostmatthew wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

H1Bs allocated via a typical auction, would not do much good. Except mean that companies with the most money, could buy them and then under pay their employees. The best approach I've heard is the stack rank based on "minimum yearly income"[1], the top X number of potential employees are awarded H1Bs. At the end of the year, the immigration office checks with the IRS. If the employee was fired/quit or was not paid mo…

> H1Bs allocated via a typical auction, would not do much good. Except mean that companies with the most money, could buy them and then under pay their employees.

Well the idea is that the auction "bid" isn't for a fee to the state, it's for the actual salary. Companies would then compete to pay their immigrant laborers more.

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

#64

Post by vthallam »

VladKovac wrote: post #48

Sorry, I don't feel bad for any of these people. Even the poorest Americans have better material conditions than a lot of Indian workers. Why do you think the Indian workers are willing to work for less?

While US has quite better conditions, India is not some messed up rogue state. Many come here for a obvious reason, Money. The currency exchange rate is 1 : 66 for USD : INR. So even with PPP into consideration, that's huge and so they work for way less.

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

#65

Post by awinder »

_audakel wrote: post #30
warcher wrote: post #19

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…

> disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited "exploited" is a matter of perspective. To an onlooker who has lived their whole life in a first world country, seeing people work for $x - (less-significantlyLess) [where $x is what is "typical" for the job] can be seen as bad/wrong/sad etc... I have spent time working in very poor parts of Mexico and Manila. Crime is rampant, I feared for my life at tim…

These companies depress wages for the people that live & work in the US though, not just for the people they displace. The downstream effects on the places impacted mean this is a consequence that ripples through communities of people who live in and support their nation of residence.

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

#66

Post by sokoloff »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #61
_audakel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited "exploited" is a matter of perspective. To an onlooker who has lived their whole life in a first world country, seeing people work for $x - (less-significantlyLess) [where $x is what is "typical" for the job] can be seen as bad/wrong/sad etc... I have spent time working in very poor parts of Mexico and Manila. Crime is rampant, I feared for my life at tim…

>"exploited" is a matter of perspective. No, not really. If the bosses and investors are taking the surplus value, defined as the gap between wages+capital costs and actual revenues, then the worker is exploited.

That is technically correct (the best kind of correct).

Just as I exploit electricity to provide light in my house, or exploit Exxon/Mobil when I derive $5 of utility from a gallon of gas that I swindled them into selling me for $2.50 or exploit Apple when I'd be willing to pay 50% more (or more) for my Macbook than they actually charge, because I use it to make money.

As applied to labor, "exploited" generally means something much stronger than "employed to a productive end".

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

#67

Post by _audakel »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #58
_audakel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited "exploited" is a matter of perspective. To an onlooker who has lived their whole life in a first world country, seeing people work for $x - (less-significantlyLess) [where $x is what is "typical" for the job] can be seen as bad/wrong/sad etc... I have spent time working in very poor parts of Mexico and Manila. Crime is rampant, I feared for my life at tim…

> "exploited" is a matter of perspective. Yes, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that companies are systematically exploiting their life context in order to pay them below a fair market wage (in many cases), and in doing so is also exploiting the rest of the workforce to pay them less. Just because someone is happy doesn't mean they aren't being taken advantage of in a systematic, identifiable, and preventa…

How do you define "fair" in fair market wage?

If foreign talent = domestic talent and foreign wage = domestic wage; is there a compelling reason to hire foreign? And if being hired = increase worker happiness, than equal pay will decrease foreign worker happiness.

If all people are equal than whos happiness should we optimize for?

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

#68

Post by jeremyjh »

tokensimian wrote: post #26
kazinator wrote: post #8

> Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers. You can easily reveal the facts it in a totally non-critical way. At ABC Data, workers were encouraged to collaborate with management to come up with creative solutions to streamline processes and save costs. When I realized that ABC could save money by replaci…

IANAL but suspect disparagement is defined in such a way that a corporation's attorneys could prove this type of comment caused harm to the company, and thus meets the definition.

Yes, it turns out judges are not robots who apply law like it is some kind of program. They are capable of reading between the lines.

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

#70

Post by Clubber »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #43
Clubber wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

Note that this is not really about offshoring. Offshoring falls under the "free movement of every form of capital and goods, except labor" that I mentioned and it is complicated for everyone involved. You get competition from labor without legal protections which can't move to places where they would have such protections, nor easily obtain them at home. We get companies that are pretty much untouchable by our legal…

Yes, H1B is a different animal than offshoring as it is much more fair to the worker. Funny that the H1B has much more regulation than offshoring. That's probably why it's more fair.

Also, tech workers uses computers and do have free movement by remoting. Managers typically don't allow it. Economically, that's a heck of a lot of power.

Anyway, I'm pretty content with the current status of H1B in spirit. This company obviously didn't attempt to find domestic labor before using H1B, so they are in violation of the agreement. I think the employee(s) responsible should stand trial to see if the loopholes are indeed lawful. If not, I think they should be fined or imprisoned, whatever the law allows. I think they should lose all H1B privileges for 2 years and all of their current H1B's should be allowed to move to another US company. Non of that will never happen though.

It's only fair, you and I would face trial for shoplifting a $1 candy bar, something paid for by taxpayers that directly benefits corporations through determent, among other things.

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