Totally independently of other things, naming it "Required" sounds better than "took 10.000$ for zipping their lips"
Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
71–80 of 210 posts
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am an immigrant living in the united states. I still can't believe my luck that I get to live in this paradise on earth called USA. I also feel guilty that got this incredible opportunity while much of my extended family and friends rot in third world hell holes waiting for their lives to be over quickly so they can be put out of their misery. One of my uncle works as day laborer in dubai. He works 14 hr days of ha…
> I also feel guilty that got this incredible opportunity while much of my extended family and friends rot in third world hell holes waiting for their lives to be over quickly so they can be put out of their misery Goodness - I know it's probably hyperbole, but what kind of fucked-up country do you come from?
Probably India or Pakistan, common sources of Dubai slave labor.
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#73Listen, 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…
Wait til TTIP and TPP becomes law. Times are good now, but once hilary gets elected and these "free" trade agreements gets signed, the monied masters will immediately raise interest rates and cause a recession which will give cover for businesses to lay off a large swathe of workers ( this time its going to be IT/developers/tech workers who are going to face the brunt of it ) and offshore a lot of these jobs. H1B is…
I think that a reasonable person could disagree with what you're saying here, but I don't think that justifies the downvotes. Your comment is reasoned and mostly uninflammatory, albeit considered a little "out-there" by most people. In the back of my mind, I tend to agree with much of what you say here.
> Complete protectionism/isolation isn't a good thing. But extreme liberal trade policies aren't a good thing either.
I'm just trying to figure out how we got into this bizarro world where being supportive of a trade policies with your 12 closest allies, notably leaving out the two countries with the second and third largest economies (and growing rapidly), earns you the label of being "pro-trade".
How the hell did that become our idea of a non-isolationist trade policy? It's the antithesis of free trade, particularly when you look 10 or 20 years forward and realize this treaty is (effectively) disincentivizing trade with what will be the two largest economies.
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#74Sorry, 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.
I was just using the extreme example of the comparison of low-skilled workers in the two countries. Even in the opposite extreme I have no particular sympathy, in my mind it's analogous to one American programmer losing her job to another American programmer.
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#75At 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 g…
One of the best developers I've ever worked with is here on an H1B. He's better than 95% of all the US Software Engineers I've ever worked with. He runs an open source project in his spare time and gives talks to educate the community. He's the kind of person the visa is for and he is paid appropriately for a senior engineer (not a cheap import).
The problem is the mostly Indian outsourcing companies. They ballot-stuff the H1B process every year. I talked to an Indian engineer in the US on J1. He said these three companies come to every Indian University and indiscriminately "hire" every single graduate to sign up for H1B, regardless of skill, need, or ability. Then if they "win" they get a to come to the USA, so of course most take the offer. It is implicitly understood that they will work for low wages and in difficult conditions but the goal is not to ask questions or rock the boat and wait until they get a green card.
I don't blame the workers but it is clearly an abuse of the system; Infosys isn't hiring India's brightest engineers to import as contractors. They're grabbing as many people with a pulse as possible to ballot-stuff H1B applications.
That could be solved by restricting applications to X per applicant, including all affiliated companies and subcontractors.
The other H1B scam is that you only have to pay a software engineer around $60-$70k to qualify as "highly paid". I'm not sure what the exact trick in the rules is but the consulting companies can and do pay well below market rates for engineers and it's perfectly legal.
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#76Earlier 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…
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.
Foreign workers (fw) who work for less $ than the Domestic worker (dw) drive down wages. In this case fw is benefited by making more than they would in native country, while dw makes less than the old rate.
Paying old rate generally means dw keeps old rate, while fw makes nothing. This is the inverse where the dw is benefited at the expense of the fw.
If all people are equal who should recieve the benift?
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#77As a former H1-B worker myself (please put down the pitch-forks :)), I can tell you that regular companies aren't hiring H1-Bs to replace you directly. Instead they contract swarms of us through companies like WiPro and other body shops. This, along with the inability to seek a more fitting job on your own regardless of skill level is the main problem I see. You're essentially shackled to these body shops. You can't go home because of their BS employee agreements that force you to pay thousands if you leave before a certain time, you can't ask for higher salary or healthcare benefits, you don't get to choose where you work so it may be Texas today, WA tomorrow, Alabama next week so forget having a family life, you're wife can't work if you bring her and kids with you so you have to just follow along to their whims regardless. It is pretty much human trafficking once you get here. I can tell most folks here are American, they have no idea how messed up the H1-B system is.
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I also feel guilty that got this incredible opportunity while much of my extended family and friends rot in third world hell holes waiting for their lives to be over quickly so they can be put out of their misery Goodness - I know it's probably hyperbole, but what kind of fucked-up country do you come from?
Probably India or Pakistan, common sources of Dubai slave labor.
I'm guessing India because of the karma comment. What here in HN is a number on your profile, there it is a promise of a better future (but maybe in the next life).
Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#79Re: Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder
#80As a former H1-B worker myself (please put down the pitch-forks :)), I can tell you that regular companies aren't hiring H1-Bs to replace you directly. Instead they contract swarms of us through companies like WiPro and other body shops. This, along with the inability to seek a more fitting job on your own regardless of skill level is the main problem I see. You're essentially shackled to these body shops. You can't…
Is it a common reaction to raise pitchforks at H1-B's? I mostly feel sorry for workers on visa. They don't have the flexibility I do to change jobs if they're not happy. That would be the absolute worst for me, as someone who is always looking for a better gig.