The H1B program is literally a giveaway to the 1%, owners of capital. I am glad Trump wants to reduce immigration!
H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
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Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#292I was a full time H1B employee at AMEX for 3 years. Its not only the Indian outsourcing firms who abuse the H1B visa system. All American companies including AMEX also do that. The company never even had plans to give me a promotion, not even increase my salary a bit even though I worked hard than the Americans for 3 years !. They pretty well knew I was an indentured servant and paid me 79K/annum. All salary raises a…
> "I worked hard than the Americans for 3 years !. They pretty well knew I was an indentured servant and paid me 79K/annum. All salary raises and promotions were going to a handful of lazy Americans who rolls into the office whenever they wish." You seem to have a pretty aggressive attitude towards people whose country gave you job and paid much more than you were making in your home country. You also seem to have a…
Amex seemed to have a pretty aggressive attitude towards a person who moved across the world to work for them.
Here's a person who had a job, paid taxes, participated in daily life, helped this company grow, and you think you gave them something?
They were hired by a company in the US, the company thanks them by paying them and helping them with immigration. This person was working like most of us, I don't see why they don't deserve to be treated like a human being.
Calling this indentured servitude isn't a stretch. You uproot your life to come to the US, and now your new life is being held hostage through arcane immigration procedures. Of course they have the right to be pissed off!
There's also the irony that most people "earned" the right to work in the US through the difficult task of being born in the country.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that I'm sympathetic to employers who want to pay less. Keep in mind, the US takes in well over a million immigrants a year, and has a huge internal workforce. The H1B was created to help employers find critical and highly skilled workers that are in desperately short supply in the US. "Oh, but we can't afford to pay them a lot of money, that's not fair!" isn't the sort of argument that tends to evoke mu…
"if the salary isn't really high..." How high? Why is 100k a magic number? 100k isn't even a big deal in SF or NYC. While a high skilled scientist working in say, Corning, NY at Corning Corp or Niskayuna, NY at GE's research labs, 100k enables a king's life. How would you adjust for experience? Perhaps a company sees immense potential and cultural fit in an employee and wants to groom them for future roles? The wages…
Why shouldn't they? Salary is proportional to economic value. Shouldn't we be trying to maximize the economic value generated through the H1-B program?
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#294I was a full time H1B employee at AMEX for 3 years. Its not only the Indian outsourcing firms who abuse the H1B visa system. All American companies including AMEX also do that. The company never even had plans to give me a promotion, not even increase my salary a bit even though I worked hard than the Americans for 3 years !. They pretty well knew I was an indentured servant and paid me 79K/annum. All salary raises a…
> I worked hard than the Americans for 3 years !. They pretty well knew I was an indentured servant and paid me 79K/annum. All salary raises and promotions were going to a handful of lazy Americans who rolls into the office whenever they wish.
I've never seen hard work produce good results in software. In fact, I've seen it create more issues than it solves. Hard work produces many LOC, but that creates a maintenance burden.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, it's the same argument for indentured service, which today is considered morally reprehensible. The point is not that the people who took that choice knew the risks they were taking. The point that the kind of situation H1B puts you into in its current form is not one that should exist, even if by choice. But it is also true that many folks are not aware of these risks. I have many friends in the States on H1…
> I mean, it's the same argument for indentured service Everytime there is an article about H1B, people start flinging "slavery" and "indentured servants". Please be honest and don't analogize H1B hurdles (which I agree exist) to situations where people were actually killed.
Making an analogy does not mean equating the two. I'm specifically making an analogy between the "hey, you chose to do it" arguments that historically supported indenture and are currently supporting the unsavory bits of H1B. These arguments are similar. They share the fallacy of avoiding nuance in the choice (some people aren't fully aware of the choice. Some people may want to change their minds once they've settled in but can't do so easily), and they also share the fallacy of making choice matter in the first place -- people aren't saying that H1B workers don't choose this, people are saying that it's bad to make them choose it in the first place.
If you don't like the indentured servitude example, take minimum wage. If it didn't exist, many people would still be ok with being paid less. We have collectively decided that that is a bad thing. We have collectively decided that underpaying people is bad even if they choose to be okay with it. We don't say "hey, you chose an underpaying job over no job at all, you can't complain about it".
Choice is a red herring in these discussions. Nobody is saying that H1B workers were forced into this. Folks are well aware they made a choice. That does not affect the argument that part of the "con" side of the choice is something that shouldn't exist in our society. You're free to disagree with that argument, but the "folks chose it" is not a rebuttal because that was never the premise.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#296Honestly, I am all for raising the wage requirement. This will definitely help to reduce the use of H1B for hiring underpaid foreign labor.
I feel like this proposed bill doesn't go far enough. H-1B visas should ONLY be granted for workers that are in such need that they are above the 90th percentile of pay for that role. They should also be limited to no more commitment to the company than their peer workers. Once within the country, an H-1B worker should also be able to leave for other employment (without the top market rate requirement) whenever they…
> The entire point should be about bringing valuable future citizens in to the country, and the program should definitely be a strong path to citizenship.
For what is worth, not everyone who wants to live and work in the long term in the US wishes to become a US citizen. A lot of us would be happy with an easier path to permanent residence (green card), which would solve the problem of being "able to leave for other employment".
Also, from the point of view of US citizens who favor stricter immigration, it can be argued that simply making it easier for people to become US citizens doesn't solve the (real or perceived) problem of depressed salaries or higher unemployment rate due to the increased labour pool.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#297I think there's a big misconception here on this thread, thanks to the poorly written WSJ blog post. Rep. Issa's bill only applies to companies which have more than 15% of their workforce of 50 or more on visas. That number is calibrated to affect outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS, HCL, etc. So, while it's fun to jump on the "foreigners shouldn't work in America" bandwagon on this thread, this bill is not what…
You can have a large sales workforce working on 100% commission and play with that percentage.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Perhaps a company sees immense potential and cultural fit in an employee and wants to groom them for future roles? As previously stated, the intention of H1B is for ALREADY SKILLED workers in short supply. If they want to groom someone, they should be hiring a US citizen, not going to the H1B pool to find a low-cost foreign alternative.
Eh? Nothing precludes grooming skilled workers! Also, obviously, new hires can be highly skilled. Someone already skilled may fit better in one company than another, etc. etc.
H1Bs are intended to address skilled worker shortages. They exist so companies can fill important roles now. If someone is being groomed than they lack the skills required for the position they're being groomed for. Companies should either hire an H1B with the skills already, find someone local they can train or use a different visa to hire someone they can train.
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#299No labor shortages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Criticisms_of_the_pr...
Re: H-1B Visas: U.S. Lawmaker Re-Introduces Bill to Tighten Rules
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this proposed bill doesn't go far enough. H-1B visas should ONLY be granted for workers that are in such need that they are above the 90th percentile of pay for that role. They should also be limited to no more commitment to the company than their peer workers. Once within the country, an H-1B worker should also be able to leave for other employment (without the top market rate requirement) whenever they…
As someone that came through Canada's equivalent of the H1-B system, I think the Canadian system gets it mostly right: - A points system based on a combination of industry requirement, education, experience and English/French language ability - Permanent resident from day one - No restrictions on moving employer or province - Health insurance coverage after 90 days (Ontario) - Citizenship after 3 years (once Bill C-2…
I have Indian friends in Canada who were hired for an American company but are currently in a Canada office since the company plans to L1 them (which is much easier since getting an H1B as an Indian citizen is hard). I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to convince them stay and avoid the tons of issues that US immigration has. Well, one of them wants to stay in Canada, but I think he wanted to from the start since he was aware of these things too.
I myself was considering Canada for my current job, but chose against it due to a number of reasons specific to my case.
Fortunately they all work for a good company, which probably won't abuse its power over them once they're in the U.S.