H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say • Hacker News Board

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#71

Post by candiodari » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:09 AM UTC

yen223 wrote: post #52

candiodari wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why open borders are not ok. Abuse of workers is NOT an acceptable cost.

Restrictive visa requirements is the reason why workers are willing to put up with the abuse in the first place. Workers have a better shot at demanding a fair wage if they didn't have to face deportation if they spoke up.

Okay let's run that train of thought through, because ... you are VERY wrong.

What would happen if we opened the floodgates entirely ? Let's be 100% idealistic and just assume everyone reciprocates, China and the like magically become non-dictatorships, and so forth. Rule of law in rural Madagascar magically becomes as reliable as in the central cities of Switzerland. We just equalize the labor market worldwide.

What happens ? Well wages everywhere strongly trend to the worldwide average wage, and benefits. Okay ... so what is the worldwide average ?

1480 PPP$ or 600 actual $ per month. (source: ILO) (note: I would argue there are several reasons why this is too high, for instance this isn't a real average. This is pre-tax income of employed persons, and it's the mean: 80% or so of the population actually earns less than that. Pensioners, kids, disabled ... all earn $0 in these statistics)

And, by the way, you might think, this would make it cheaper to live in those places with high-paying job, but even a cursory analysis of what happens in Delhi will quickly correct you: no it won't. Places like Melbourne would likely actually become more expensive if you open the floodgates.

WHO would this be a desirable outcome for ? Well, there's 3 groups:

1) Obviously for the people currently in high-paying places this would be an extreme negative. They would face 60-70-80% pay cut without a real reduction in living expenses.

2) For people that would immigrate to those places it would be a slight improvement, or a wash. They would, after all, not improve that much in wages, would be far away from where they want to be and have to pay much higher living expenses. (and initially it would probably be a strong negative, as an outsourced wage pays for a lot of luxury in India and doesn't even approach the poverty level in Melbourne, but that's what they'd get. And with wages like that, they wouldn't be able to leave)

3) For the people staying behind this would be a strong negative. A pretty decent portion of the market would disappear (because people drive GDP, more than any other factor), which would mean that most industries would downsize. And that's to say nothing of China's and India's outsourcing sectors. Those would be utterly devastated.

A lot of people in Silicon Valley fall in the category that would benefit from moving (after all, that's why they're there), so they think that if it were to repeat, they would once again benefit. Even if that is a correct assessment (I don't think so, many Silicon Valley positions would be fine with dont-care-about-IT seat-fillers), that is still a tiny, tiny group. The vast, vast majority of people would fall into groups 1 and 3.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#72

Post by bduerst » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #65

tiff_seattle wrote: post #14

Why not just adjust the H-1B program so that the highest paid positions get priority? That way companies could still hire abroad for in-demand skills, but it would eliminate bringing people into the country to avoid paying the prevailing wages for IT workers. You could even make exceptions for academic or medical work as needed. It seems like a common sense adjustment to the program, but I don't see many people offer…

That would result in tech workers continuing to be underpaid, just slightly less so, and other professions being complete non-starters for immigrants. Working in tech, it's easy to get myopic about H1-B issues and only see how the program affects our workplaces. But it's important to realize there are professions other than tech that get paid a lot less than even the underpaid tech H1-B visa holders. And adjusting th…

Not to mention it would drive down wages for American jobs.

This national auction for visas would be an economic disaster, resulting in immigrants being paid much less in areas that have higher a cost-of-living.

Companies could pay immigrants less than the prevailing wage of American citizens, and lay off the citizens. Immigrants would take the jobs too because it has the added value of the visa.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#73

Post by diebeforei485 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

checker659 wrote: post #30

paxys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of studies that show that high-skilled immigrants create more jobs than they occupy and overall boost a region's economy, but all of those are conveniently ignored whenever someone wants to make a point. Silicon Valley wouldn't exist without the H-1B visa. Yes, there are companies that abuse visas and pay low wages etc. Why not focus on improving enforcement rather than rant about immigrants?

Also last quarter, 65% of Apple's revenue was from outside America. And, yet, looking at their total H1B numbers, only about 9% of their employees are H1B holders. If American companies earn money from the rest of the world, is it really that unfair that they hire a small percent of international people to work at their company? 1) https://www.immihelp.com/employer/APPLE+INC/205136/applicati... 2) https://www.apple.c…

The 9% only includes H-1B folks who are directly employed by Apple.

Apple also has hundreds of contractors employed by Tata, Infosys etc on H-1B's, in Apple's internal IT department ("IS&T"). These people are paid less than the 9% of people above, and would not count towards Apple's own H-1B numbers.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#74

Post by mdeg » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:10 AM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #33

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #13

This is one thing I don't entirely understand in terms of political alignment. The one side that is supposed to be about the little guy seems to support this system of immigration which leads quite directly to depressed wages and exploitation of this sort. Even in cases where the 'guest workers' are not so ridiculously underpaid, companies still exploit the fact that these workers generally have to have this job or t…

This is why socialist in the vast majority of the 20th century were vehemently anti-immigration, and the right was pro-immigration. Immigration destroys labor, and rewards capital. You'd think "leftists" would have a problem with that. Or maybe it's just the pendulum swining back I guess. When democrats and republicans were young, new, parties, republicans were definitely left-wing and democrats were right-wing. Mayb…

The grouping of "leftists" as a singular group doesn't make sense. The economically left person might say that work visa programs are just ways for capital to cheapen labour by exploiting foreign workers who have less opportunity to not be exploited. The socially left person might say that work visa programs provide diversity and opportunity to people from less developed countries.

Similarly, an economically right person might say that work visas are necessary to make certain kinds of labour affordable for business owners. A socially right person might say that work visa programs are abhorrent because they bring foreigners into the country.

"Left" and "right" are broad tents - they're sure to contain conflicting or mutually exclusive viewpoints on some issues.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#75

Post by pkaye » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

youzicha wrote: post #37

tiff_seattle wrote: post #14

Why not just adjust the H-1B program so that the highest paid positions get priority? That way companies could still hire abroad for in-demand skills, but it would eliminate bringing people into the country to avoid paying the prevailing wages for IT workers. You could even make exceptions for academic or medical work as needed. It seems like a common sense adjustment to the program, but I don't see many people offer…

Exactly this was proposed last year in a bill with a democrat sponsor. But right now H1b is basically the only way to get hired as an immigrant. If you made it wage-prioritized there would be basically no way to get an h1b for entry level jobs, which would really suck for new graduates. http://alexyar.tumblr.com/post/156649015342/anyway-heres-the...

But H1B is not the answer for entry level jobs. It is for skilled workers.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#76

Post by gnulinux » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

pmalynin wrote: post #49

youzicha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this was proposed last year in a bill with a democrat sponsor. But right now H1b is basically the only way to get hired as an immigrant. If you made it wage-prioritized there would be basically no way to get an h1b for entry level jobs, which would really suck for new graduates. http://alexyar.tumblr.com/post/156649015342/anyway-heres-the...

I don't know what you're talking about. As a new graduate, I have a very hefty Data Science offer in the Bay. (Canadian here btw).

Is it OPT or H1B?

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#77

Post by Gigablah » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:14 AM UTC

biocomputation wrote: post #69

vkou wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I should just not work for a living, then. I'm hoping that people making such an observation have native American ancestry.

In addition to being cheap and uncivil, it's absolutely unbelievable (but not surprising) that a foreign national here in this country as a guest of the American people thinks that it is in any way acceptable to say things like this. You would do very well to advise yourself on the laws of the United States, which do not require ancestry from any particular place in order to qualify for citizenship. That includes peo…

> It starts with R.

And ends with N? /s

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#78

Post by checker659 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:14 AM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #73

checker659 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also last quarter, 65% of Apple's revenue was from outside America. And, yet, looking at their total H1B numbers, only about 9% of their employees are H1B holders. If American companies earn money from the rest of the world, is it really that unfair that they hire a small percent of international people to work at their company? 1) https://www.immihelp.com/employer/APPLE+INC/205136/applicati... 2) https://www.apple.c…

The 9% only includes H-1B folks who are directly employed by Apple. Apple also has hundreds of contractors employed by Tata, Infosys etc on H-1B's, in Apple's internal IT department ("IS&T"). These people are paid less than the 9% of people above, and would not count towards Apple's own H-1B numbers.

Like how many?

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#79

Post by sanxiyn » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:15 AM UTC

manjunaths wrote: post #40

49bc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was living in India I’d probably take that deal.

I know that it is a common belief that India is 3rd world country and people would jump at any chance to get out. Not all of India is like that and not all of us are wage slaves doing menial jobs in IT. Some of us have a better quality of life, friends, family, culture and social life. Not to mention the amazing home food.

Not all of India is like that, but there are enough people who would jump, and giving them a chance to jump seems to me a good thing.

Re: H-1B abuse: Bay Area tech workers from India paid a pittance, feds say

#80

Post by bduerst » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:16 AM UTC

cheriot wrote: post #23

It's always companies that specialize in offshoring caught doing this. Why do these companies get H1B visas when there are companies willing to pay better that don't? Turn H1B into an auction. Lotteries are a terrible way to allocate a scare resource.

H1B auctions would drive wages down for American citizens.

Companies could hire immigrants for less than what the prevailing wage is of citizens working the same job in the same area - then lay off the citizens.