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

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

#91

Post by bduerst »

sanxiyn wrote: post #88
bduerst wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Paying immigrants less than the prevailing wage of American citizens with H-1B visa is illegal.

GP is talking about switching the H1B visa to a wage auction, specifically doing away with prevailing wage. That's what we're talking about.

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

#92

Post by nitwit005 »

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…

For the most part, your complaints are fixable by just splitting jobs into categories, and then only taking the highest paid in each category.

But honestly, I don't think that's needed except for a few areas like translators. If a company truly needs someone, they're going to be willing to pay.

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

#93

Post by thisisit »

“Cloudwick has never brought resources from India,” Chhabra said. “All the resources are Master’s students that have educated in U.S. and then we hired and trained them.”

This is rather slippery way to paint the picture. And from the looks of it this is more of an abuse of the F-1/OPT visas program. These visas haven't got the coverage as much as H1B program:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2495580/it-careers/for...

Unlike H-1 the F-1/OPT visas don't have any wage requirements. It rather asks employers to attest that people on F-1 are paid according to someone with similar duties.

Workers were paid $800 a month during training, he said.

The whole training thing is another sword of damocles hanging on people getting H1/F1 visas. I have heard stories about Infosys suing people for money if they leave before serving 2 years on H1 with Infosys. The route Infosys take is that company has paid for training and needs to claw back that amount from these employees.

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

#94

Post by tomp »

bduerst wrote: post #72
curun1r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why wouldn’t that happen now already?

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

#95

Post by nitwit005 »

bduerst wrote: post #72
curun1r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

There are a fixed number of slots in the program. Requiring the highest paid employees take those slots would mean immigrant labor would be costlier.

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

#96

Post by sanxiyn »

bduerst wrote: post #91
sanxiyn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying immigrants less than the prevailing wage of American citizens with H-1B visa is illegal.

GP is talking about switching the H1B visa to a wage auction, specifically doing away with prevailing wage. That's what we're talking about.

I would think any such wage auction reform would maintain prevailing wage requirement. I don't see why not.

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

#97

Post by tomp »

bduerst wrote: post #80
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.

Why wouldn’t that happen already now?

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

#98

Post by thisisit »

paxys wrote: post #36
thisisit wrote: post #32

PSA: This is massive clickbait. This article is not about "Bay Area", as in San Franciso Bay area. Here's the content: A dozen Indian workers at an East Bay technology firm were promised salaries of up to $8,300 Cloudwick Technologies of Newark has been ordered to pay about Seriously, what is this East Bay area? Google turns up nothing. Edit: Thank for pointing out my mistake. Looks like my understanding of US geogra…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Bay_(San_Francisco_Bay_Ar...

Thanks. Strangely Google's first result for Newark was New Jersey.

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

#99

Post by vkou »

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…

That's the whole point. Unless you are a direct descendant of native Americans, you too are a guest of theirs, regardless of whether you are a first generation immigrant, or the grandchild of one. But strangely, nobody is in much of a hurry to ask for native opinions on immigration policy.

I am here under the same set of rules as any native born settler - which accurately describes most Americans - is. Maybe even more legally, given that immigration control is historically, a relatively recent phenomena. (At least, with respect to 'white' people. Let's not talk about the incredibly racist history of that institution.)

There's a certain oddity to having a country founded on immigration, without the consent of the native inhabitants, setting up rules for who can immigrate to it (which many Americans' ancestors would probably not have been able to meet), and then pooh-poohing someone who has met said rules for legally being here. It's a tad hypocritical.

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

#100

Post by nitwit005 »

bduerst wrote: post #80
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.

Then you'd just adjust the pool of openings till it stopped being an issue. We control the supply, so we can set the price.

And you're kind of overlooking that the program is already heavily used for what you're afraid of.

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