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

#111

Post by nitwit005 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #101

nitwit005 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, it just means that you have a set supply and the auction settles at a specific wage. Say you limit the supply so that only immigrants being paid more than $90/k yr gets approved. Now companies start laying off American citizens getting paid more than that in high-cost-of-living areas because they can hire replacement immigrants for $98/k yr. If you look at the purpose of the H1B program, it's not to play a number…

You claim it's not a numbers game, but obviously a discussion if immigration quotas and wages is a pure numbers game. Let's not pretend.

We control the supply completely, which means we control the price. We can set any floor, or regional floor we want, and we can keep the existing rules in place if we want as well.

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

#112

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #56

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…

You must be either insane or ignorant if you think Newark, CA is not in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To be fair, the one in New Jersey is far more famous.

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

#113

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

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…

> Why not just adjust the H-1B program so that the highest paid positions get priority?

Why not just eliminate the employer-sponsored H-1B and allow individuals who aren't personally barred from entry to pay for temporary residency and work permit on an annual basis, with prices that escalate with higher demand?

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

#114

Post by bduerst » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

nitwit005 wrote: post #111

bduerst wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it just means that you have a set supply and the auction settles at a specific wage. Say you limit the supply so that only immigrants being paid more than $90/k yr gets approved. Now companies start laying off American citizens getting paid more than that in high-cost-of-living areas because they can hire replacement immigrants for $98/k yr. If you look at the purpose of the H1B program, it's not to play a number…

You claim it's not a numbers game, but obviously a discussion if immigration quotas and wages is a pure numbers game. Let's not pretend. We control the supply completely, which means we control the price. We can set any floor, or regional floor we want, and we can keep the existing rules in place if we want as well.

No, I claim that the purpose of the H1b program isn't to play a numbers games with wages.

The purpose is to allow new skilled labor into the U.S. so that the economy can flourish. The prevailing wage already sets the wage floor to prevent stagnation - scrapping it for a wage auction only creates more problems for American citizens working in skilled labor positions.

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

#115

Post by sanxiyn » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #104

sanxiyn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Then the wage auction doesn't solve any problem that the prevailing wage requirement already solves, it only creates more issues.

It solves a problem of, say, Google and Infosys competing to get the lottery. With auction, Google gets all of them.

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

#116

Post by sanxiyn » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #109

sanxiyn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have both auction and prevailing wage requirement.

Then what problem does the auction solve that the prevailing wage doesn't already solve, other than creating more issues.

It solves a problem of real employers and body shops competing for the lottery. Body shops lose the auction.

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

#117

Post by sanxiyn » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #107

tiff_seattle wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't have a skill that employers are willing to pay top dollar for, then no. H-1B is designed for bringing highly skilled workers into the country. It's not a program for job security for new grads.

Experience is usually worth more than skill. It's pretty stupid to turn away smart young people who you have paid to educate in the best universities in the world.

Yes, it is stupid, I wholeheartedly agree it should be fixed, but I disagree that it should be fixed by H-1B visa.

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

#118

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 02, 2018, 7:03 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 right now H1b is basically the only way to get hired as an immigrant.

No, it's not. (It's technically not even a way to be hired as an immigrant, and there are work-based immigrant visas as well.as other work-eligible non-immigrant visas.)

> If you made it wage-prioritized there would be basically no way to get an h1b for entry level jobs

That's not even theoretically the purpose of the H-1B, and I'm not really convinced we need to import entry level workers.

> which would really suck for new graduates.

I'm not sure “it would reduce the incentive for US colleges to train foreigners rather than Americans for entry-level jobs in high-demand, high-paying professions in America” is an argument against a policy change.

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

#119

Post by bduerst » Wed, May 02, 2018, 7:04 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #116

bduerst wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what problem does the auction solve that the prevailing wage doesn't already solve, other than creating more issues.

It solves a problem of real employers and body shops competing for the lottery. Body shops lose the auction.

USCIS has already cracked down on body shops - they're now required to prove that the consultant is already working for a customer, meaning they can't spam applicants and then work the one's that make it through the lottery.

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

#120

Post by bduerst » Wed, May 02, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #115

bduerst wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the wage auction doesn't solve any problem that the prevailing wage requirement already solves, it only creates more issues.

It solves a problem of, say, Google and Infosys competing to get the lottery. With auction, Google gets all of them.

Or another solution is to do away with the quota that originally caused the lottery problem to begin with, since it's now required that consultancies like Infosys prove the immigrant is working for the customer.