Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

cis.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 215 posts

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#101

Post by rayiner »

blinkingled wrote: post #95
rayiner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking immigration generally, not just H1-B. But even in the context of H1-B: If an H1-B needs emergency treatment, hospitals won't turn them away because of their H1-B status. That's part of our social safety net. Education is paid via property taxes. Most H1-B's do not own their homes and thus do not pay property taxes. In any case, nobody who is living here six years is covering the cost of a child's educatio…

> H1-B needs emergency treatment, hospitals won't turn them away because of their H1-B status. I am not sure what you are saying here. H1-Bs and their employers pay for medical insurance (this is at market rate - not subsidized by the taxpayer or anything like that) - I and dozens other I know did. That covers their medical emergencies. H1-Bs pay premiums for children and spouse too btw. If they lose their job - they…

H1-B's are not required to have insurance plans nor are any employer insurance plans required to cover their dependents. Nor is their any guarantee that insurance will cover all the expenses.

I don't think H1-B treatments are a significant cost to citizens/permanent residents. That's not my point. My point is that our hospitals are required by law to treat anyone that comes in, regardless of status. That's an obligation our society has to every person within its borders. There are many other obligations like it. We as a community cannot be forced to take on those obligations, we must do so voluntarily.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#102

Post by ark15 »

rayiner wrote: post #67

Tech companies and their approach to labor is just sickening. They complain constantly that we don't let in enough H1B's. Are they offering to indemnify the government in case they need healthcare, unemployment; their children need public education, etc? They complain constantly that the publicly funded universities don't graduate enough STEM graduates to meet their needs. Think about that--they complain with no hint…

H1Bs residing in the US pay the same tax (including social security and medicare) as the citizens.(so if their kids need public education, they are also paying for it in a way)

H1Bs are not entitled to unemployment benefits (or any form of government sponsored healthcare). In fact, technically, they are supposed to leave the country the same day they are fired otherwise they are illegally staying.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#103

Post by eru »

blrgeek wrote: post #47

Please consider the following two points. What's the difference between them? 1. The US pushed free-market + lower tariffs for imports of products into other countries. This lead to lower production in those countries, replaced by imports from the US. Leading to lower employment in many cases. [Today that's replaced with imports from China] 2. Other countries export 'services' to the US, in the form of BPOs/KPOs, or…

There's no difference between your two points. Both of them are wrong.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#104

Post by jacalata »

rayiner wrote: post #67

Tech companies and their approach to labor is just sickening. They complain constantly that we don't let in enough H1B's. Are they offering to indemnify the government in case they need healthcare, unemployment; their children need public education, etc? They complain constantly that the publicly funded universities don't graduate enough STEM graduates to meet their needs. Think about that--they complain with no hint…

And then they offer to pay the government to do said training - http://seattletimes.com/html/edcetera/2019276642_microsoft_h.... Oh the...irony?

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#105

Post by Nowyouknow »

honeybooboo wrote: post #99

How can h1b employees be cheaper ? Arent they required by law to get the same amount of pay as american counterparts ? I think IBM would be breaking the rule of not paying them the legally required amount or circumventing that.

They're taken advantage of when it comes down to deciding a salary. It's a situation where an H1B has to take the lowball offer, or leave it and be completely screwed.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#106

Post by grecy »

eru wrote: post #98
grecy wrote: post #51

I'm currently involved with immigrating to Canada as a skilled worker, and I've previously worked in the US on multiple J1 visas, and applied for a H1B. My take on all of this is that bringing in foreigners in this way destroys the whole supply and demand setup of jobs and employees. As an example, let's say company A wants to hire a salaried employee for $x. After 6 months of not finding anyone, they should offer mo…

Please take into account that demand doesn't stay fixed, either. The immigrant will either spend or invest his pay.

> The immigrant will either spend or invest his pay.

This is flawed logic for two reasons:

1. As I'm an immigrant here myself, I have a lot of friends that are also immigrants, although most are of the kind I discussed, working minimum wage for the Wal-Marts of the world. I can guarantee you, they send every penny they can spare to their family in their home country, and themselves live in second world conditions (10 to a house, eating rice for every meal, hand washing clothes, absolute minimum heat in the winter etc. etc.) so they are spending extremely little. A local person earning that same money would be spending/investing more.

2. These immigrants are earning $x, likely minimum wage. So they only at most $x to spend or invest. The employer would have had to increase wages to $x+y to attract a local, so that local would be spending or investing $x+y, which would be better for the economy.

Bringing in people to work for less money than a local person would do it only helps the company increase profit.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#107

Post by nsoldiac »

Setting the issue of worker treatment aside for a sec, what IBM and it's many clients are doing is a wide-known shady practice that's been around for a long time - hourly rate dilution. Dilution as in mixing different elements (hourly rates in this case) to lower the concentration of something. Customer love it, IBM loves it (when they can pay close to nothing for their H1B workers - and they do) and american workers rarely actually find out. Frighteningly close to a perfect white-collar crime. EVERYONE in consulting does this, small and big. There's no "American IT Workers Union" so this is not going away anytime soon.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#108

Post by blinkingled »

rayiner wrote: post #101
blinkingled wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> H1-B needs emergency treatment, hospitals won't turn them away because of their H1-B status. I am not sure what you are saying here. H1-Bs and their employers pay for medical insurance (this is at market rate - not subsidized by the taxpayer or anything like that) - I and dozens other I know did. That covers their medical emergencies. H1-Bs pay premiums for children and spouse too btw. If they lose their job - they…

H1-B's are not required to have insurance plans nor are any employer insurance plans required to cover their dependents. Nor is their any guarantee that insurance will cover all the expenses. I don't think H1-B treatments are a significant cost to citizens/permanent residents. That's not my point. My point is that our hospitals are required by law to treat anyone that comes in, regardless of status. That's an obligat…

Is there a law for residents/citizens that requires employers to have insurance plans that cover all expenses? Emergency treatments are not exactly free or paid for by tax payers. If a H1-B loses his job or doesn't pay for med insurance and goes to healthcare institution (are there any publicly funded ones here?) - they will treat him/her but slap a collection for the full costs. As far as I know that is a potential loss for the healthcare provider not the general public as they did not fund the private organization.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#109

Post by btilly »

Here is my modest proposal for how to handle the H1B issue.

In order to hire an H1B worker, you have to post a significant bond. The worker arrives and has a fixed number of years in the USA. Once the worker arrives, the worker has absolutely no legal obligation to the hiring company.

In other words rather than ask companies to swear up and down that they can't find American workers, while they have every incentive to lie, make the company prove with its actions that there are no Americans available. And rather than believe the company when it says that they are paying the market rate, let it prove it by paying the worker enough that the worker does not immediately jump ship to a competitor who will pay the prevailing market rate.

Of course nobody wants to see a system like that, because the current system is all about getting companies cheap labor while hypocritically pretending that this isn't what the system is about.

Re: IBM: The cost difference is too great for business not to look for H1B workers

#110

Post by rayiner »

jacalata wrote: post #104
rayiner wrote: post #67

Tech companies and their approach to labor is just sickening. They complain constantly that we don't let in enough H1B's. Are they offering to indemnify the government in case they need healthcare, unemployment; their children need public education, etc? They complain constantly that the publicly funded universities don't graduate enough STEM graduates to meet their needs. Think about that--they complain with no hint…

And then they offer to pay the government to do said training - http://seattletimes.com/html/edcetera/2019276642_microsoft_h... . Oh the...irony?

It's disingenuous to say that they're offering to pay to do the training. They're offering to pay for marketing incentives to get people to do STEM.

"Microsoft is not simply trying to solve the immediate worker shortage. The software company proposes boosting the H-1B visa fee to $10,000 to raise money for a STEM-version of the Race to the Top federal grant program spurring education reform in schools."

$10,000 pays for about one year of K-12 education in the cheapest states, and about 6-7 months in a state like NY.

Post reply on HN