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

Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

msn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 124 posts

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#11

Post by ryandrake »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #4

>The American workers say that India’s Tata Consultancy Services illegally discriminated against them based on their race and age, firing them Question to the Americans: if in the US you don't need a reason to fire someone, how can you prove the company was discriminating you when they fired you if they didn't give a reason.

From the article:

> In their complaints, the former employees cite comments that TCS’s global human resources head Milind Lakkad made in an interview with Indian media last year. He said TCS is trying to reduce the number of Americans it employs in the U.S. and would like to provide more opportunities to Indians there, according to the report.

> One former worker said in a complaint that TCS human-resources staff told employees in an all-hands meeting that the company planned to use money saved by closing down a unit that employed many of the American workers to provide jobs to more Indian nationals in the U.S.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#12

Post by anakaine »

ushtaritk421 wrote: post #3

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this. If anything, we should change the law to encourage much more high-skill immigration

Skilled immigration policy very typically targets skills shortages where they cannot be recruited domestically. Simply firing a workforce to get those same skills cheaper, which is what is happening here, is a terrible move for a countries workforce.

- Wages wind up going backwards.

- Wages fail to keep up with inflation meaning lower discretionary expenditure flowing into the economy.

- You wind increasing involuntary unemployment.

- With rises in involuntary unemployment you wind up increasing crime, from petty theft through to more major crime.

- With lower returns to economy on an individual basis you economically have less to invest in things like health, education, infrastructure, creation of export businesses on a per individual basis, despite growing GDP. You've created a hole but made it look like growth.

You don't need to go full domestic industry protectionism to avert the above, but you absolutely should not be firing an existing skilled domestic workforce with the explicit intent to replace them with skilled immigration if you want to perform better as an economy.

Because individual businesses can and will try to exploit the issue, this is why it should be regulated. To fail to do so hurts the economy at large when you are not filling a genuine skills shortage.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#13

Post by rufus_foreman »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #4

>The American workers say that India’s Tata Consultancy Services illegally discriminated against them based on their race and age, firing them Question to the Americans: if in the US you don't need a reason to fire someone, how can you prove the company was discriminating you when they fired you if they didn't give a reason.

Well first of all, for protected groups, you don't need to prove the reason, you need to prove "disparate impact". Don't need intent.

And even when you need intent, these people are like people who do insider trading. They tend to leave a trail. They think they're smart. Then they talk in detail about the crimes they are doing in logged chat rooms. It's hilarious.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#15

Post by com2kid »

pylua wrote: post #2

Paywall, but it is clear that companies are literally starving for cheap labor. They are willing to do anything, including bringing over workers on potentially inappropriate visas ( I am not a lawyer, just what I have seen). Honestly I am surprised that they didn’t just hire directly in India.

Hot take, solving housing prices on the west coast would provide a huge boost to the US economy. The nightmare that city councils in the Bay Area and the Seattle metro have caused are detrimental to America as a whole.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#16

Post by anakaine »

salawat wrote: post #10
engineer_22 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B means that there are no Americans capable of doing the job

Actually, as a hiring manager, you can't discriminate between whether someone is a U.S. Citizen or an H1B. So in reality, you're going through a stack of applicants in order. If your HR group puts a bunch of H1B's in front of a citizen candidate, that's it. So no, your assertion that there is an implicit "there is no American we can hire to fill this" is false. We can't even consider that.

Sounds crap.

Also, what hiring manager is letting HR decide in what order their candidate pool is meritorious? HR can barely judge a local talent contest let alone someone's ability to undertake skilled work. If I say to my HR that a candidate needs to know Python with environmental experience I'm just as likely to have a candidate put forward who was a wildlife carer 20 years ago since they handled pythons as I am to find someone who can script and understands climate data. They will probably also give me someone who is good with Java, since it's all just computer programming.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#17

Post by lolinder »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #9
mjh2539 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there usually is in fact a reason and just because they did not disclose it to you does not mean the reason does not exist and it does not mean that it won't/can't be found via subpoena/deposition.

Ok, but if there's no reason? Or what do you do when the reason is something somewhat objective like "performance" because you didn't meet your deadlines or something. Can you claim discrimination then? Otherwise what's stopping everyone from claiming discrimination every time they get laid off?

> Ok, but what do you do when the reason is something somewhat objective like "performance" because you didn't meet your deadlines or something. Can you claim discrimination then?

Usually if that's the reason the company will go to great pains to document it and fire you properly, for cause. This is where PIPs (performance improvement plans) come in—they document the specific areas where performance is lacking, set specific targets for improvement, show that those targets were not met in the time allotted, and then fire you.

If a company doesn't do that then yeah, they're leaving themselves open to a discrimination suit. It doesn't usually happen because lawsuits are expensive and unemployed people tend to not have the resources to fight back, but larger companies will usually take pains to be sure they're covered.

Re: Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders

#19

Post by hash872 »

salawat wrote: post #10
engineer_22 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B means that there are no Americans capable of doing the job

Actually, as a hiring manager, you can't discriminate between whether someone is a U.S. Citizen or an H1B. So in reality, you're going through a stack of applicants in order. If your HR group puts a bunch of H1B's in front of a citizen candidate, that's it. So no, your assertion that there is an implicit "there is no American we can hire to fill this" is false. We can't even consider that.

You absolutely can discriminate on the criteria of 'will this person require a visa now or at any point in the future', and tons of companies put that requirement right in their job postings. If your company told you otherwise they are mistaken
Post reply on HN