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Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

nytimes.com

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Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#131

Post by prostoalex »

diogenescynic wrote: post #31
aianus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone What about the guys on H1B's who are now earning 4x more than they were back in India? Are they not people too?

Of course they are people, but I think the US government should be more concerned with protecting its own citizens (voters), not the international community. The US government has an obligation to protect its own citizens above all others.

While true, those protections at their highest disadvantage the economy as a whole. France and Spain have among the highest worker protection laws, too bad though there is barely anybody to protect in the offices of French search engine, French social network, French transportation sharing network or French backoffice software outfit - foreign entities with weaker protections gained a competitive advantage and took away everyone's lunch.

It's like protecting Exchange administrators the day after Gmail for companies was released - good idea in theory.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#132

Post by davidw »

diogenescynic wrote: post #117
makecheck wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, "protection of US citizens" assumes a lot about what actually happens to companies, and it assumes a lot about what the citizens themselves are doing. First, are you willing to pay $500 more for every product, and $10 more for every meal? Companies have to compete, and they are responding to what is necessary to survive. If a company employs 5,000 U.S. citizens and can't compete, it may stumble and lay…

>First, are you willing to pay $500 more for every product, and $10 more for every meal? Companies have to compete, and they are responding to what is necessary to survive. If a company employs 5,000 U.S. citizens and can't compete, it may stumble and lay off 1,000 U.S. citizens, or fail entirely and shed 5,000 U.S. jobs, all because it wasn't allowed to bring in a few immigrants to grow a little. You're playing fast…

Throwing up walls isn't going to protect people from the US. It's a facile and ultimately unproductive response that plays to fear. The answer is to make US workers competitive in a global marketplace. And it absolutely is possible to compete on things other than price.

And while his numbers are invented, the concept is spot on: producing some things is expensive in the US, perhaps too much so to be competitive.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#133

Post by gscott »

protomyth wrote: post #41
davidw wrote: post #6

The real fix to this is to make sure that people brought over with an H1-B can easily change jobs. That way they're not beholden to some low-wage job, and companies that bring people in merely for low wages will face high rates of churn.

No, the real fix is to make sure the actual goals of the program align with what actually happens. At this point, saying that each H1-B worker must make $117,700[1] or more to prove they are skilled beyond US workers seems to be a fair change. After all, if you can hire US citizens cheaper, you are not fulfilling the goals of the program[2]. 1) 10x poverty guidelines in US for 2015. 2) http://www.dol.gov/whd/immigrat…

I believe so many companies don't hire people for culture fit but then hire an h1b worker. If they had to pay market rate or better like you say it would be great for those of us who can't seem to make it past the interviews even when qualified.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#134

Post by davidw »

rayiner wrote: post #114
davidw wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but realistically, you have to put something down into laws, and I have no idea how you would do that. There are plenty of people in the US who loathe gay people and would deny them a variety of rights. Look at what this guy has to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas#Scalia.27s_d... Perhaps the problem is that he is the son of an immigrant? Historically, "people not like us" has bee…

You can't ignore the fact that, statistically, those outside the U.S. and certain other countries have many attitudes and values we don't want to encourage in the U.S., at a higher rate than the prevalence of those attitudes within the country. Of course you can't impose ideological tests to get into the U.S. Which is all the more reason to limit immigration to what you can comfortably assimilate. As an immigrant mys…

So why are you even arguing about H1B's? That's a drop in the bucket compared to people on family visas.

I'm pretty much ok with anyone who accepts the rules and laws even if they don't think like me. I'd like them to integrate to some extent prior to gaining citizenship, but that's different than a work visa.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#135

Post by DrScump »

hocuspocus wrote: post #106
lazaroclapp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this leaves out any organization that pays below market rate for exceptional talent. That might sound like a good thing in the face of it, but consider such organizations include: national labs, early stage startups, software foundations, etc. Also, unless you cap it in a per industry basis (which makes the whole thing very inflexible to changes in the economy) you just created an insurmountable problem for th…

Academia, publicly funded research labs, non-profits... are already cap-exempt. Other than that, you're absolutely right. This would mostly benefit software companies in the Bay or NYC, and the ones that pay way above average at that. I'd argue it'd be better than current situation though. Indian employees are effectively tied to their employer due to the Green Card backlog. It's significantly less true for the H-1B…

And there are other skills-specific visa categories. For example, a professional hockey player on a North American roster from wherever is never denied a visa because of any other visa quota (H-1 variants, L variants, etc.)

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#136

Post by davidw »

untog wrote: post #21
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So bringing someone across those borders while an unemployed person is within them is a net economic negative. You're right - that's a vast oversimplification. Here's one of my own: at the same time Linus Torvalds moved to the US, there were a number of unemployed people. I still think it was a net win to let him in, though. Be very wary of the lump of labor fallacy, it's what's behind the "they took rrrr jawbs" me…

At the same time, expanding immigration because Linus Torvalds exists is also a vast oversimplification. Even most anti-immigration people I've spoken to concede that there should be avenues for outstandingly talented people to emigrate if they wish.

Plenty of skilled immigrants have skills that unemployed locals do not have. Even the 'cut rate labor' people love to hate.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#137

Post by calvinbhai »

ergothus wrote: post #99
davidw wrote: post #6

The real fix to this is to make sure that people brought over with an H1-B can easily change jobs. That way they're not beholden to some low-wage job, and companies that bring people in merely for low wages will face high rates of churn.

This. My first experience with H1-B workers was working with contractors at a state agency (in Virginia). They were nice, but not highly skilled overall, and terrified of losing the job as they didn't have any guarantee of getting another U.S. job. This, in turn, made work life worse for everyone, as they'd never complain about anything on the job, even when it was egregious and not just software devs being whiny. My…

I concur. As someone who is here in US on this visa (fortunately, my workplace presence resembles your seattle experience), I can totally understand what you are pointing out.

Something that'll genuinely solve all the problems (qualified americans losing jobs, outsourcing companies abusing loopholes, salaries racing to the bottom), would be to have a concept of temporary green card.

Instead of a 3 year H1b, have a 3 year green card (lets call this the Super H1b). Once an immigrant is here in the US on a Super H1b visa, he/she will be free to take up any employment if need be, even with multiple employers.

This will ensure that an employer sponsoring the Super H1b visa will be paying at or above market rate salary, because the employer truly needs this employee.

Are there chances of this visa being abused? sure. But its way low, much more beneficial (to americans, to the immigrant and also to the genuine Super H1b sponsors).

@ergothus : Do you think having such a visa would have helped (considering your experiences in Virginia and Seattle?)

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#138

Post by calvinbhai »

protomyth wrote: post #84
calvinbhai wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not fair. Its not fair for genuine h1b sponsoring companies in geographic locations where cost of living is low. $117,700 in San Francisco is not the same as $117,700 in Austin. Again, any minimum salary requirement, becomes very easy to game (employee can be expected to pay back in cash, for the difference). This will put genuine companies (that cannot do such shady deals) at a great disadvantage

Perhaps I should have put the full poverty level tables which are calculated at https://aspe.hhs.gov but 10x the local poverty level seems more than fair. > Again, any minimum salary requirement, becomes very easy to game (employee can be expected to pay back in cash, for the difference). This will put genuine companies (that cannot do such shady deals) at a great disadvantage Paybacks are illegal now and should stay…

Kickbacks certainly are illegal (and it should remain that way).

But, just because it is illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#139

Post by DrScump »

protomyth wrote: post #80
coldtea wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the companies are not using it for that purpose and telling the government something different then they are committing fraud. The kind of fraud that's profitable, happens regularly and nobody gets called for.

Well, this is an article about Disney getting called on it via a lawsuit.

The key word being (civil) lawsuit. Neither state nor Federal governments pursued any criminal or civil action on their own.

Re: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants

#140

Post by DrScump »

DannoHung wrote: post #66
davidw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT jobs are pretty easy to export, too, so if there's a big disparity, sooner or later, the jobs can go the other direction, if the people can't come in this (towards the US) direction.

It's easy to say , "IT jobs are pretty easy to export". In practice, this depends on a number of factors being aligned correctly and an organization being tuned to the idea of remote work. Especially if the deliverable of the IT job in question is part of the core function of the organization.

They are absolutely easy to export.

Exporting with long-term net success (in savings or quality or both) is what's difficult.

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