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Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

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Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#151

Post by learc83 »

refurb wrote: post #135
learc83 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's harder for them to switch jobs, and depending on where they are in the process of applying for a green card, they may have to restart if they do switch. That kind of "loyalty" is easily worth 20k-30k for a lot of companies.

But they can always go home, there is nothing to stop that. So I would argue the loyalty they buy isn’t worth much.

And take a massive pay cut? Even among rich countries and even for underpaid H-1B workers, tech salaries are generally much higher in the US, and most of them don't come from rich countries.

Clearly you can see there is a difference between what a company needs to do to keep an H-1B employee from leaving the country, and what they need to do to keep a permanent resident employee from switching jobs?

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#152

Post by jl2718 »

untog wrote: post #141
toast_coder wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think this only effects IT? You think salary negotiations are somehow immune to those same price pressures when we are dealing with the ppl who mow lawns, pick produce, and clean bathrooms?

The OP seems to be talking specifically about the H1B visa, which is for speciality occupations. Produce pickers need not apply.

There is a website that lists them all. You’d be surprised to see how many H1Bs get paid less than $30k/yr.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#154

Post by closeparen »

remarkEon wrote: post #121
baddox wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an American company should support the livelihoods of the American people And people who are living and working in America are American, they may just not be citizens. Citizenship is itself an arbitrary legal distinction made by the government. The vast majority of citizens received their citizenship by being born in the country rather than by any effort or merit on their part. So the claim becomes "an American com…

>And people who are living and working in America are American, they may just not be citizens. Since when? I have literally never heard this. This is a patently absurd claim to make. Just because someone lives here does not mean they are "American", unless you think that all of the inputs to national identity are vapid, meaningless attributes that are completely transferable. >We're talking about work visas, which me…

It's true that accepting immigrants into the tribe is historically unusual, but that's why it's a distinctive and important feature of American national identity.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#155

Post by jl2718 »

Aloha wrote: post #145
cc-d wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may work for tech, but I'm guessing there are quite a few other industries with low volumes of h1b applicants/workers which could utilize a "bidding system" to hire well below market rate due to decreased demand when compared to tech. $150k cap across the board ensures that all industries are kept honest. A bidding system can be added on top of that, if needed, but this extremely simple fix would ensure that the…

better idea - just make it 25-50% above prevailing wage for that kind of work.

Then you just have job reclassification. It doesn’t work. Only money talks.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#156

Post by rmrfrmrf »

briandear wrote: post #89
ekianjo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is irrelevant. They get paid more compared to what immigrants would get in their home countries. And if you had to pay them as much then they would lose the edge during hiring - it is part of why they are also chosen.

However wage arbitrage is specifically against the intent and the letter of visa programs. It’s to fill actual shortages. If you can’t find a Python dev at $70k per year but you could find one at $100k per year, that isn’t a “shortage” — yet such “shortages” are what gets used to rationalize H1-B expansion.

I'd like to add that part of the factor that's driving down wages is the fact that workers from countries with cheap/subsidized higher-level education can get a bachelor's degree for under $5000 (total), meaning that a student from a foreign country getting a master's degree from an American university graduates with around 1/3 the total debt that an American student would. That advantage makes it more feasible to take lower paying jobs in the first place, thus broadening the talent pool, which inherently drives wages down.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#157

Post by Bucephalus355 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #138
uissna wrote: post #10

This is an open secret in tech. Visa holders have less job offers to negotiate with, less job mobility, and consequently get paid less. Companies preferentially hire them over Americans. Further, the recent actions making harder for "body shops" like Infosys are actually helping big tech companies win more visa lotteries. This means the recent action that was supposed to help American workers, is actually causing the…

> the immigration system disproportionately hurts American software engineers and American tech The immigration debate suffers from overgeneralisation. Illegal immigration is a different problem from legal immigration. And short-term skilled migrants are unlike long-term skilled immigrants. Short-term migrants, i.e. those with no intention of staying in the U.S. long-term, probably depress American wages. Skilled imm…

I think there are differences.

However over the last 20 years, most immigration, of both kinds, have been about one thing: reduced labor costs.

At the risk of downvotes, I’m going to include something Steve Bannon said on MSNBC last night about legal immigration. He made this point that it makes no sense for America to keep letting the best and brightest of the world in / draining them from everywhere else. Why aren’t we refusing the really good immigrants if anything? Those are the people we want in their home countries setting up fair and stable systems. Having them here is, after a certain point, kind of greedy.

Also free trade was supposed to fix this by also requiring companies to adhere to strict safety and labor laws, which would make labor prices more even. It never happened.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#158

Post by Kephael »

petilon wrote: post #120

If immigrants are depressing salaries, how do you explain $120,000 (base + stock + bonus) for fresh graduates, paid by Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc? https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/heres-how-much-new-grads-wil... It's a hardened belief that jobs are a zero-sum game — and from this arises the idea that every skilled immigrant takes away a job from a U.S. worker. This isn't true. More skilled, educat…

There are not unlimited new graduate roles at these companies, Microsoft was telling students they passed the interview but that slots were full at the school I attend.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#159

Post by throwaway28473 »

cc-d wrote: post #75

Cap minimum pay to the equivalent of $150k yearly and watch as the h1b visa program magically starts working as intended. The solution is not complicated. With the anti-immigrant rhetoric pouring from the current administration, I'm surprised that blatant h1b visa abuse is still rampant.

You’ll also be watching American businesses dying as they lose to global competitors who operate in a much more favourable regulatory environment, because their country doesn’t force them to pay 150k per engineer.

Re: Cisco Said to Be Cited for Bias Against U.S. Workers

#160

Post by jingleheimer »

cisco-throwaway wrote: post #132

I work here! I also participated in this! We needed to hire a few people at a smaller Cisco site for a project in a less than favourite BU. Recruitment reached out to me after my rec didn’t find any fits in a week and the pushed a couple candidates my way. As these candidates required sponsorship, we knew that we could probably retain them for less and for longer. I don’t have anything against Americans, but if I can…

And this is how populists get elected.
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