Live data from Hacker News

U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

reuters.com

71–80 of 507 posts

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#71
post #6

"Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles than black, white or Hispanic job seekers." Can the DOL back up this claim with salary data to see if Oracle is abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low? Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available (larger proport…

" Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available " - I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash. The process of hiring an H1B worker in short. - Hire an immigration lawyer. - Post an LCA. - Apply petition to USCIS…

You're missing the part where the employer is required to:

- Post representative salary data, including the last few (5?) hires to this position.

- Publish the job position locally, so it can be filled by local workers preferentially, and then only by H1B if unfilled.

- Ensure the worker is initially paid a salary similar to other existing hires in that position.

I don't understand how people make the leap that H1B is used to lower wages. It's an awfully complex, risky and inefficient way to suppress wages. You would need to lie about "prevailing wages" in order for this scheme to work, which is illegal and would put you and your company into deep trouble.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#72

Is "culture fit" illegal? Let's say that an Indian manager hires more Indians because he feels like they are easier to work with. Now, he doesn't just hire Indians, but he is statistically more likely to do so over a large quantity of hires. Is that against the law?

In New Zealand, we also have this thing called "Kiwi Experience". I think it's just an excuse to pay someone who is new to the country because they have no "Kiwi Experience".

Mind you, some or maybe even most immigrants (at least from my country) have at least 3+ years experience. Job experience means more points for Immigiration NZ.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#74
post #6

"Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles than black, white or Hispanic job seekers." Can the DOL back up this claim with salary data to see if Oracle is abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low? Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available (larger proport…

" Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available " - I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash. The process of hiring an H1B worker in short. - Hire an immigration lawyer. - Post an LCA. - Apply petition to USCIS…

You forgot the part about rejecting all current U.S. nationals as unable to work the position. This is often by requiring X+Y years of experience with an X year old buzzword, and then telling your recruiter exactly how to lie on the resume. But it may also be by giving people actual interviews and then either offering them a wage lower than what is intended for the H1B import, or rejecting them for unspecified reasons.

Whenever I get dicked around in the interviews by a potential employer, I start to suspect ulterior motives. One time, for my own amusement, I asked to see their H1B public records. The company immediately got very defensive, and got their lawyer involved just long enough to hastily research what I was talking about, assemble the records, and set up all the flaming hoops I would have to jump through in order to see them. It was almost like they were hiding something. I didn't actually want to see the records, I just wanted to see that they were willing to show them (or that they didn't have records because they didn't have any H1B employees).

It was a lot like asking a toddler who ate the last cookie in the jar, and watching them hide their hands from you as they say, "Maybe it was the invisible ghost ninjas." I don't need that level of immaturity in an employer.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#75
post #6

"Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles than black, white or Hispanic job seekers." Can the DOL back up this claim with salary data to see if Oracle is abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low? Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available (larger proport…

" Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available " - I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash. The process of hiring an H1B worker in short. - Hire an immigration lawyer. - Post an LCA. - Apply petition to USCIS…

> It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them

Wow. Why do you think someone on H1B will agree for a lower wage assuming he/she has a good skill set to get into oracle or similar company?

Changing to a diff job on H1B involves some paper work which everyone is used to do now. If we are talking about Indian consulting companies getting low wage employees, it might be partially true.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#76
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really don't have anything to hide/cleanup, why avoid providing useful information for 2+ years? Would you mind if a snoop through your wife's underwear drawer? You have nothing to hide. Right? Why do you close your window blinds at night? You have nothing to hide. Right? Would you mind if a place a GPS tracker on your vehicle for data collection purposes? You have nothing to hide. Right?

Corporations are not people my friend. They do not (and should not) have the same rights. EDIT: Going through my wife's underwear drawer is not the same as having to provide payroll data to enforce labor law. EDIT 2: If you're a government contractor, you have certain labor rights obligations, by law . If you violate those, the US government has the authority to pursue you. "The department in a complaint filed with a…

> They do not (and should not) have the same rights.

Yes they should. Otherwise all the powerful organizations in the country are under the heel of the government.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#77
post #15

Couple points: First, this is where the meat is: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170118-0 Second: "...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications over other qualified applicants in the Professional Technical 1, Individual Contributor Job group and in the Product Development job group at statistically significant rates." [1] [1] https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease... --…

One reason why I believe it won't matter is such: Companies require a real name. Most require social profiles or a website. If you refuse to give your real name and supporting materials, you will be passed over.

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#78
post #67
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, you can hide contact info from a resume (which is still stored in a system somewhere, with a unique ID). And you can also make the early stages of your interview email or text-chat based (or just a Google Doc, like some companies do), to eliminate any potential bias in things that can be inferred from voice like accent, region, and gender. Obviously once they're on-site for an interview, you can't anon…

If you anonymize it and make it completely chat based how do you make sure that the person you are chatting with is really the applicant and not someone else?

http://www.experian.com/decision-analytics/identity-and-frau...

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#79
post #15

Couple points: First, this is where the meat is: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170118-0 Second: "...Oracle nevertheless preferred Asian applications over other qualified applicants in the Professional Technical 1, Individual Contributor Job group and in the Product Development job group at statistically significant rates." [1] [1] https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease... --…

When you say anonymous, how do you mean it? As in: the interviewer meets face-to-face without a resume in front of them, or the interviewer has a resume but the interview is done over the phone, or a phone interview with no resume?

I applied at Treehouse learning and they have a take on 'anonymous' hiring. It's 'anonymous' in that they don't see the resume you submit, or so they claim, until after reviewing short essay answers to some questions.

No knowledge of tools used, name, DOB, companies you have worked at previously, is where Treehouse starts in assessing your application materials.

These were silly simple questions, like assign an empty array to a variable in Python, then append N items to it, and print it on the screen. No FizzBuzz at this stage anyway.

More like "describe how you would handle situation X" or "walk through how you'd solve this real problem we recently saw, given this information".

My intuition suggests they are assessing communication skill first. stuff like tone and clarity in writing. I can't say if that's accurate or they were looking for a "right answer" type response, however.

FWIW, it was actually the easiest application process I've been through. Something about the anonymous part made me feel more relaxed. Like I'll be judged on my own words, not a bullet list of skills. That said, didn't hear from them. :-/

Re: U.S. sues Oracle, alleges salary and hiring discrimination

#80
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say anonymous, how do you mean it? As in: the interviewer meets face-to-face without a resume in front of them, or the interviewer has a resume but the interview is done over the phone, or a phone interview with no resume?

Well, for one, you can hide contact info from a resume (which is still stored in a system somewhere, with a unique ID). And you can also make the early stages of your interview email or text-chat based (or just a Google Doc, like some companies do), to eliminate any potential bias in things that can be inferred from voice like accent, region, and gender. Obviously once they're on-site for an interview, you can't anon…

It's difficult. I remember coming out of school, employers tried to anonymize for various things, especially with respect to things like race. Black students would, in an anonymized resume with contact info removed for example, state that they were "Treasurer for the Black Students Association" or "NAACP Volunteer", or things to that effect.

My point is that I think that an Asian person, applying to a company known to be favorable toward Asians in hiring, would signal their ethnicity somehow in their resume. At least, that would be the smart play for that person.

Post reply on HN