
Disney fires 250 tech workers and replaces them with H1B workers - pm24601
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
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pm24601
Thus creating 1000+ more Americans uninterested in fixing the immigration
system

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bunnymancer
Adding to this, while one might look at H1B visas and go "That seems like
quite a bit of work per employee, so it can't be that bad"

Don't worry, larger companies can make blanket petitions for large number of
employees.

These are paid less than the people around them and will be sent back to their
home country if they're fired and can't find a new sponsor within a few
months.

That and add to it that most of these larger companies are conveniently
located in ""right to work"" states means exactly what we don't want to say.

Indentured servitude.

~~~
dudul
In theory, an H1B who is let go has 24 hours to leave the country. The 30-day
grace period is a myth. It is just a "de-facto" grace period since to file a
new petition one needs their last pay statement (and if the pay statement is
older than 30 days the USCIS will know that one is no longer working there).

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chojeen
My dad owns a mid-size landscaping company in a medium-sized city in the
Midwest. Until the Great Recession hit, he'd hire around a hundred of laborers
from Mexico and Latin America on H2-A visas every year. He could only do so
after proving that they could not hire enough Americans at a reasonable wage
(obviously, the meaning of "reasonable" is hotly debated, but at the time, it
meant slightly higher than minimum wage). I've never understood why similar
restrictions aren't put on H1-B visas.

~~~
dudul
"they could not hire enough Americans at a reasonable wage (obviously, the
meaning of "reasonable" is hotly debated, but at the time, it meant slightly
higher than minimum wage)"

So as long as you're trying to get more than minimum wage you are being
unreasonable? Even though your skills are in high demand/short supply?

This is basically a way to say "You Americans who have valuable
knowledge/skills, do you really think we're gonna let you take advantage of
demand and supply to make more money out of them? F-you, we're gonna pass some
laws to allow us to import people from 3rd world countries to replace you".

I'd like to see these companies' reactions if we did the same with imported
goods and abolished all taxations for products manufactured outside of the
country.

~~~
cmdrfred
They would love that. They don't care if it was 'made in America' they just
want to sell it here.

~~~
dudul
I was talking about local companies...

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bduerst
Did Disney actually replace their 250 workers with H1B immigrants?

The article seems to be juggling words a bit to make a case against
immigration, but later states that Disney only direct employs 10 H1B workers.
I presume the agency that is now doing the data center work at Disney is all
H1B immigrants, but the article doesn't address that either.

Considering that only 85,000 H1B visas/yr are granted and there are
154,000,000 workers, is this (0.05% of the workforce) really as much of a
problem as the article is making it out to be?

~~~
pav7en
No, these 250 H1Bs are not direct petitions filed on behalf of Disney. That
would've been great for Florida and the Federal govt.

What these companies do is insidious. Say, you're working for HCL in India,
HCL files a H1B for you and sends you over for 6 months to the US and then you
come back to India and hand over your H1B to them. Not very clear on the
specifics, as I've only heard about it.

So during the time you're in the US, you don't get paid US wages for a H1B s/w
engineer, which are pretty good. What you get is a stipend for those 6 months
and your regular Indian salary which at the very max for the very best won't
be more than $40,000 in conversion.

So these are significant savings for Disney and significant profits for HCL.

~~~
bduerst
This is wrong on several levels...

\- H1B visas require that you list prevailing wage and that it's higher than
the average pay for U.S. citizens in the same region. It can be manipulated to
a degree, but not at scale (1000s) for a single employer.

\- H1B visas are for a minimum of 3 years, not six months, during which the
immigrant is forced to live and work in the U.S. (not India), thus spending
and paying taxes in U.S.

This is exactly my point that I was getting at about the article - it's
creating FUD about H1B immigrants and using Disney's terrible corporate policy
to contribute to rumors like the ones you just said. If anything, the H1B
program needs more funding for enforcement with employers, but stories like
this make it seem like the program itself is the culprit.

~~~
Chinmayh
H1B visas are for three years. it is profitable for HCL to keep the person in
US on the visa, rather than have him work from India. You are wrong in saying
that the person has to work in US. The salary is at least above 60K. Normally
companies pay 50$/hr. The people they are replacing are normally cost to the
company at least double that. The rate in India is normally above 20$/hr and
employees get paid less than 6$/hr. All companies move towards lower cost
areas, and that is the same thing happening here. Walmart, Apple would rather
produce goods in Asia than US. Same way Disney would rather hire h1b and give
the work to India.

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seldonPlan
This article has already been mentioned on HN
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9653389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9653389)

I feel the article doesn't really capture the whole story...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9653389#9660767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9653389#9660767)

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pav7en
So why can't lawmakers agree on preventing these consulting companies from
applying for H1bs?

Corruption all the way through:

US Congress/Senate: "oh wait India is going to buy defence h/w worth $47B, we
got to get in on the action"

Indian consulting companies: "dear Indian politician, we get a lot of money
through Forex/labor arbitrage, let us help you get rich. In return protecting
us from the fallout of these pesky articles is a national interest and oh hey
how about getting us another 2000 acres of land out there."

Indian politicians and babus to US counterparts: "yep you can sell us your
mil. h/w, but first let your contractors bribe us and then let our IT
companies bribe you"

Pretty simplistic and only focuses on the corruption angle, while there are
definitely other issues as well, but does bring up why the US can't just say
"hey no visas for you".

This kind of a system is more damaging to India than the US at the macro
level. Since it makes Indian companies and people who work for them incapable
of doing something original and working on really hard problems in our
backyard.

The attitude which it engenders is "oh hey, we can always stay in business by
selling ourselves cheap and replacing Americans." This party will sooner or
later come to an end. At which point hopefully a lot of such Indian companies
will go extinct and only the best will survive.

At the personal level, the Americans who got fired are going to be more
resilient and will come out on top of the situation, however great their pain
may be in the moment.

Oh, one more thing, this is not the only threat faced by employment in the US,
there's automation too.

So, hatred of something, say Indian consulting companies, or people employed
by them, immigrants in general, against robots or automated systems is no
solution. I say this since this is the most knee-jerk reaction.

The only way anyone hope to cope with this is by not expecting it to get any
easy. Not expecting ease or having a sense of entitlement. But by being open
to learning, growth, reinvention and hope.

[http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-
policy/indi...](http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-
to-be-third-largest-spender-on-defence-by-2020-114121900369_1.html)

------
paulhauggis
The parallels with the music industry are very interesting: The music
industries decided to fight file sharers with government intervention (just
like what many want to do with businesses now with H1B workers). File sharers
just figured out new ways of getting music for free and now we have things
like Bittorrent and the Piratebay.

The music industry was forced to complete and yes, they make less money, but
at least they can make a living. The same can be said of American workers
wanting to compete with overseas workers: Figure out how to compete or you
will be crushed due to the now global marketplace.

~~~
pm24601
Exactly what did this workers do wrong? As was noted in the article, a number
of them did such a good job that they were expecting a raise.

> “The first 30 days was all capturing what I did,” said the American in his
> 40s, who worked 10 years at Disney. “The next 30 days, they worked side by
> side with me, and the last 30 days, they took over my job completely.” To
> receive his severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my
> job correctly.”

> In late November, this former employee received his annual performance
> review, which he provided to The New York Times. His supervisor, who was not
> aware the man was scheduled for layoff, wrote that because of his superior
> skills and “outstanding” work, he had saved the company thousands of
> dollars. The supervisor added that he was looking forward to another highly
> productive year of having the employee on the team.

> The employee got a raise. His severance pay had to be recalculated to
> include it.

