
Cisco ‘secured visas for foreign workers instead of hiring US citizens’: report - masonic
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/21/h-1b-visa-reliant-cisco-secured-visas-for-foreign-workers-instead-of-hiring-u-s-citizens-report
======
romwell
Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in
itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the
foreign employees bring skills not available locally.

The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring
foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only.
The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.

Better headline: Cisco pays visa-holding employees less.

This proposed headline, IMO, is more likely to evoke the rational response
(Cisco must pay its visa-holding employees a higher salary), rather than the
irrational one (dey turk ur jerbs). Perhaps that's why it was _not_ used.

† An average salary of $130K cited in the article matches the average salary
of a good software engineer in the area. More needs to be said for the
statement against Cisco to have any merit, in my opinion.

~~~
im_cynical
Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being
abused.

What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the
job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior
level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market
average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they
got away with claiming they couldn't find good local talent. They have no
interest in competing in the local market.

~~~
whack
Almost every company uses tactics like these. And for good reason. Most
factors that actually matters in hiring (GPA, college you got the degree from,
caliber of your prior companies and work experience, interview performance,
general intellectual & problem solving skills) are all banned from
consideration when explaining why you didn't hire a local. And once you water
down the job-requirements to exclude all of the above, if even one "qualified"
person applies to that job, you're hosed. Dysfunctional laws invite creative
workarounds.

~~~
jimmaswell
Maybe they should have to make a reasonable effort to train someone before
hiring from overseas.

~~~
scottmcf
Maybe they should just pay the correct amount for the position, according to
the job requirements?

~~~
unpopular42
Obviously, they already do. The company is willing to pay this amount and
there are enough people willing and able to work for this amount, hence the
amount is correct.

------
eyeareque
My feeling is that these jobs should be given to US college grads first. Let
them grow into the roles. Why are we letting foreigners get hired into these
roles instead? Let the college grad learn on the job, instead of the external
candidate.

I have noticed that they pay less for h1b workers, and this is not only at
Cisco, basically everywhere I have worked.

I’ve also seen the companies write job descriptions that only fit the h1b
worker so they can help them get a green card. It’s sad.

Finally, I believe that companies have too much power over a h1b worker. If
they fire them, they only have a month to find a new job and then they have to
fly home. It’s bad on all sides.

~~~
fyfy18
As an employer, if you had to choose between two candidates, one of whom was
harder working, much more likely to stay long term, had more experience, and
was cheaper, which one would you choose?

Some of those points you can’t do much about, but others are fundamentally
caused by the H-1B restrictions on employees. If they were relaxed it would
make the playing field a lot more even, and stop companies from abusing the
program to get cheap labor.

------
runesoerensen
I'm curious how this is possible considering a certified Labor Condition
Application is a requirement of, and must be submitted with, an H-1B petition.
An employer essentially attests to various posting requirements, and that the
wage (ranges) _at least_ matches the average for the same job title and
seniority in a specific area, among other things. The wages listed in the LCA
have to be backed by wage data from for instance
[http://www.flcdatacenter.com](http://www.flcdatacenter.com).

Seems like the company would have to either misrepresent the job
requirements/responsibilities/wage level (seniority).. Or perhaps they'd fake
a survey of local wages rather than using the "official" statistics?

Otherwise I don't think the Department of Labor would/should certify an LCA
with a wage way below market for the position. If they do, though, perhaps
that's where the issue can and should be fixed?

In practice this also means that employers need to file an amended H-1B
petition with a newly certified LCA when an H-1B employee moves to a new area
code. For instance, if you move a H-1B software engineer from Denver to San
Francisco you'll likely have to pay the employee more.

The article does point out that the issue was discovered by the Labor
Department (rather than for instance the USCIS, who's responsible for
processing the H-1B petition itself), so perhaps that indicates a failure to
comply with LCA requirements?

~~~
dmode
Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN posters
like to believe. Here's the data

[https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Cisco+Systems+Inc&job=Soft...](https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Cisco+Systems+Inc&job=Software+Engineer&city=SAN+JOSE&year=All+Years)

Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k. This is before bonus and RSU as DOL
doesn't accept those as salary. So basically median pay is around $150K

~~~
runesoerensen
_> Cisco median pay in San Jose is $122k._

Yes that seems to be pretty close to the mean wage in San Jose for a likely
"Software Engineer" job code:
[http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=41940...](http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=41940&code=15-1132&year=19&source=1)
Cisco's (posted) wages span the different levels of that job description
pretty well as far as I can tell.

However it's probably important to note that LCA data (e.g. the data on
h1bdata.info) doesn't actually say anything about how much Cisco's paying.
Those are just the wages Cisco has submitted in LCAs, but I don't think
there's any way to verify that an LCA is connected to and used for an approved
H-1B petition and actual employment of a foreign worker.

 _> Because Cisco is "underpaying" H1 workers is a myth that a lot of HN
posters like to believe_

Not sure about HN reader bias (*see edit below), but in this case the Labor
Department clearly found some wrongdoing on Cisco's part. Would be interesting
to know what that is? Perhaps Cisco is filing all these LCAs to signal that's
they're employing workers in all wage levels, but only use the certified LCAs
with the lower wages when submitting H-1B petitions?

Edit: OK, I'll admit that I do actually know about HN bias a few years back.
That was abundantly clear from the shitshow that was the HN discussion about
pg's "Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799572)

~~~
dmode
You could potentially argue that if Cisco and others didn't hire H1 workers,
maybe the median wage in San Jose would be $200k. But that sounds like a
little bit of a stretch. I also think about roles like HR and Marketing that
do not have much competition from immigrants, but are still very low paying. I
bet the median wage of HR role in San Jose will be much lower

~~~
runesoerensen
_> You could potentially argue that if Cisco and others didn't hire H1
workers, maybe the median wage in San Jose would be $200k. But that sounds
like a little bit of a stretch._

I agree that would be a stretch especially because the yearly H-1B visa cap is
65,000 across all industries.

In any case, even if wages would be a bit higher without foreign labor, Cisco
would probably only be responsible for paying at least the market wage for a
position at the time the H-1B petition was filed.

 _> I also think about roles like HR and Marketing that do not have much
competition from immigrants_

Just a small nit (because I'm reminded of this every time I enter the US):
H-1B is a non-immigrant visa type for temporary workers ;)

------
into_buttz
Many companies do this. I used to work at Apple, where they exploited the hell
out of H1-B workers "instead of hiring US citizens". This happens in
Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Santa Clara, and San Francisco (and probably many other
parts of the country). Much of this takes place in their IT org: "IS&T" as
well as the org that contains iTunes: "Apple Media Products" aka "AMP". They
prefer to have foreign workers who can be removed and replaced on a whim. It
helps create an environment where people are constantly doing "extra" work to
show that they should be converted from contractor to employee (which is many
contractors dream, bc if they become and H1-B directly at Apple, they'll be
free from the tax that the consulting agencies take from their salary, and it
also provides mobility if they aren't as beholden to the consulting agency).
It also helps keep salaries low.

The IS&T org alone is above 10,000 employees, and there are more contractors
than employees by roughly 2.5:1. I would estimate the number of H1B workers in
the IS&T org alone would be greater than the total number of H1B workers at
Cisco.

Apple uses shell contracting agencies, like Tata, Wipro, Infosys, Accenture,
etc, so that they don't have to report the number of H1-B's that they have.

Also, many of these engineers skill level is an insult to the engineering
industry. If you couple that with severe communication/ESL problems, it's a
wonder why any American engineer would work for Apple in these orgs. It's not
that there isn't local talent available. It's that the companies are just too
cheap. Nobody working there speaks up to hold them accountable, because they
believe they're just lucky to have a job at Apple in the first place.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
> Also, many of these engineers skill level is an insult to the engineering
> industry

This feels like a 'race to the bottom' strategy that will work against the
company in the long term.

------
gnarcoregrizz
5 out of the 6 people who interviewed me at Amazon had foreign accents. Do
Americans just not go into tech anymore? Are there not enough? Do they ask for
too much money? Are they too lazy? Are they not smart enough? I don't
understand it. I heard they'd been hiring like crazy - I'm a pretty good
software engineer but I didn't get the job. Maybe I told them I want too much
money.

No kids, no land, half of my wages go to a foreign landlord who I've never
met. America.

~~~
Karishmra1234
There are not enough Young Americans anymore. That sound weird but true. Also
a college grad fresh out of college can not compete with the huge supply of
experienced and better Indian/Chinese/Korean engineers.

~~~
gnarcoregrizz
> Also a college grad fresh out of college can not compete with the huge
> supply of experienced and better Indian/Chinese/Korean engineers.

Yes, my skills are diluted when competing against billions of people, rather
than millions.

~~~
AvocadoPanic
Come to the dark side / defense industry. It's only citizens in my office.

------
cmurf
I think quite a lot of companies are visa reliant. Amazon's H-1B issuance is
up 78%.

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/13/h-1b-use-
skyrocketed-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/13/h-1b-use-skyrocketed-
among-bay-area-tech-giants/)

Meanwhile there are a bunch of northeast restaurants and crab houses who can't
get H-2B seasonal workers at all, and very much need them - they're not
getting Americans to do that work. [http://www.wboc.com/story/38923157/empty-
crab-houses-look-to...](http://www.wboc.com/story/38923157/empty-crab-houses-
look-to-fall-season-still-with-no-crab-pickers)

Seems like a disproportionate increase on the one hand, and disproportionate
decrease on the other hand.

~~~
atomical
Why does Amazon need to use H1-B when it can open offices overseas and pay
workers low wages?

~~~
supercanuck
Because then they would have to hire Indian management and that would reduce
the benefit

~~~
somethingwitty1
But Amazon does have offices in India...many of them:
[https://www.amazon.jobs/locations/?&continent=asia_pacific&c...](https://www.amazon.jobs/locations/?&continent=asia_pacific&cache)

------
akshat_h
Discussion yesterday on a similar article titled: Cisco Said to Be Cited for
Bias Against U.S. Workers (bloomberglaw.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804755)

------
grad_ml
I think this statement is false by nature. If one have secured visa, assuming
following law, is something like saying that Cisco have engineers on H1b.
Taha, whole world knows that, it's in public domain. This is like saying
Google or some other firm is using H1B employee.

~~~
ubernostrum
The usual critique is that these visa programs were designed to allow
companies to hire a person from another country in cases where no US citizen
was available (usually because of some particular skill or unusual knowledge
required for the job). But companies have learned how to game the system and
"prove" that there are apparently zero US citizens qualified for software
development jobs, which then absolutely requires importing people who will
work for a far lower salary and be tied to that specific job as a condition of
being allowed in the US.

------
BLKNSLVR
Three scenarios:

1\. The Intentionally Bad: A symptom of Ultra-capitalism, working towards
short term financial gains to make the next quarter look good for
shareholders.

2\. The Situationally Bad: Employee salaries at current levels are
unsustainable and there isn't the interest from locals to work for lower, more
sustainable rates.

3\. An Actual Skills Shortage: Can't find suitable people locally, gotta look
at the international market.

Secondary Point, a gross paraphrasing:

First they came for manufacturing, and I didn't speak up because I was a
software engineer. Then they came for the software engineers...

------
epmaybe
The title does not match the headline on the website. The headline should
better reflect the headline: "H-1B visa-reliant Cisco ‘secured visas for
foreign workers instead of hiring U.S. citizens’: report"

Otherwise, it seems obvious that US citizens would not need visas.

~~~
dang
Thanks. We took a crack at fitting it in 80 chars.

Submitted title was "H-1B visa-reliant Cisco secured visas for foreign workers
instead of US citizens"

