
Lawsuit: Oracle called $50K 'good money for an Indian' - tankenmate
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/399838/ex-oracle-salesman-claims-complaining-about-wage-discrimination-got-him-fired
======
ChuckMcM
I think this story is missing some key pieces (it seems like it was created by
the plaintiff's lawyer). Still if the commentary suggested is true, then
Oracle could be in trouble. The technicality that I wonder about is that this
guys wasn't "harmed" by being told to pay the foreign worker less, (mental
distress complaint aside) and the foreign worker presumably doesn't know this
happened and so isn't suing Oracle.

And all of that is conflated by the fact that the person is already hired so
it isn't a hiring question, it is a pay question. And at least in the several
"managing legally" I've been to, paying people differently doesn't get you
into legal trouble like not hiring or firing them does.

That said, at one of the companies where I worked there was a suggestion for
engineers to go to India to help train local engineers, and having their
salary be the same as their peers would have in India. (as opposed to
California salaries) It was controversial to say the least.

~~~
Jochim
I think his argument is that he was fired for trying to prevent Indian
employees being discriminated against, which might be considered unfair
dismissal. In the UK being fired for exposing wrongdoing within the company
counts as unfair dismissal, I don't know if the US has a similar system in
place to protect workers in situations like this.

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gopher1
Yes, the so-called "shortage" of STEM workers is just an excuse to relax
immigration laws in order to pay foreigners less than domestic workers.

~~~
johnpmayer
Well there is certainly scarcity, and I don't think an isolationist approach
will help. We need to protect the H1Bs and equivalents coming to our
countries; give them better rights, increase their leverage. This will make it
harder for employees to drive down their, and by extension our, salaries. This
is because foreign and domestic workers are substitute goods from an HR
perspective.

~~~
gopher1
I agree with you on the immigrant protections, but not everyone agrees on the
scarcity point: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-
crisis-i...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-
myth)

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alexeisadeski3
Correct me if I'm wrong, but $50k actually is good money for an Indian right?

Pretty sure this is just a way for everyone on HN to vent their outsourcing
frustrations under the thin guise of political correctness.

~~~
avighnay
I am not for political correctness but let me try to counter your perspective

Since the Indian employee has a good track record and the company is willing
to transfer him to US, lets assume that he has around 8-10 years of
experience.

This would qualify the person for about INR 2 to 2.5 M annual pay excluding
commissions. This is about USD 35 - 40K

For such a pay, the quality of living of the Indian person would be

(might vary slightly based on the city in India)

1\. Owns at least one 3BHK house / apartment right in the middle of the city
(~ 10-15 minute commute to office) with groceries/malls within walking
distance or max 10 mins drive

2\. Drives own car (atleast Honda City, Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Verna), with a
good chance of a second car

3\. Owns some of the following: iPhone, iPad, Samsung G S4/Note, smart tv,
home theatre system, a modern kitchen, full internet connectivity, power
backup

4\. Good chance of at least one child and that child studying in a leading
private school

5\. Has a paid help for daily chores (washing, cleaning etc.)

6\. All labour for any domestic purpose electric, plumbing, car mechanic etc.
are all down right affordable without even a pinch

50K definitely is higher than the 35-40K USD he is receiving and it is upto
the person to accept it. However, the person would definitely be compromising
as I doubt if the 50K USD will assure the above list when the person chooses
to live in the US

~~~
jessaustin
USA marketing must be top-notch, if smart people are willing to give up all
that to come here.

~~~
avighnay
Yes indeed, if one thing US is best at it would be marketing, but what I have
explained is only true for the past decade (2000 upwards). Upto the 90s and
before the tech boom, it was very difficult to make a good living in India
where the only stable choice then was to take up a government job.

The generation before (those born till 70s in India) had to struggle a lot
under newly independent India and its socialistic ideals. That generation also
created the craze about going away from India to build their careers. Couple
this with the civic issues of India (which are still prevalent) and you end up
in the popular view about India in the west.

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unreal37
This article was basically written by the plantiff's lawyer. Of course it's
heavily slanted to one side. Would want to hear the other side.

Even what is written doesn't sound lawsuit worthy. In the end, the company was
offering an existing employee a raise to $50K per year and this one unrelated
guy thought $60K was a better offer. It's a fine line. I can't see the guy
winning his suit based on only $10K difference to an employee that doesn't
even know this conversation is happening.

Companies are always trying to pay less than they have to, regardless of race.
I've seen countless times employers being happy that a candidate, when asked
how much salary they wanted, came back with a low number. Everyone in the
hiring process knows the candidate is under-pricing themselves to the market,
but lo and behold the offer comes at what they asked for. "More money to get
the next candidate"

~~~
chetanahuja
I don't think the numbers themselves are the problem. The problem is (if
proven) that the hiring manager said those fateful words "...enough for an
Indian".

~~~
jedmeyers
Unless the hiring manager wrote this somewhere like an email, I doubt it will
be proven at all. Anyway for now it is nothing more than just hearsay.

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konceptz
I'll just comment on an experience that someone had while interviewing at
oracle.

A friend, recently graduated from my school, was flown to their headquarters
for a final round of interviews. She asked "What does your company look for in
a candidate?"

She got the one word response, "Testosterone."

She did not get the job.

Coincidentally my friend is Indian.

~~~
packetslave
If that really happened, your friend likely has grounds for legal action.

I have a hard time believing that even at Oracle someone would be stupid
enough to say that to a candidate.

------
tlogan
I'm not a lawyer and I would love the hear opinion about this. Do companies
use L-1 visas to workaround H1B requirements?

As far as I understand L-1 visa (which is probably used here) has no
prevailing wage requirement. They can even still be on payroll of Oracle in
India (or whatever Oracle's entity in India is called).

~~~
diogenescynic
>I'm not a lawyer and I would love the hear opinion about this. Do companies
use L-1 visas to workaround H1B requirements

Yes, often they come over under the veil of a 'temporary assignment' so they
remain on foreign payroll. They can stay up to three years before having to
renew/reapply. I worked for an immigration law firm and I saw wages as low as
$15,000/year coming from South Korea to work at Fortune 500s.

~~~
southphillyman
This is a strategy used by Accenture's ATS division. Teams of 100+ engineers
deployed in the US, being bused to hotels and given meal vouchers at night,
while earning Indian wages.

~~~
eitally
THere's a huge secondary benefit (to the employee) for L-1s, though. Spouses
pretty much automatically qualify for an L-2, which allows them to work at-
will in the US, too. So, even if the L-1 worker is severely underpaid (based
on prevailing wages in their home country), their spouse can apply for a job
paid using the US salary standards. L-1 also allows for immediate Green Card
application, and is a much smoother path toward permanent residency than H-1B.

------
etanazir
Discrimination based on race and discrimination based on the foreign
nationality immigrant status are very different things, no?

~~~
dictum
Xenophobia is racism's twin sister.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I don't believe anything in the article indicates this was Xenophobia. It
sounds entirely plausible that it wasn't "offer him less because he's brown",
but rather "offer him less because he lives in a lower-cost-of-living and
lower-average-income country". i.e. this might be akin to saying "that's good
money for someone from Alabama". It's not about race, it's about location.

I'm not saying there's a ton of evidence in favor of what I'm saying, I'm just
saying it's a possible explanation.

~~~
dictum
I understand your point: different countries have different costs of living
and different average income values.

Even though it's entirely hypocritical of me (I'm somewhat okay with Chinese
companies paying lower wages as long as they're above the average Chinese
income), I still can't let go of how "it's okay, he lives in India so he
doesn't need that much money" sounds like "it's okay, she's black, she doesn't
need that much money and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway" or "it's
okay, he's Asian, I bet he's frugal enough not to need the same wage as our
white employees".

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Your examples are ridiculous. Your two "sounds like" examples are straight up
racist (not that you think these things so please don't think that I'm calling
_you_ a racist). The other is just a geographical one that happens to span
national borders. Even in the US, among the same race, people get paid less if
they live in places that cost less. It has nothing to do with black or Asian.
My company is based in California but has an office in North Dakota. The devs
in ND make about 60% of what the devs in CA make. Nothing wrong about that.

But this guy was being relocated to the US. What wage is appropriate in India
has no relevance to what is appropriate where he was being relocated.

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cognivore
Oracle will get kicked in the buffalo packet on the point of "retaliation."
Essentially, they fired him because he was questioning them - you can't do
that, especially in California which has hugely employee slanted laws. The
point of whether the Indian sales hire was being discriminated against is not
in the senior salesperson's domain - it would be the Indian's lawsuit to file.

~~~
sequoia
...buffalo packet?

------
powertower
My first impression was this person attempted to inject race into everything
at Oracle and higher-ups simply just had enough of it and fired him.

50K is unthinkable of an offer while but 60K is not... Whatever.

It's clear the offer made was 50K because the employee was willing to take it
to get the benefit of working US-side. Not because he was being discriminated
against.

The only issue was someone said something stupid.

------
ashwinaj
It's 2014, it's a globalized world. There are thousands of Americans living in
India and vice-versa (probably more Indians in the US). The "good money for an
Indian" if true, is clearly a despicable statement to make about a fellow
employee with regards to his/her pay. I understand the posts about salary
negotiation, but he/she wasn't directly engaged in it nor should someone's
background/living standards shouldn't be taken into consideration when being
posted in another country. Where are all the company moral values? Or quite
simply where is human decency? Shameful, if true.

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abc_lisper
Not sure what is going on here. A person on a H-1B visa, should be paid
atleast 60k in the US. In California, it is somewhat higher.

Either this guy is coming on B-1 visa, or something is wrong here.

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free
You get what you pay for. The only people joining would be the one's who have
no other option. They'll only harm themselves in the long run I think.

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known
Globalization is Zero-Sum. Amend your Constitution accordingly. Otherwise your
future generations will regret.

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noonereally
50K in california will be like 2K in saving after being ultra-frugal.

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ck2
If this outrages you, wait 'til you hear about all the jobs corporations ship
overseas just to pay a fraction of and write it off.

You mean there are a-holes in the business world?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
What's your point? We shouldn't fight against bad things because worse things
also exist?

~~~
ck2
No I mean you are protesting the wrong things.

~~~
gopher1
Because you can only protest one thing at a time, it's a universal law.

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potato1
Please don't act like Oracle is the only SV company doing this. The free
markets decided that pervasive racism in compensation is OK in SV.

~~~
suyash
agree, there are several companies in SV who are paying full time employees
even less than 50K working in technology.

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badman_ting
Labor costs, labor costs, labor costs. (And racism, of course.)

~~~
nawitus
It seems to be nationalism, not racism. The quote refers to the country, not
American Indians.

~~~
walshemj
Nationality is a protected class in the US.

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sizzle
would he be coming on a H1b visa?

