
Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder - joshwa
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/us/laid-off-americans-required-to-zip-lips-on-way-out-grow-bolder.html
======
nwhybrid
As a former H1-B worker myself (please put down the pitch-forks :)), I can
tell you that regular companies aren't hiring H1-Bs to replace you directly.
Instead they contract swarms of us through companies like WiPro and other body
shops. This, along with the inability to seek a more fitting job on your own
regardless of skill level is the main problem I see. You're essentially
shackled to these body shops. You can't go home because of their BS employee
agreements that force you to pay thousands if you leave before a certain time,
you can't ask for higher salary or healthcare benefits, you don't get to
choose where you work so it may be Texas today, WA tomorrow, Alabama next week
so forget having a family life, you're wife can't work if you bring her and
kids with you so you have to just follow along to their whims regardless. It
is pretty much human trafficking once you get here. I can tell most folks here
are American, they have no idea how messed up the H1-B system is.

~~~
Spooky23
Your perspective is the one missing from this debate.

I don't have a problem with immigration -- my grandparents were all
immigrants. I have a problem with this three-tier system of greencards, guest
visas and systematic import of undocumented workers.

These leech companies are farming exploited quasi-immigrant labor while
screwing up the labor market for everyone else.

You should be able to come to this country like my ancestors did -- pass a
physical and get a green card. An Indian technology worker shouldn't be
separated from his kids, a Chinese restaurant waiter shouldn't be an
indentured slave, and Americans of all backgrounds shouldn't have their
salaries kneecapped by thousands of workers with no rights.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>You should be able to come to this country like my ancestors did -- pass a
physical and get a green card... Americans of all backgrounds shouldn't have
their salaries kneecapped by thousands of workers with no rights.

If anyone could come into the US by simply passing a physical exam, salaries
would be impacted much more drastically, this time by the sheer increase in
the labor supply.

~~~
sgk284
In the 20th century the total population of employable humans doubled in
roughly a decade. That is, when women were allowed to enter the workforce in a
real capacity.

We adjusted and the economy grew.

Concerns like yours were the same concerns raised by Americans regarding
Asians a little over a century ago, leading to our closed borders. These fears
were unfounded.

America is still succeeding based on the momentum of our former liberal open
border policy and in another century or so I'm sure we'll regret having
tightened immigration as much as we have.

It's crazy that if you're born here by random chance you get incredible perks
in life, but if you want to come here and earn those perks you're pretty much
screwed unless you've already proven success in your current country.

------
warcher
Listen, there's no point claiming the H1 situation isn't a rampant
clusterfuck. Actual skilled laborers lie in limbo while busloads of cheap,
disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited and depress
domestic wages. It's a full on disaster.

If you have to have temporary worker visas, fine. But don't tie them to a
company. If there's a legitimate need, and they're legitimately skilled,
they'll find work, and they'll more than likely find work that pays comparably
to a native worker (or they'll get poached, because good help is always hard
to find).

~~~
_audakel
> disposable foreign workers are brought over to get exploited

"exploited" is a matter of perspective. To an onlooker who has lived their
whole life in a first world country, seeing people work for $x - (less-
significantlyLess) [where $x is what is "typical" for the job] can be seen as
bad/wrong/sad etc...

I have spent time working in very poor parts of Mexico and Manila. Crime is
rampant, I feared for my life at times. Polution/open sewage made my eyes
burn. By the end of my job there (helping doing on site server data migration
for a financial institution) I was willing to pay/do anything to get out.

We take many things for granted that foreign workers might consider "Perks of
the job". $1 has far more buying power in Manila than a place like the Bay
area, but I would live in the Bay over Manila, essentially taking a wage cut.

This does not condone the wage discrepancy btwn foreign/domestic workers, but
offers a potential explanation why a person would happily take an apparent
"pay cut", and even be better off.

~~~
dominotw
I am an immigrant living in the united states. I still can't believe my luck
that I get to live in this paradise on earth called USA. I also feel guilty
that got this incredible opportunity while much of my extended family and
friends rot in third world hell holes waiting for their lives to be over
quickly so they can be put out of their misery.

One of my uncle works as day laborer in dubai. He works 14 hr days of hard
labor in extreme heat and lives in a some shanty where he has to share a
bathroom( hole in the ground) with 14-20 other people. His passport got
confiscated by his "owners" as soon as he landed there and was put under some
sort of draconian "contract" where they get to work him to death, work place
deaths are extremely common and no one cares if its an immigrant. In native's
eyes they are basically slaves with no rights. You can see videos online where
the 'owners' beat the shit out of them for real or imagined slights. I went to
a restaurant once in Dubai with my uncle, all the immigrants were separated
out into a different room with no air conditioning and that is where
immigrants were supposed to sit you could _never_ eat with locals. I've also
heard of many second-hand stories where women who go there to be be domestic
help get sexually and physically abused for years. And shocking part is that
he does all this voluntarily for the most part even though he never gets to
see his family and kids and gets to have sex only when he goes back every 4-5
yrs. We had houses on the our street referred to as 'dubai houses' meaning
houses build with money made in dubai, you can feel the eerie sadness when you
look at a house. I can go on forever but I think you get the idea.

Seeing yourself as an individual and as a human being is privilege
inaccessible to most people in countries like mine. Even Our philosophical
frameworks and belief systems are designed to explain away and make sense of
unbearable misery of life with concepts like karma and preordination.

~~~
sangnoir
> I also feel guilty that got this incredible opportunity while much of my
> extended family and friends _rot in third world hell holes waiting for their
> lives to be over quickly so they can be put out of their misery_

Goodness - I know it's probably hyperbole, but what kind of fucked-up country
do you come from?

~~~
yourapostasy
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are common labor pools that many Mid East
nations draw upon for physical laborers. It isn't just Dubai, though they are
among the most egregious; you'll see these arrangements in nations like Saudi
Arabia as well, even though it is not nearly as well-publicized.

~~~
nopzor
It's not just middle eastern countries.

Many developed countries in Asia (eg Singapore) use foreign labor for jobs
that "no Singaporean would do". This includes jobs like construction.

Unlike the U.S., these foreign workers are truly 2nd class citizens. Often
passports are confiscated, and the idea that they'd ever start a life or
family in their host country is completely off the table.

It is official policy that they can be paid less than local workers for the
same job, and have far fewer legal protections.

I don't think it's black and white though. Many of these foreign workers would
be worse off in their home country.

It still rubs me the wrong way. For all its flaws, I still like the U.S.
System better.

------
lazaroclapp
This causes some pretty strong mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, foreign
workers are already disadvantaged compared with domestic workers and H1-B caps
are absurdly low. I keep failing to see why we are all supposed to open world
markets to the flow of every sort of capital and goods _except_ labor, or why
someone deserves a job for being born American, rather than Indian (Note that
I feel the same way when Americans are disadvantaged elsewhere for similar
reasons[1]). On the other hand, a clause requiring that you never say
something bad about your employer nor discuss the situation under which you
were laid off seems not only abusive, but repugnantly so. In a country that
constitutionally enshrines free speech, the ability to sign away for money
your right to complain publicly about a person or organization seems
particularly dangerous, and the act of asking someone to do so seems truly
vile.

[1]
[https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usni...](https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.466usnivl)

~~~
colordrops
These Carly Fiorina-style arguments that no one has a special right to a job
are ignoring a lot of context. In a world with even handed regulation and no
borders, that could make sense. But that is not the world we live in. The
current situation is not that trade is completely deregulated and labor is
tied up in red tape. What is really happening is that there is a complex
surface area of varying degrees of regulation and deregulation that in most
cases benefits an elite class at the expense of others. Companies in America
take advantage of rights to purchase land, subsidies, government contracts,
military protection, tax advantages, tariffs, etc, all funded by American tax
payers. Why wouldn't it be fair for Americans to have an advantage in the
American market place? I actually agree that in an ideal world nations and
borders wouldnt exist. But as long as the majority see benefit in their
existence and they are being propped up by the powers that be, why would you
kick the legs out from any small advantage you have from being a citizen of
one?

~~~
Dwolb
Said in another way, capital is fungible but labor is not. This means capital
can flow readily to the lowest cost suppliers and workers but workers cannot
flow readily to higher paying employers.

This leads to a mismatch where, temporarily, employers can capture higher-
skilled workers at lower costs.

Another comment, how are anti-disparagement clauses not a violation of first
amendment rights?

~~~
dietrichepp
> Another comment, how are anti-disparagement clauses not a violation of first
> amendment rights?

This is a common misunderstanding of the first amendment. It's a short
amendment, shorter than your comment, so you might as well just read the
amendment.

~~~
Dwolb
Ah thanks for the advice :)

------
kazinator
> _Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out,
> despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former
> employers._

You can easily reveal the facts it in a totally non-critical way.

 _At ABC Data, workers were encouraged to collaborate with management to come
up with creative solutions to streamline processes and save costs. When I
realized that ABC could save money by replacing me with an equally capable,
yet much cheaper worker visiting the country on a temporary work permit, I
immediately pitched this idea at the next big cross-departmental meeting.
There was much resistance among management. They objected on the basis of the
unique knowledge and skills that I bring to the team, and how we all "go way
back" to the startup days. In the end they saw it my way and agreed to
relocate my posterior to that outdoor concrete fixture which separates the
road from the sidewalk or lawn. I was unfortunately not able to talk them out
of the egregiously generous severance package, though even with that
expenditure, ABC ends up ahead. ABC is a great company to invest in with
terrific fundamentals and future prospects, and is led by a highly ethical
team whose decisions are beyond reproach._

~~~
tokensimian
IANAL but suspect disparagement is defined in such a way that a corporation's
attorneys could prove this type of comment caused harm to the company, and
thus meets the definition.

~~~
jeremyjh
Yes, it turns out judges are not robots who apply law like it is some kind of
program. They are capable of reading between the lines.

------
muhfuhkuh
I find it interesting the amount of sudden vitriol by some of the formerly
"free market" supporters that thought that the terrible job market for non-
STEM majors would never, ever hit the technology industry. Those that decry
artistry and creative industry jobs as beneath them and their money, those
that felt working class people were just too lazy to find "good" jobs, and
generally feeling apathy if not schadenfreude for those suffering from the
corporate recovery of 2010-present.

Those same free marketers also agreed with the destruction of unions and
protections like minimum wage. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, look at
the comments. "H1-Bs are depressing prices" have replaced "why should I pay
for music and movies" and "any industry that relies on ads should die".

Well, now with the tables turned, why should working class Americans and
artists and content creators give one shit that the technology industry is
suffering from "depressed salaries". Suffer with the rest of America.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I agree with you, actually; you can't have your cake and eat it, too. I
believe employees in every field should be looking out for themselves. Signing
a non-disparagement agreement is ridiculous. The company needs you to train
the replacement, so make them pay through the nose. If they just say, get out,
don't let the door hit you etc. -- fine. Move on. Don't dig your own grave
then lie down in it.

People need to keep their resume up to date, keep testing the market, and be
ready to move on if a superior opportunity arises, or if they become aware of
an H1B replacement scheme in their group. That's the only real way to stop
these practices; make the employers aware that people can and will walk if not
treated right.

------
rrecuero
Former H1-B Worker as well. I was sponsored by Zynga Inc and Moz. Finally got
my green card recently. As other people have pointed out above, I believe the
problem relies on who is sponsoring these candidates. The following list
speaks by itself:

1 Infosys: 23,816 2 Tata Consultancy Services 14,096 3 Wipro 8,365 4 IBM 7,944
5 Deloitte Consulting 7,016

Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Tesla or Palantir should be in the top
spots. Setting a minimum wage to $100,000 would filter most of the sweat show
applications out.

~~~
hibikir
But it would also filter out most of the people outside of the Bay Area, New
York and Chicago. In Missouri, for instance you aren't paying 100K to someone
that isn't pretty darned senior: 65-70K is a competitive salary right out of
school around here. So a recent foreign graduate would have to move to the
bay.

We also have to understand that consulting companies are pretty great options
when you want to get a green card (although not necessarily the big ones): If
you are a consultant, and you work for a company doing layoffs, your
consulting firm won't drop you like a rock, and might be interested in getting
you another gig. If the same thing happens to you when you are working
directly for a company, you have a much smaller clock before you should leave
the country. When a Green Card wait can be 10 years, the chances you'll work
for a company that has a few rounds of layoffs are very high.

~~~
rrecuero
That's a good point. It would obviously need to be a more complicated system.
I think it would be good to prioritize companies like Google, Facebook and the
likes but good, honest consulting companies shouldn't be excluded. Factors
like innovation, skill scarcity and wage/cost of living can be weighed in.

That happened to me. I actually was at Zynga when they closed studios and I
needed to start my green card application from scratch.

~~~
onion2k
It doesn't need to be complicated. Just a rule that the employee must be paid
a minimum of the median average wage of any similar domestic employees in the
company, or the market average if there aren't any.

~~~
rrecuero
I hear you. Although, I believe that's one of the loopholes that companies
like Infosys exploits. They pay just above market average and they have a
really high number of H1B employees, bordering on the limit. Also, market
average fluctuates a lot between regions so it can be circumvented as well.
Hard problem....

------
yuhong
I am not surprised that companies that are broken enough to do the outsourcing
in the first place are also often broken enough to have this term in severance
agreements. But it really should not be standard.

~~~
x0x0
It's standard for lots of things.

I had to sign such an agreement to stay through an acquisition.

~~~
yuhong
The point is that it should not be.

~~~
x0x0
I agree, I was merely sharing my experience.

------
triplesec
Worth noting the headlines of the 'related coverage':

Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants JAN 25,
2016;

Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, Costing the U.S. Jobs NOV 10, 2015;

Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary Foreign Workers to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas SEP
29, 2015;

Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements. JUN 3, 2015

~~~
udkl
The way I read it, the anti-H1B movement and awareness is gaining steam. It
would be interesting the stance Hillary/Trump takes next year after being
sworn in.

------
MaggieL
It's always amazing that the H-1Bs who have these rare skills that are
unavailable in US citizens nonetheless always seem to require training by the
native workers they are replacing.

------
johndubchak
At this point, with both Corporate abuses from American corporations and the
H1-B holding companies along with the frequency with which we've seen the more
expensive American work replaced with a much cheaper "guest" worker, I believe
we need to ask ourselves, do we not have enough surplus American workers that
are unemployed such that the H1-B program might not be necessary for a year or
two until we've managed to get the unemployed American workers back to work?

~~~
xenadu02
One of the best developers I've ever worked with is here on an H1B. He's
better than 95% of all the US Software Engineers I've ever worked with. He
runs an open source project in his spare time and gives talks to educate the
community. He's the kind of person the visa is for and he is paid
appropriately for a senior engineer (not a cheap import).

The problem is the mostly Indian outsourcing companies. They ballot-stuff the
H1B process every year. I talked to an Indian engineer in the US on J1. He
said these three companies come to every Indian University and
indiscriminately "hire" every single graduate to sign up for H1B, regardless
of skill, need, or ability. Then if they "win" they get a to come to the USA,
so of course most take the offer. It is implicitly understood that they will
work for low wages and in difficult conditions but the goal is not to ask
questions or rock the boat and wait until they get a green card.

I don't blame the workers but it is clearly an abuse of the system; Infosys
isn't hiring India's brightest engineers to import as contractors. They're
grabbing as many people with a pulse as possible to ballot-stuff H1B
applications.

That could be solved by restricting applications to X per applicant, including
all affiliated companies and subcontractors.

The other H1B scam is that you only have to pay a software engineer around
$60-$70k to qualify as "highly paid". I'm not sure what the exact trick in the
rules is but the consulting companies can and do pay well below market rates
for engineers and it's perfectly legal.

~~~
douche
That low salary figure must be based off of homing them on some non-
SF/Seattle/Austin/NYC city. There are a lot of places in the US where making
60-70k individually puts you into the top 5-10% of the populace.

------
johngray0
Couple of things about H1B: 1. While H1B workers are cheaper, they are also
pretty much stuck with their employer. Not 100% but much less mobility than
citizen. Sorry, this reeks just a wee bit of indentured servitude. 2. If you
take Corp. Execs at their word, and that rising H1B caps is good for country,
then would be good for a journalist to probe: what about a 10M worker cap? Or
1.5 billion worker cap? That would make america even stronger, no?

------
dghughes
In Canada Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program was changed. It was getting
to the point where entire industries changed overnight out with long-time
employees and in with near slave wage "TFWs" (many people just say refer to
the people as TFWs).

It got so bad it became a huge political hot potato and the law was changed
resulting in many TFWs disappearing as fast as they arrived.

The law here was similar to the TFW laws in the US and it was abused the same
way. The law was meant as a way businesses could get help by hiring cheaper
labour if they couldn't find local workers. But of course hiring someone at
$5/hour versus $11/hour is strong motivation for a business to cheat.

This was every industry too each had its own preferred ethnicity mining
(Chinese), fast food (Filipino), IT (India), agriculture (Central American).
It's only now changing back to local people born in Canada.

I don't have any ill will against the TFW workers it's the businesses who are
the ones who ruined the purpose of the TFW law and now have to suffer for it.

~~~
Hondor
$5/hour sounds like they were violating minimum wage law which is now about
$11/hour. Surely that itself is the problem, not whether the workers were
foreign or local, or how much above minimum wage they were paid.

~~~
dghughes
No Canadian citizen would ever be paid less than minimum wage it was only the
TFW who could be paid that.

I'm not sure of the exact wage but I know it was less than the minimum wage
which is roughly $11/hour, although each province sets its own rate.

There were also problems of TFWs being house in apartments that the business
owner owned and took wages for rent. Often having a dozens of people in a
small apartment.

Other reports of passports being confiscated and return tickets home revoked.
It's an embarrassment and thankfully the previous right wing government has
been turfed.

I think the law now states TFW get the same pay and only to fill labour
shortages since the program was meant to fix a labour shortage and nothing to
do with wages.

------
lifeisstillgood
I'm not sure I get this - are the workers coming in to replace them actually
in the USA physically? Are they staying in the USA physically?

I mean is this offshoring / outsourcing or is it replacing with cheaper
workers?

Why can't the existing employees compete for the jobs? I mean WIPRO must have
going through some pretty big pre sales workups, so who else was competing?

I think what I mean is that doing this in secret implies that no one doing the
actual job was ever consulted about the viability of outsourcing / replacing
them / so you never get a real understanding of the costs or opportunities for
improvement (essentially automating a bad process)

In summary - any company that does this cheap shot is usually one that is
going to get its ass handed to it by a better more automated competitor.

~~~
x0x0
Abbott contracted with Wipro, who appears to be performing the work locally,
though Wipro claims only 20% h1b labor.

    
    
       Abbott tried to reduce the role of foreigners in the layoffs. Only about 20 
       percent of the workers brought in by Wipro would be foreigners on H-1B 
       visas, Mr. Stoffel said, while the rest would be American workers.

~~~
revelation
I thought the idea was 0% H-1B labor? You can't replace an American job with
H-1B?

The requirements seem very stringent in writing but apparently utterly useless
and ineffective in practice, or clearly both executives for Abott and Wipro
would be facing criminal prosecution. You should not be able to circumvent the
restrictions by a single layer of contract work.

~~~
johndubchak
>> You can't replace an American job with H-1B?

The goal of the system is to use the guest worker program to augment your
current workers with talent that you are unable to find and staff here in the
US. The requirement is _not_ at 40 - 60% of the cost you pay your US
employees, but in skills that you cannot find or fill with US domestic
workers.

~~~
niftich
These "scarce" skills and requirements are trivially gamed on a regular basis.
Large numbers of positions that are eventually filled by H-1Bs don't, in
truth, require skills and experience that you simply can't find domestically.

Sure, every once in a while you need a nuclear engineer or some other domain
expert in a very, very narrow domain, and you may have a genuine shortage of
talent. But for general-purpose IT and commodity development, these skill are
not in short supply domestically if you're willing to pay market salaries.

------
giis
As a Indian and worked in Indian body shops (but who never traveled aboard).
My views on Indian-body shop immigrants :

In 2005, when I completed university masters degree. Our class has around 60
students, I'm pretty sure may be 5 or 6 of (1%) them are talented and good in
computers. Most of us took IT job. We had chances to immigrate to other as
early as 2007 through Indian body shops like Wipro, Infy, Tata, CTS etc.

In 2016, now most of them (60%) of them working in aboard. May be 40% in USA
and 20% EU/ROW. How did almost 59% of these not-so talented friends landed in
other countries? Did they gained sound knowledge in those 48 months or later.
I really _really_ doubt that. Its because we are low-cost workers and got
close to Indian IT management. Typical Indian IT managers are ass __*. They
want boot-lickers not skilled developers. So its easy for unskilled people to
land in other countries in the name of skilled-person. I know few guys who
worked in non-IT companies (later created fake IT experiences) joined these
body shops and now living in US.

I assume almost 80-90% IT Indians in US are helping American companies simply
because he/she is low-cost worker. Its not like US companies cant find local
talent to fill these roles, but they want low-cost solution.

If you got laid-off due to low-cost workers, please remember, its the US
company & IT Body-shop bosses & stock-holders financially benefited a lot from
these lay-offs not necessarily the worker who replaced you or the poor-
outsourced IT slaves.

one simple solution : Please tighten the visa-interview process, make it more
like real IT company interview (ask about data-structures and algorithms etc).
This will ensure immigration rates from body-shops drop from 60%(from my
numbers above) to 5% max.

\---

My personal experience with Indian & US/foreign freelancers greatly differ.
Even though US/foreign freelancers are costly (1USD:66 INR), I find them
worthy. They go-out and put extra-effort to finish the task. With Indian
freelancers, they just want to finish the task quickly and get the paid. I
find it amusing that US companies hire us for of lack-of talents there :)

------
johngray0
"Marco Peña was among about 150 technology workers who were laid off....."
Going on a limb but guessing Mr.Peña might be of hispanic origin. Most talk
about Trump has been tone, but little of substance. Sizzle vs steak, and all.
My hunch is that most of Pundits&Pols class focus too much on tone and too
little on what Trump would actually likely do. And that there are many
Mr.Peña's for whom, while the would prefer nicer words coming out of TV set,
are more concerned with what their wallets are saying. And that while Trump
might take us to uncertain unknown, Clinton is doubling down on a crappy
known.

------
blisterpeanuts
_So, after thirteen years of my loyal and dedicated service, you 're offering
me $10,400 severance, six weeks notice (during which I must train my H1B half-
price replacement), if and only if I sign a non-disparagement agreement? And
otherwise, I'm out on my butt tomorrow?_

 _No. You 're going to give me one year's salary with benefits (after all,
Lester Burnham got away with it in "American Beauty"). You're also going to
pay me DOUBLE during the period that I am training the half price indentured
servant who you imagine is going to replace me. Mind you, he'll never replace
my previous loyalty and dedication; that's not something you can train into
someone in six weeks... or ever. You have to earn loyalty, a lesson you'll
discover over the next few months as you screw your employees._

 _Also, you will sign a mutual non-disparagement agreement; I say nothing bad
about you, and you say nothing bad about me, and my lawyer says if you spread
malicious and damaging gossip about me, it will cost me one million dollars in
lost career potential, so that 's what you will owe me if you do so -- plus
punitive damages._

 _And if you don 't give me what I want, I'm quitting as of 5pm today and will
immediately write a book and blog about the stupidity of management here at
Wrecked Lives Inc. In fact I've already reserved the domain names that will be
appropriate for my upcoming tell-all. Lots of luck stopping me; I'll only tell
the truth, and the First Amendment protects me. If you try to sue me, I'll sue
you back, and the resulting publicity will make my book and my blog and my
Youtube channel famous enough that I'll never need to work again. Your
investors and commercial partners will also hear about it. So make my day._

I'm not saying most people would do this, or even if they did, that they would
get away with it, but it's how a person in that situation _ought to_ respond.
Granted, we in the U.S. have at-will employment, granted it's a free market,
and sometimes the smartest move is to simply move on and put this behind you.
But we're also human beings with emotions, loyalties, and a sense of betrayal,
and when a management team tries to pull the H1b-swap-and-gag on the
employees, they have to recognize the price.

------
35bge57dtjku
I've never even had the option to sign a no disparagement clause for a
settlement like that. I've had to support my family with what I already had
whether I liked it or not. So what they did is shitty, but I have a hard time
feeling bad for the 1% who complain that they have the option of getting more
money by signing away their rights if they so choose.

------
xeropho
Immigration for "skilled" workers is flawed in US Please look at other
countries ( point based system ) and for the love of sanity just adopt best
practices ... flaws: 1) Skilled worker immigration should be based on "skills"
(country of origin is incorrect: Indian and Chinese immigrants suffer, US
workforce also suffers) 2) Immigration should be tied to individuals,
influence from employer has conflict of interest. (employer wants to make
money even if it comes at the cost of employees ability to immigrate) 3)
Immigration as whole should be based on what new individuals bring to the
table (skills, age when joining workforce, true intent and ability to adopt
new country)

Point 3 is complex and involves true value for US or country of adoption.
____* Immigration overall is not as complex or difficult as most politicians
publicize it, it has become far more political than it needs to be, thank you
President Obama. __ __ _

------
pm90
Another commenter alluded to it, but I find both the article and the
discussion miss what is really going on. It seems like a lot of firms are
basically outsourcing their IT workforce; something that has been going on for
a long time now.

For most businesses, IT is a cost center, and if that cost can be minimized,
they will do so, full stop. What the articles doesn't go into detail is
whether those workers that are being trained will continue to work in the US,
or whether they are in the US temporarily to understand the IT infrastructure
and processes. It seems to me that the latter is the case here. Again,
outsourcing has been going on for the longest time, and it really confounds me
how many times the same issue will be brought up.

------
fiatmoney
There is a simple solution, particularly in the context of congressional or
other government investigations: subpoena them. Nondisparagement clauses don't
& can't cover compelled testimony.

------
thegayngler
It's just businesses abusing the system. We need more legislation in place to
keep businesses from Harmon Americans and shooting themselves in the foot long
term. American workers who support unfeddered capitalism always end up
wondering why they are starving when they supported tax cuts for the wealthy
and big business while leaving no money to pay for the fallout of their
disasterous decisions. Sometimes you get what you asked for.

~~~
Zigurd
H1-B isn't just abused to depress wages. Mediocre managers love it because
docile H1-B body shop contractors are no threat to their careers. This leads
to bad corporate IT quality and reduced competitiveness in US enterprises. You
can even get them to pantomime the Agile thing and look all progressive and
shit, even though those H1-Bs will never rock the boat.

------
abpavel
A lot of uproar, but have you ever tried to teach a 60yo veteran working his
paper trail to switch to python? The laid off personnel did not have the
required skillset, and would be fired regardless of the source of replacement,
H1B or local.

------
golergka
Honest question: if a guy in India can do the same job as a guy in the US, but
coming from a country with worse economy agrees to do it cheaper, why would I
sympathize with the american guy in this situation?

Honestly, to me it seems like american working class have been really
privileged compared to the world's population in 20th century, and
globalization finally brings some equality — which might not be a good thing
to american middle class, but is a great one for workers from China, India and
all other 3rd world countries.

------
FLengyel
These companies seem not to believe in the free market if they suppress the
free exchange of information about their labor practices.

------
franciscop
Totally independently of other things, naming it "Required" sounds better than
"took 10.000$ for zipping their lips"

------
known
To promote Entrepreneurs/Local Jobs

1\. Impose tax on corporate revenues, not profits

2\. Regulate market capitalization of corporations

------
sjclemmy
Free market capitalism.

You can't have it both ways.

~~~
tremon
Then we should not have it at all.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
Tickets to Venezuela are pretty cheap nowadays.

------
beatpanda
So, is it time for a union yet?

------
the_ancient
I have long been an open borders supporter, anyone that wants to come to the
US (or any other nation) and make a life for themselves should be free to do
so.

I am also 100% opposed to even the existence of the H1B visa program, this
program is a modernized version of Indentured servitude that allows companies
to take advantage of those employees by conditioning their immigration to
their employment. These people are often coming from circumstances they do not
want to return to, poverty, oppression, persecution, etc. So the threat of
being fired and deported is a coercive force that employers use to exploit
these workers.

I am fine with immigration, I am even fine if immigrant are willing to work
for lower wages, provided that agreement is free from the threat of
deportation...

------
VladKovac
Sorry, I don't feel bad for any of these people. Even the poorest Americans
have better material conditions than a lot of Indian workers. Why do you think
the Indian workers are willing to work for less?

~~~
vthallam
While US has quite better conditions, India is not some messed up rogue state.
Many come here for a obvious reason, Money. The currency exchange rate is 1 :
66 for USD : INR. So even with PPP into consideration, that's huge and so they
work for way less.

~~~
VladKovac
I was just using the extreme example of the comparison of low-skilled workers
in the two countries. Even in the opposite extreme I have no particular
sympathy, in my mind it's analogous to one American programmer losing her job
to another American programmer.

------
known
Most corrupt people on the Earth
[http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-
american...](http://www.petition2congress.com/20324/expel-indian-americans-
from-usa/)

------
pmarreck
> Two years later, his work with a local tech contracting company pays $45,000
> a year less than his Eversource salary. Many of his former co-workers are
> also struggling, Mr. Diangelo said, but stay quiet to avoid provoking the
> company.

So basically, the company wasn't making enough money to support the affluent
pay of its workforce so it had to take drastic measures to stay afloat.

If you are suddenly making $45,000 a year less than you were... Perhaps you
were getting paid above your true market value

------
ccrush
Why not ask the recruiter or company you are applying for if they are willing
to sponsor or work with an H1B visa (pretend you are in that position) and
move on if they say yes. It will be interesting to see how well these
companies do when all they can hire are H1B workers. After all, they can only
get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30% chance that the
application will actually be approved. They do need a certain number of US
workers to have a stable workforce. With that gone, all their projects will be
at risk of failure. How much of this risk do you think they can keep up before
they are forced to give up these H1B abuses? I say abuses because there are
clearly qualified local candidates willing to work at the market rate, but
they lie about the market rate and lie about not finding local candidates to
hire their cheap labor. Ideally, they should have a Job ID assigned to all
jobs where they are considering H1Bs and post the name, wage, and
qualifications of the hired candidate if they hire an H1B candidate. That way,
potential employees that were passed up can see who they were passed up for,
and complain to the right people if they were unfairly skipped on for a
cheaper employee with poorer qualifications just because they were cheaper or
would be cheaper in the long run because they would never get a raise or
benefits or unemployment or pay into social security and medicaid.

~~~
mavelikara
> After all, they can only get so many of those visas, and there is only a 30%
> chance that the application will actually be approved.

Once an immigrant is granted an H-1B visa, they don't have to go through the
lottery process again for the next 6 years. If within that 6 years they apply
for a Green Card and reach a certain stage in the processing pipeline, they
will get extensions any number of times past the 6 years too.

------
Hondor
This is simple "they stole our jobs" rhetoric. It's just like taxi drivers
with their "Uber stole our fares". If you can't compete, go to another market.
If you're already overcharging, charge less. "Depressing local wages" is a
good thing - it reduces the cost to society of getting productive things done.

The other argument about foreign workers being exploited is a clear sign of
people pretending to care but really not caring. Sure there are some who were
tricked into debt traps, but for most, they know what they're getting into and
they know it's better than what they have back home. So they're making a step
up in life. You want to kick them back down because you care about their
welfare? What it means is you only care about people in America and once they
leave, they lose their status as worthy human beings who deserve good working
conditions.

I used to be a foreign laborer. I was paid minimum wage to do grunt work that
locals didn't want. It was wonderful. The currency was worth more in my home
country than where I was working. It helped me pay off my student loan. I
would have hated to be forced out by someone trying to protect me from myself.
My coworkers loved it too, they'd send money home to help their parents run
their farms and pay off their own loans. They'd laugh at the lazy local
workers who were mostly overweight and doing the same job more slowly.

~~~
strictnein
No, it's not.

This is about companies only granting severance if you sign non-disparagement
agreements.

~~~
Hondor
Well yes, mainly. But the complaint of the laid-off workers was about
immigrants taking their jobs.

