How Outsourcing Companies Are Gaming the H-1B Visa System

[Babel_17]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-1b-visa-program-leaving-smaller-ones-in-the-cold.html

slashdot (news for nerds) is giving a heads-up to this story. A lot of those nerds are employed in these fields so their take on this issue is likely to be interesting.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/11/10/1813249/how-outsourcing-companies-are-gaming-the-h-1b-visa-system

How Outsourcing Companies Are Gaming the H-1B Visa System (nytimes.com) 174
Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 10, 2015 @01:41PM from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.
New submitter shakah writes:
The NY Times has a straightforward summary of how the H-1B Visa system is being gamed by companies inside and outside of the United States. Particularly interesting for me was their clarification on the argument that "VISA holders have to make prevailing wages, so they won't depress wages." Quoting: "Under federal rules, employers like TCS, Infosys and Wipro that have large numbers of H-1B workers in the United States are required to declare that they will not displace American workers. But the companies are exempt from that requirement if the H-1B workers are paid at least $60,000 a year. H-1B workers at outsourcing firms often receive wages at or slightly above $60,000, below what skilled American technology professionals tend to earn, so those firms can offer services to American companies at a lower cost, undercutting American workers."

[msongs]

1. your president and congress are ok with this so what's the prob? nt

[MH1]

2. The H1B program steals opportunities from American workers

and saddles those of us who remain in IT with coworkers who don't communicate well, and who don't have training in the fundamentals, but are hired by managers who either don't know shit or are only focused on immediate output with no regard to quality.

Based on my first-hand experience.

[840high]

3. +1

[Babel_17]

4. That's the thing, this program isn't untried theory

We know from experience how it's abused, and gamed. We want to welcome foreign talent, and we don't want our workers ground down by management exploiting cheaper labor.

Let's speak clearly to managing Visas so we can do both.

[Baitball Blogger]

19. Someone who was in the position to review their work told me that they

do tend to be quicker at programming. But he explained why. They used a system that was heavy with unnecessary coding. The weaknesses would be discovered over time, if there were changes needed to the program. Wish I could remember the terms he used. It seemed to be a poor system, in the long run. But, he also said that clients are usually ignorant of what goes on in the code and even, some company employers don't care. Once, he just finished the interface for a program and his employer wanted to put it out on the market just that way.

I think the best way to bring light to what we're doing to the US programming industry is to get IT experts to look into it to explain the differences.

[MH1]

20. The "system" is crap coding that is not easily maintainable

That "system" flies in the face of all modern coding best practices.

They tend to get the job "done" quickly but then someone else usually has to clean up their mess. And then the someone else's manager wants to know why it takes so long to resolve the problems.

They thrive in a situation where there is low quality control and few metrics of performance after go-live. Sadly that is most companies.

[Baitball Blogger]

23. This is what we should be reading in Time magazine.

[jeff47]

5. I know when we've hit the H1B cap for the year

Because the "Hey, you want a junior-level job in this city you've never said you wanted to live in?" spam stops.

[Babel_17]

6. Huh, so some companies do that ...

Huh, so some companies do that so as to technically be in compliance with the law?

[Recursion]

7. Yeah. Companies that are more than 15% H1-B staffed

Are required to offer jobs to US citizens first. Unfortunately courts have ruled that includes spamming people on the other side of the country on job boards. We really need to rip out and fix this whole process.

[jeff47]

8. Yes. They deliberately sabotage their search for US citizens

so they can claim they can not find US citizens to fill the job.

[Babel_17]

9. This seems generally known among tech workers

Hopefully our party will recognize this, and come down fully, and clearly, in support of the workers.

[jeff47]

10. :rofl:

Our party just massively increased the H1B cap, and this has been going on since the 1990s.

[Babel_17]

11. Well, yeah, big money is involved

But I always speak hopefully about our party. I set the bar at a reasonable height, and chastise the party if it fails to work to meet that reasonable standard. If we take it as a given that they won't, then the party can claim to be doing well at meeting the now lowered expectations.

So, I'm actually needling them, in my own way.

[MH1]

21. ^^^ Bingo. nt.

[FrodosPet]

17. Fake Job Ads defraud Americans to secure green cards

[Babel_17]

18. Right, now I remember that video

It's an eye opener as to how blatant things are. We have to demand clear language in opposition to this.

[CrispyQ]

30. THE GOAL OF PERM: Run ads that do NOT find any qualified U.S.workers

"...in a sense that sounds funny, but that's what we're trying to do here."
~Lawrence Lebowitz, VP of Marketing, Cohen & Gringsby

Funny? You fucking asshole.

Time for H1B visas for Directors, VPs & C-level execs.

on edit: Thanks for posting. I had not seen that.

[prayin4rain]

12. The whole process needs to be fixed. n/t

[Babel_17]

13. The root cure would be for our elected representatives ...

The root cure would be for our elected representatives to be more representative of us. Barring that, we need to make their actions have consequences.

[prayin4rain]

14. Yep, if only we had a Congress that cared about the citizens of this country.

I think the only way is to get money out of politics, but I don't think it will ever happen.

[Recursion]

15. Agreed; rip it out and start over

If we're going to have non-immigrant work visas (and there's plenty of arguments against that to begin with), there's a much smarter way to do it. To start with, I would reverse the order: the worker gets the visa first, and then can apply to any job and take his chances. No positions should "go to" H-visa holders as a matter of course.

[prayin4rain]

16. There should be a country cap, too. It's meant for the best of the best

in each country. One country should not be able to send so many that the best from France, Germany, Denmark, etc., don't have a chance. It's such a complete farce and it has become harmful instead of helpful.

[jeff47]

22. No, the whole process needs to be removed.

If we actually need these highly-skilled workers, then we need to give them a permanent visa.

[MH1]

24. If we actually need these "highly-skilled" workers, we need to train our citizens in those fields.

Basically taking large numbers of so-called "highly-skilled" workers from other country kind of says our educational system has failed, doesn't it?

The reality is that large numbers of the H1B workers are NOT highly skilled by any definition of the word. It is advantageous to the company to hire them over available American workers for one or more reasons (lower pay, more controllable, more desperate to stay in the job, etc). THAT is what they are being hired for, NOT "high skills" that Americans are somehow just too dumb to learn.

[jeff47]

25. That's kinda my point.

The claim of H1B supporters is they can't find these workers in the US, so they have to be imported.

If we really can't find these workers, then we need them permanently.

Since the claim that the workers can't be found in the US is a lie, we really don't need to import them at all. But permanently importing them gives these immigrant workers the right to leave their job, or ask for higher pay. The advantage of the "cheap" labor disappears, and companies will go back to hiring US workers.

[MH1]

26. Ah, I see. Yes the permanent visa does take away most of the incentive. nt

[jeff47]

27. And still covers the extremely rare instances where we really do need to import that worker.

There's some incredibly specialized fields where there really isn't a US person who can do the job. But those are jobs that employ dozens over the entire country.

[MH1]

29. Exactly. Now if only we can find Democrats who will support doing away with H1B.

Good luck with that.

(And yet, I have "unnamed Democrat" as my avatar. Because there are so many other really important issues, that I couldn't think of voting for a republican. But cripes this sucks.)

[HassleCat]

28. Probably not even necessary

This is the United States, where we are supposed to have a great educational system, a tech-savvy work force, blah, blah, blah. And we do, petty much. The only reason we have the H-1B program is to benefit employers looking for lower wage workers.

[OhioChick]

31. Sens. Grassley, Durbin launch new H-1B fight

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016136756

[Babel_17]

32. Good link, thanks! nt