WSJ: Face-off on Visas Pits U.S. Against India

[antigop]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323551004578441070153741766.html

A fight is brewing between Washington and New Delhi over provisions in the U.S.'s draft immigration bill that could hobble Indian outsourcing firms' businesses in the U.S.

The proposals, which include cutting back sharply on the number of foreign workers these outsourcing companies can send to their U.S. offices, have won broad support from rival U.S. technology firms, including International Business Machines Corp. IBM +0.27% and Accenture ACN +1.60% PLC, lobbyists say.

India's $110 billion IT industry, which performs back-office tasks such as software programming, makes about half its revenue from the U.S.

Indian companies such as Infosys Ltd., 500209.BY +0.79% Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. 532540.BY +0.37% and Wipro Ltd. 507685.BY +0.99% have set up large U.S. offices to be closer to clients, staffing the sites overwhelmingly with Indian expatriates, who earn significantly less than their American counterparts.

The model has been challenged in recent years by U.S. politicians, who argue Indian outsourcing companies are misusing the program to undercut local technology-sector workers.

[OhioChick]

1. Good, bring it on

Hope the US doesn't bend it's own citizens over the barrel.

[markiv]

3. you mean, 'further', over a barrel nt

[OhioChick]

4. Isn't that the truth! n/t

[markiv]

2. good idea, but lower numbers are the only way

all indian outsourcers have to do, is offer some small domestic body shop a super thin cut of large numbers of subcontracts. then the domestic body shop subcontracts to the indian outsourcer

banks who received TARP bailout money were supposedly barred from hiring H-1bs unless they proved they serched for an American first - a nice idea (thanks sanders and grassley), but what the banks did, was just hire h-1bs through a body shop and had them as contrctors rather than employees

in the end, they still had the same person working at the same bank doing the same work, just under a subcontractor status - the rule was symbolic, but meaningless, as this proposed rule would surely be

even in the extreme event, where subcontracting to indian outsourcers was banned, the domestic body shop could contract the h-1b directly to the client with the unwritten understanding that when the work was to be transferred to india, the contract would end, and a job offer from the indian outsourcer in india would 'coincidently' appear, as the h-1's only option

this wouldnt involve any change of practice at all. i've known people (myself included) who worked for a body shop, who subcontracted to another body shop, who contracted to the corporate client (2 layers of subcontracting. Just a little more electronic 'paperwork'

in the end, the American citizen tech workers would trade higher visa numbers 'in exchange' for in reality, 'nothing'