US IT Worker Files Hiring Lawsuit Against Infosys, Class Action Proposed 684
itwbennett writes "Brenda Koehler is a VMware-certified professional network engineer with a master's degree in information systems and 17 years of experience. You might think that would qualify her for a lead VMware/Windows administrator, but Indian outsourcing firm Infosys apparently didn't. And Koehler has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Infosys ignored her qualifications and eventually hired a Bangladeshi worker to staff a position she was qualified for. Koehler and her lawyers are asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to allow a class-action lawsuit against Infosys, with 'thousands' of potential plaintiffs in the case, according to the lawsuit, filed Thursday."
H1 Visa applicants are less expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
All to common of a problem. H1 Visa applicants are way cheeper than Americans. I was replaced a few years ago because they "could not find anyone in america that could do my job". No one asked if I would like to apply.
Re: H1 Visa applicants are less expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Senior IT manager here. It's not just in America.
The problem is that most managers don't give a shit. They are under enormous cost pressure, and standing up for principles and employees costs time and energy, especially when you're being given a hard time by your upper management.
Most of the time, they're not around for long enough to suffer the long-term consequences of creating a million monkey club.
Even worse, usually it's based on false cost models - the same sort of crap that leads you to hire (more expensive) external people rather than salaried staff because they're "variable cost". Budgeting for external suppliers often does not include additional costs for facilities, travel, management overhead, training, etc., as well as the intangible aspects of a body shop simply providing you with the cheapest shittiest junior guy they can get away with - and then refusing to do anything but the work that's exactly laid out in the contract (and badly at that).
I've run into this situation myself a number of times and it is morale-crushing.
Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Interesting)
"Master's degree in information systems and 17 years of experience" does not tell us that she was more qualified than the Bangladeshi hired. I have interviewed too many people who look good on paper only.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
The rules for H1-B are well defined. Based on a glance, the facts seem to be on her side.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Insightful)
I once had a business owner tell me he wouldn't hire a man with long hair. I said "that's illegal!" he replied "So?" Being young and naive I called a lawyer... who laughed at me and told me I needed a better reason to be a minority, judges don't like long hairs either.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
There is nothing illegal about not hiring someone with long hair.
Many on this site feel entitled not to be filtered out but that is a fact of life. Hiring is highly risky.
What is illegal is not hiring someone based on sex, gender, religion, disability, race, being gay (1/3 of the states have this), or any other reason based on a civil rights violation. Dressing and looking unprofessional does not go under any of these critera.
Being a woman or American is not why she was not hired. From the looks of it she is over qualified and therefore expensive and would be a risk of her leaving if they made her an offer but I could be mistaken. Impossible to prove and sorry folks but being expensive is not protected and a valid reason to filter someone.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
If she was "overqualified" then there's even more reason why the H1B shouldn't have gotten the job. In this case, it is illegal to "filter" her.
The law is quite clear - you can't bring someone in on an H1B unless an already work legal qualified candidate cannot be found. If she's overqualified, she's still qualified. Expensive or not, it would be illegal to hire an H1B over her.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
This case has nothing to do with "must hire qualified person" as your slippery slope suggests, but instead with "can't hire someone on an H1B visa if a qualified American can be found". Basically H1Bs allow companies to import foreign labor if, and only if, qualified Americans aren't available. Full stop.
If I am qualified and apply for the job you are no longer legally permitted to hire someone on an H1B visa. You can hire any *other* American, but not a foreigner here on a visa specifically tied to this job. The idea being that the visas exist to import talent, not just to reduce wages.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
If you work with H1B's, you need to clearly define what your qualifications are for the job. 5 years of experience in X, Have done Y in the past, etc. They need to be listed in the job description. Anything outside the description can't be included in the determination if somebody is qualified or not as a justification for bringing in the H1B. If she met all the bullet-points that were on the job description, she would have been a candidate, and therefore would have been able to apply, and therefore ALL H1Bs are ineligible by law. It's pretty cut and dry.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Informative)
If we put everyone under this light then would a McDonalds have to hire anyone with a college degree? What about a retired CEO? The turnover would be disasterous and nothing could function.
If they applied for entry positions that McDonald's was trying to bring in H1B workers to fill, yes, they would have to hire them first.
The point is not that the company has to hire overqualified workers, the point is they have to hire ANY available qualified legal US worker BEFORE they can try to bring someone into the country with an H1B.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:4, Informative)
The average wage of a programmer is only $45,000 a year and yet these guys expect to make $60k a year!!
I can see where they get their numbers from:
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programmer/salary [usnews.com]
Now where did you get yours?
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:4, Insightful)
Outsourcing is driven by nothing but greed. Outsourcing is enabled by nothing but corruption funded by that greed. Outsourcing serves two purposes to weaken the power of the majority and to increase the short term profitability of the minority. It is a grossly anti-social activity.
I feel major corporations need to be broken up, with a nett cap on limited liability of 1billion dollars beyond that share holders need to be fully liable for the actions of corporations. Multi-national corporations should simply be banned all together as they server no social purpose beyond a destructive one.
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BUT, I think that she is arguing that she was good enough and the job should not have been outsourced.
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She doesn't have to be more qualified. She just has to be qualified.
The H1B law requires going to H1Bs only if no qualified US workers can be found.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Insightful)
I love me a fucking world where a Master's Degree and 17 years experience only gets you a rude gesture from the hiring manager.
May this job market drown in it's own shit.
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but I've worked with Junior Admins who had masters degrees, and several years (not quite 17) of experience, and I was underwhelmed by their abilities.
A MS doesn't prove anything about your abilities. Several years of experience is more poignant, but a largely incompetent person looking for a low enough salary, and particularly filling junior-level roles, can stay employed for a long time. But that doesn't mean they are qualified for the Senior level positions.
I don't believe there's any point in criticizing what little we know of her CV here, but I also don't believe we should act like moron recruiters and say "keyword + X years == AWESOME!"
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe everyone here who complains constantly about the abuse of the H1B system can kick a few bucks her way to compensate for the risk she's undertaking to advance their agenda.
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I was looking for a job in another state for a couple of years, but had a job that I generally enjoyed and paid well so I could afford to bide my time looking for the job I really wanted. It was the first time in about 7 or so years that I had done so, but I had to quickly relearn how to sift out the bad recruiters, which turned out to be most of them. A couple of them that managed to get my updated resume wanted to "update" it, changing terms to things that didn't reflect my experience at all (major exam
Re:Master's degree in information systems (Score:4, Interesting)
This is trouble (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is trouble (Score:5, Informative)
One important note about the H1B program that rarely gets any press is that while there is a legal requirement to hire qualified citizens before considering an H1B holder, there is zero money allocated to enforce that requirement.
It only gets enforced in cases like this where someone who was blatantly passed over in favor of an H1B holder who pushes on their own to see it enforced. To the best of my incomplete knowledge there has been a total of 1 enforcement actions by the DoJ regarding this sort of rule breaking during the entire ~2 decades of H1B visas.
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While most will criticize her ego
We will?
What was that, some sort of subtle attempt at a strawman?
Re:This is trouble (Score:5, Interesting)
Even for those of us who support expanding legal immigration, they are pretty terrible poster children. Infosys and the like give H1-Bs a bad name which then drags the legitimacy of the whole system down with them. More respectable tech companies like Google and Microsoft do have sporadic abuses, but for the most part they use the system much more like how it was intended to be used. It would be nice to find a way to tailor the system more towards them, cut the Infosyses out of the game, and then expand a cleaned up H1-B system.
One approach could just be to put an absolute salary floor on H1-B positions. If you're willing to offer someone $120k, I have a lot more confidence that this is actually a job in demand that fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, versus if you aren't willing to pay more than $60k for this supposedly impossible-to-fill position.
Re:This is trouble (Score:5, Interesting)
Slow train coming (Score:3)
This is a slow train that's been coming for a long time. Richly deserved, by any measure. the US is not India, and isn't going to allow for flagrant, over the top wholesale discrimination. We've already been there, done that, and we're not going back.
Infosys is fucked.
Sell.
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This is a slow train that's been coming for a long time. Richly deserved, by any measure. the US is not India, and isn't going to allow for flagrant, over the top wholesale discrimination. We've already been there, done that, and we're not going back.
Infosys is fucked.
Sell.
I'm sure they have enough US based, high-priced legal talent to drag this out indefinitely.
It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
I've contracted in the US a few times. I worked closely with the consulting companies I dealt with.
And when it came time to search for more work, they let me in on some of the keywords to watch out for when perusing ads. Those keywords mean they're postings to meet the legal obligation of advertising for a position before bringing someone in on a work visa.
There is no point applying for those jobs -- 99% of the time they already have an overseas candidate in mind and they're just filling in the blanks for the paperwork by posting the ad.
And that was way back in the late 1980's. From what I can see of the situation, it has not changed. Most ads placed in newspapers and online nowadays seem to be to meet the paperwork requirements for bringing in cheap overseas labour.
By the way, I was quite qualified for many of those jobs, and applied anyhow. I had a few interviews, but despite years as an Oracle performance tuner and DBA, it seemed that the cheap Indian offshore workers always got the jobs. Same old, same old.
The US doesn't need H1-B programmers at this point in time -- there are too many unemployed people out there. It's all a scam to save money.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all a scam to save money.
Sort of. Hiring H1-B applicants is a pretty expensive process and definitely a pain in the butt. Granted, the workers don't get to see as much of the cost of hiring them, but there are a lot more middlemen involved who each take their cut.
What's really going on is replacing "free labor" citizens with what amount to indentured workers who basically can't quit. It means that when you decide "The entire tech department will now work 85 hours a week", you don't have the exodus of employees that you will get from citizen workers who (rightfully IMHO) won't stand for that sort of thing.
It's not just about money, it's also about control and convenience for management.
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That's why I'd rather move to a system more like the Canadian "points" system, that just outright offers residency to highly skilled immigrants. If someone fills a critical gap in the U.S. economy, fine, let them immigrate, give them a green card, and let them play the regular employment market like anyone else.
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Before you give us kudos for the points system, you might want to search for "Royal Bank of Canada" and "outsourcing" and possibly "job loss."
They were recently spanked by their former IT workers and the public for pulling exactly the same kind of outsource-Canadian-jobs stunt.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Informative)
Just to make sure you see the right article, I searched it myself. Here's one of the first ones that interviews the whistle blower who started the ball rolling on holding RBC to task for the issue: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/05/bc-rbc-foreign-workers.html [www.cbc.ca]
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Infosys gets a bit of a break here, since they can hire H1-B worker for themselves, then farm out that worker to other companies. It's a bit expensive but once they've got that worker they can keep that worker for awhile even though that actual work is for a sequence of third parties. If the worker complains about the low pay, then they're back on the plane to an even lower paying job.
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Those keywords mean they're postings to meet the legal obligation of advertising for a position before bringing someone in on a work visa.
Sometimes, they don't even post the jobs at all. [cringely.com] Keeps those pesky citizens from applying and creating more makework.
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And this is exactly why a lawsuit ... or better yet, criminal charges (so it means time in prison when convicted) needs to be brought to court, to clear this up.
That said, I'm in favor of letting provably qualified workers come to this country under certain conditions. Number 1 is they are free to move on to a new employer at any time, which they might want to do for better pay and/or better conditions. And number 2 is that they state an intent to seek American citizenship, and move through the steps to g
If she'd like a witness (Score:3)
I get about 3-6 emails a week from H1B shops offering me jobs in cities I do not live in. I've also expressed no interest in moving to those cities.
Really obvious "We couldn't find a US worker!!" scam.
Employement scam (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope that the company gets nailed to the wall. I've been in a similar situation for the past four years. I hold multiple certifications including Oracle DBA, but prospective employers don't care about experience, skills or anything except how little they can pay. I've applied for jobs and been passed over for a less experienced H1B worker or some inexperienced trade school kid with an academic visa who doesn't want to go back home and is scrambling to get a green card. We need a law that says "Hire Americans first" with some stiff penalties. Or how about letting companies have as many H1B visas as they want with a yearly fee of $250,000 per H1B visa? And have a clause that overseas outsourcing firms have to pay a similar "labor import duty" per contract worker or employee that is doing work for US companies and the onshore company that has contracted the outsourcing firm has to pay a similar "outsourcing license fee".
Of course when we have Chinese companies doing work on military computer systems for the Pentagon and working on weapons systems as engineers and software developers it's kind of obvious that our leaders have their heads located where the sun never shines, it's nice and warm and the spine assumes a near circular shape. I'd bet that much of the development of the monitoring systems that are watching phone calls, comments on sites, blogs and emails went to Chinese, Pakistani or Indian workers under lucrative outsourcing contracts.
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We need a law that says "Hire Americans first" with some stiff penalties
We already have that law -- the H1B outsourcing process requires that "no qualified candidate is available locally". Their paperwork makes that claim somewhere, I am sure.
The stiff penalty part is missing. Apparently there is no funding for enforcing that particular part of the outsourcing mechanism.
but but but THE MARKET PLACE!!! (Score:3)
Cuz yachts don't buy themselves...
Wipro and Infosys, undermining the US Economy (Score:5, Interesting)
It's great to see this kind of thing. I hope she wins, honestly. She's got an uphill battle ahead of her.
What a lot of people don't realize is that Wipro and Infosys buy influence in this country, that's how they've been able to game the system and get away with it for a long time?
Ultimately we need to restructure the H1-B system so that it allows companies to get the talent they need without all the middle-man broker approach and doesn't exploit workers from abroad and keep wages down and unemployment high in this country. We don't need to hire Kindergarten teachers on H1-B visas. http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Fort-Worth-Independent/202267.htm [myvisajobs.com]
Really? Fort Worth ISD? Come on you can't find a qualified US resident to teach?
Also, the immigration reforms that seem largely stalled now have some things in it that are making H1-B mills a bit nervous, I say good!
Even in their own country, Wipro, Infosys et al are viewed as "Selling Indians abroad." So it'll be great to see how this case evolves.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-23/outsourcing/38762361_1_h-1b-immigration-reform-indian-it [indiatimes.com]
Take a look at the comments.
Top quality desis no longer apply for H1B ... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand there are plenty of second, some third or even fourth grade engineers still enchanted by USA. They still apply and they are the ones most slashdotters disdainfully make fun of as poor quality desi programmers.
I would not go back, no matter what pay they offer and how many cooks, drivers and maids I could afford over there. Once you get used to the clean water and clean air, and reliable electric grid, it is difficult to readjust. But next generation of me are not coming here. Sadly. It would benefit both USA and them. And those who are still willing to come damage USA and damage the reputation of all Indians, all for a fistful of dollars.
Age discrimination too. (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing I noted in working with Infosys is that they require your high school graduation date.
Not evidence you graduated.
Not the year you graduated from college.
I'm sure they think they are being cute, but I hope that they get burned hard for it someday.
How dare she sue! (Score:5, Interesting)
But not to worry the conservative SCOTUS in conjuction with tort reform and a proper realignment of labor laws will soon put an end to that. We can't have individuals oppressing corporations because, after all, corporations are people. If workers want to be treated as people they shouldn't be workers. They should choose to be wealthy.
H1 ? Write to order (Score:5, Informative)
You won't get that job. The H1 Employer will write the ad so that only his potential hire can pass it. I need a person who speaks creole and yiddish, with a degree in fine arts and electrical engineering. Must be able to program in Fortran and java, in cantonese.
When the Employer goes back to INS to prove the job they wrote the definition for cannot be filled except by the H1, the circle is closed.
Oh, and you OWN the H1...you'll never get that with a normal employee.
Attorney who used to write those ads.....
Lawsuit will be thrown out but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you know the latest game infosys a-holes play ? I have been a victim of this ploy. First off they use third party, pond-scum Indian operated recruiters to make their bids, so nothing sticks to them. I am not sure how this lady got into talks with these people at infosys, directly. But anyway, infosys runs the support shop for Cisco Systems and they were looking for a UNIX heavy guy with some TCP/IP networking knowledge and they found me through some site, where I posted my resume. FIrst off the bat, they low-balled the initial offer for working in San Jose. They offered me something like 10% less money than, what I was making at my last position in Southern Cali. which is another 20-some percent cheaper to live compared to the bay area. But, considering it is better than living on an unemployment check, I agreed to interview. After about 3 or 4 botched calls by them, I had the *pleasure* of talking to an infosys employee, calling me from India, for about 30 minutes, who did the *technical* interview to judge my UNIX expertise level with few easy questions, which, someone who installed linux and played with it for a couple of days can answer. Then I got a call back from the secondary, pond-scum agency, telling me that, I past my tech-screen with flying colors. No-shit-Sherlock... I have been a UNIX sysadmin for more than 20 years and he read a book about it ?? Anyway, they wanted to offer me the position but, the BIG BUT, infosys renegotiated the rate and they have to scale back the already low hourly rate by another 15%. At that point, I told the guy to go pound sand. And I am sure, for the money they were thinking about paying, they hired an indian UNIX sysadmin, who didn't mind sharing an apartment with 5 or more others like himself.
Maybe, just maybe, we the American IT workers should play their game and force these three clown companies from india, by filing lawsuit after lawsuit, even if it is going to be rejected. The problem is, we do not have the deep pockets. Maybe organizations like groklaw and EFF should consider mounting such a campaign. Operating on the outskirts of the law, doesn't necessarily mean that, they have the right to rape the American IT sector.
wrong choice (Score:5, Informative)
Infosys is notorious for abusing the visa system to bring in totally unqualified and clueless south asians to be billable load on the U.S. system. We're talking people that couldn't even make the helpdesk script-reading sytem you get when you call tech support.
Homeland security and Justice department have an intricate investigation since 2012 ongoing on Infosys' fraud and abuse of visa system.
Re:wrong choice (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked at a place that wanted to use a single recruiting firm, and asked us to try to hire positions through infosys. The candidates were consistently poor. Really, really poor. I met someone at a friend's house who had applied to my company for several open spots in the previous year. He was asking why he had never gotten a call back, and why we kept re-opening the reqs, or if the turnover was that high. When I saw his resume, it turned out to be exactly what we were looking for, and a price we were willing to pay. It turned out that Infosys was interested in trying to fill $80/hr spots with $30/hr talent, or worse. They were consistent, and I dont blame it on race, but on pure profits over good business. They lost our account.
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Re:wrong choice (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be a tech interviewer at a large UK technical consultancy in the 2000's and we frequently received CV's from Indian nationals that you could hold up to the light and see that the CV's were exactly the same and had exactly the same cut 'n paste text. This led to a pretty massive review of the recruitment process.
We also discovered fake UK companies setup purely to "employ" young middle class Indian graduates so they could get their Visa and then jump over to a large UK firm. These firms were on their CV's with faked up job roles - it was a total abuse of the visa system.
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Re:Right choice (Score:4, Informative)
Under H-1B rules, they still must hire an American if they can find one that is qualified, over a non-American.
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The law requires that to hire an H-1B visa holder that the company must certify that there is no American that qualifies for the position. It doesn't matter if the Bangladeshi is qualified or not. If the American was qualified the firm broke the law by hiring the H-1B visa holder.
Reacting to a company breaking the law by filing a lawsuit is the right thing to do.
Re:Right choice (Score:5, Informative)
Standing up for certain legal rights is a legally-protected quality in an employee, and employers can't retaliate against them for that.
There were a lot of sex bias cases in which the employee didn't have enough evidence to prove the bias, but they did have enough evidence to prove retaliation, and they won the case.
You can't discriminate against people who refuse to work below the minimum wage, for example.
In addition, if they did preferentially hire Asians for some reason -- on the assumption that Asians were more deferential, for example -- that could be racial discrimination. If they found Infosys managers saying that clearly in emails, they'd win.
Re:Right choice (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
The beauty is that we do all the work for them just by being our usual elitist snobby selves. I'm not sure how many people have been sent packing just because they don't know some piece of jargon or aren't familiar with the latest trends in some relatively ephemeral technological zeitgeist, in the hopes that Candidate will immediately become useful within the first week of employment.
Being a "VMWare/Windows Administrator" strikes me as relatively irrelevant compared to MS IT + 17 years, which should be enough to suggest that this person is competent in her field, and can learn to administrate just about anything, if she's motivated. But I'm sure if she doesn't know in the interview how to optimally configure a redundant VMware server, she's hopelessly lost... I mean that's like rocket science right there. Or something. We're not hiring people, we're hiring wikipedia pages, and due to all the jargon and groupthink, mostly vandalized wikipedia pages.
I'm not sure how this person plans to prove discrimination, I have no doubt (having been on interviews designed to hire H1Bs), that she was thrown into a ringer designed to make her look inferior to someone who got the questions ahead of time, and did the research ahead of time. The irony is that I've survived these interviews, fielding questions from database design to maxwell's equations applied to PCB designs, but the ultimate trump card is suddenly the job you're interviewing for is suddenly a more junior position, and suddenly the pay is less than what the job description might IMPLY (no salaries/grades given!). Then of course you say no and they hire the H1B anyway, because the qualified American wasn't interested. There's no winning. These people SHOULD be sued, I just lack the faith that they'll get what they deserve.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
You might be surprised... see, if they're hiring H1B workers, it means they're implicitly claiming (under the laws that allow H1B work visas so you can hire foreigners in the first place) that NO SUITABLE TALENT could feasibly be found state-side. If it can be proven however that they regularly pass over US citizens for the sole reason that H1B workers are the more cost effective option, they're probably going to be facing heavy fines at the very least. Its quite possible they will be in a lot of trouble and the court case will precipitate the type of more heavy restrictions on granting of H1B visas in the first place.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Funny)
Meesa most upset that my mooie mooie Gungan network engineering certification not gonna be good enough for a job in America. Meesa be thinking that I be back to working in Gungan call center taking orders for cheap shit coming soon.
It's about time! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been watching this happen in Silicon Valley and other tech regions for years. It's an abomination and it's about time that it stop! I have seen L-1 visa holders from India who are here for "university studies", go to a place like Heald College for six months, come on board as *full-time* employees, with benefits (while professional non-Asian-Indian American IT professionals *with experience* were hired on as contractors). THen, I watched as the full time Americans with rock-solid skills got riffed after training the L-1 visa holder who didn't know jack, and *still* didn't know jack after a long training period.
I have seen these H1-B, L-1 and several other visa holders come to work on the first day and start hugging and chumming around with senior Asian-Indian supervisors who were their *relatives or friends* from back home.
I have watched as Asian Indian supervisors treat their American (and Indian) subordinates like chattel, not to mention looking right through female employees.
I have seen Asian Indian "consulting" groups establish domestic US connections so that their workers can claim "experience with a US company for 1 year", thus enabling the visa holder to emigrate to America.
I have listened to the likes of Bill Gates, John Chambers, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others LIE about the shortage of qualified American IT workers.
I have talked to DOZENS of IT peers who have been out of work for more than a year because every time they aplpy for a position thety are talking to guess who? - an East-Asian-Indian recruiter who can't speak clear English, does not have a clue about what the requirements are for the position, and spouts nonsense from the their doctored RPF's that list skills like "must know C++ and Ruby" for a BASIC QA position. Are you kidding me?
Now, our corporate overlords and these corrupt Indian companies (including the Indian government, whose corrupt officials are on the take from American corporations) want an increase in the H1-B quotas that would double those quotas AND let the spouses of these mostly UNQUALIFIED H1-Bs get an immediate right to work in America (which has not been possible by current rules). Are you kidding me.
The entire Hi-B whine is a SCAM, and a LIE, and a TRAITOROUS double-cross of the American IT worker, and other workers who would LOVE to have the same opportunity as an L-1 worker who doesn't know crap, and still won't know crap after s/he's trained.
Last, outside of IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) why don't we hear about the PATHETIC level of instruction and talent that comes out of most of India's other universities, where professors don't even show up, and make their real $$$ arranging private tutorials with students that can afford to pay for private lessons. Why? Because the immoral, corrupt leaches that run the Indian government don't give a rat's ass about their own people, just like the corrupt, immoral leaches in the American government.
Re:It's about time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't you just use Indian instead of Asian-Indian?
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
My company recently adopted a no H1-B visa policy because we're doing a bit of military work, or so I assume (they really don't tell me anything). We've had a rec open for a hot-shot algorithms geek since January, and trust me, the applicants are not beating a path to our door. This is a fantastic job for the right guy, and it kills me that we're having trouble finding someone to fill it.
The last super-algorithms programmer we hired was from IIT Madras. He's amazing. Before that, we hired an equally amazing white guy right out of college with a BS degree. Good talent is hard to find right now, which is why I think this class action lawsuit is doomed. Maybe it could have gotten some traction in 2010.
Shameless plug: if you're a super-geek, work well with others (so many of us don't), and live near RTP in NC, or Winston-Sallem, send me a resume.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Depending on its implications, it sounds like your "for the right guy" qualifier might be the problem. Maybe your corporate culture needs to learn to deal with people who aren't readily willing to be emotional tampons in order for your company to gain reliable access to more of that kind of intellect. Superbright people, rare as they are, rarely fit in those politically correct, passive aggressive, corporate drone square holes..
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Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsense. I've met some brilliant people and most of them have been quite socially adept. You don't have to put up with crappy behavior to get a great developer. Doesn't mean they are going to wear a 3 piece suit, but you can get an actual, reasonable human being that does great work.
Re: (Score:3)
This lawsuit is for a relatively generic IT position, not some specialized job opening that's difficult to fill. That is to say, just because H1-B is appropriate for your circumstance does not mean it isn't being widely abused elsewhere.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad news if you're not a web programmer. The economy still sucks if you didn't notice, non web programmers are still finding it hard to find new jobs and are holding onto the old ones if they have them. In most recent interviews I've been seeing a real decline in quality, and part of me suspects it is because those with real qualifications are sticking where they are.
The lawsuit may not go before a jury. But if it does I can see a good amount of sympathy in an American court room regarding a foreign company that hires almost no Americans to fill jobs located in America. No amount of "if she's qualified she can get a job anywhere" hand waving is going to erase that stain.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Web programmer" that's pretty funny. Do you call secretaries "office document engineers" as well?
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, you're either grossly uneducated, or a troll. Either way you're showing your ignorance.
Just because you might know a little C or ASM does not give you the right to sneer at talented developers who chose different platforms. Go here and tell me these people aren't "real programmers": http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ [chromeexperiments.com]
Guess what: I code in C and asm, I hand solder my own boards. I write cross platform drivers for Windows and Mac. I'm reasonably proficient in probably every language you've ever heard of, from Clipper to RPG (on the AS400) to Java and .Net and I've been doing it for about 17 years now professionally, longer as a hobby. And you know what? I choose to spend 90% of my current development time in Javascript, both in the browser and in NodeJS.
Hopefully one day, if I work really hard and keep trying, maybe I can be considered a "programmer" in your book.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm actually all for the home team advantage. If we are bleeding tech jobs in the US, then shut down the H1-Bs and save those jobs for Americans. If our startups are struggling because they can't find local talent, then increase the H1-Bs and let in the best talent the world has to offer. We benefit both ways. What we need to avoid is opening the flood gates on H1-Bs when American programmers are having trouble finding jobs, and also we need to avoid closing the flood gates on H1-Bs when American compan
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
doesn't have to be 20%..10% with a better work environment can make quite a difference.
What is a better work environment ?
Flex time, comfortable clothing, not stuffing people in a 6x6 cube.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd literally take 10% less for that. I'd also take extra vacation days at a double pro-rata cut.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just you. Our management quickly found out that techs are actually more interested in some "work perks" than money. And I guess it pays off. We have pretty much everything the GP asks for (and a few more job perks like free lunches (provided you're here at noon, which isn't really a given considering our VERY flexible time schedules), free sodas, a dress code that basically consists of "please, at least cover your privates somehow, if it doesn't bother you too much" (I'm sitting here in shorts and t-shirt, but I have a suit around for those "just in case" moments, some customers kinda expect that from management, no idea why) and a few more less important things.
The pay is sub-par, though. Still, we have no problem hiring or keeping our staff. We also have a pretty impressive productivity level despite (I'd rather say because) we don't expect our techs to sit around when they're essentially still asleep. Free lunch in house means everyone's always around in case of an emergency (and yes, it does happen at times that your lunch break is cut short), and some simply eat at their desk to read some info while eating, which they'd probably do in their "working" hours instead. The flex time schedule means we have staff on site nearly around the clock without having to pay overtime for it (seriously, one guy comes in around 3pm but stays past midnight, which would not only be prohibitively expensive under normal circumstances, you also couldn't "force" someone to work those hours under our work laws), it IS kinda empty, though, at 8am. :)
Essentially, what this means to us is that our salary levels are quite a bit below industry standard, we still do not get the "bottom of the barrel, can't get work elsewhere" idiots (quite far from it, actually), we actually have quite dedicated people who like their jobs and who really want to keep it, who willingly work "odd" hours, actually they're zealously guarding their "timeslot" where others would ask for higher wages just to think about working those times, and so on.
I think what matters is that you simply use what people want naturally. If you FORCE people to work during evenings, they'll probably give you the finger. Offer them to choose their times and you'll be surprised how easily they do it willingly.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Interesting)
I think too many aren't aware of any "market rate". And they also don't truly appreciate having a talented developer on their payroll, which is why they would rather get one of few barely qualified employees and hope the dev does something right while getting paid 20% below market (or worse) than have to sift through a stack of resumes, pick out the most qualified applicants, take time to properly interview them, and make decisions that to them all seem like expenses with no return. And if not to whoever is doing the hiring, then to that person's superior.
tl;dr: it's my opinion that so many companies don't appreciate paying for or retaining a great development team.
Abuse, not discrimitation (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds to me like you're pretty much arguing that the work visa a a really cool business model. WHEN IT'S BEING USED CORRECTLY.
My "saga":I have a few years ago worked for a very large American company. And in my country, admittedly, there are about 50 times the number of IT jobs available compared to the amount of unemployed IT people (Bachelor degree equivalent or higher education).
this puts (and still does) a higher price on talent. And i've benefitted from that, certainly. I wont deny that. But I've ALSO been taking paycuts to finance improving working conditions, re-educating obsolete talent and a few other things.
So I was appauled when I found out that MY company, whom I had worked for for over 10 years, had started, not only "importing" foreign labor, but underpaying them, AND lying about it to the government (otherwise they couldn't get a visa, if the salary officially wasn't high enough), AND forcing the hirees to pay a "deposit" of roughly 2 years salary, payable to the company should the hirees, for ANY REASON be dismissed from their work within the first 2 years of their employment. downright blackmail.... They underpaid, they lied and cheated the government and their own employees. I immediately handed in my resignation and found a new job. Sure the new place didn't have the benefits I had fought for over the last 10 years, but at least the new place was honest about it.
And the new place also hired foreign talent, but did it according to the rules, and only because staffing was a pain, and took forever.
Bottom line: There are liars and cheats out there who will do anything for a buck, but there are also businesses who will act morally, legally and ethically correct. The trick is to be able to tell them apart. And I believe that if the OOP is in the a situation where someone else was hired under the rules, at his/her expense, then that's just tough luck. If that person was hired, bending the rules, then it's abuse of power, not discrimination. I see many problems with this type of hiring, but I do not see a discrimination suit being won...
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
Sapient hired about 2,000 staff in India last year too. The Boston-based company has 65% of its total workforce of more than 10,100 based in India.
"About 35% of our people are hired locally [in markets the company operates]," Mr. Endow said. "That's a very healthy mix."
However: Sapient has only about 1,500 US employees, [boston.com] and at least one-third to one-half of those are here b/c of visa sponsorship. [myvisajobs.com] (Consider that an H1-B lasts for 3 years -- extendable up to 6 -- and 2013 isn't even over, yet.) So:
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought so too, but then I read the complaint. They claim harassment on basis of national origin.
At one job, the Asian workers left messages for (non-Asian) American workers threatening them and their families if they made trouble, etc. The Asians weren't just working cheaper. They were harassing the Americans. It sounded like they really didn't understand American culture.
There was also an element of anti-American discrimination.
The complaint also argues that they got H-1B visas by certifying that there were no available American workers, when it wasn't true. They also certified that they would pay Asian workers the prevailing wage, when that wasn't true either.
Re: (Score:3)
Which 'one job' was this? Can you give details? Otherwise I can also make up a lot of stories.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Informative)
It's in the court documents, which are linked from TFA. http://www.pbclaw.com/2013/08/02/proposed-class-action-complaint-filed-against-infosys-for-failure-to-hire-national-origin-discrimination/ [pbclaw.com]
D. Particular Instances of Discrimination
69. Numerous instances of discriminatory intent have come to light.
70. While working on the assignment at Vinings, Georgia in December 2008, Infosys employee-whistleblower Jay Palmer claims that another Infosys employee wrote “Americans cost $,” and “No Americans/Christians” on a whiteboard.
71. Palmer claims that he received a couple of telephone calls in which the caller asked, “Why are you doing this, you stupid American, we have been good to you.” While Palmer does not know who made these calls, they came after he began to complain about Infosys’s misuse of the visa system.
72. On February 28, 2011, while Palmer was working on a project in Alpharetta,Georgia, he claims that he found a typewritten note on his keyboard, and a Word document on his computer, both of which stated, “Just leave your [sic] not wanted here hope your journey brings you death stupid american.”
73. On April 21, 2011, Palmer claims that he received an e-mail on his personal e-mail account stating, “if you make cause for us to sent [sic] back to india [sic] we will destroy you and your family.
74. Palmer claims that he was called a stupid American on one occasion by two Infosys employees.
75. Mr. Palmer brought these issues to the attention of Infosys, but Infosys did nottake significant steps to investigate or prevent future issues
76. During Mr. Palmer’s lawsuit, another employee also testified that Americans generally were made to feel unwelcome at Infosys.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4)
Incorrect. They choose cheaper labor over more expensive labor. This is Business 101. No court in the land would rule for Plaintiff.
Fortunately for the plaintiff, they cannot use the "we wanted cheaper labor" defense, since they would then be subject to liability for falsely claiming that they could not find suitable local talent, the only justification for hiring using H1-B visas.
Re:She would not be granted an Indian work visa (Score:5, Informative)
This lawsuit is about a job that is based in the US and so must follow US laws. The worker would not be relocating to India.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
They could have hired British H1B workers and it would be just as illegal.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's difficult for some to understand, but THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "REVERSE" DISCRIMINATION. There is only discrimination, regardless if you are white, black, brown, male, female, or transgender.
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
The plaintiff doesn't have to do anything of the sort. The plaintiff doesn't even have to prove that she is more qualified than the person they ultimately hired, merely that she was qualified for the position. H1B and the like require you to hire locally if possible first.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean ignoring American labor for cheap foreign nationals doesn't have anything to do with national origin?
Re:Basis for discrimination (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly. They could have not liked her attitude at the interview, the color of her shoes, the way she said "Hi, I'm here for the interview", or a million other things.
We do know it probably came down to dollars. She wanted Y, they were willing to pay B. No company or organization is required to hire the best candidate. They're only not allowed to discriminate on the list.
I've been not hired before, because when they finally let loose with a number, it was insulting. Not the "I'm worth a million, I'll settle for $200k". It was $20/yr, no benefits. I don't know why they even bothered offering it. After a few in that ballpark, from companies who couldn't afford ... well ... anything, I start off the conversation with "what's your budget, so I'll know if we should even continue the conversation."
From the article, "High-tech companies claim they can't find Americans to fill U.S jobs, when, in fact, they are rejecting talented Americans..."
Of course they are. Why give her a 6 figure salary, when you can get someone at a weak 5 figures?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
H-1B rules are different. H-1B allows brining in foreign workers to fill the gap when Americans with the qualifications cannot be found. Assuming she is qualified and assuming she did apply for the job, then they have no basis to use H-1B to bring in the foreign worker.
More likely she is being discriminated against because she won't submit to a captive (stuck with the same employer and cannot complaint about horrible working conditions we so often see in H-1B situations).
Personally, I'd rather see an open
Re:theres a thing that rhymes with "ion" (Score:5, Funny)
it starts with the letter u. what am i thinking about, IT douchebags?
I can't think of any English word that meets those requirements.
You're thinking about "union", but "union" doesn't rhyme with "ion".
Just like a typical union worker, you've:
1: Failed to get the basics right.
2: Demanded far too much time, money, and attention for your output.
3: Managed to act like an asshole in the brief interaction you've had with other people on the matter.
there being overqualified & overqualifed job p (Score:3)
There are job posts that may be for level 1-2 jobs but the listed skills needed for the job can be make people who really have all the listed skills to be overqualifed for that job. Some times it's just HR who does not know to much about IT and puts stuff down like need 5 years working with 2012 or windows 7 / 8.
Some times the over the top job posts are there to hire an H1B1 and the big list makes it easy to say that there is no one who wants the job and few that do get past that they find to way to say the
Doesn't matter for this (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is you can't bring in an H1-B visa person just because you want them, or feel like they are a "better fit" or any of that. You can only do it if you cannot find a qualified US candidate (citizen, permanent resident, etc). If you get an applicant that is qualified and wants the job, you have to take them over getting someone on a visa. You can't argue that they are overqualified, because you have to take them if they are qualified.
That's the whole deal with the H1-B visa program: It is supposed to be for jobs you can't fill locally, either because there is too much demand for that kind of worker, the skill set isn't around, whatever. You can't find a qualified candidate, so you get one on a visa.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a much easier reform. Make it so the H1B worker can work for any employer.
H1Bs are abused because the worker can not seek a job elsewhere in the US. So let them. Pay for H1B workers will rise to be closer to US workers, but companies that really can't find a US worker could still import one.
Re:h1b1 rules likey broken as well (Score:4)
I've witnessed abuse myself.
Part of the problem is that there is usually too much wiggle-room in job descriptions and titles; and judges and juries have no clue or experience in such to understand what's realistic in terms of qualifications, long skill lists, and tasks.
The whole H1B thing is based on multiple lies. It's basically the wish of deep-pocket lobbyists coming alive. An objective "shortage" has never been demonstrated and the voting public is too clueless to understand or care, meaning lobbyists have free reign over politicians. AKA Plutocracy-in-action.
Re:Smoking Gun? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't think it's because if they succeed under Title VII they can also recover attorney's fees?
Re:Shocked!! ...not shocked (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is, people have to do things like file lawsuits to change this, exactly what this story is about.
It's difficult in general to be sure you were discriminated against in order to file a lawsuit. If you only hear about it you can't file the lawsuits yourself. If you're a customer of these firms you can't file lawsuits since you're not the one being discriminated against, the most you can do is stop doing business with them.
And some people just don't want to cause problems. I was at a firm where one Indian QA woman applied for a job in the next building as her position was being cut, and the other group said she was qualified but because she didn't speak Vietnamese they couldn't give her the job. I told her to immediately go and complain to HR as this was an over the top violation of the law, but she said she didn't want to cause any problems for anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
Infosys is basically a staffing company, a "middle man" if you will.
If an American company wants to hire an American worker, why would that American company go through an Indian "middle man?"
Of course Infosys hires mostly Indian workers, American employers don't have to go through an Indian staffing company to hire an American.
Which is the point.
An American company that wants to avoid the hassle of going through the process of hiring cheap off shored labour will go through an "American" Indian middle man. The middle man is a local company that stocks up on off shore staff and offers them out to companies, this way the companies can still claim they aren't off shoring when sending jobs overseas.
The same thing happens in Australia. Outsourcer A stocks up on Indians, Indonesians and a variety of other nationalities with as man
Re: (Score:3)