US IT Worker Files Hiring Lawsuit Against Infosys, Class Action Proposed

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."

Right choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere can I see mention that the Bangladeshi worker wasn't qualified for the position.

If you react to not being hired with a lawsuit, you probably aren't a good fit for any workplace.

H1 Visa applicants are less expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Basis for discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. They choose cheaper labor over more expensive labor. This is Business 101. No court in the land would rule for Plaintiff.

Re:She may well be right, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone else is behind this. If Infosys was smart, they'd settle quickly, otherwise lots of interesting information will come out in discovery. Information which will require they buy a lot of Congress-people and Senators if they want to continue operating in the country.

there's such a thing s being overqualified

[ClassicASP]

seen it happen. they probably hired a YOUNGER person. too much experience and too much knowledge can be reason not to hire. sometimes a job merits someone who is still eager and driven towards getting more experience under their belt, or perhaps someone hellbent on climing up the ladders in a company and determined to do things with vigor that show they are loyal to their company (someone more ignorant).

This is trouble

[zoffdino]

While most will criticize her ego, I see the lawsuit has some merits from an immigration/hiring practice angle. The biggest source of H1-B visas are from outsourcing companies like InfoSys, who hires almost exclusively from India. She is alleging that they passed over the qualified American applicants (which she may be one), to claim that no one can fill the opening and get an H1-B instead. This also inadvertently causes a racial bias, which favors South Asians over any other ethnic groups. She may have an inflated sense of self-worth, but the lawsuit is noteworthy as it's (the first time???) I've heard an American worker stands against tech companies in their hiring practices. The are hardly attracting the best minds to the US. They are only getting them cheap. And it must be stopped.

It's about time

[msobkow]

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:Basis for discrimination

[AK Marc]

You are right only if they made her an offer she refused by demanding more than market pay. They didn't make her an offer, so how do they know she wouldn't work for their desired fee? They don't. They rejected her without proper legal consideration. They broke the law.

Re:Basis for discrimination

[TWX]

The H1B wars... begun they have...

Re:Basis for discrimination

[TWX]

This isn't about being white or race in general, it's about domestic labor versus imported labor.

They could have hired British H1B workers and it would be just as illegal.

Doesn't matter for this

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Employement scam

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Master's degree in information systems

[Charliemopps]

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:Right choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, they can't "legally" hold it against an employee but we all know how the world really works. I have seen it over and over again. Funny how if you turn whistle blower or stand up for yourself you are suddenly noticed for everything everyone else does, but yours gets you written up then fired and life made generally miserable.

Re:Master's degree in information systems

[The Cat]

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:Basis for discrimination

[hackula]

Pay 20% above the market rate and you will have no problem finding devs. Just saying..

Re:Smoking Gun?

[Albanach]

I find it interesting that they are claiming Title VII instead of violation of H1-B rules, presumably because this way they can point at a systematic exclusion of Americans on a non-technical basis.

You don't think it's because if they succeed under Title VII they can also recover attorney's fees?

Re:Basis for discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Master's degree in information systems

[rtb61]

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.

Re:Basis for discrimination

[Darinbob]

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:Basis for discrimination

[Richy_T]

I'd literally take 10% less for that. I'd also take extra vacation days at a double pro-rata cut.

Re:Master's degree in information systems

[evilviper]

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.

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:Basis for discrimination

[Opportunist]

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:It's about time!

[AK Marc]

Everyone knows it, and nobody cares. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and nobody cares, so we are losing freedom. the only way to fix that is to convince people to care. They don't, and they won't.