Displaced IT Workers Being Silenced 398
dcblogs writes A major problem with the H-1B debate is the absence of displaced IT workers in news media accounts. Much of the reporting is one-sided — and there's a reason for this. An IT worker who is fired because he or she has been replaced by a foreign, visa-holding employee of an offshore outsourcing firm will sign a severance agreement. This severance agreement will likely include a non-disparagement clause that will make the fired worker extremely cautious about what they say on Facebook, let alone to the media. On-the-record interviews with displaced workers are difficult to get. While a restrictive severance package may be one handcuff, some are simply fearful of jeopardizing future job prospects by talking to reporters. Now silenced, displaced IT workers become invisible and easy to ignore. This situation has a major impact on how the news media covers the H-1B issue and offshore outsourcing issues generally.
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Re:Leave the employers alone (Score:4, Interesting)
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Naah, much better to settle. Then you'll get that juicy ten year contract in the Silicon Valley lobby upon quitting your prosecutor's position.
New$ Media Coverage (Score:3)
I haven't a shred out doubt that these people are being hushed up, by whatever means necessary.
What I do doubt is the significance of the effect on mass media coverage. Other factors are in play.
Corporate media disdains adverse coverage of the H1B scandal because it is portrayed as "racist" against third-world emigres, and also because hey, business is business, right? (wink, wink).
Is it legally binding (Score:3)
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If the temp agency is decent then it is a dick move to use them for free advice and go to the employers directly.
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They can't make you sign it, all they can do is fire you if you don't. But since it's a "severance agreement," it probably includes severance pay and other consideration for the outgoing employee - otherwise there's no reason to sign it.
Re:Is it legally binding (Score:4, Interesting)
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That one I'd check on. They can't stop you from looking for work, but they can hold you liable for the costs to the recruiting firm of replacing a temp worker and you were in breach of contract. So you might have to pay tens of thousands in damages to the temp agency.
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That one I'd check on. They can't stop you from looking for work, but they can hold you liable for the costs to the recruiting firm of replacing a temp worker and you were in breach of contract. So you might have to pay tens of thousands in damages to the temp agency.
The real question is the agreement legally binding. Laws very state to state, and as my lawyer pointed out what is enforceable today may not be tomorrow since courts decide these types of cases a lot. They can always sue but if they have little chance of winning and / or there is very little money at stake may simply let it ride.
If it were me and a client wanted to hire me as an employee and not a contractor, I'd let the client know I need to discuss this with the agency due to my employment contract and t
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But the friction in getting (and paying for) a lawyer keeps these sorts of legally problematic issues alive. If you are a professional consultant (as you nic implies), you probably have an ongoing relationship with a lawyer to navigate all the little twisty passages that folks of your persuasion tend to encounter. If you are just a line coder, temporarily looking for work, you may not want to bother with the time and expense.
Hence, contract language which would likely (not definitively) be rendered void b
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Most likely they would let it slide. Most contract breaches people let it slide. As for enforceability I think it likely is so I'm disagreeing with your lawyer.
Get off it (Score:2)
Almost no one signed a non disparagement clause. To sign that sort of thing you generally get severance. There are plenty is displaced workers available to get interviews from. Tech workers don't get interviewed mostly for the same reason steel workers or book editors don't get interviewed they don't have anything particularly insightful to say.
Moreover H1B has nothing to do with offshore outsourcing those are entirely different programs. H1B is allowing people to come to the USA to work, offshoring is
what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Come one...
Seriously, we're such ideologues on this issue that we're going to believe that there's some massive, industry wide conspiracy to cover this up?
Anyone making more than $50k a year or so usually gets a severance package. And that's not a benefit to the business, it's a nice thing that comes with the job. Normal people get walked out the door by a security guard and told the stuff on their desk will be mailed to them postage due. The fact that we get a severance package is great... that the company
Re:what? (Score:4, Informative)
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What do you read that makes you so sure of this position? I'm hearing about this for the first time today, and while skepticism is due, it sounds like something business would do.
And I'm usually on the side of defending or explaining business or capitalism to the willfully ignorant.
Given factual errors already pointed out, you're going to need to defend your position with something more than incredulity and rhetoric.
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What do you read that makes you so sure of this position? I'm hearing about this for the first time today, and while skepticism is due, it sounds like something business would do.
And I'm usually on the side of defending or explaining business or capitalism to the willfully ignorant.
Given factual errors already pointed out, you're going to need to defend your position with something more than incredulity and rhetoric.
The entire premise that the company that just fired you cares, at all, about "The industry" is kind of a joke. These businesses are not in cahoots nationwide to keep people quite. The non-disclosure agreements are likely cut and pasted in. If you were about to continue to pay someone for the next 3 months after you fired them... and were going to have them sign some agreement to attest to that... wouldn't you expect them to behave in the same way they would while they are still employed? Would you want some
Too much bias (Score:5, Insightful)
The author of TFA is exaggerating and assuming that the clause in the agreement is purposely for those who are replaced by H1B people. Either he or his friends/family members were affected by this. To me, the clause to not disclose any information about being let go is very common. If you are being "fired," there are many reasons. Also, the company will NEVER want you to say anything regardless how you are being replaced. These people will find something to blame on others regardless (and in this case is the H1B people who replaced them). I am not saying that all are legitimated laid off/fired, but I doubt that the "signing" the document is REALLY for the case only.
Then the author pulls in politic which, of couse, a more effective on those who do not like H1B already. TFA has some of the fact and reasons, but over all TFA contains bias against H1B people by using the word "being fired or replaced" to make TFA more dramatic.
"IT workers" vs. programmers not finding work? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm assuming that age discrimination is impacting some of these people, but what about relatively young software developers? How many of you are young and talented software developers with at least of few years of experience and are having trouble finding work?
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I was out of work for two years (2009-2010), underemployed (i.e., working 20 hours per month) for six months, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2011. I applied for thousands of jobs but only had 20 interviews. Hiring managers told me that I was overqualified for minimum wage jobs and recruiters told me I was unemployable for anything else. The day after my bankruptcy was finalized I got a new tech job.
I was laid off prior to the government shutdown last year, and was out of work for eight months. I appl
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Hard to imagine going to 20 interviews and not getting a job. Something is wrong there. 60 seems even more crazy. I've found that I get offers from about 1/3 of the companies I interview with.
I think the real problem is that companies are not willing to pay the wages they should to attract a well qualified employee. You're not going to get many applicants for $30K-$60K/yr when the market is looking for $60K-$120K/yr...and 45hr work weeks instead of 50+hr wks.
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From 2009 to 2011, there was seven applicants for every job opening. Last year it was three applicants for every job opening. A normal economy has two applicants for every job opening. I read this morning that the country will need another two years of strong job growth (i.e., 130K per month) to return the economy back to 2007 levels.
I'm not a programmer. I do I.T. support work for $50K per year, work 40 hours per a week (no OT allowed), get paid federal holidays and 20 PTO days per year. My current tech jo
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You may be right about companies like GE and Erie, I guess I don't know. What I can tell you is that if my company posts a position for a Windows help desk or admin position, we get plenty of resumes. Enough that I think that there are just a lot of people available with those skills or at least claiming to have those skills. Good Linux admins are harder to find. Unfortunately when somebody puts "experience with..." on a resume, I take it as code for "I have very limited expe
Catholic Health (Score:5, Interesting)
I left before it happened but my former company outsourced all of IT to Wipro.
This was on a system with 60,000 users.
Everyone but management was replaced with H1B- workers from India.
Outgoing staff was asked to stay and train their replacements with no severance packages.
Very few stayed and turnover documents were not made (hmm I wonder why) so the incoming Wipro workers had to discover and document the systems themselves.
I hear it was a real nightmare with lots of $$ spent on contractors to help figure things out.
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60k end users.. We had 250 in IT at the Denver site.. and more on site staff across 19 states.
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If documentation was that much deficient, it seems that the management wasn't THAT much wrong....
In real life, the PHB always sees technical documentation (something many of them wouldn't understand even if they ever read it) as a waste of time, or at worse, taking time away from other tasks. "Do that later. We need this done now." Rinse, lather, repeat.
I had such a similar bind agreement (Score:3)
I am one (Score:5, Informative)
I have been displaced on more than one occasion. Atos laid me off so they could hire a cheaper H1B worker. (Not a loss as they are a sweat shop)
Atos has several NO-Outsource government contracts and before my layoff they were discussing outsourcing them and putting one American to answer the phone so the government did not know it was outsourced.
There was a company that was backed by the airlines where the CIO was Indian and the whole IT group was H1B's. I was the only white guy there and I was laid off from them officially for "Not meeting there expectations" and was replaced by an H1B worker.
HP had several H1B workers working 80+ hour weeks and only reporting 40 hours. On the promise that they would "Make it up to them." They replaced me because I was saying it was illegal to do, yep they brought in another H1B to replace me.
Between H1B's and outsourcing work to India, IT has been a crappy field but I still make money at it.
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If you truly know of that government situation (and you aren't talking out your ass) you should file a whistleblower suit and make millions. Violating federal government contracts is a VERY big deal.
But we have freedom of speech... (Score:2)
On-the-record interviews with displaced workers are difficult to get. While a restrictive severance package may be one handcuff, some are simply fearful of jeopardizing future job prospects by talking to reporters. Now silenced, displaced IT workers become invisible and easy to ignore.
We aren't like those other countries where citizens are muzzled. Over here, we have the first amendment. Oh wait...Yes, I am referring to the constitution.
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We aren't like those other countries where citizens are muzzled. Over here, we have the first amendment. Oh wait...Yes, I am referring to the constitution*.
*Subject to certain prohibitions and restrictions. May not apply in all states and jurisdictions. All terms subject to override by the President if Congress fails to do what he tells them to.
A Universal Truth at Work (Score:5, Insightful)
We all want to have a monopoly on what we do for a living. We want limited competitor and supply s and be able to charge high prices. As consumers we want unlimited choices, lots of supply, and low prices. A free market will provide the latter and a command economy is required for the former. What we have now is the worst of both. Those with political power use it to restrict start up and small competitors while trying to have unlimited supply of cheap labor.
What the fuck? (Score:2)
What would these fired workers possibly say, that these theoretical severance packages don't allow?' "I had a job, and then I lost it," or something to that effect? Big deal, that wouldn't make it to the front page of the Times or even Slashdot. And isn't there some kind of communication tool out there, which allows people to anonymously relate something that happened to them, and then have it widely distributed by computer?
Sure, losing a job to an H1B worker is no fun. This post is imagining something
More than one reason the coverage is biased (Score:3, Interesting)
There is more than one reason. The article gives one reason - and this was news to me.
However the other reason is that for some reason the reporting is very biased in favor of open borders. This is a situation where the well-known obvious liberal bias of most reporters fits perfectly with the often alleged corporate bias of the owners of most major media outlets. Diversity meets cheap labor is the perfect storm.
How often do we here about the need for "comprehensive immigration reform"? The very word "reform" shows the bias. And we already did it anyway, we traded amnesty for increased enforcement. The amnesty occurred but we never go the enforcement. Now the very same deal is being offered again? How often do you hear this outside of right-wing radio and (possibly because I don't watch it) Fox News? Yet it is central to why so many people are dead-set against a comprehensive deal. For a deal you need trust and there is no trust. But you don't see that reported in the Washington Post.
Build a border that can be enforced, then we'll talk amnesty (and I'll be in favor of it too). But we can't make a new agreement until good faith is shown through the fulfilling of the terms of the previous agreement. Would you go back and buy another car from a salesman who never delivered the previous one you bought and paid for?
One we have the trust, we can talk about the H1-Bs too.
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Not economically feasible given the size of the U.S. border. Not to mention, many undocumented folks crossed the border legally. More guards, fences and guns wouldn't have stopped them. If you want to stop undocumented immigrants from working you need to work on the "demand" side. For instance:
1. Raise fines on employers.
2. Devote more resources to policing employers.
3. Makes it as easy as humanly possible for employers to verify work eligibility.
4. Require schoo
Puts the lie (Score:3)
The article puts the lie to the idea that these H-1B workers are filling jobs that there are no good American candidates for. The article, and one linked in it, talk about existing workers training their H-1B replacements. So, there are manifestly American workers who can do these jobs. They are doing them right now! The article also says they are often older workers being replaced. You know what that means; these older workers are highly compensated. As usual it's about the bottom line, with humans as resources to be exploited.
Maybe it's time for wage tariffs? (Score:2)
For a long time there have been tariffs to protect the importation of cheap goods (lumber, steel, etc.) from foreign countries into the USA. This system allows US companies to compete fairly against goods from other countries where wages and regulations give them an unfair advantage.
I think it is time for wage tariffs as well. If there truly is a shortage of skilled IT workers, as all the big companies are crying about now, then they should be forced to pay a tariff for importing cheap foreign labor. This s
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We have been getting rid of tariffs on goods because they are little more than corporate welfare and because they hurt Americans, in particular low income Americans.
solution: (Score:2)
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Not necessarily large sums of cash, but "some cash". Lots of people don't have a lot of reserve in the bank. People staring unexpected unemployment in the face without a lot of money to fall back on take the severance package. It almost doesn't matter what it says.
And the IT angle? (Score:2)
Yes, we tend all to think that things that happen to us are related to the IT industry. However, nothing in "the H1-B debate" restricts this issue you mention to the IT sector.
This issue is not even related to immigration — If a company prefers to hire me to do $foobar because I'm better and cheaper for the job than the guy who did it before me, the company will do its best not to get bad press. It might include paying him a bit extra so you leave happy, or adding judicial clauses to shut his mouth up
really? (Score:2)
How does voluntarily taking a severance package amount to "being silenced"? Don't like the non-disparagement clause? Don't take the money.
Corporate corruption is also a cause (Score:2)
I know an Indian independent contractor who worked on contract for a large electric utility. He managed six warm bodies provided by some Indian company. His contract came from some company that had a contract with another company and the grand parent company was the vendor to the electric utility. Each was padding up his hourly
Re:H1-B debate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations and billionaires want to drive down the wages of white collar tech workers by importing cheaper H1-B employees. H1-B employees are also much easier to control as well since they can simply get deported if they stir up too much trouble for their employer. This is all done under the supposed auspices of saying there aren't enough "qualified" workers in the US. "Qualified" usually meaning "won't work peanuts like we want". At the same time, these CEOs have net worths that are 100s to 10000s of times the yearly wages of even these "greedy" and "overpaid" US workers.
Re:H1-B debate? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. The obvious "fix" that nobody seems to be taking very seriously yet is making it much more difficult to get permission to hire an H1-B worker.
Corporations are ALWAYS going to push for a plentiful supply of these as a cost savings measure, but it's ultimately the government who issues them. It's about time they start putting pressure on companies to PROVE they're unable to hire from the talent pool of American citizens before qualifying to go the H1-B route.
Re:H1-B debate? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd get rid of the proof and just use a tax. Require a tax of 50% of the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers on top of what gets paid to the H1B. Then allow unlimited H1Bs. That makes sure the incentive isn't economic.
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The problem is defining the prevailing wage. The categories are overly broad. The average salary for a programmer includes all of the kids writing terrible PHP after reading a book about it for a couple of weeks and then getting a job in their parents' company. Getting someone who can write decent kernel or embedded C for the price of an average programmer is difficult. Getting any kind of programmer in Silicon Valley for the average salary nationwide is impossible.
And why would you make it a tax? I
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And why would you make it a tax? If you can identify the rate that other, similarly qualified people are making, then you can just require that H1Bs get paid 10% more than that.
Because IT jobs aren't apples, or apples and oranges, they're an entire mixed fruit basket. As you already noted. We're already supposed to be requiring that H1-Bs be paid according to prevailing wages, but they fudge the "prevailing wages" so that the actual H1-B wage is much less.
If you jack up the tax enough, then you can make the H1-B incentive much less attractive without having to argue case-by-case with the number fudgers.
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"If you jack up the tax enough, then you can make the H1-B incentive much less attractive without having to argue case-by-case with the number fudgers."
Your "jackup the tax enough" suggestion is almost equivalent to stop issuing H1-B visas. What is enough? You cannot escape the necessity to qualify the "prevailing wages" either way. It is much more better the money goes into the employee's pocket than in the government's pocket. The government cannot pretend to have a right on this money. It will induce distortions in the legistlation in the future if this is seen as a source of revenue by the government.
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There are limited advantage to Americans in H1Bs getting higher wages. There is a clear advantage to Americans in taxes being offset. Tax displacement helps boost underlying standard of livings and thus redistributes wealth to the people being harmed.
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I think the point of the H1B system should be highly specialized skill sets that aren't readily available. For example specialists in an obscure aspect of an obscure technology. The solution to getting more competent people in general should be training and education. As far as why make it a tax, is because the H1B system creates economic dislocation i.e. generalized harm. The tax offsets the harm by creating a generalized good. It also offsets the lower wage incentive.
As far as creating categories of
What does "readily available" mean? (Score:2)
If I were to get a H1B visa, I might want to do the work you currently do for a much lower wage than yours (since I come from an allegedly poor country or something like that). So, is getting a PHP newbie developer who was born in the USA and charges US$100K a year, or getting a good, talented programmer who will do the same work for US$60K a year... Is on the same level only because they will fill the same job position?
(I live in Mexico, and am *not* interested in living in the USA. I have a ~US$25K yearly
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You could have a minimum wage allowable. Say, $60K/yr for entry level, $100K/yr for mid career, and $125K/yr for senior...adjusted for location. Allow companies to pay higher wages if they like.
Have a 50% tax on top of that.
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I'd get rid of the proof and just use a tax. Require a tax of 50% of the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers on top of what gets paid to the H1B. Then allow unlimited H1Bs. That makes sure the incentive isn't economic.
Ooh, I have a better one! Why not require that we pay the H1B the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers. That way, the workers get the money (they're the ones who should get the money) and it'll still make sure that the incentive isn't economic.
I'm so smart - I think I'm going to get a patent on my brilliant idea and then see if I can get my congressman to make it a law.
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Yep. The obvious "fix" that nobody seems to be taking very seriously yet is making it much more difficult to get permission to hire an H1-B worker.
Corporations are ALWAYS going to push for a plentiful supply of these as a cost savings measure, but it's ultimately the government who issues them. It's about time they start putting pressure on companies to PROVE they're unable to hire from the talent pool of American citizens before qualifying to go the H1-B route.
I'd argue that if they're firing locals to replace them with H1-B employees, they've already lost that argument.
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This is all done under the supposed auspices of saying there aren't enough "qualified" workers in the US. "Qualified" usually meaning "won't work peanuts like we want".
I think this is an important point in the debate. They're not exactly wrong when they say that they can't find qualified workers, but the problem is that they have trouble finding qualified workers within the salary range that they've already determined. Given this, there are two different conclusions that can be reached: either (a) there are not enough qualified applicants; or (b) the pool of 'qualified applicants' is being restricted too much by low wages.
Both are true, from a certain point of view. A
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Right. You want to live in a free-market economy? Then people like you and me become part of the market. And, it's not like getting a H1-B visa is that simple: For a non-USian, only being quite qualified and skilled can get you a work-enabling visa. Of course, were I to get a visa to work on the US, I would probably be a cheaper hire than you — So, for (supposed) equal skills, I'd be more valuable.
So, if you push for a free market and reduced state, you'd be pushing for me to be hired over you.
Re:H1-B debate? (Score:4, Insightful)
> This is all done under the supposed auspices of saying there aren't enough "qualified" workers in the US. "Qualified" usually meaning "won't work peanuts like we want".
Yes. If you've worked in a company that gradually fired locals to replace them with H1-B employees, you'll see how capable the replacements actually are -- no communication skills, no diagnostic skills, just a frightened willingness to work long hours. And oddly enough, when bad things happen, the company will just accept it if it can be shown that the employee was following a process.
Ostensibly, one of the qualifications that US workers supposedly don't have is following process. The expectation is raised that the job be fully documented -- that everything that happens in the job have a procedure to carry the employee through, and then the employees need only follow the procedure for a given issue. If you've worked in IT, you know how little of the job falls in that category. And so, much of the process becomes "raise a ticket with the vendor", and then when they find out that the vendor is only responsible for what the vendor sells, not how it's used, things get really interesting.
It's the worst of false economics. The company can show an immediate reduction in direct labor costs, but start to lose agility, robustness and reliability almost immediately.
Re:H1-B debate? (Score:5, Informative)
This. Every time I hear "we can't find enough employees" I substitute "... at the lowball pricepoints we're willing to give out". It strikes me as odd that the laws of supply and demand somehow are allowed to disappear when it comes to people/employees. If demand is so high, wages should be pushed up. They're not. Over a course of years, the tools for people to fight a more fair fight have been peeled away. As a kid I still remember the PATCO strike. Government intervention against workers collective bargaining, and then all the way to Wisconsin and governmor Walker. Suppliers can't be squeezed. Profits should never be squeezed. Lets squeeze the employees.
That and the fact that employee wages are inputs to the system. Even Henry Ford, hard right capitalist, realized you can't squeeze wages so much that people can't afford things.
Re: H1-B debate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most (not all) of the H1-B's I ran across as an independent s/w contractor for 20 year in Silicon Valley did not work as employees for what would appear to most people as their "employer" (Facebook, HP, Adobe, Oracle, etc.) Instead, they were actual employees of job shops who were renting them out to the corporations at a mark up. So if the corporation terminated any of them, they were still legally employed by their job shop and, likely, soon sitting in another cheap seat in another corporation in a few weeks. As long as they work for dirt cheap, they get a seat. Meanwhile, those of us who have families to support and live here full time have to charge enough to pay the bills, unlike 20 somethings who dorm themselves up with 3-5 other H1-B's (all arranged by their job shop, I might add), sharing rent, a single car, etc. The whole thing is an insideous insult, IMHO, to American citizens. Those screaming loudest for "moar" H1-B's are corporate overseers who just want cheap labor so they can stuff their pockets with the results. Just my 2 cents. You try doing what I did for 20 years and see what you think. This shit is not theoretical...
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Re: H1-B debate? (Score:4, Informative)
Previously when I thought of "H1-B" I thought of exactly what you described. Young people with nothing to lose dorming up and working for peanuts because it's the easy way out, driving down wages in what should be a very competitive highly skilled job sector. I'm glad I met someone who showed me the other side of the coin. I consider myself a liberal and a humanist and I'm ashamed at myself for having held such a xenophobic view and expressing frustration with the people who are coming here seeking H1-B and similar visa work. Truly the only entities that deserve any derision for the wage depression and unfair labor practices are the sponsoring companies who pay such paltry wages and the tech companies that create demand for cheap foreign labor.
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It's about the US taking a similar approach to employment and foreign workers as Qatar does. Not very glorifying to say the least.
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Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
"I knew slashdot was right wing these days"
LOL really?! The leftist propaganda keeps me away from this site most of the time.
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Isn't it funny how you both see the world as either with you or against you?
Re:What a minute here!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly; it is MEANT to be a means by which an employer can find someone from outside the country if they can't find the person inside; say... if you need a java developer who can speak both japanese, chinese, and english. A niche case that's hard to fill. Instead, however, big names like HP and MS will drop thousands of developers, then run begging to the government to increase H1bs so they can bring in folk at half the price or less ... who, themselves, are in a position of insecurity and disposability, ensuring they won't stand up for better wages and rights. H1bs were not designed to undermine american skilled laborers... it's just that unscrupulous major brands are exploiting it.
If the requirement were that the person brought it had to be paid at least as well as everyone else in that market (moreso, probably, considering the point is to find someone with a hard-to-find combination of talents) or otherwise way in taxes the entire difference in wages... I'm sure these guys would find there's plenty of people with the skills already here who'd be happy to do the work.
Re:What a minute here!! (Score:5, Funny)
if you need a java developer who can speak both japanese, chinese, and english.
And who probably knows what "both" means...;-)
Re:What a minute here!! (Score:4, Funny)
What, "Japanese, Chinese" isn't a single language? Next you'll be telling me "Overseas" isn't a single country!
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What, "Japanese, Chinese" isn't a single language? Next you'll be telling me "Overseas" isn't a single country!
Sure it is. It's right next to Terrorstan. Which, if we didn't have such weak-kneed Liberal sissies in Congress, we're go in and nuke and end the Terrorist Threat forever!
Re:What a minute here!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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It is hardly just 'major brands', I live in nowhere Pennsylvania and for all IT jobs I'm now asked on the application if I'm an H1-B visa holder and so need the company to authorize me to work in the US... The assumption across the country now seems ot be that IT workers are H1-B employees...
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That's not what it was supposed to be originally. When American companies found out they had a similar control over H1-B employees that they have over "undocumented workers", IE, they're frightened, willing to work long hours for low wages, and are unlikely to cause trouble, then the idea just sold itself.
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If you read between the lines, this is not even talking about a direct replacement in the company. This is more like when they fire an employee so they can bring on a contractor and the contractor happens to be an H1b working for a contracting company. This happens all the time. I've had the similar happen to
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
And, well, fuck the non-disparagement agreement. It's not disparagement to post factual information.
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Depending on the language in the contract, posting factual information could very well violate these agreements. I believe you're thinking about libel or slander (i.e. false statements). Disparagement, however, doesn't have to be false. It merely has to cast the benefited party in a negative light. This can be a huge grey area and given the insane cost of defending a lawsuit, I understand why people subject to these provisions might be very reluctant to speak.
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Wait, do they have to sign the agreement? Or are they paid extra for the agreement?
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Wait, do they have to sign the agreement? Or are they paid extra for the agreement?
Nobody *has* to sign any agreements when they're being terminated.
However, many tech workers don't know that. Others are more worried about things like how they're going to find a new job if they get a bad reference from this one, so they sign on the dotted line. Still others want the "bonus" that's offered for signing.
You know how in Hollywood they say "Be nice to everyone you meet on your way up, because you'll see them again on your way down?"
IT is the reverse - "Be nice to people on your way dow
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They're probably paid extra, in the sense of "you can sign and get the package, or you can not sign and not get any package."
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How often have you heard of employers going after employees who ignore that part of the agreement?
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
how often do you hear of companies shit-canning your resume if you are found out (public record) that you sued an employer OVER ANYTHING, even valid complaints?
right, you don't hear of it.
the real shit in this world is never reported. but its been like that forever; its how mankind works (or, fails to work, in this regard).
the one law of the jungle: if you can get away with it, you can get away with it; especially if you are big and can lay down a serious smackdown to challengers.
there is no other justice than this, in the world. those with power, get away with shit and you and I have essentially no say. we take whatever crumbs come our way.
sad, but if you think about it honestly, its what we have in this world.
reporters? since when does the news report real news? since when does the news challenge those in authority? not since the past 20 yrs, since 'news' is now part of the entertainment and profit-centers of tv (newspapers are nearly dead, btw).
Re:LOL (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see this occurring in the past, but not the present. Everyone complains about everything online. If you really dig into someone's background, eventually you're going to find something objectionable. There would be hordes of people displaced if this was truly going on in significant numbers. A company can go after a worker, but it's going to be Streisand Effect. When they need to hire new talent, their candidates are also going to do a search. Who is going to want to work for a company that's notorious for silencing its workers?
At best, the employer might be able to reverse-direct-deposit the severance if the complainer wasn't smart enough to move the money. The courts aren't going to take a person's house or retirement savings, and that's probably as much "wealth" that the average American worker has at this point. Want to rat a company out? Grab a disposable phone and tweet away.
I'm one of them (Score:4, Informative)
Posting as anonymous for obvious reasons.
I managed a team of developers at a shrink wrap software shop for ~3 years. It was actually a really solid place to work from a cultural and technical point of view. Unfortunately, the CEO was a bit of a hot-head and injected mass drama every time he came out of his office.
I had a quarterly check in with him, and give him an accurate description of my active projects and my thoughts on the direction he wanted to move in. I expressed my concern about the quality of some of the 10+ year old code that was at the core of the features he wanted to expand on. Turns out that negative feedback was not what he was looking for.
Next thing I know the CIO is stopping by asking me what it is that I actually do day to day. Then my lead architect mentioned that the CEO stopped by and talked about taking a "more active role" in the team.
Not long after that, I was given marching orders and a severance package. The severance was predicated by the signature of a pair of contracts covering confidentiality and behaviors.
About a month and a half into my severance, I get an irate call from the HR director claiming I've violated my severance agreement and that they will be seeking recomp.
I hired a lawyer, talked it out with him. Either we ignore them and hope they don't come after me, we call their bluff and threaten a counter suit, or we pay them off and nullify the contract. At this point I was tempted, ooh so tempted, to just say, "OK". Because with no contract, there is no confidentiality agreement, no non-disparagement agreement, no non-compete agreement.
As soon as my lawyer pointed out that if the employer broke the contract that they wouldn't have standing to come after me for the other aspects of the contract, they backed off and paid out the rest of my severance.
It's nice to get the money that was owed to me, but the annoyance of the contracts sucks, and I will definitely avoid any such contracts in the future.
In the end though, I will never put a review of that company on Glassdoor. I do not talk about my separation with my friends from the company. And the details of my severance package will never be shared. Because fsk are lawyers expensive.
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I know that in the bay area, employment is HARD to get (if you are not an h1b, not young and you were born here). they really look for any reason to not hire you, at that point. and if they did do some research on your name and a suit came up against a company, for any reason at all, I'm 100% sure that you'd not hear the reason, but you'd be marked as 'not a cultural fit' and you would not get that job. or the next. or the next.
is it worth that risk?
do you want to leave your field? I don't. I'm too ol
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Me.
Mind you, this was 20 years ago, but I had made a remark that my previous employer must be having a paperwork problem with their Employee Stock Ownership Program, because it was June, and the plan required annual reports by the end of April, and I had still not received one.
TWO days later, a registered letter arrives from a Law Firm, warning me of the consequences of slandering my previous employer. . . .
I shut up. The Annual Report (and my final ESOP certificate) arrived in September.
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Land of the free? Home of the brave? Greatest joke of all time!
Fuck the USA and fuck their corporatist oligarchy.
We have the world's largest prison population. How could we not be the land of the free?
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American companies should be required by law to hire Americans first and foremost, not try and save money by hiring some cheap developer from a third world country.
Nice idea. Too bad it doesn't work very well when you try. Want some history? Look at the Jones Act [wikipedia.org]. Its stated purpose is to keep American flagged vessels (and crews) viable. Didn't work out well as the companies used one or another loophole to sabotage most of the effect of the law. Took them about five years to figure it out.
Not sure what the answer is, but when you have something that can move across international boundaries (cargo or programmers), it's hard to stop them from doing so.
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"They cannot make you sign, and if you're getting let go anyway, they can do nothing."
Of course they can: your severage package. Do you want a decent amount or peanuts? Then please sign on the dotted line.
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At my company, severance is only for the C level people. The rest of the company only gets paid through the current day and gets compensated for half of their earned PTO time. Which I have to imagine is highly illegal right there. If you have earned it, they must give it to you.
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Let's take this to its logical conclusion. Should "American" companies be required to purchase only American goods? Can't buy Lenovo; gotta buy Dell. Can't buy Toyota delivery vehicles; gotta buy GM. Etc. Should we allow foreign investors to buy stock in "American" companies? A corporation is "owned" by its shareholders, after all, and we want these to be truly "American" companies.
What other market restrictions would
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That was one tough ELA!
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