Large Corporations Displacing Aging IT Workers With H-1B Visa Workers 617
New submitter genericmk writes "NPR is running an interesting story about the unfortunate status of the aging programmers in the IT industry. Older IT workers are opposing the H-1B visa overhaul. Large corporations want more visa, they claim, because of a shortage of IT talent. However, these companies are actively avoiding older, more experienced workers, and are bringing in large volumes of foreign staff. The younger, foreign workers are often easier to control, and they demand lower wages; indentured servitude is replacing higher cost labor."
video showing how this is done (Score:5, Informative)
This is an older video, but it shows just how companies manage to avoid hiring qualified Americans just to flood the market with cheap H1B laborers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU [youtube.com]
Illegal to pay less (Score:5, Informative)
It is illegal [doleta.gov] to pay a H1B worker less than the prevailing rate.
Re:Not indentured servitude (Score:5, Informative)
It is a form of bondage though, as those workers have no freedom to move to a different company on that visa. They are tied to the company. Therefore, they have to accept a lower wage because there is no threat of them leaving for a competitor.
The company doesn't have the incentive to increase salary because the barrier to switch jobs for the employee is very high. The employee could grow in experience and skill to be "Senior" while making an entry-level wage (which is still higher than back home). But the employee must work to increase their abilities or the corporation might cancel their visa and hire someone more capable.
Re:Illegal to pay less (Score:3, Informative)
And R.X. Cringely has a nice piece that explains why it still happens:
http://betanews.com/2012/10/25/h-1b-visa-abuse-limits-wages-and-steals-us-jobs/
Re:Time for a union in IT to stop this BS and more (Score:1, Informative)
Scott Walker and his ilk are making sure you have no union to go to.
Re:"Shortage" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Shortage" (Score:4, Informative)
It's worse than that. They identify the foreign workers they want to import, and then taylor the job descriptions so those workers are uniquely qualified for the job.
This is as relevant now as it was when it was made. [youtube.com]
I expect there will be no relief in sight until Americans start electing politicians that put the interests of Americans first. Not that I'm holding my breath.
Modern business school thinking (Score:5, Informative)
Ever had a conversation with these guys about how they do their jobs? They think in the short term and quantitatively, not quantitatively. They figure if they can get 2 subpar H-IBs at the same price as a 50 year-old, it evens out in the end.
Short story, I had a great conversation with one of these guys years back who was a manager of a chain restaurant. He was explaining to me the glorious logic of shorting ingredients to save money. How, by removing one pickle from a sandwich you could save millions a year. He was wildly enthusiastic about how powerful a management tool that shorting ingredients was. Now, as I listened to this my thoughts were on the long term effects of this policy and the promotion he was angling for.
So, Joe the manager cuts one pickle, saves the company $10 million a year and gets promoted up. Kelly takes his place and wants to move up too. So, she decides to make the buns 1 ounce smaller. She saves the company mad money and gets promoted up as well. And so on and so on until a premier chain restaurant starts looking more like McDonalds quality. But, none of those guys care because by the time the shit hits the fan they're probably cashed out!
Re:"Shortage" (Score:4, Informative)