Former Infosys Recruiter Says He Was Told Not To Hire US Workers 293
dcblogs writes: A lawsuit by four IT workers alleging that outsourcing firm Infosys favored hiring Indian workers over U.S. workers now includes an account from a former Infosys recruiter about the alleged practice. It includes accounts by Samuel Marrero, who worked in Infosys's talent acquisition unit from 2011 until May 2013, of meetings with executives at the India-based IT services firm. Marrero and other recruiters "frequently complained" to higher-ups at Infosys during these weekly calls that many of the highly qualified American candidates they had presented were being rejected in favor of Indian prospects. In response to one of these complaints, Infosys' global enterprise lead allegedly said, "Americans don't know $#!%," according to the lawsuit. Infosys has denied allegations that it discriminates.
Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
Management doesn't know shit.
Here no evil, see no evil (Score:3)
Re:Typical (Score:5, Informative)
No, actually they are often masters of BS, at least BS good enough for the short-term.
This isn't a matter of having a degree in BSing; it's a matter of racial prejudice and promotion. I've seen it at several other "Indian" firms as well; and typically the positions are written such that only people from their Indian offices qualify so that they can pump them into their US branches under H1Bs. There's a strategy to it; however subtle they may try to make it.
In TFA is true, then the recruiters are trying to call them out on it, and Good for them for doing so.
Well duh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans can't compete in that arena.
In this case "can't" means not allowed to compete because they are discriminated against based on race.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In this case "can't" means not allowed to compete because they are discriminated against based on geography.
Fux'd that fer ya
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
But it also says they discriminated in favor of Indians.
What's amazes me is how surprised white people are when they find out that other groups don't believe in non-discrimination as much as they do.
Around the world hiring those from one's own group is pretty standard practice.
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Indians are not a single race (they call it subcontinent for a reason), and as a matter of fact they DO have some pure breed Aryans. Likewise, Americans are not a single race either, so if what its argued is accurate it means ** if the applicant is black, white, purple or for that matter an Indian living in America, he won't get the job and thats it.
So, yes is discrimination but based on geography, not even in race or nationality.
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, as long as I hire white South Africans, I don't have to have any negroes on my payroll?
Oh, what's that? There's more to the legal definition of "race" as it applies to anti-discrimination laws than a third-grade definition provided by an internet lawyer? Well! Imagine that!
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This is defensible, if it is indeed the case that the job requirements are to get the cheapest worker who can bluff through it. However I suspect many of these jobs intended to get the best workers they could find, which was what the recruiters were trying to do.
I haven't looked in on anything to do with infosys in ages, but I suspect they still try to market themselves as providing good and qualified workers. Which is contrary to the long standing rumor that they only provide the cheapest. But it's a lo
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
But it also says they discriminated in favor of potential H1-B servants.
Fixed that for you.
That's the story. Infosys is nothing more than an H1-B mill.
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Whereas in America we are exactly the opposite, and prefer not to hire people from our own country.
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I can't tell if you're joking, trolling, or if the irony was accidental.
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Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't they really discriminated against based on salary?
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't they really discriminated against based on salary?
If so, then that is also illegal. It is illegal for them to pay H1B employees less than they pay American residents with the same capability. So they cannot use the lower cost of H1Bs as a defense.
Not so much salary as training (Score:3)
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Informative)
they are discriminated against based on geography.
Wrong. These are US based jobs. They hired South Asian immigrants for jobs in America in preference to people of other races. Infosys has about 15,000 employees in America and 90% of them are South Asian. I doubt that happened by random chance.
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. My company, based in the US, had [contractor name redacted] take over our IT. [contractor name redacted] is based in India. They slowly got rid of all the American IT employees over about 2 years and replaced them with Indian nationals. They would rotate them in an out based on whatever kind work visa they had. None of them ever really learned our system and eventually they had to hire back some of the Americans they got rid of.
Fortunately management has started to wake up and we're ditching [contractor name redacted] at the end of their contract.
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Quod erat demonstrandum.
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, based on nationality, actually. American isn't a race.
Re:Well duh. (Score:5, Funny)
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Thats a different SPECIES. Please, don't mix your terms or the discussion will get confusing.
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You mean native Americans? First Nations peoples? That's the only "American race" I know of.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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So, foreigners are uninformed? That's, um, not racist, exactly...
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans can't compete in that arena.
In this case "can't" means not allowed to compete because they are discriminated against based on race.
Actually, no... They are discriminated against based on salary expectations.
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Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Informative)
One American salary is still lower than the 35 Indian salaries and data breach penalties that you end up paying if you go the outsourcing route.
We had 3 American's replaced with 45 India Indian outsourced contractors, spent 6 months training (the outsourced people kept rotating out delaying the handover of the support), after the handover, within 6 hours, the accounts were off by over 160,000 dollars, by then end of the first day, they were off by almost 750k.
It took the same 3 American's about 6 days to fix all of the problems caused by the outsourced employees, and cost our company half a million in penalties because of the errors occurring in the first place.
Outsourcing never pays, unless you're in upper management and want to pad your golden parachute so you can leave before it fails due to your mismanagement.
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried outsourcing within the US? We have to because of certain regulations? It's the same. Nothing to do with India or Indian outsourcers (or outsorcerors!). The business model of an outsourcing company is very similar to that of your building contractor. They'd like to stay on till the next big project is lined up and then they flee as fast as they can.
This can't be emphasized enough. Ignore the racist cries that the brown-skinned programmers aren't as good. The simple truth is: outsourcing blows goats. Hire your own, or move everything to the cloud if you must save a few bucks (and hire your own to stay on top of that).
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It's not that the brown-skinned ones aren't as good. It's more that the really cheap ones aren't good. There are very good software people in India, but they're going to charge accordingly.
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, no... They are discriminated against based on salary expectations.
This. This right here.
I'm an American working for an Indian IT company in a middle management position. The company for which I work seems to believe that employee attrition is cost of doing business and although I'm compensated fairly (which was a pretty good trick all by itself), the majority of my peers and subordinates are not. I wouldn't blame any of them for leaving. If my company hadn't made things right with me I'd have left a year and a half ago.
Most companies based in India don't pay anywhere near market; that's how they win contracts. Sad to say, but the customer gets what he pays for; if you want to outsource and want American workers the customer has to be prepared to pay the price. There is one client at this location that requires their service desk to be all native speakers; since this will be staffed with all US employees they're gonna pay more than if the company had outsourced some or all of that service desk to India.
High employee attrition appears to be an acceptable business risk to most of these companies.
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Informative)
Well attrition is NBD these days anyhow. Any time your stock price isn't high enough and the CEO wants to sell some shares to buy his next mansion or bonus time is coming and his $retarded bonus is directly related to share prices ... they just lay off a bunch of people to 'fix' the P/L and bump up the share price.
While above is trollish, it's also VERY much true. Layoffs almost invariably raise the stock price of a company so they've become yet another tool in doing business. Spending a career at one company is virtually unheard of in the US. It's a sad state of being.
Let's lay off 10% of our workforce and outsource another 15% (which basically means laying off 25% and giving some outsource company a fraction of what that 15% was paid). Hey look, we reduced our employee compensation costs by 20% ... now look at how much money the company is earning for investors! Go us! Woohoo! Stock market is on the riseeeeee...economy is doing welllllllll....things are all sunshineeeeeeee.....happy dance down the street
Oops...
Go to the Philippines (Score:3)
We're all easily replaced these days. I wish more people realized that and pushed for protectionism. We employees are not global, while our employers _are_. At this rate they're gonna win th
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Informative)
Since this is for people working in the U.S. and the choice is between H1-B and a citizen, it is actually illegal for them to pay less than the typical American salary expectation.
Re:Well duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe on paper at first, but I had a team of Indian's replace me - I was a TAM (technical account manager for a really big software company). Basically it was 7 people replacing 1 person. I don't think those 7 people were cheaper than just me.
Also - I heard they lost nearly every single account I had - which was easily 12m a year in total.
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Um, more likely price. Or didn't you see the lawsuit, months ago, from the former Oracle exec, who was alleging that Oracle management underpaid him, becuase $10k or $20k less per year was "good enough for an Indian".
mark
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Corporate Malfeasance (Score:5, Insightful)
If Infosys is in fact guilty of discriminating against American workers by refusing to hire American workers for American jobs, then such malfeasance should be punished by confiscation of all of Infosys assets located in the United States, and by banning Infosys or any subsidiary of Infosys from operating on American soil.
Unfortunately, we can't just kill Infosys because they are a foreign corporation based in India. But we can damn well kick them out, and we probably should.
Re:Corporate Malfeasance (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, we can't just kill Infosys because they are a foreign corporation based in India. But we can damn well kick them out, and we probably should.
Cancel their H1B's and 90+% of their workforce (i.e., income) disappears. I'm not sure any company could survive an overnight 90% drop in revenue.
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That has secondary side effects in companies that hired the workers.
No, what you do is every H1B they hired is converted into permanent residency or citizenship, sponsored completely by Infosys. Which means even if the company fires the employee, he's still on a permanent resident/citizenship track except now Infosys is responsible for his well-being. Living expen
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I'd rather not punish the individual worker. They are here to try to eke out a decent living, improve skills, and generally try to fit in.
If I had my say, I'd dispense of the H-1B program entirely, and convert them into work visas or permanent resident cards. That way, the H-1B system which is an abomination is tossed, while the individual people who are here are not punished.
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How do you know, though? I mean, surely any company that has an office in America and hires any non-American worker would fail your proposed test? How would international companies ever expand into the USA if hiring any non-American for an "American job" would result in their US assets being immediately liquidated?
Ultimately foreign companie
Re:Corporate Malfeasance (Score:4, Insightful)
No. A company that selects an applicant from one country over another in a particular case is quite different from one that instructs it's hiring manager to not hire anyone of X nationality.
For one thing, in this country, the latter is illegal. Given that Infosys itself is a guest in this country, it's well beyond rude. If they think so little of Americans IN AMERICA, they should go to some other country where they like the people better.
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easy enough
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Infosys-Technologies/263060.htm
All the visas they are using are immediately revoked. Obviously they do not need them. Deny any future ones. Tax them extra and then fine them. That should clear up the issue nicely. I'm sure someone can find a congress critter who would like to draw up the law.
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I'm sure someone can find a congress critter who would like to draw up the law.
Three words for you: "Bill of Attainder".
Any punishment of this would have to come through the courts.
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If Infosys is in fact guilty of discriminating against American workers by refusing to hire American workers for American jobs, then such malfeasance should be punished by confiscation of all of Infosys assets located in the United States, and by banning Infosys or any subsidiary of Infosys from operating on American soil.
Unfortunately, we can't just kill Infosys because they are a foreign corporation based in India. But we can damn well kick them out, and we probably should.
While you are at it, you should also roll up your sleeves and kick out most of the other US based companies. Because at some point in their lives, they have
- either colluded together to suppress salaries
- or have colluded together for anti-poaching reasons
- or have spied on their consumers
- or have used their patents in an abusive manner to strongarm competition
- or have abused their financial might by lobbying and bribing
- or have done something flat out illegal and have got away with it with a slap on the
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such malfeasance should be punished by confiscation of all of Infosys assets located in the United States, and by banning Infosys or any subsidiary of Infosys from operating on American soil.
As this is a discrimination suit, they would ostensibly be punished in accordance with any other suit of the same nature; damages awarded directly to the victim(s), and possibly additional measures such as requiring "diversity training," and such, assuming the plaintiffs win.
Do you consider Affirmative Action discriminatory as well? It's one thing to have a preference for a particular group of people when all other considerations (such as qualifications, experience, etc.) are equal, it's very different
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They should have all the visas they're sponsoring invalidated. That will put the hurt on where it matters with the companies that funnel money to Infosys by taking away their underpaid guest workers.
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Oh, if only I had mod points to run your racist ass into the ground. Might as well say "men are a small fraction of domestic violence cases, so the government should ignore any case brought forth by a man."
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I'm giving up my mod points on this page to refute your absurdity here.
http://domesticviolencestatist... [domesticvi...istics.org]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com] - about 1:20 in has statement from a psychology professor about domestic aggression: "Men cause more damage, but women hit more."
It's hard to prove the AC's second sentence. But it's known that male victims of domestic violence is under-reported. For a variety of reasons.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
White people being discriminated against have little to complain about"
And why is that, exactly? What part of this particular race discrimination makes it magically acceptable?
Is it just because whites have been in the majority in America? What happens when they aren't?
Was it OK for blacks to be discriminated against during apartheid in South Africa? THEY were in the majority at the time.
What makes this racism harmless, just because it's directed at whites?
I thought we were looking for equality in society, not for a chance to drag down the latest group to reach the top of the
and people go out with people based on race too (Score:2, Insightful)
So what, in many cases people choose mates and friends based on their race preferences.
Many clients choose which businesses they will deal with based on the origin business owner (some prefer to frequent or to avoid Indian or Middle Eastern or Asian establishments for example).
People must be able to discriminate however they see fit and I am talking about people in their individual lives and I am also talking about businesses obviously.
Yes, it should be possible to discriminate based on race, absolutely. R
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Great job failing to acknowledge that sexism and racism are serious issues in modern society.
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So what, in many cases people choose mates and friends based on their race preferences.
Yeah? People are still free to discriminate. I don't see why they should necessarily get the protections of limited liability and so on while they do.
Companies are already a huge distortion, so there's no good reason I see for not restricting their behaviour. If people don't want the restrictions they can always forefeit all the corporate protections and go it alone.
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So what, in many cases people choose mates and friends based on their race preferences.
Many clients choose which businesses they will deal with based on the origin business owner (some prefer to frequent or to avoid Indian or Middle Eastern or Asian establishments for example).
People must be able to discriminate however they see fit and I am talking about people in their individual lives and I am also talking about businesses obviously.
Of course: this is a situation that has been tried. See pre-reconstruction US (or Suni/Shia/Kurd male/female in the middle east, or the caste system in India).
It creates a caste system where entire portions of society are disenfranchized. It usually results, in the end, in an awful lot of deaths.
See also: Segrigation, Aparthtide, etc.
Yes, it should be possible to discriminate based on race, absolutely. Race, age, sex, any form of discrimination must be absolutely legal (and by the way it is unconstitutional, illegal for the federal government to regulate businesses and the entire concept of interstate commerce does not allow government to regulate business, it is only there to prevent individual States from erecting barriers of entry, which are still all there, so the federal government is not doing what it's job is and instead it constantly harasses businesses for no reason whatsoever).
Your statement of fact, offered by you without support, is false. It has been established false by the court system and by the legislatures (which have not ammended to correct
Foreign US Workers == Obvious (Score:2)
What’s not to like about these programs?
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... Wait what? (Score:2)
If infosys really thinks Americans don't know anything about coding... then why does the US dominate the global tech sector?
Someone please smush a cool cherry pie right into that guy's face. Then point and laugh at him. Because this is a man in need of some humbling.
There's no "coding" in "consulting" (Score:3)
The goal of Infosys employees is not to provide solutions to Infosys's marks^b^b^b^b^bcustomers. No, the goal is to push projects over budget while giving customers just enough hope and management cover that they reup for the next phase. Something that a couple of American type-A coders would have done in six months could take a team of 50 offshore Infosys consultants 3 years, so why would Infosys ever staff its ranks with competency?
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that doesn't even make sense because a team of american coders could half ass it as well as anyone else. And they're not hiring AAA programmers from india so why not hire AA or A coders from the US IF THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT? I mean, these are US tax payer funded programs half the time. Why the hell is the government doing that when they keep talking about boosting the economy and saying they want more tech jobs. Then they off shore US jobs for no god damn reason.
It is inexplicable.
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while you're clearly joking that statement if taken seriously would imply that classification is superior otherwise the privilege wouldn't exist.
White guys didn't steal the internet from the brown people. They created it out of nothing.
Supply meets demand (Score:2)
Supply serves a demand. I would like to see further investigation into the demand (specific corporations) this corruption meets the needs of. There is clear abuse of H1-B at the expense of the employee (the product):
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Harley-Davidson laid off 125 Americans. (Score:5, Interesting)
Harley-Davidson laid off 125 Americans and replaced them with people on H-1 visas from Infosys. H-D's biker customers aren't going to like this once the word gets out.
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You know, as often as not these days, HD's customers are accountants and lawyers and doctors who would be on side with these decisions.
Just sayin', it's now well-heeled middle-age people who have the money to buy these things.
Hardley Drivable would spin it (Score:2)
Hardley Drivable would just spin it as necessary to remain competitive in the face of excruciating government regulation and the relentless costs of building an all-American machine for red-blooded Americans so we can keep kickin' ass and lookin' at titties. Oh, did we tell you about the titties?
And then Hardley owners simply stop thinking about anything but titties and the discussion is over.
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Is this what you're referring too?
http://www.bizjournals.com/mil... [bizjournals.com]
In all fairness, these weren't Harley employees, but worked for a contracting firm that did IT for Harley (according to the link). Harley then decided to outsource their IT to Infosys (which I don't see as a smart move regardless).
It looks like this took place two years ago.....I don't remember seeing anything about it when it happened.
http://www.jsonline.com/busine... [jsonline.com]
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Americans don't know what? (Score:5, Funny)
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I figured you MUST be making this up...
No, you were not:
http://www.poo2loo.com/ [poo2loo.com]
"Close to 594 million which is 48 percent of population in India practices open defecation. That's half the population dumping over 65 million kilos of poo out there every day. If this poo continues to be let loose on us, there will be no escaping the stench of life threatening infections, diseases and epidemics."
------------
Holy crap! Literately!
Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
"Americans don't know $#!%"
If that's true, why is India scrambling to send all their children to U.S. colleges and universities? Sounds like just plain ole racism to me. I hope they get fined out the wazoo, have all their current contracts revoked and end up being banned from doing business in the U.S. (although the latter is probably never going to happen, we can dream).
Y'all are so cute.... (Score:4, Insightful)
...talking like employees are anything but serfs and like the USA is some sort of democracy instead of an increasingly minor subsection of an international oligarchy.
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Apropos of nothing (Score:2)
You use Form WH-4: H-1B Nonimmigrant Information [dol.gov] to to report employers who violate the provisions of the H-1B program. Should, you know, you want to file formal complaints against a company for some random reason.
Infosys also discriminates based on age. (Score:2)
They require the exact date of high school graduation on your resume even if you have advanced degrees.
You know... when you were 18 so they can calculate their age.
How times have changed (Score:2)
Back in the day I remember walking out of a tech interview and overhearing one guy urgently whisper to the other "Hire him! He's white!"
It was still kinda cringeworthy to hear even then, but this was before outsourcing, and boatloads (no pun intended) of Very Bad Programmers from Other Countries were flooding the market in person.
the real problem (Score:2)
Now you're probably thinking, they should have given me a proficiency or knowledge test. THEY DID! Tek Systems gave me
Do we really need to hear this from someone (Score:3)
If company claims to *need* H-1B workers... (Score:3)
Then they won't mind paying annual H-1B visa fees in the amount of 250% of said worker's salary.
I mean, their argument is there there exists no local workers, or even workers within the *entire* US, that they can hire that could perform the same job.
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You might think that, but my experience with outsourcing tells a very different tale.
Re:Merka (Score:5, Insightful)
Before any of the hypersensitive cretins that love to take everything the wrong way start yelling about racist comment or something equally inane, a "list monkey" is some that just reads down a list or script and displays no more skills than a trained monkey pushing buttons, aka a "list monkey". If you don't know what a trained monkey is, you are a sad excuse for someone that is supposed to be literate.
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That's not sympathy and understanding, that's memory.
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I'm not complaining about racism here, this is not about race. This is about unfair playing field across national lines. It is cheaper to hire Indian workers than it is to hire American workers. The problem is, many left-wing types price US workers out of the market (albeit unintentionally) with regulations and taxes that foreign workers can simply avoid. When you add up all the "feel good" taxes, regulations, requirements and laws American workers face, it is easy to simply say, "I can hire four Indians, o
Re: On the recieving end of racism. (Score:2)
People like you fail to realise that a society built on consumerism will collapse without consumers. The success of businesses in the developed world is largely due to such evil lefty ideas such as leisure time and disposable income. Good luck replacing free spending US citizens with Indians on low pay with no free time.
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I realize it. Probably more than liberals who think they are entitled to the leisure time and disposable income. Free spending US citizens aren't the problem, the problem is people buying Chinese because it is %5 cheaper, not realizing that %5 keeps their neighbor employed. But lets tax those that earn a living here, so that we can have more people leisure time and non-disposable income (i.e. unemployed)
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You forgot Somalia! Yeah, strawman argument is complete. Because it is all or nothing!
It is a global market, because labor in China (and elsewhere) is cheap. Move your factory to China, build the product saving tons in labor, increase profit, lower prices. Move your factory to China, avoid environmental regulations in the US, and the US is polluted with China Smog, and you get to save on costs, increasing profit, lowering prices.
Most decisions aren't stupid. See the above, moving to China was "smart", righ
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"You do realize you're already competing for wages with people in Mumbai"
Fully. That is part of the anger on the issue.
I cant find food or shelter at rates comparable, but I have to compete with a structurally lower cost person
And I have to do that because someone *here* decided that. ( all the rationalizations still come down to a decision )
That someone here enjoys
Access to the market/economy that I am ( but, for many, am increasingly *not* ) part of
Pricing of products due t
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May be now some of those candidates would know what it means to be on the receiving end of racism and look with some sympathy and understanding when black, brown, yellow Americans complain about it.
I am mostly White (I am part Blackfoot, but you wouldn't know it looking at me). I grew up in Hawaii. Only 30% of my high school was White. All the best jobs were reserved for native Hawaiians (Whites earned 75 cents for every dollar earned by Hawaiians). Anyone who was at least 5% native Hawaiian had access to free private education (non-natives were ineligible to even apply). I had White friends who had to be taken off island in the middle of the night because of race-based death threats. Every school had
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If it's discrimination in favor of a minority, doesn't that make it affirmative action rather than discrimination?
Affirmative Action is sanctioned discrimination.
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H1B should just be stopped unless you can prove you didn't have qualified candidates.
That's the whole purpose of Labor Condition Application [wikipedia.org].