H1-B observations

[Coronita]

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[kev374]

[quote=FlyerInHi]A few points:

Labors laws in USA protect all workers equally. Employers cannot work H1-Bs and not pay them overtime, vacation, sick, etc… [/quote]

Exempt employees are not required to be paid overtime and vacation/sick time is not a requirement in the United States. H1b workers live under the constant threat that if they do not put in the excess hours and they are let go they will be screwed. This terrible creates a balance of power situation skewed horribly towards the employer reminiscent of slave labor.

Now, it is true that H1b employees are a hassle but that is why the current trend is L1. With L1 there is no quota, no requirement to first try to find US citizens and companies have carte blance to import cheap labor en masse.

I used to work for a company that started out with 100 L1 workers working onsite with a contract with Infosys, the current count is 2000. A huge number of American tech workers and consultants were laid off specifically due to the shift to Infosys. Immigration did not care!

The ironic thing is that very few countries in the world have such lax labor laws and a total disregard for worker protections. Try going to India and getting a work visa – good luck with that, you are never going to get one because it is so difficult. Same for Europe! I once wanted to work in Europe but discounted the idea because it’s very difficult to get a work permit in Europe.

These companies must be STOPPED IN THEIR TRACKS! The labor laws of this country SHOULD be made to benefit the citizens of the country, NOT to grease the pockets of corporations and benefit a very select few at the top. That is not what we want this country to be. We need to change these laws.

Unfortunately too many of the people in this country are bleeding heart liberals who want to give the entire world everything, if that is the case, then you have no right to complain when your salary eventually goes to half and you can’t get a job!!!

[Coronita]

[quote=kev374]
Unfortunately too many of the people in this country are bleeding heart liberals who want to give the entire world everything, if that is the case, then you have no right to complain when your salary eventually goes to half and you can’t get a job!!![/quote]

Lol. I think you have this point wrong.
The bleeding heart liberals aren’t the ones supporting H1-Bs. I think this thing is party agnostic. I see plenty of liberals up in arms about H1-Bs as I see as I see conservatives.

[barnaby33]

lifeisgood. Sounds like despite the many contrarian and well written points, you just have an axe to grind. You really aren’t interested in other points of view.

Thanks FLU, that was well written.
Josh

[Anonymous]

[quote=barnaby33]lifeisgood. Sounds like despite the many contrarian and well written points, you just have an axe to grind. You really aren’t interested in other points of view.

Thanks FLU, that was well written.
Josh[/quote]

Axe to grind our not, he has a valid point. I will summarize my own conclusions here:

1. The propaganda that we don’t produce enough home grown engineers is baseless. (we all agree there are niche exceptions on a micro scale).
2. H1Bs cause lower salary for everybody (basic economics. Even if you don’t believe they are willing to work for less pay, although obviously they are, the larger pool of candidates adds to the supply end of the curve)
3. H1Bs are great for corporate profit
4. H1Bs greatly enhance revenue stream for academic industry.

So in conclusion, if you work in Academia or are a corporate executive/owner, H1Bs are great. If you and/or your children are or want to become working engineers, H1B program is bad.

[barnaby33]

Deadzone, you can’t say that last line with a straight face. I’m a software engineer too. I have gone through my H1-b bating phase ten years ago when our economy contracted and I too couldn’t find a job.

Other than that one period however I’ve never had trouble finding a job at decent pay. Maybe not stellar but decent.

Adding supply to any pool can and usually does lower the negotiating power of that pools participants all things being equal. In the IT market which has always been boom bust things are not always equal.

Companies will always go where they get the most bang for buck. If they can hire Indians for 1/3 what they pay me (and they do) then the work goes to the Indians. However those who are smart enough find a way to parlay their skills into a visa to come here and earn more.

If companies could get away with only hiring cheap foreigners neither you nor I would have jobs. If we cut off all of that supply many companies will judge that it’s worth it to just move the entire IT function overseas.

There definitely is abuse of the system, all systems get abused. In my experience both humble and limited this one isn’t all that abused and it doesn’t lower wages very much. In exchange I get the pleasure of making fun of my Indian Muslim colleague and threatening him with the idea that management will send him back to Bombay to run a team of Hindus; priceless!

Josh

[Anonymous]

Sure I can say it with a straight face. I agree with you that overall the magnitude of H1Bs today may not be significant enough to cause major disruption in wages, etc.

However, what concerns me is the constant lobbying and propaganda regarding the need to increase H1B quotas with the reasoning that we don’t have enough native engineering talent to be competitive. That is an agenda being pushed the corporations for their benefit. That agenda is bad for regular working Americans and could get much worse in the future if this propaganda is not checked.

Of course as you and flu have mentioned, the alternative in some cases is corporations may just completely outsource their jobs outside of the U.S. This is already being done and will continue to be done if it improves corporate profit. Will this get worse if US does not loosen HIB restrictions as requested by corporate America? Perhaps.

[equalizer]

Disney (as well as power companies) lay off employees and force them to train H1Bs to perform their jobs.

But these H1Bs graduated from the top schools in the world with Honors/Distinction/summa cum laude and obviously the employees at Disney were unqualified or just lazy gals who watched Frozen all day instead of working.

My Disney stock has only tripled in last five years. Had they canned these people years ago the stock would have gone up at least another 0.1%.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/07/exclusive-displaced-cast-member-how-disney-replaced-me-other-americans-with-cheap-foreigners-on-h1b-visas/

[FlyerInHi]

Can we agree that we need immigration to keep our population growing, young and vibrant?
Some people will get pissed off if we have low skill, low education immigration. And they get threatened if we have high skill, high education immigration.

A changing world is all but certain. We can resist the future or embrace it.

[Anonymous]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Can we agree that we need immigration to keep our population growing, young and vibrant? [/quote]

Say What? If the goal really is to keep the population growing young as you say, then why not encourage US citizens to have more babies, perhaps with additional tax subsidies, etc. Senseless to import people from other countries when we are perfectly capable of pro-creating amongst ourselves.

Of course the real reason to keep the population young is to maintain a healthy supply of consumers to purchase the latest POS Apple products.

[flyer]

According to those “in the know” consumerism is rising but economic growth is slowing around the world. Some say increased consumerism without economic growth is unsustainable, and could lead to economic collapse. Why? Here’s one opinion from economist Robert Reich:

“Economic growth isn’t just about more stuff. Growth is different from consumerism. Growth is really about the capacity of a nation to produce everything that’s wanted and needed by its inhabitants. That includes better stewardship of the environment as well as improved public health and better schools. (The Gross Domestic Product is a crude way of gauging this but it’s a guide. Nations with high and growing GDPs have more overall capacity; those with low or slowing GDPs have less.)

Poorer countries tend to be more polluted than richer ones because they don’t have the capacity both to keep their people fed and clothed and also to keep their land, air and water clean. Infant mortality is higher and life spans shorter because they don’t have enough to immunize against diseases, prevent them from spreading, and cure the sick.

In their quest for resources rich nations (and corporations) have too often devastated poor ones – destroying their forests, eroding their land, and fouling their water. This is intolerable, but it isn’t an indictment of growth itself. Growth doesn’t depend on plunder. Rich nations have the capacity to extract resources responsibly. That they don’t is a measure of their irresponsibility and the weakness of international law.

How a nation chooses to use its productive capacity — how it defines its needs and wants — is a different matter.

Faster growth greases the way toward more equal opportunity and a wider distribution of gains. The wealthy more easily accept a smaller share of the gains because they can still come out ahead of where they were before. Simultaneously, the middle class more willingly pays taxes to support public improvements like a cleaner environment and stronger safety nets. It’s a virtuous cycle. We had one during the Great Prosperity that lasted from 1947 to the early 1970s.

Slower growth has the reverse effect. Because economic gains are small, the wealthy fight harder to maintain their share. The middle class, already burdened by high unemployment and flat or dropping wages, fights ever more furiously against any additional burdens, including tax increases to support public improvements. The poor are left worse off than before. It’s a vicious cycle. We’ve been in one most of the last 30 years.

No one should celebrate slow growth. If we’re entering into a period of even slower growth, the consequences could be worse.”

[Anonymous]

A popular misconception is that the post WWII “Great Prosperity” is the definition of a “normal” or “good” economy.

It was good for the US, Japan, and a few Western European countries. But it was in no way “normal,” because there really is no normal.

It’s easy to to be fond of the good ol’ days of the 1950s and 1960s, especially if you were a middle class white American living in those times. But I have never seen any objective measure that shows economic prospects during the “Great Prosperity” were any better for the majority of the world’s population than they are today.

For just about everyone on the planet, 2015 is a better time than 1970 was.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=deadzone]

Say What? If the goal really is to keep the population growing young as you say, then why not encourage US citizens to have more babies, perhaps with additional tax subsidies, etc. Senseless to import people from other countries when we are perfectly capable of pro-creating amongst ourselves.

Of course the real reason to keep the population young is to maintain a healthy supply of consumers to purchase the latest POS Apple products.[/quote]

Incentives don’t work. Prosperous educated families don’t want more than 2 kids. We need to replace our population, and grow it.

There is more urban migration, so I can see many small towns dying in the future. Not the college towns but the small industrial towns.

My 85 yo dad says that all his doctors and nurses are foreign born. We need immigrants to take care of old people.

[flyer]

[quote=harvey]A popular misconception is that the post WWII “Great Prosperity” is the definition of a “normal” or “good” economy.

It was good for the US, Japan, and a few Western European countries. But it was in no way “normal,” because there really is no normal.

It’s easy to to be fond of the good ol’ days of the 1950s and 1960s, especially if you were a middle class white American living in those times. But I have never seen any objective measure that shows economic prospects during the “Great Prosperity” were any better for the majority of the world’s population than they are today.

For just about everyone on the planet, 2015 is a better time than 1970 was.[/quote]

Agree most of these issues don’t apply to we Piggs who are in the top 10% or above, but, as the masses go, the majority of the population is struggling more than ever to secure the funds for an education, find a job in their field, buy a home, retire comfortably etc., etc.

Even though things may, in some ways, be generically better for all from an economic perspective in 2015 versus the past, imo, we still have huge challenges that threaten the sustainability of our economy. How long we can float the boat remains to be seen.

[Author]

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