FWD.us Wants More H-1B Visas, But 50% Go To Offshore Firms 325
theodp writes: "On the day the U.S. began accepting H-1B visa applications for FY2015, Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC stepped up its lobbying efforts for more tech visas even as ComputerWorld reported that the major share of H-1B visas go to offshore outsourcing firms that use visa holders to displace U.S. workers. 'The two largest H-1B users,' notes ComputerWorld, 'are Indian-based, Infosys, with 6,298 visas, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with 6,258.' ComputerWorld adds that food and agricultural company Cargill is outsourcing IT jobs to TCS, including 300 in Minnesota, the home of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, sponsor of the I-Squared Act of 2013, which would allow H-1B visa caps to rise to 300,000 annually."
Isn't the upshot the same? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're going to screw... (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who worked on an H1-B visa about 10 years back in Silicon Valley, i can confirm that these visas are being misused by IT consulting companies. They take the majority of these visas and then use them as baits in india for IT professionals. Most indian IT companies are nothing but cheap labour shops. If there is a dearth of IT professionals, make H1-B non-employer specific. All it does is make you a bonded labourer for 4-6 years with your employer who promises to process your green card while paying you a low salary. This is a big scam and i hope enough people take notice so that something is done about it. Most people on H1-B won't speak about it cause they don't want to go back home or lose their job. This is what keeps it going.
Prove its about talent (Score:4, Interesting)
If the claim is that there is a shortage of talent, then simply add a fee to the process, that is roughly equivalent to a years worth of college education in the state where the job is located, for every year the H1B worker works, into a scholarship program for that industry/disipline. Facebook should jump at the chance to make college more affordable for CS majors, since they seem to need so many of them. And hey, if the student can graduate without "mortgage level" loans, they can actually afford to work for less money.
You've got it all wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)
The US government is for sale, and the highest bidders get what they pay for. You buy enough legislation (and legislators) and you can make anything legal.
Want to make more money in the short run by gutting STEM employment and destroying US based intellectual capitial? No problem! (Just look at IBM).
Want to pay no US taxes while you plaster US flags on your equipment? You don't even have to make the flags in the US! (Caterpillar, a proud US giant.)
It really is equal opportunity at work. You don't even have to be a US company to buy what you want.
Stop whining, it's unpatriotic. You obviously don't love the US if you can't afford to buy you own slice of the American Dream. Tata Consultancy Services is clearly a much more important American Enterprise then any of the mere citizens who do useless things like live, vote and pay taxes in the US.
It's not like there is a "Government of the People, by the People and For the People" or any other nonsense like that.
Re:Very bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen http://www.h1bwage.com/ [h1bwage.com] ?
According to the site - "h1bwage.com is the online wage library for h1b prevailing wage determinations, and the disclosure databases for other programs."
So it's referencing the standard salaries for positions, and/or the H1B application statements of companies applying for the visas. It in no way reflects what the hired workers actually earn, and is not intended to. Salaries are always "negotiable".
I suspect that some of those figures are what the consulting firm is charging to place one of those working in another company - so the company is paying that amount for the person, but the consulting firm is taking a good portion of it off the top before they actually pay the worker.
Re:Because (Score:5, Interesting)
They can start with the CEO's, who are the most globally uncompetitive. Typical American CEO of a large company makes about 400x the average compensation of employees. In the UK it's 45x, and in the rest of the developed world is 10x-20x. Forget about India - just go to Canada and get a CEO for about 5% the cost of a US one. Similar culture, short travel, little time zone difference ... what's not to like?
Re:I don't *want* US workers (Score:5, Interesting)
I donate a LOT of money to FWD.us to try to get the H1-B limits increased. Why? Because while my company does do business in the US, I despise US workers - who are generally a bunch of self-important, entitled brats who think they are God's gift to development. The worst part? They are simply lazy. My God are Americans lazy. Show up at 8:45... leave at 4:15... hour and half lunch.. sitting around surfing the Internet all day while finding a few minutes here and there to do some work in between facebook posts.
And yet their output is still just as high in quantity and orders of magnitude higher in quality than anything that comes out of your 14-hour-day Bangalore sweatshop. I have to use 5 of those guys to do the work of 1 American developer, and it's still not a deal, because it has to be sent back 5 or 6 times for fixes just to reach the level of "barely acceptable".
You're still doing business in the US because there are still idiots that thing they're getting a deal. Boeing sure learned their lesson after their Dreamliner got grounded when the steaming pile of crap that HCL delivered was so bad they had to hire a whole new set of American developers to fix it. And yet, incredibly, after multiple failed projects like that which required total re-write to fix, HCL is somehow still getting work.
Re:Isn't the upshot the same? (Score:5, Interesting)
Suppose you have a guy leading your Java dev team under the title "Java lead engineer". He is paid $100k pa. You want to cut this cost.
Here's how H1B's work: You decide there is a new role, "Key Java developer", you declare this has all the same skills but it's a "new" role. You declare that people doing this role (which you just invented) get paid $60k pa. Weirdly, no-one applies for a $100k pa job that only pays $60k pa. Damn, there is now a "skills shortage". The imaginary "skills shortage" means you can hire under H1B and pay $60k as you wished. An immigrant is glad to be paid $60k to do the job, and their visa is now legally under your control, so if they displease you then they aren't merely fired, they are thrown out of the country.
And that's how you replace a $100k pa salaried citizen with a $60k pa indentured servant.
At its best it's a nasty cynical way to hold down wage costs. At it's worst it's basically a milder modern day slavery.
Re:There are already plenty of US STEM workers (Score:4, Interesting)
So then why does Zuckerberg desperately want to hire foreign workers? If he really needs workers and can't find the skills he needs with US workers, then they aren't being trained in currently marketable skills (I believe that based on personal experience) and he should fund training for the skills he needs which would take less money and time than a four-year college program. If he needs workers but doesn't want to pay what Americans are willing to work for then he's no different than every other company that outsources to China or wherever and any claims of altruism are total B.S.