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Thanks for reminding me I'd forgotten about that part, yeah that sounds just like slavery or as you say, indentured servitude. This could maybe partly explain why some employers would hire an H-1B even if the salary savings aren't that much compared to an American. Even if a company is paying the IT guy from Bangalore six figures, he's still basically the company's slave, so the company can feel relatively free to abuse him, work him those 110 hour weeks and just generally treat him terribly which they couldn't do with an American, who could just quit and get a position at another company.
Which means maybe it's important to look at not annual salary, but instead the salary per hour that the worker is working, and I'd guess that with H-1B's couldn't do that since they'd fear deportation. Which means another key piece of the reform, I would think besides demanding higher salaries than an American worker and surveying if Americans are available, is removing the visa from the hands of the employer, and giving it to the worker. This seems to be a source of a lot of the abuse. If the worker could at least complain about abuses or find another employer, or ask for higher wages, then a lot of these abuses-- including in effect, the reduction in hourly wages due to the unpaid overtime the H-1B's are forced into from their indenturement-- would be reduced.
the companies post jobs at salaries WAY below market value- then cry- "See we can't find anyone"- time to fire up the phone to TATA. it's self dealing and a clear abuse meant to suppress good white collar upper middle class jobs to save a few dollars.
I talked to one of my tech-industry relatives about what you mentioned with this particular ocmpany earlier in the week, and he pointed out that the company you're describing is plainly, flagrantly breaking the law. In fact so flagrantly that this is the sort of thing that would have gotten them shut down even during the Obama and Bush administrations, when the White house was more likely turn a blind eye to the H-1B rule violations like what Disney did in laying-off their tech workers. I see what you're saying and I'm not sure what to believe about Trump's actual stance towards the H-1B, but apparently according to my cousin, there is at least now an office where people can report flagrant violations of H-1B rules and shut down companies like this. And this apparently is happening, as the Justice dept,, or whichever government branch investigates this, has been heavily fining and shutting down many corporate violators of the law. I don't know if Trump himself is pushing this, and from what you're saying I have my doubts, but Sessions at least, IIRC is an open enemy of the H-1B, so he might be the one responsible for creating this complaints office. (I didn't get the details, but you can apparently leave a citizen's complaint, or an anonymous tip about the company doing this, and the Justice Dept. will investigate them). In this case, the company is so flagrantly going against law that the Justice dept. would have an easy time going in and shutting them down, maybe even putting some of the execs in prison for it to make an example, so you could probably have an impact by reporting the lawbreakers here.
Incidentally my relative is Asian-American himself (I basically have a Filipino-American branch of the extended family) and in my observation, Asian-Americans hate the H-1B more than about any other group. They're more likely to go into STEM, including Indian-Americans and so have student loans, so they're rightly very angry about the way the H-1B is hurting their careers and earning prospects. Ir really seems like everyone hates the H-1B except the corrupt and short sighted executives and their lawyers who are pushing this policy.
I have talked to a few Filipinos and every one had a common quality - whining. They talk as if Philipines is some heaven and everything else is crap.
the companies post jobs at salaries WAY below market value- then cry- "See we can't find anyone"- time to fire up the phone to TATA. it's self dealing and a clear abuse meant to suppress good white collar upper middle class jobs to save a few dollars.
Yes this really nails the heart of the issue, it's thinly veiled corruption by treasonous US corporations and corrupt politicians that does a lot of damage to the US job market and makes it harder esp for college grads and more experienced workers to pay off student loans and afford basic like housing and health care. The corrupt corps and politicans in turn are helped out by corrupt attorneys like the one in that video.
Brings up another point about how rotten and corrupt the H-1B has become and how Trump and Sessions can really bring about a key reform with a simple step, because one is made to ask, why are the Indian tech workers so willing to indenture themselves and basically work as slave labor? The answer is another flaw in the way the H-1B system is run now, which represents another abuse and breaking of the original law-- the Indians do it because they're dangled the carrot of a green card, which very few actually get and which the H-1B is not supposed to be connected to (it's a temporary work visa that, as the law is written, is now allowed to lead to a green card).
So Trump and Sessions could probably shut down a lot of the abuse of the H-1B visa simply by enforcing the original intent of the law, that it is, making sure the H-1B is used only as a temporary visa and cannot be used to adjust status as green card, with no visa extensions either. The Indians subject themselves to such humiliating conditions and virtual slave wages for long hours, not because the money is better than in India (given costs of living in US cities, it really isn't), it's because they're so desperate to get out of overpopulated, corrupt India that they'll indenture themselves for the dangling carrot of a green card-- they're getting "paid" by being teased by the small chance of a green card for enduring utter humiliation for 3 years as an indentured H-1B, usually to a cheap labor body shop like Tata or Infosys.
Basically, just as US outsources a lot of its best tech jobs, India is outsourcing its societal failures and messes due to its overpopulation to the rest of the world, dumping its problems on workers overseas and making countries like the USA, Canada and Australia pay for India's own overpopulation crisis, corruption and mismanagement through lower wages and jobs for their own citizens. But only because our own leaders have been so corrupt and treasonous against Americans to allow India to use us as a safety valve. If Trump and Sessions make sure Indians can't get green cards from the H-1B, he'll actually be doing both Americans and Indians a favor. This will block the safety valve and encourage Indians to make reforms at home to reduce corruption, increase wages and implement better contraception and family-plan policies to help make India's population more manageable. American workers have more jobs available at better wages, more on job training, while Indians are encouraged to reform their society, bring down corrupt officials and stabilize their population.
Think about it, the way-below-market salaries like you point out, would seem at first to defeat the purpose of coming to the US, after all most US tech jobs are in expensive big cities like in the Bay Area, so it seems like the Indians coming here and working 100-hour weeks, for slave wages and no health care coverage, for a company that they can't leave would seem to be getting royally shafted. They can't save up very much money with the high costs of living, and what meager amounts they do make are sent back to India as remittances (which also hurts the US economy, compared to an American worker who'll spend their income here). So why do the Indian workers subject themselves to such indignities and humiliation as cheap labor?
Certainly the way so many H-1B's crowd into filthy, squalid apartments helps them to save up some money, but still this doesn't explain it. The whole reason Disney was willing to lay off it's own loyal, skilled high-tech workers and replace them with Indians, was that the Indians were so dirt-cheap and willing to live under miserably squalid conditions, and still not save up much money. So not only do American workers lose out, imported Indian workers don't gain much either, in fact with costs of living many of them wind up in debt themselves, esp if have medical bills. Their main incentive therefore isn't the money itself, it's the fantasy of a green card-- which usually turns out to be a cruel tease, since the overpopulation in India means the Indians can just be used, discarded and replaced with another one equally desperate to escape India's overpopulation and overcrowding.
So if Trump and Sessions enforce the original intent of H-1B, make it clear it's only a temporary visa, no green card status adjust, and Indians must return home after the H-1B and can't use it to apply for a green card, then this incentive-- which is the driving force for the slave wages that Indians accept-- disappears. This way, the H-1B's slave wages can't be "paid" by the potential for a green card, but only by real wages that exceed cost of living in a big city. So Indians would only accept an H-1B visa if the wages are at or above market, that is if there are genuine shortages, not cheap labor. This would force corrupt body shops like Tata and Infosys to clean up their act, and would remove the downward wage pressure due to that H-1B abuse.
Yes this really nails the heart of the issue, it's thinly veiled corruption by treasonous US corporations and corrupt politicians that does a lot of damage to the US job market and makes it harder esp for college grads and more experienced workers to pay off student loans and afford basic like housing and health care. The corrupt corps and politicans in turn are helped out by corrupt attorneys like the one in that video.
Brings up another point about how rotten and corrupt the H-1B has become and how Trump and Sessions can really bring about a key reform with a simple step, because one is made to ask, why are the Indian tech workers so willing to indenture themselves and basically work as slave labor? The answer is another flaw in the way the H-1B system is run now, which represents another abuse and breaking of the original law-- the Indians do it because they're dangled the carrot of a green card, which very few actually get and which the H-1B is not supposed to be connected to (it's a temporary work visa that, as the law is written, is now allowed to lead to a green card).
So Trump and Sessions could probably shut down a lot of the abuse of the H-1B visa simply by enforcing the original intent of the law, that it is, making sure the H-1B is used only as a temporary visa and cannot be used to adjust status as green card, with no visa extensions either. The Indians subject themselves to such humiliating conditions and virtual slave wages for long hours, not because the money is better than in India (given costs of living in US cities, it really isn't), it's because they're so desperate to get out of overpopulated, corrupt India that they'll indenture themselves for the dangling carrot of a green card-- they're getting "paid" by being teased by the small chance of a green card for enduring utter humiliation for 3 years as an indentured H-1B, usually to a cheap labor body shop like Tata or Infosys.
Basically, just as US outsources a lot of its best tech jobs, India is outsourcing its societal failures and messes due to its overpopulation to the rest of the world, dumping its problems on workers overseas and making countries like the USA, Canada and Australia pay for India's own overpopulation crisis, corruption and mismanagement through lower wages and jobs for their own citizens. But only because our own leaders have been so corrupt and treasonous against Americans to allow India to use us as a safety valve. If Trump and Sessions make sure Indians can't get green cards from the H-1B, he'll actually be doing both Americans and Indians a favor. This will block the safety valve and encourage Indians to make reforms at home to reduce corruption, increase wages and implement better contraception and family-plan policies to help make India's population more manageable. American workers have more jobs available at better wages, more on job training, while Indians are encouraged to reform their society, bring down corrupt officials and stabilize their population.
Think about it, the way-below-market salaries like you point out, would seem at first to defeat the purpose of coming to the US, after all most US tech jobs are in expensive big cities like in the Bay Area, so it seems like the Indians coming here and working 100-hour weeks, for slave wages and no health care coverage, for a company that they can't leave would seem to be getting royally shafted. They can't save up very much money with the high costs of living, and what meager amounts they do make are sent back to India as remittances (which also hurts the US economy, compared to an American worker who'll spend their income here). So why do the Indian workers subject themselves to such indignities and humiliation as cheap labor?
Certainly the way so many H-1B's crowd into filthy, squalid apartments helps them to save up some money, but still this doesn't explain it. The whole reason Disney was willing to lay off it's own loyal, skilled high-tech workers and replace them with Indians, was that the Indians were so dirt-cheap and willing to live under miserably squalid conditions, and still not save up much money. So not only do American workers lose out, imported Indian workers don't gain much either, in fact with costs of living many of them wind up in debt themselves, esp if have medical bills. Their main incentive therefore isn't the money itself, it's the fantasy of a green card-- which usually turns out to be a cruel tease, since the overpopulation in India means the Indians can just be used, discarded and replaced with another one equally desperate to escape India's overpopulation and overcrowding.
So if Trump and Sessions enforce the original intent of H-1B, make it clear it's only a temporary visa, no green card status adjust, and Indians must return home after the H-1B and can't use it to apply for a green card, then this incentive-- which is the driving force for the slave wages that Indians accept-- disappears. This way, the H-1B's slave wages can't be "paid" by the potential for a green card, but only by real wages that exceed cost of living in a big city. So Indians would only accept an H-1B visa if the wages are at or above market, that is if there are genuine shortages, not cheap labor. This would force corrupt body shops like Tata and Infosys to clean up their act, and would remove the downward wage pressure due to that H-1B abuse.
Your initial posts seemed to be decent but turn out you just want to rant like your relative.
Before using terms like "Corrupt" "filthy" "overpopulation" "Slavery" "dirt cheap" etc, you should first ask why Apple Adobe or Microsoft or Amazon or IBM chooses to hire people and open offices in every major city there.
Your initial posts seemed to be decent but turn out you just want to rant like your relative.
Before using terms like "Corrupt" "filthy" "overpopulation" "Slavery" "dirt cheap" etc, you should first ask why Apple Adobe or Microsoft or Amazon or IBM chooses to hire people and open offices in every major city there.
Maybe because the Indian workers themselves point out this corruption and overpopulation constantly, the whole reason they leave in droves to work in dozens of foreign countries? Maybe because having 1.3 billion people and too many the country can't employ, is cause of the whole problem? Ask yourself this, why do millions of Indian citizens apply to get work in the US, Canada, Australia and UK every year, while very few American, Canadian, Australian or British citizens apply for jobs in India? I've visited and contracted in India and there are a lot of great things about the country and very nice people, and I absolutely hope that India's conditions get better and they're able to become a developed country. But you're wearing rose color glasses if you try to pretend they don't have serious problems with corruption and overpopulation there, they themselves acknowledge these problems constantly. If things are so perfect there, why don't they stay in their own country and take advantage of plentiful job opportunities in India, why are millions desperate to get jobs here while so few Americans want to go there? You can't have it both ways.
L-1 is for an internal company transfer. It serves a specific purpose and doesn't remove jobs from the overall American workforce. If a company couldn't move the role, they wouldn't hire it generally.
In full disclosure I'm a former L-1A visa holder, now Green Card, waiting on the perpetual treadmill that is citizenship. Under Cheeto vonTinyhands the wait time for processing has increased by nine months in the past year. So basically I was a few months away from citizenship, waited a year, and now I'm over a year away. Government efficiency
Interesting - my son got his within months.
My husband got an L1 in 1997. We didn't get our green cards until 2001 because my husband was going in and out of the country. When you have a green card application in process -- if you want to leave the USA you have to apply for another permit.....blah blah. Anyways -- Our family got our green cards in 2001 - less than a year after applying.
In 2008 My husband, myself and our 9 year old son became citizens. Six month process at most. My two older kids were 18 and 20 and not interested YET. They still had green cards. My oldest applied in December of 2016 and got his citizenship six months later.
All this space force talk and spending 9 million dollars on the program is going to require a HUGE influx of highly skilled STEM experts. The USA doesn't have the supply now to satisfy demand (my son works in research and technology -- computer/technology and they can't find the people they need for the projects they have now -- defense, space, aeronautics, etc.).
Immigration is not about H-1B visa only. Why have Americans taken so many Indian Doctors / Nurses ? Why so many Motel franchise or 7-eleven stores were given to people from India? Why so many American Universities are organising Educational Fairs and giving on-the-spot admission in Graduate School for MS / MBA in various Indian cities ?
It must be financially lucrative.
In the same way, the current low wage H-1B visa IT model has generated into present form.
Mutually beneficial for both sides (Corporates from American side and public from India).
Ask 7-eleven that why so few White Americans are willing to buy their franchise !!! that will give the answer for this IT H-1B conundrum too.
Instead of putting the blame only on Indians, American public needs to answer some questions to their corporates and politicians first.
My husband got an L1 in 1997. We didn't get our green cards until 2001 because my husband was going in and out of the country. When you have a green card application in process -- if you want to leave the USA you have to apply for another permit.....blah blah. Anyways -- Our family got our green cards in 2001 - less than a year after applying.
In 2008 My husband, myself and our 9 year old son became citizens. Six month process at most. My two older kids were 18 and 20 and not interested YET. They still had green cards. My oldest applied in December of 2016 and got his citizenship six months later.
Hurricane Harvey happened in-between as well. It also depends a great deal on where you are. In the South/Dallas Processing, is much further backlogged than anywhere else.
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