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Not in IT here nor that familiar with the various forms of visas but I have two relatives who have been on both sides of the spectrum - one working here in the US in IT and another working for a large multinational that offshored numerous business operations.
The issue isn't so much corporate "corruption" but companies are bottom-line oriented with a responsibility to their stockholders to maximize profits. Capitalism at it's finest.
The one relative who works in IT was in a shop where he was about the only US national, with the remaining Russian or increasingly Indian. The level of programming required a constant upgrade of skills - on the employees' own time giving up nights, weekends. Highly technical work, constantly evolving. Year in, year out. Management tended not to want new American hires because they either wouldn't stay or put in the hours needed to retain a competitive edge. That the non-citizens were trapped by visa requirements admittedly played some part in their remaining, yes - but that was only part of the story. Salaries were comparable (and high) for all workers.
Same deal with other relative who offshored the business operations. As long as it's legal, to be competitive on a world basis (and this was a multinational corporation) it became a business "necessity." He hated it, but it was the job. Countries offering various terms would line up; he chose those that offered the best deal for his firm.
Here, it strikes me that the law of unintended consequences could come into play. Make it too difficult to obtain the level of talent that some companies require to be internationally competitive you might increase the risk that the entire operation would be offshored. This then would then have a downstream impact on the jobs held by American employee in other corporate departments.
It's the same risk that you run into with tariffs.
Massive changes to communications, technology, transportation etc. over the last couple of decades make it possible for business operations to be worldwide. This is a problem on a national level, absolutely.
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.
I can write paragraphs, but simpley speaking global trade dynamics has changed quite a bit with the technology boom.
Indians had the population and luckily they learned some English and had some leaders who could lead them into the global economy. They will be 3rd in economy soon, but will not have any characteristics of a developed country in terms or cleanliness, human development, infrastructure or way of life.
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.
The aim of this Visa is getting a captive auduence of employees on low salary. The benefit is in financial terms for American companies. It is not only about IT, Universities are also abusing this Academic H-1B Visa in hiring Ph.D.s or Post Docs at dirt cheap salaries. There is no cap on number of Academic H-1B visa and people coming on them have little idea about tax, in-hand salary, cost of living. There is nothing like minimum salary in University Research environment. Few years ago, a friend of mine was hired as a PostDoc in Molecular Biology department. He already had a good permanent Government job in India- he came to USA after taking leave for 3 years on a fixed contract. His in-hand salary was 1600 dollars per month. He came with his wife and daughter. His Apartment Rent was 600 Dollars, Medical Family Insurance was 500 Dollars. They-Family of 3- were expected to survive on 500 Dollars and they spent lot of their money from their Indian savings to survive. He somehow changed the contract from 3 years to 1 year and was able to get back to his original job in India.
Why did his Professor employ him, because no American Scientist or Ph.D. will work at such little salary. The main aim of H-1 Visa is to get cheap labour from Foreign countries, financially exploit them as much as possible !!!
Other people have no back-up and continue being exploited in the hope of Green card. It is not about Tata or infosys only, American Universities are abusing it in thousands every year.
Not in IT here nor that familiar with the various forms of visas but I have two relatives who have been on both sides of the spectrum - one working here in the US in IT and another working for a large multinational that offshored numerous business operations.
The issue isn't so much corporate "corruption" but companies are bottom-line oriented with a responsibility to their stockholders to maximize profits. Capitalism at it's finest.
The one relative who works in IT was in a shop where he was about the only US national, with the remaining Russian or increasingly Indian. The level of programming required a constant upgrade of skills - on the employees' own time giving up nights, weekends. Highly technical work, constantly evolving. Year in, year out. Management tended not to want new American hires because they either wouldn't stay or put in the hours needed to retain a competitive edge. That the non-citizens were trapped by visa requirements admittedly played some part in their remaining, yes - but that was only part of the story. Salaries were comparable (and high) for all workers.
Same deal with other relative who offshored the business operations. As long as it's legal, to be competitive on a world basis (and this was a multinational corporation) it became a business "necessity." He hated it, but it was the job. Countries offering various terms would line up; he chose those that offered the best deal for his firm.
Here, it strikes me that the law of unintended consequences could come into play. Make it too difficult to obtain the level of talent that some companies require to be internationally competitive you might increase the risk that the entire operation would be offshored. This then would then have a downstream impact on the jobs held by American employee in other corporate departments.
It's the same risk that you run into with tariffs.
Massive changes to communications, technology, transportation etc. over the last couple of decades make it possible for business operations to be worldwide. This is a problem on a national level, absolutely.
There are reasonable points here, but there are several problems with the usual excuse to shaft American workers of, "companies maximizing their profits for shareholders". One is that the executives at these companies, like Robert Iger at Disney when Disney was replacing it's loyal, highly qualified American workforce with H-1B's, vastly overpay themselves despite doing far less work than most of their employees, and often running their companies inefficiently or ineffectively. It's just rent seeking and not adding real value, and if stockholder value is indeed so important, then why are the executives paying themselves so much? They are the ones adding to the costs of labor and decreased profitability for shareholders far more than the workers who are actually contributing to the company's value by doing real work, the salaries of the executives are putting a far greater dent in profits than the salaries of the "little people". So when the management of companies like Disney use the excuse of "labor costs reduce profitability" to replace American workers with cheap labor H-1B's-- all the while paying themselves tens of millions of dollars in salaries a year while often doing far less work than the grunts who do the real work-- what they're really is, "no, shareholders, we really don't care about you and the profits of the company based on our overpaid salaries, but we'll pretend that we do by taking out your frustration with executive labor costs on the little people without the power". That's corruption by any definition. If Robert Iger and the Disney VP's really wanted to save on labor costs and increase profitability for their shareholders, they would have cut down their exorbitant salaries way down, or replaced themselves with H-1B's. But no, that's only for the engineers, tech workers and "little people" outside the board-room. That, by any definition, really is corruption.
The other problem with this kind of "duty to the shareholders" argument is broader and little more diffuse, it's that it's the infrastructure, laws, contracts and protections of the United States that make these companies existence possible, leave alone their profits. So when a tech company, or an openly disloyal company like Robert Iger's Disney basically back-stabs American workers in the name of "being profitable", all it's really doing is turning it's back on the cohesion of the country that made it's existence possible. It's basically free-loading off the hard work, taxes, dedication and contributions of Americans who have created the society where they can flourish, while refusing to contribute in even the most basic way, by hiring Americans or even allowing skilled Americans in good-paying jobs to keep their jobs. Not unlike Wal-Mart but on an even more egregious scale because of the skilled nature of the jobs being replaced by H-1B's, jobs that require years of training and lots of student loans debt. In some ways there are analogies to the problems with tariffs but I don't think they're the same at all.
The problems with tariffs are much deeper, having to do with way the parts for products are sourced all over the world, and it's why tariffs are a lot more problematic. The H-1B on the other hand, really doesn't add any value to US society and instead takes a lot of value away by reducing the ability of Americans to get good paying jobs to support families and support their local economies, and keep skills within America. Supporting more open trade (by opposing excessive tariffs and a trade war) is reasonable, common-sense and good for the US and global economy. Supporting the H-1B visa on other hand, is non-sensical borderline treasonous in the way the visa has become so badly abused and misused as a source of near slave labor by body shops like Tata and Infosys. Trump would be both economically and politically smart by moving away from tariffs, which really don't do much good for American workers or the economy, and instead more aggressively limiting and restricting the H-1B visa and its widespread abuse, which would do an enormous amount of good for the US economy and workers.
There are reasonable points here, but there are several problems with the usual excuse to shaft American workers of, "companies maximizing their profits for shareholders". One is that the executives at these companies, like Robert Iger at Disney when Disney was replacing it's loyal, highly qualified American workforce with H-1B's, vastly overpay themselves despite doing far less work than most of their employees, and often running their companies inefficiently or ineffectively. It's just rent seeking and not adding real value, and [b]if stockholder value is indeed so important, then why are the executives paying themselves so much? They are the ones adding to the costs of labor and decreased profitability for shareholders far more than the workers who are actually contributing to the company's value by doing real work, the salaries of the executives are putting a far greater dent in profits than the salaries of the "little people". So when the management of companies like Disney use the excuse of "labor costs reduce profitability" to replace American workers with cheap labor H-1B's-- all the while paying themselves tens of millions of dollars in salaries a year while often doing far less work than the grunts who do the real work-- what they're really is, "no, shareholders, we really don't care about you and the profits of the company based on our overpaid salaries, but we'll pretend that we do by taking out your frustration with executive labor costs on the little people without the power". That's corruption by any definition. If Robert Iger and the Disney VP's really wanted to save on labor costs and increase profitability for their shareholders, they would have cut down their exorbitant salaries way down, or replaced themselves with H-1B's. But no, that's only for the engineers, tech workers and "little people" outside the board-room. That, by any definition, really is corruption.
The other problem with this kind of "duty to the shareholders" argument is broader and little more diffuse, it's that it's the infrastructure, laws, contracts and protections of the United States that make these companies existence possible, leave alone their profits. So when a tech company, or an openly disloyal company like Robert Iger's Disney basically back-stabs American workers in the name of "being profitable", all it's really doing is turning it's back on the cohesion of the country that made it's existence possible. It's basically free-loading off the hard work, taxes, dedication and contributions of Americans who have created the society where they can flourish, while refusing to contribute in even the most basic way, by hiring Americans or even allowing skilled Americans in good-paying jobs to keep their jobs. Not unlike Wal-Mart but on an even more egregious scale because of the skilled nature of the jobs being replaced by H-1B's, jobs that require years of training and lots of student loans debt. In some ways there are analogies to the problems with tariffs but I don't think they're the same at all. ...
I pretty much agree with your observations; you, in turn, picked up on the sarcasm in my reference to "capitalism at it's finest." Some of what you write may well be more characteristic of American corporate culture. Certainly there is less of a disparity in wages found within European corporate structures. My general observation - and again, I'm certainly not defending it - is that the executive salaries at the CEO level are "justified" by promises to hit certain earnings targets. Miss them and the executive is potentially out, albeit with generous buy-out packages. And then there is the practice of making stock-options part of executive compensation packages.
Certainly practices like these help create the 1 percent - and, again, I couldn't agree more that the long-term implications can be destructive on the national level.
Where I might differ with you are when visas are used to to retain top scientific talent that is often nurtured in US universities. That I could see being a net plus for the nation as a whole - and for individual American workers if their work forms the basis for new industries that then hire local employees. If visas and justifications for these workers are being used for less compelling hires then, yes, that would be an abuse.
There are reasonable points here, but there are several problems with the usual excuse to shaft American workers of, "companies maximizing their profits for shareholders". One is that the executives at these companies, like Robert Iger at Disney when Disney was replacing it's loyal, highly qualified American workforce with H-1B's, vastly overpay themselves despite doing far less work than most of their employees, and often running their companies inefficiently or ineffectively. It's just rent seeking and not adding real value, and if stockholder value is indeed so important, then why are the executives paying themselves so much? They are the ones adding to the costs of labor and decreased profitability for shareholders far more than the workers who are actually contributing to the company's value by doing real work, the salaries of the executives are putting a far greater dent in profits than the salaries of the "little people". So when the management of companies like Disney use the excuse of "labor costs reduce profitability" to replace American workers with cheap labor H-1B's-- all the while paying themselves tens of millions of dollars in salaries a year while often doing far less work than the grunts who do the real work-- what they're really is, "no, shareholders, we really don't care about you and the profits of the company based on our overpaid salaries, but we'll pretend that we do by taking out your frustration with executive labor costs on the little people without the power". That's corruption by any definition. If Robert Iger and the Disney VP's really wanted to save on labor costs and increase profitability for their shareholders, they would have cut down their exorbitant salaries way down, or replaced themselves with H-1B's. But no, that's only for the engineers, tech workers and "little people" outside the board-room. That, by any definition, really is corruption.
The other problem with this kind of "duty to the shareholders" argument is broader and little more diffuse, it's that it's the infrastructure, laws, contracts and protections of the United States that make these companies existence possible, leave alone their profits. So when a tech company, or an openly disloyal company like Robert Iger's Disney basically back-stabs American workers in the name of "being profitable", all it's really doing is turning it's back on the cohesion of the country that made it's existence possible. It's basically free-loading off the hard work, taxes, dedication and contributions of Americans who have created the society where they can flourish, while refusing to contribute in even the most basic way, by hiring Americans or even allowing skilled Americans in good-paying jobs to keep their jobs. Not unlike Wal-Mart but on an even more egregious scale because of the skilled nature of the jobs being replaced by H-1B's, jobs that require years of training and lots of student loans debt. In some ways there are analogies to the problems with tariffs but I don't think they're the same at all.
The problems with tariffs are much deeper, having to do with way the parts for products are sourced all over the world, and it's why tariffs are a lot more problematic. The H-1B on the other hand, really doesn't add any value to US society and instead takes a lot of value away by reducing the ability of Americans to get good paying jobs to support families and support their local economies, and keep skills within America. Supporting more open trade (by opposing excessive tariffs and a trade war) is reasonable, common-sense and good for the US and global economy. Supporting the H-1B visa on other hand, is non-sensical borderline treasonous in the way the visa has become so badly abused and misused as a source of near slave labor by body shops like Tata and Infosys. Trump would be both economically and politically smart by moving away from tariffs, which really don't do much good for American workers or the economy, and instead more aggressively limiting and restricting the H-1B visa and its widespread abuse, which would do an enormous amount of good for the US economy and workers.
We say all these because we have never been in a boardroom or managed any businesses.
If you were a company owner and if you have some investors calling for your head, what would you do ?? Will you reduce your salary or fire the workers??
And regardign supporting local economies, do H1B buy groceries from Mexico or on free housing?
We say all these because we have never been in a boardroom or managed any businesses.
If you were a company owner and if you have some investors calling for your head, what would you do ?? Will you reduce your salary or fire the workers??
And regardign supporting local economies, do H1B buy groceries from Mexico or on free housing?
I agree with the point you're bringing but I would say, in this situation the best thing would be to reduce the salaries of the executives if the investors are becoming angry. In America, boardroom salaries are ridiculous out of proportion with the salaries of the workers who do the daily work of the companies, including the tech and other skilled professionals. When investors get angry about reduced profits and returns due to labor costs, the main culprit is not the salaries of the tech professionals and other skilled and unskilled workers getting things done, it's the excessive salaries of executives who are paid way out of proportion to the contributions to the company.
The corporate executives know this and feel a little guilty about it, but instead of doing the right thing-- keeping their own salaries at a more reasonable (though still very very high level) and keeping their loyal American workers on-board, they blame their hard working (though less powerful) American workers for their own blunders at the executive and boardroom level, blaming workers who are simply making middle-class American salaries necessary for surviving and raise a family with American living costs. At Disney, the profits were already pretty good, and Bob Iger and the other execs could have raised profits more by moderating their bloated salaries while keeping on their American workforce. Instead they refused to yield a dime of their own sky high executive salaries, tried to replace their American workforce with imported workers from India they intended to treat as slave labor-- and suffered a PR disaster that will forever scar and haunt Disney. It's just corruption and greed on the part of already extremely high paid executives who can't ever seem to get enough and want American tech workers to pay for their greed and mistakes. That's why the H-1B visa in it's current form has to go, it's no friend of American or foreign workers who both get exploited and underpaid due to it, and being pitted against each other, it's only a friend of executives like Iger with bottomless greed and corruption and no regarding for the workers that make their companies run.
Besides IT, they also have a "Foreign Student at University" industry. Many Foreign students come to USA for MS, MBA, Ph.D. in the hope of getting a job visa after completion of their courses. If H-1B visa is stopped, students will stop coming. Universities are going to have financial losses. Thats why they also lobby in favour of H-1 visas along with big corporations.
Besides IT, they also have a "Foreign Student at University" industry. Many Foreign students come to USA for MS, MBA, Ph.D. in the hope of getting a job visa after completion of their courses. If H-1B visa is stopped, students will stop coming. Universities are going to have financial losses. Thats why they also lobby in favour of H-1 visas along with big corporations.
This is very true, a good describing of the conflicts of interest and the way the lobbying and campaign donations distort it worse. One of the things that needs be fixed in addition to the failings of the H-1B itself.
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