India Is Pissed About the US Now Charging More Money for Guest Worker Visas

[octoberlib]

Just weeks ago, India filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over an increase in fees on H1B visasthat the US imposed on companies with workforces comprised of more than 50 percent foreign workers. A provision included in last year's federal spending bill tacked on a new $4,000 fee for the H1B visas, which India argues is discriminatory to the country under its trade agreement with the US.

India's complaint comes as Congress has been mulling other reforms to the H1B program to address allegations that companies are using the visas to hire cheaper foreign workers to replace American workers. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this year in which senators, including Ted Cruz and chairman Jeff Sessions, probed experts on whether US tech firms really needed more H1B visas to fill open positions, as they claim, and what protections might be put in place to ensure that American workers are being given preference for positions over foreign workers.



"The intent of the program is to fill skills gaps in the US when American workers aren't available, but the reality is that the program has become a way for firms to create a business model that's about bringing workers who are cheaper into the US and to either substitute or directly replace Americans," said Ron Hira, a political science professor at Howard University, who testified at the hearing on February 25.Hira said that foreign workers make anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent less than their American counterparts within the program.

Two recent lawsuits accused companies, including Disney, HCL, and Cognizant, of firing Americans in order to hire H1B workers for less money. Leo Perrera, a former Disney employee who brought one of the suits, testified at the Judiciary hearing in February that "20 years of hard work, a bachelor's degree in information technology and an IT job for Disney were all over when my team along with hundreds of others were displaced by a less-skilled foreign workforce imported into our country using the H1B visa program."

https://news.vice.com/article/india-is-pissed-about-the-us-now-charging-more-money-for-guest-worker-visas

[Pakhet]

1. I will forever not understand how this wasn't obvious to

Everyone 20 years ago. I lost my IT job 16 years ago to outsourcing.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. They knew where this was going to go.

And no plan to make up for the loss in income outside of cannibalizing our own communities.

[octoberlib]

4. Yep. I can't believe there were never any protections in place for American workers

to begin with.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. This chaotic and devious backroom society is precisely the kind of world

desired by neo-liberals and small government types. People are so hungry for income that they will sell out their neighbors. Quite literally.

[TDale313]

8. Destroying the middle class was always part of the plan.

Keep us worker bees hungry and desperate enough- but still with just a little bit left to protect so we can be kept in line- and we won't have the energy or resources (time, money, energy) left to put up a fight. That was the plan anyway.

But I think they may have overplayed their hand. As the song says, Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

[octoberlib]

3. I'm not in the tech industry but I've heard complaints for some time

from friends who are. IBM has to be one of the biggest abusers.

[Rex]

6. American workers are always available and India could hurt the bottom line of huge companies.

That is if they were not so immoral. India and China are a-okay with slave labor, Congress should be against any company or nation that promotes slave labor. Sadly, Republicans agree with slave labor and get a lot of backing from the companies that like to make people work to death.

India should be thankful America is full of greedy assholes, otherwise their economy would be hurting that much more. Same with China and all the other countries that refuse to pay their workers a living wage.

America. Land of the CEO that dreams he could work people to death, but has to go to other countries to actually do so.

[Odin2005]

7. Poor American workers to India: FUCK YOU!