Comment by diogenescynic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diogenescynic | Hacker News Reader

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>artificial barriers

Like citizenship? Do you consider citizenship an artificial barrier?

As someone who has worked at tech companies and various law firms in the Silicon Valley, I've seen this story played out several times. Hire Cognizant, TCS, Infosys, Symphony, or some other outsourcing firm and then bring in H-1Bs for an entire department. All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone except for the 1% at the top.

How do you feel about companies and law firms gaming job postings to disqualify qualified workers in the US so they can hire someone on a visa for much less? Employers are posting jobs that don’t really exist, seeking candidates they don’t want, and paying for bogus non-ads to show there’s an IT labor shortage in America. Here is the law firm Cohen & Grigsby advising other employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU Do you consider this abuse or fraudulent?

>Or is this a guise for xenophobia?

Implying that the only people against immigration are racists is just a lazy, offensive, and dismissive argument. Try something else.

>Do you consider citizenship an artificial barrier?

Actual barrier to a job: knowing how to deliver that type of service.

Artificial barrier: Something arbitrary synthesized by a party not involved in an A<->B transaction. Such as, having your papers in order so someone doesn't throw you in jail.

>All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone except for the 1% at the top. Specious argument. What about the person from New York/India moving to California?

Does allowing a company from California hire someone from New York 'drive down wages hurt everyone except the top 1%"? If not why does it suddenly 'drive down wages hurt everyone except the top 1%" when you change New York to India? This is my motivation of suspicion that H1 visas are a guise of xenophobia.

To me, H1 visas appear to be a sophomoric tantrum of the US transitioning to a global economy.

Addendum for your reflection: Doesn't buying foreign manufactured goods 'drive down wages'? Do you not buy foreign mfg goods? Why not force all companies selling goods in the US to have those products exclusively made in the USA?

> Does allowing a company from California hire someone from New York 'drive down wages hurt everyone except the top 1%"?

Fundamental difference: I, as a U.S. citizen, have the legal right to move to California (or New York, or any of the other 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and so on) and work there. I do not have that legal right in relation to India. Until we have achieved "free trade" for the movement of people participating in an economy--like the European Union does internally--I do not have any objection to my country of citizenship trying to see that I am employed over non-citizens.

> To me, H1 visas appear to be a sophomoric tantrum of the US transitioning to a global economy.

Absolutely; I won't dispute that. On the other hand, why doesn't India have a program for U.S. nationals to easily move to India and take up employment? Or China? Or Brazil? It's easier to go to the United Kingdom for work than so-called "developing markets."

> Doesn't buying foreign manufactured goods 'drive down wages'?

It can and sometimes does.

> Do you not buy foreign mfg goods?

Where possible, I do not. Most of my clothes are made in the United States as is my television and my computer. My mobile phone was made in the U.S. (Motorola-manufactured in Fort Worth, Texas) but now that's not an option because Motorola shuttered that plant.

> Why not force all companies selling goods in the US to have those products exclusively made in the USA?

I realize this is a rhetorical question but I'll answer it straight anyway: I wouldn't object but that does rather bring about more centralized planning of the economy which is something to which a lot of people would object.

>Artificial barrier: Something arbitrary synthesized by a party not involved in an A<->B transaction.

Yes, other than:

* Being responsible for the welfare of A and B.

* Being responsible for mediating any disputes between A and B regarding their transaction.

* Being responsible for cracking down on potential fraudulent activity between A and B.

* Providing the medium whereby A and B can discharge their debts.

The government has nothing to do with the transactions. Absolutely nothing.

>Does allowing a company from California hire someone from New York 'drive down wages hurt everyone except the top 1%"? If not why does it suddenly 'drive down wages hurt everyone except the top 1%" when you change New York to India?

Because they're capitalizing on India's relative poverty.

> All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone except for the 1% at the top

Can you elaborate a bit more on this? Doesn't the initial LCA application with the Dept. of Labor requires you to submit wage details that conclusively prove that the offered wages are as per market norms.

>Doesn't the initial LCA application with the Dept. of Labor requires you to submit wage details that conclusively prove that the offered wages are as per market norms.

There's nothing preventing you from applying for a lower LCA level. For example, say you have someone with 15 years of experience in system architecture and they have a Master's degree, and are bilingual, etc. Instead, you apply for a generic software engineer LCA, with a bachelor's degree with 3-5 years of experience. Now isntead of the LCA being approved for $150,000 it's down to $80,000. The immigrant doesn't complain because they're still getting a raise and have a chance to get a Green card. Meanwhile the company is getting to severely underpay (profit!) the worker.

There are all kinds of ways to game the LCA system. Apply for a location in Indiana, then bring the workers to Chicago. Apply for Arizona then bring them to LA. All the tech companies are abusing the system to their own advantage. USCIS is poorly funded and hardly checks on this, if ever.

I'm not sure that would work. A part of the H1B approval process is to evaluate the skill level of the applicant, to make sure it lines up with the role the company is applying for.

@refurb >I'm not sure that would work. A part of the H1B approval process is to evaluate the skill level of the applicant, to make sure it lines up with the role the company is applying for.

If you've ever applied for an H-1B then you know that's not how it works. The 'process to evaluate the skill' is simply filling out a form online for their experience level, job title, and location. Give it a test here: http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx

It's very easy to game their job title and location to lower the salary.

the 1% rhetoric is as bad as any. how come the 99% never do shit to foster change? easy to blame 'the man'

how about if your company employ cheap labor, all the 99%ers quit? that'd change how company are run pretty quickly

but somehow the 99% like doing nothing about it, or so it seems.

> All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone

What about the guys on H1B's who are now earning 4x more than they were back in India? Are they not people too?

Of course they are people, but I think the US government should be more concerned with protecting its own citizens (voters), not the international community. The US government has an obligation to protect its own citizens above all others.

The best way to ensure that no immigrants take urrr jawbs is to have a shitty economy. It worked great in reducing Mexican immigration during the recent recession. Of course, it caused a lot of damage for many people in the US, too.

Perhaps the best answer for everyone is to worry about growing the pie, rather than keeping people out.

While true, those protections at their highest disadvantage the economy as a whole. France and Spain have among the highest worker protection laws, too bad though there is barely anybody to protect in the offices of French search engine, French social network, French transportation sharing network or French backoffice software outfit - foreign entities with weaker protections gained a competitive advantage and took away everyone's lunch.

It's like protecting Exchange administrators the day after Gmail for companies was released - good idea in theory.

Since we are forced to live in a world divided into countries, it seems fair to view your own employment position defensively.

If I'm doing a job and I get paid X, then I get laid off, but before I can find a new job I have to train an immigrant from another country to work for 40% less, I think it's quite right to view this from an nationalist point of view.

"All it does is drive down wages for everyone and hurt everyone except for the 1% at the top."

It's funny how much this parallels file sharing and the music industry (and even open source) over the past 15 years: the sharing of free music, open source, and even the app store (how can you possibly make a living when you charge 99 cents for an app?) drove down the cost of both software and music to peanuts.

It's pretty clear artificial government controls haven't worked here (IE: copyright laws) and all industries involved have had to learn how to work around it to survive.

Globalization is here to stay and the thing we all love, technology, has made it easier and easier to replace us with overseas workers.

You can try to restrict the companies through law, but they will just end up moving out of the country (and more jobs will go along with them) to compete at a global level. There are plenty of countries that would love the tax dollars in exchange for lax hiring practices.

"How do you feel about companies and law firms gaming job postings to disqualify qualified workers in the US so they can hire someone on a visa for much less?"

it's not really 'gaming' anything. It's using technology to find the best applicant (be it experience, cost, or both). Business owner have learned that just getting cheap labor barely works, but it seems like companies like Facebook are getting not only cheaper labor, but employees that are educated and can compete with their American counterpart.

"Do you consider this abuse or fraudulent?"

Is adblock technology considered 'fraudulent' or 'abuse'? People using it are actively choosing to deprive a website of money, which will result in job loss.

Site owners have to learn how to still make money despite this new technology and so will you if you want to continue working and compete with overseas workers.

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