Of course there is cooruption by the employers-what did you expect?
'as a part of the application process to obtain H-1B approval from the Labor Department, an employer is required to attest to the following: "Working Conditions: The employer attests that H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 foreign workers in the named occupation will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed." This statement is in Form 9035CP of the LCA.'
Imagine serving in the US Military only to come 'home' and be replaced in your private sector job by a non citizen?
Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.
The employees are upset and say they can't understand how H-1B guest workers can be used to replace them.
The IT organization's "transition effort" is expected to result in about 400 layoffs, with "another 100 or so employees leaving voluntarily," SCE said in a statement. The "transition," which began in August, will be completed by the end of March, the company said.
"They are bringing in people with a couple of years' experience to replace us and then we have to train them," said one longtime IT worker. "It's demoralizing and in a way I kind of felt betrayed by the company."
SCE, Southern California's largest utility, has confirmed the layoffs and the hiring of Infosys, based in Bangalore, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Mumbai. They are two of the largest users of H-1B visas.
The utility has a large IT department. In 2012, before any layoffs, it had about 1,800 employees, plus an additional 1,500 contract workers.
Computerworld interviewed, separately, four affected SCE IT employees. They agreed to talk on the condition that their names not be used.
The IT employees at SCE are "beyond furious," said a second IT worker.
The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill.
"Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said.
The employees say that some of SCE's U.S. workers have been training their replacements, either in person in SCE's IT offices or over Web sessions with workers in India. The IT workers say the Indian tech workers do not have the skill levels of the people they are replacing.
The SCE outsourcing "is one more case, in a long line of them, of injustice where American workers are being replaced by H-1Bs," said Ron Hira, a public policy professor at Howard University, and a researcher on offshore outsourcing. "Adding to the injustice, American workers are being forced to do 'knowledge transfer,' an ugly euphemism for being forced to train their foreign replacements. Americans should be outraged that most of our politicians have sat idly by while outsourcing firms have hijacked the guest worker programs."
"The majority of the H-1B program is now being used to replace Americans and facilitate the offshoring of high wage jobs," Hira said.
SCE said Infosys and Tata were selected through a competitive process that began "with eight potential vendors, some of them United States-based.
"The decision made to contract with Infosys and TCS was made following vendor site visits, some in India, and in-depth reviews of prospective vendors' operations," the utility said.
SCE employees said that since August, when the layoffs began, the composition of the IT workplace began to change. "I see a lot of Indian people walking the halls, and less Americans," said a third IT worker interviewed.
Employee observations of an increasing number of foreign workers in their workplace is backed up by U.S. Labor Department filings. Employers have to file wage data of foreign workers and their workplace location with federal authorities in a form called a Labor Condition Application (LCA). In Irwindale, California, where SCE runs a major part of its IT operations, the two offshore companies had as many as 180 LCAs, and in a random check of these applications, every address matched an SCE location.
Displaced IT workers have long protested and complained about the use of H-1B workers, but they are overshadowed by large tech companies that lead H-1B lobbying efforts in Washington. IT workers are also effectively silenced through severance agreements that include non-disparagement clauses and confidentiality provisions, as well as fears that public complaining may hurt re-employment prospects.
Replacing U.S. workers with H-1B workers violates the spirit if not the letter of the law. Hira pointed out that as a part of the application process to obtain H-1B approval from the Labor Department, an employer is required to attest to the following: "Working Conditions: The employer attests that H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 foreign workers in the named occupation will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed." This statement is inForm 9035CP of the LCA.
Further, Hira noted that the Labor Department states, "The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.
"The SCE case is clearly one where the hiring of the H-1B is adversely affecting the wages and working conditions of American workers," Hira said. "There isn't a clearer cut case of adverse impacts - the American worker is losing his job to an H-1B." Hira believes that the U.S. Secretary of Labor has the authority to investigate these cases.
The use of H-1B workers has other implications as well. They are mostly young, under 35 years of age, according to government data, and the SCE workers interviewed said many older workers were being laid off. H-1B workers are also overwhelmingly male. The IEEE has estimated that as many as 85% are males.
Although H-1B workers have to be paid prevailing wages, a data analysis of wages that Hira conducted found that H-1B workers cost employers less. The national median wage for an Infosys worker over a recent three-year period was $60,000 per year and for Tata it was $64,900, he said. These are figures that are lower than what appear in salary surveys, including Computerworld's annual survey. H-1B workers employed by offshore outsourcing companies are less likely to become permanent residents. Infosys sponsored only 2% of its workers for permanent U.S. residency over a three-year period and Tata, none, he said.
Northeast Utilities in Connecticut last year made a similar decision to SCE's and brought in foreign contractors on visas. More than 200 U.S. IT workers lost their jobs.
Some of the SCE employees say the outsourcing move is linked to a 2012 report that found fault with the IT management culture. The report, by a consulting firm's incident management team, followed a December 2011 shooting, where an employee fatally shot two IT managers and wounded two other workers before taking his own life. The gunman worked in the IT department.
The consultants interviewed IT workers who told them that some managers were "autocratic, authoritarian and draconian in their approach." Full-time employees complained of working excessive hours, including weekends and holidays. The report said that "these difficult and exhausting conditions are reportedly having adverse consequences on employees health, including increased stress and irritability."
Prior to the outsourcing agreements, the SCE employees said there were a series of layoffs, including managers.
SCE said it is helping affected employees with severance, and other benefits, including "job fairs and other possible opportunities with other organizations within SCE."
"SCE does not take this action lightly and it is assisting employees through this difficult period," the utility said.
But the third employee interviewed said it did not appear that the company was interested in keeping any of the IT workers targeted for layoffs, and they weren't being offered the chance to apply for other jobs. "They just want to get rid of us and clean house," said this IT worker, who now worries about keeping her home.
Replies
acute observer-it's not just the currency it's access free markets that encourage competition for the sale of goods and services and access to credit-also most importantly teaching individualism and entrepreneurship in schools to create jobs, high paying jobs-the caste system in india and strict class system in europe are still oppressive-we have the class system in the US but guess what? it's not too rigid to prevent anyone from going up the social ladder -their are old families and 'elites' who don't like it , obviously-look how hard their working to destroy it-we were encouraged as kids to think as above (my business has not come back since the collapse) I know this attack on property has a lot to do with over population and pollution-things that need to be seriously dealt with-but do you want to live in teepees again, or mud huts and brush your teeth with mint leaves, if you can find them?
The earth resources are being re-distributed whereas those who have had an overflow of luxury up until now, will have none in the years to come. ;)
Welcome to the Other Side of The prosperity-Fence. The third world have lived in hell up until now so that WE have been able to live in Paradise. It's now OUR turn to live in hell for a while so that They can get to experience and learn why Paradise is attractive. ;)
Or those who live in Paradise in this case in India don't want to create alarge middle class to challenge their control such as Mexico, China, take your pick of African nations, Central America on and on and on-the replacements are going to work for half the amount the Americans were getting paid, money that goes back into the economy-slaves make the few masters wealthier and wealthier-
Yes, it is a problem indeed. I never thought I'd ever say this, but the world needs to come together and agree on one singular and global currency with a fixed rate so that 1 hour of work will be as much worth in the USA as it would be in India. That way, it should be less attractive to outsource jobs.
Yes, this dark strategy has been conducted across the western world, since the mid 2000s.....Off shoring and onshoring of inferior quality workers, at home and overseas, and fast tracked into western IT businesses....The skilled staff are compelled to teach these cuckoos in the nest, their own precious skills, and then they are placed in a limbo device, absurdly called the "bench" which is actually a device to demoralise and disorientate staff, so they want to leave the company...They are appointed a "coach," who knows nothing about them and has no regard for their former history of value add and company service....Again, the whole machine designed to get the workers to leave, voluntarily, through stress, demoralisation and nervous breakdowns.....
You mentioned the notoriously evil parasite companies, TCS and Infosys.......?? You can add Techmahindra to the list, also....and make a special note of the dark cabal's "mastermind" for co-ordinating the destruction of western IT tech companies....Al Noor Ramji....Maybe look up his name and view the trail of destruction and mysery he has been responsible for in Amerika and Britain.....Again, noting his banking background........Yes, an attempt by dark banking to create a globalised nightmare for western workers.......
TCS in Chennai is also used and has been extremely disruptive in British IT....causing much anger, desperation and anxiety among the local workforce.......And no matter how useless their TCS staff actually are, nobody is allowed to challenge their utter incompetence....A very dark system which has caused much heartache in western IT industries....
Moreover, IT customers are saddled with aweful support services, after the skilled people go....
stranglehold-what is to be done? I Know we have these-I don't know what we're waiting for-
Well, consider the situation in many western nations, now.....The USA and UK at the top of the black marks list....Trades Union representation for workers has been mostly smashed in the IT industries, leaving the individual worker highly vulnerable to exploitation by ruthless senior management....who have placed themselves above the carnage, in most cases.....
If you are a middle manager, in a big or medium IT company, my advice is to take the release package and run.....Leave, before they push you out, on lesser terms....You won't regret going, as your sanity at least will be retained....If you stay, prepare to go mad, with the complete injustice of it....and nobody listens in such a dark system, as they place so much pressure, that it becomes a dog eat dog situation.....
Leave and get a better job......Become self-employed....Travel the world.....Fulfill your dreams, happily away from the IT nutjobs and their dark banking masters....LOL
Most release packages will diminish each year....Get out sooner rather than later, is my advice to IT workers and middle managers.....
There will be no pay rises if you stay and your family will be effected also, by your stress....remember that, too...
greed is a given, upper management will do whatever it takes to increase the bottom line and their bonuses, but the politicians helped them -do you think the politicians that pushed this through for them ever have a problem with their conscience?
These people are beyond any form of consciousness and responsible behaviour...that is why they are promoted to senior positions in corporations and banks...