Hacker News Reader

Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

It's unfortunate that the title doesn't match the article content here. The article correctly identifies that nearly half of H1B don't go to Silicon Valley, they go to the outsourcing firms that hire foreign workers (usually Indian) and hold them as indentured servants (for a decade or more before they can get a green card) and hire them out to US companies as "consultants". It's a total scam, and it needs to be shut down.

View on HN

The fairly recent landmark decision in Browning-Ferris[1] should take a few steps toward curbing the abuses of this practice. Not only for H1B workers, but also for many of the kinds of people that tend to get -- in this commenter's words -- "scammed" by agencies. The problem is many workers coming in know little to nothing about current US employment law.

If you are building or working on something that is going on the "asset" side of a company's balance sheet, you are probably in a joint employer situation. And if you are in a joint employer situation, you need to be loud and clear about disparities. Which obviously exist when the middleman temp/outsource agency is shaving 35, 40, 50, X percent of your wages, benefits, whatever.

The theory here is that the company that was trying to save a few bucks by hiring "cheap" foreign help now has to account for the liabilities of being a joint employer: now legally defined to include the welfare of any workers being treated like slave labor by the firms they hire. So... maybe it's not really "cheaper" after all.

Makes a lot of sense.

[1] http://www.acc.com/legalresources/quickcounsel/joint-employe...

I would rather see reform in the process of making HB1 candidates citizens. Its a group of people that want to be here and many want to stay but the process is exceedingly painful. HB1 should be a faster path to becoming a citizen not a longer one.

AFAIK H1B is not a longer path to becoming a citizen - it just allows you to apply for a green card alongside renewing your current visa status. The problem is that green cards are allocated according to country, and India has a huge backlog of a decade or more. Workers from other countries do not face this issue. I agree that it should be reformed, but I'm not optimistic.

Workers from other countries do not face this issue

--------------

That hasn't been correct until very recently to be very fair. It used to be a wait of years in the EB3 category, the lane most h1bs qualify for, and has only recently (2014 or so) shortened to a few months. And to clarify, this is just to get a green card.

it still takes 5 years after that green card to become a citizen.

Absolutely correct, it takes five years to be able to apply for citizenship for a green card holder. But a green card holder can move from job to job the way a US citizen does. So ince you have a green card, you are not submitted to the constraints of a visa.

IBM are big on this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com