Why Silicon Valley Is So Nervous About H-1B Reform | Hacker News Reader

Why Silicon Valley Is So Nervous About H-1B Reform

forbes.com

39 pointsgiis22 comments

70-80% of H-1Bs are migrant server coolie workers for ultra-cheap mass labor camp shops. The Silicon Valley companies see the entire quota eaten up by those el cheapo slave drivers.

With a real salary floor, the qualified engineers that serious companies want to import will find it much easier to obtain spots under the quota. The low wage cheaters will be cut out of the lottery and productive businesses will get those slots instead.

It's probably the best thing that could happen to companies that want to import actual qualified smart engineers from overseas.

Which is why I'm left wondering, why is it that "Silicon Valley Is So Nervous About H-1B Reform". Unless the headline is simply clickbait, I don't think the question was answered...

What the article was moving towards - but never actually said - is that there is a fear that reform will "throw the baby out with the bathwater". For example rather than fixing the rules so that spots go to the right people, changes may just reduce the overall number of visas.

Given the approach to the new administration, seems like the generic solution will be to just reduce the number of visas (ahem after revoking 100,000 of them).

Agreed. I worry that non-engineering fields are going to be at a disadvantage. I know a few doctors who wouldn't make the floor.

Foreign doctors can't even get licenses to practice in the USA. That's how they prevent getting socked with H-1B floods and maintain the highest wages for doctors in the world.

Too bad engineers can't organize like that to protect ourselves.

"Too bad engineers can't organize like that to protect ourselves."

When 19 year old kids build billion dollar companies without finishing a degree it seems insane to even suggest such a walled garden approach to ensuring high wages for engineers.

Define foreign. Canadian doctors certainly can get licenses to practice in the USA.

Indian IT companies need to stop using H1-B visas: Narayana Murthy [1]

He said " Our managers will have to learn with non-Indian professionals, how to get the best out of them, how to work in teams that are multi-cultural, how to make sure that we understand the rules of crossing cultures,”

I see this as "Its hard to find slaves from other-countries. I know lot of Indian IT professionals _hate_ their managers. Because they treat them as 'slaves' and force them to work for +9 hrs day regardless of work is there or not. I bet his (Infy or others body-shopping) managers can't do the same to non-Indians"

[1] http://www.livemint.com/Industry/VtFnghv7Wqu6r5J7M9n3EN/Indi...

> I bet his (Infy or others body-shopping) managers can't do the same to non-Indians

The root cause is not their nationality, but their immigrant status. With a setup where the employee's stay in the country is tied to her job, abuse will always happen.

I agree on the immigrant status point of view. But when the abuse happens in their own (India) country too. I suspect there is much larger problem - mindset of IT Managers.

A lot of the diversity data that companies have put together recently doesn't show the magnitude to which companies depend on non-citizen labor.

most of them are coming in as contractors via 1099. The Customer (Amazon, Microsft et al) see it as an invoice and may be paying a market rate, but the H1-B sees very little on the W2.

I have witnessed two companies simply cut an entire IT Department (The Run, or Support Org) and insource/outsource it.

Too bad the ultimate client for these "body shops" isn't listed. Would bet that's heavily represented by those in the fortune 500. I can think of at least one company in the top 10 that is not going to benefit from paying a rate that will support 130k/yr salaries.

Why does Infosys and others employ so many in the U.S.? That $70k they pay per developer could probably cover several in India!

It works like this:

H1B minimum wage is $60,000 ( precisely $56,000 ). When my friends came over, they were getting $3000 a month wherein you were charging clients like Bank of America over $6000 a month. Mind, this is just the profit Infosys makes out of one H1B employee.

Indian IT companies made lot of profit with each employee. They will get X amount from US-client but pay only X/2 to employee in US (to outsourced employees its typically X/10). Thus now it affects the companies profit margins!

It might help a bit to explain their business model.

Infosys (and similar companies) flood the H1-B lottery system with tens of thousands of applications. They bring those who win to the U.S. where Infosys contracts them to U.S. companies in development, onsite techsupport/IT, and various lower cost roles. U.S. companies pay Infosys a premium to contract these employees.

Infosys is in the market of selling people. They are gaming the system, and making it harder for high paid talent at Google/FB/Apple to get H1-Bs.

If money isn't an issue, then surely they won't mind a higher salary requirement. $130k is reasonable for the greatest tech talent in the world, right?

offtopic: Great username.

Actually, the top companies in the Bay Area are paying dramatically more than $130k, so they wouldn't mind.

That was my immediate thought when I heard about this. Raise it up to at least 250k if you really want it to get back to being a program for the truly unreplaceable talent.

I don't think "silicon valley" is worried. I think the body shops are worried, and the writer of the article just conflates the two (because he doesn't really know - or is not interested to know - the difference?).

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