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Comment by romwell | Hacker News Reader

Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally.

The problem is when this process is used to save on salaries, favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only. The article alleges (without evidence!†) that this is what happened.

Better headline: Cisco pays visa-holding employees less.

This proposed headline, IMO, is more likely to evoke the rational response (Cisco must pay its visa-holding employees a higher salary), rather than the irrational one (dey turk ur jerbs). Perhaps that's why it was not used.

† An average salary of $130K cited in the article matches the average salary of a good software engineer in the area. More needs to be said for the statement against Cisco to have any merit, in my opinion.

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Ex employee of 5 years here. It was open secret that the system was being abused.

What they would do is post a notice of intent to hire an H1B by posting the job listing in break rooms along with requirements that were clearly senior level and included a salary range for the job drastically below market average. No self respecting local would even bother applying. That's how they got away with claiming they couldn't find good local talent. They have no interest in competing in the local market.

Almost every company uses tactics like these. And for good reason. Most factors that actually matters in hiring (GPA, college you got the degree from, caliber of your prior companies and work experience, interview performance, general intellectual & problem solving skills) are all banned from consideration when explaining why you didn't hire a local. And once you water down the job-requirements to exclude all of the above, if even one "qualified" person applies to that job, you're hosed. Dysfunctional laws invite creative workarounds.

Maybe they should have to make a reasonable effort to train someone before hiring from overseas.

Maybe they should just pay the correct amount for the position, according to the job requirements?

Obviously, they already do. The company is willing to pay this amount and there are enough people willing and able to work for this amount, hence the amount is correct.

>Most factors that actually matters in hiring (... college you got the degree from,

Is this a factor that actually matters? IME, which college you get your degree from is mostly a function of the class and system-manipulating skill (i.e. class) of your parents.

Ex H1B who immigrated to Canada here. American Express does the same thing too in Phoenix,Arizona. Salary is posted as a range in a low traffic break room. The range is 65K to 110K. That's a broad range. So the actual salary given is plausible.

Phoenix location is like a sweat shop because it has a lot of H1B workers, while the non H1b New York location has good facilities. This shows that even the facilities provided are different. Although I don't agree with Trump in most of his policies, I do agree on his H1B policies and OPT changes.

Allowing the exploitation of foreign workers like that is bad for your country too. I'm Canadian, but some of our big companies use a similar strategy. Imagine being the foreign worker. You know you're being taken advantage of, many locals dislike you, the benefit is temporary, and it's endorsed by the government. It's a smart deal in terms of personal gain, but you're not stupid so you know you're being taken advantage of. That kind of treatment sows resentment and that's not good for the way people perceive your country.

Consider an alternative where companies hire foreigners for their superior skills. Those people will be respected because of their talent. People value being respected and, combined with an option to immigrate (if they want it), it's possible to build good will around the world. Instead of people teaching their children "America took advantage of me, but I benefited enough to make it worth it for our family", it can be be "America gave me a great opportunity."

People know when they're being cheated and if kids grow up watching their parents get cheated by a form of government endorsed exploitation they'll respect your country less and be more susceptible to propaganda and radicalization. IMO, exploiting foreign workers is bad foreign policy and has a negative effect on the long term reputation of a country.

Shame on all the companies that do this. It's bad for the foreigners, it's bad for the locals, and, worst of all, it's bad for future generations that grow up resenting each other based on nationality.

Every time you see an article like this, make sure people understand that foreigners aren't taking our jobs. We're all being mistreated and exploited by the same greedy companies.

Isn't it changing in Canada now. Express entry is reeling in talents from US and around the world with its merit based system. LMIA based Temporary skilled foreign worker visa applications are going downhill. The exception there is Quebec which has no clear immigration policy based on skills and companies in Québec are struggling to run business there because of Québec's lack of clear immigration.

As someone who immigrated to Canada from an H1B, I feel the difference in treatment and perception. I can demand fair salary, take promotions, even take vacations without fear. I respect Canada in giving me the opportunity.

Had a friend born in India stuck in US green card queue for almost 12 years now. Out of patience, they applied for Express entry in Canada and got a residency in 6 months.

Their sentiment is “Canada is a great country, excellent healthcare, however housing is unaffordable (Vancouver outskirts) and it still makes sense to drive down to Seattle and work in US, tech salaries are so much better here in US”

The saddest part is that they largely suck. Various degrees of suck but it’s mind blowing what people some firms are willing to inflict on their clients and who some companies are willing to employ. People that are a net-drain on the company with no end in sight, You can’t help feeling bad for the situation they’re in. Totally lost and no one signed on to mentor someone who’s greener than a fresh intern but ostensibly was supposed to “hit the ground running”.

The other part of this insanity that I have much less sympathy for is cheating. When I heard about Amazon’s remote interview process that involved taking over your computer and requiring specific camera angles I thought it was outrageous however I started to see why they did that after a few interviews where the person that showed up wasn’t the person we interviewed. They were of course the same people but upon arrival they had a completely different mind and (much less) knowledge. It was eerie. The only theory I can come up is that they had others listening in and either typing or speaking answers to them. While I don’t approve of that the reality is that exploitive companies put up with it, something they’d never do with market rate employees.

There are some that know their shit but in my experience the ones that do don’t usually take a lower salary because they don’t need to. They’re not really part of this terrible equation.

>Every time you see an article like this, make sure people understand that foreigners aren't taking our jobs. We're all being mistreated and exploited by the same greedy companies.

That's exactly what I was trying to do with the comment. I agree with what you wrote fully.

What software skills are "not available locally" in Silicon Valley that need to be imported from places like India? No, these are available locally, just not at the rate Cisco wanted to pay.

I've worked at many tech cos and this is very common. Companies will post jobs and even sometimes send email blasts to "help find us an Android developer!" but it's all for show in case they get audited -- they have to prove they 'tried' to hire locally before importing labor.

EDIT: Just saw your comment about $130k being a 'good salary.' HA! Not in Bay Area, not for a senior hire. That's a good salary for an engineer that's a few years out of college. Hardly competitive for anything beyond that.

>HA! Not in Bay Area, not for a senior hire. That's a good salary for an engineer that's a few years out of college. Hardly competitive for anything beyond that.

I agree; but 1)it's an average figure, and 2)we don't know how many visa-holding employees are senior; perhaps many of them are a few years out of college.

As I said, we would need more data to argue either way -- unless you say that people a few years out of college may never possess unique skills. In which case I disagree; I've known US citizens with a PhD get this much.

>What software skills are "not available locally" in Silicon Valley that need to be imported from places like India?

I should also add that many (if not the majority) of the people who get a PhD in the US are not US citizens and need a visa.

Please add people who get MS degree as well.

> favoring foreigners over locals on the basis of being able to pay foreigners less only

Hypothetically, if you were a Machiavellian hiring manager:

You would also prefer a foreigner on a visa because they would have less freedom to leave the company than an equally paid employee who wasn't worried that quitting a job would risk being forced out of the country.

Also this would make the foreigner more worried about the consequences of being terminated for unsatisfactory performance.

Quite unfortunately, your Machiavellian hiring manager is simply the hiring manager, from what I heard about companies like Infosys.

It's hard to imagine this not being abused. Even in academia, where the H1B - green card process is pretty much a railroad. I've seen a department drag out the green card process over the span of years - out of fears that the professor in question might just jump ship and ditch the rat nest as soon as they get the green card (that was my best understanding of the situation).

Good point, and too nuanced for the article, alas.

> Even in academia, where the H1B - green card process is pretty much a railroad.

Academic H1Bs are not transferable to commercial employers, so you're even more trapped than you'd otherwise be. The department I worked for at Stanford had a blanket policy not to sponsor green cards for staff. Ironically this policy made me leave earlier than I would have otherwise as I did not want to be left in limbo as I approached the 5 year H1B limit.

Not just Infosys. Here is one Indian h1b talking about his experience in Intel: https://youtu.be/ge9LQQfckUY?t=117

His words after joining Intel: "That was the first time I found out all these managers in US blatantly use h1b situation to make people work more than others".

Foreign workers complain less about working unpaid overtime every night and every weekend.

>and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally

... AT THAT PRICEPOiNT.

You are arguing that those software engineers should be available at the average price. Cisco has a net revenue of 12.8 billion and is dependent on software engineers

Allow the salaries to rise for godsake and then lets complain about “not finding good software engineers”

>Allow the salaries to rise for godsake and then lets complain about “not finding good software engineers”

That's what I'm really saying, too. Both "there aren't enough engineers" and "the foreigners are taking our jobs" sentiments will be addressed by this.

It's a well known fact that abiogenesis works if you raise salaries. Raise them enough and poof, one wild network engineer appears. All companies are able to fill their positions and there will be no shortage.

I think your argument is that the workers aren't available at any salary, and that you're communicating this sarcastically through the clearly false claim that if you raise salaries, the population of network engineers will magically increase overnight.

Right, no.

It does take a while. You can't make a network engineer right away. But putting aside "abiogenesis", it is as close to a well known fact as anything in labor markets that supply will rise in response to higher prices, and demand will fall, and that the market will eventually settle onto an equilibrium point. Certain events, like a new technical breakthrough or market shift that suddenly increases demand can lead to temporary "shortages", and it can take a while to get back to that equilibrium. In that case, it's tempting to interfere with a "short term" visa program.

But this is how short-term fixes can make the long term problem even worse. Because we suppressed the rapid wage growth that tends to happen in a "shortage" in order to get back to equilibrium (in this case through employer controlled visas bestowed on workers who aren't allowed to participate in free labor markets) we more or less made assured a chronic shortage. Now, instead of gradual wage increases that occur along with an increase in demand, we have a gap. We'd need to raise salaries considerably, and then wait a while, in order to get back to the kind of labor market you'd see in the absence of highly coercive programs (where tech employees decide who is allowed to live in the US and what jobs they're allowed to work if they want to stay here).

It's interesting, how the attempt to control labor markets often results in coercion at a human level (in this case, laws that severely curtail a large portion of the labor force's basic right to pursue a career in response to their own interests and abilities).

>increase overnight.

This is where you're wrong. You are using a straw man, but you agree that network engineers will appear. if there is a market signal that network engineers are getting higher salaries, people who train up to be network engineers. Not much more complicated than that.

"You are using a straw man"

Huh. I think this is a pretty good illustration of why sarcasm is often not constructive in complex and nuanced discussions.

My use of the phrase "magically increase overnight" was in direct response to a sarcastic use of "abiogenesis". So while I agree it's a straw man, it's not a straw man I was using, it was a straw man in the statement I as refuting, resulting from the kind of hyperbole you often find in sarcasm.

I do find it just a little odd you think this the statement I was making when it was in fact the statement I was refuting. But that may not have been clear, A this is a pretty good illustration of why sarcasm (not in your statement, in the one I responded to) and hyperbole often aren't useful in advancing an argument.

Sarcasm has its place, but it can also be a place where poorly considered arguments find a place to hide.

Or, you know, people who are already alive will train up as engineers in hopes of getting the higher wages. They aren't a fixed resource. They are people who choose to pursue a career based on incentives.

> Securing visas for (and hiring) foreign workers instead of citizens, in itself, is not criminal or wrong -- and absolutely the thing to do when the foreign employees bring skills not available locally.

It is criminal if you use and H1B and claim the talent is not available in the US. http://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/h1b.htm

"The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States."

They should have to pay more than the average salary. Assuming they have equal abilities, a local worker should be preferred over a foreign worker. That kind of social contract encourages locals to invest in education because they know they won't have to compete against a global workforce. IMO it's not a good idea to increase dependence on foreign workers and, in turn, foreign education systems.

>dey turk ur jerbs

This sniffling condescension toward those in our society who have and continue to lose out to corporate interests who have sold out the American worker is vile. When employment and income prospects of citizens are reduced and dimmed at all levels, be it farm workers or IT gods, because corporations are importing foreigners to replace them (whether directly or indirectly) and the government is either complicit in or utterly passive toward the situation, it is entirely reasonable to be angry and feel betrayed. Early labor organizers would have long ago (hell, as recently as the mid-90s) risen up in arms over this. That organized labor utters not a peep tells us very clearly that such movements are dead.

Would you please stop using HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for and we ban accounts that are here only to do that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The sniffling condescension is towards the sentiment, not the people or the general idea of protecting the job market.

Unionizing and making sure visa workers don't get paid less and exploited? Hell yes. Making the process of obtaining visa and immigrating here a living hell for the people that, by all logic, deserve to be and are needed here? "dey turk ur jerbs".

Also, "imported workers" should not be conflated with "people who don't hold a US green card". The latter category includes people who gave 5-7 years to this country while getting a PhD here, for example.

Its not the immigrants you should be mad at, its the corporate interests. Like this article shows, the immigrants have an advantage over citizens precisely because companies get away with paying them less.

The US government has been bought & sold to the highest bidder for a long time now, in many, many areas - repealing net neutrality, healthcare no one can afford, skyrocketing CEO salaries while companies claim raising minimum-wage would bankrupt them, the list just goes on and on. Pharmaceutical companies hide results/push bad drugs and get a slap on the wrist. Google/Apple/Facebook got caught colluding in wage-fixing to keep salaries low and got a slap on the wrist.

Prisons are run for-profit and the few companies that control how prisoners send messages/make calls to the outside charge rates like $20 for a 20-minute call. A money order to send money outside costs $11.95. The prison facilities sometimes share in the revenue made by these companies, which gives them further incentive to gouge prisoners. No doubt the prisons kickback some money to police officers who get them more arrests too.

Like at what point is the government going to fucking step in and protect the people over the companies?

As long as that keeps happening the middle-class will continue to get f*ed. But immigrants are just a convenient scapegoat to blame, and screwing them will not really solve the problem. When you sell crucial nation-level functions to companies, set up a stock market that incentivizes revenue above all else, and the government is asleep at the wheel to correct the worst tendencies of revenue-maximizing, this is what happens.

You are right but this sort of news reporting is usually cover fire for the current administration and arbitrary functioning of USCICS. Even paying less is not a problem for visa holders as long as it is higher than the wage floors set by Labour department. I believe for H1b it is like 80K or so.

All companies I know pay less to visa holders for following reasons and even lesser if you are Indian or Chinese national.

- They have to spend resources worth $10K for visa transfer. It is higher for visa petition. - they have to spend addtional $3k per year for renewals. - Processing an EB2/EB3 petition costs around $30k for the company in resources.

I think it is unfair to even expect that Cisco must match penny to penny the salary.

$30k sounds significantly higher than my experience, do you have any background on that? Even for a small company, we paid $5-10k to process applications and sponsor a green card IIRC.

Cisco would also have the scale to significantly cut attorney costs.

How is not wanting competition from aliens in the labor market irrational for native workers? Restricting the labor supply in the market always and everywhere improves labor’s share of societal wealth.

>How is not wanting competition from aliens in the labor market irrational for native workers?

Extreme example: Elon Musk was not born in the US. He was an immigrant. Even ignoring the whole nation-of-immigrants ideology, surely you agree that the country and its workers may benefit from immigration?

The title makes it seem like hiring any foreign workers is bad a-priori.

Committing securities violations on Twitter is a job that Americans just won’t do. Tweets are rotting on the internets!

Seriously though, Elon Musk has undoubtedly benefitted from immigrating to the United States, as most immigrants do. Presumably the native born employees of Tesla and his other ventures have directly benefitted as well. Of course it’s impossible to show one way or the other that a native born entrepreneur wouldn’t have filled the same niche.

Also nobody likes to talk about the massive deleterious effects on the immigrants home countries of having their best and brightest leave.

To answer your direct question I absolutely agree that Americans can benefit from some level of immigration. I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though. Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040.

Do you really fear that native born citizens are being overwhelmed by immigration ? I believe US admits 0.3% of the population as immigrants every year. A fraction of that is employment based. Your fear seems to be a little bit irrational and nativist.

> I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though.

“Americans” can't be made a political minority through immigration, because naturalized immigrants and, a fortiori, their descendants are Americans (and are as much Americans as descendants of 18th C and earlier British and other European migrants.)

White Americans might become a political minority, but I don't see any reason anyone but racists would think that, in and of itself, is a bad (or good, for a different stripe of racist) thing.

> Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040.

I'm not sure what you mean by “foreign majority”, but whatever you mean by it:

(1) it obviously includes a significant share of the Baby Boomers, and

(2) in 2040, there will be precious few Baby Boomers for any group to appropriate assets from, and

(3) I don't see any non-paranoid reason to believe this would happen, no matter what group you identify as the “foreign majority”.

> I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though

Non sequitur. Is anyone even arguing that this should be the case?

If the presumed implication of not denying favoritism as quoted in the article: "Cisco, the website [Bloomberg] reported, denied the allegation about pay but didn’t address the issue of favoring foreign workers." If they declined comment on both, you could have a point --but they chose to comment on one allegation but not the other.

I would say the headline is more accurate than your revision.

Does Cisco have a responsability to the American public to hire American first and not when it's merely convenient, by whatever metric they decide, for them to do so?

The plain-as-day answer is, the business model of externalizing the costs of nationalism (protection, discounted infrastructure) and technological progress (disruption) only works if the net-benefit of that progress results in a measurable improvement in the standard of living for the majority of society whom have paid the externalization costs.

Otherwise, innovation quite clearly works as an asset-stripping mechanism; a mechanism of enslavement and subjugation.

The correct question to ask: Is Cisco's action, and what the majority of silicon valley is doing, foundationally counterproductive?

A Teacher does not teach the material, they teach the student; their job is to learn how students learn, format the material for them, and provide them with guidance, ultimately teaching them to teach themselves. They must change themselves to change the world around them.

Time and time again, I see clearly highly intelligent people like you, and they make the mistake of agrating people into numbers because they they have not learned stewardship over those less gifted, logic and reason has clouded their ability to see social systems of sacrifice.

And because of that, their designs fail. Over and Over. And they don't know why, or they become superstitious about it.

Hiring H1B's in large numbers, instead of having a scalable internal training program, is a fundamental sign of a failed system at play.

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