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Comment by artemonster | Hacker News Reader

The fact that work visas are tied to a concrete employer is the biggest slavery scam the US is pulling off.

I'm continually amazed at how it's still considered OK to call things "slavery" that aren't actually slavery.

This, in an era when we're editing flowcharts, technical documents and schematic diagrams to avoid potentially offensive "master/slave" nomenclature.

Well, so is health insurance, eh.

Paying health insurance premiums with pre tax W-2 income is tied to an employer.

Which is not comparable to having to leave the country you live in and possibly have started a family in because you change employers.

Isn't this a thing everywhere? I have the same in UK.

In the Netherlands, if you're here on a highly-skilled migrant visa and leave your job, you get 90 days to get a new one. The only requirement is that the company you work for is also recognised as an employer of highly-skilled migrants.

This is the case in the UK (with 60 days instead of 90), and I think it's also the same in the US.

Not in Canada. My Post Graduate Work Visa allowed me to work wherever. Or not work at all. The US has so many variations of slavery-lite it is genuinely disturbing.

The US has something called OPT, which is essentially the same thing - you can work for any employer or for no employer, anywhere in the US. OPT lasts for a year, which is longer than the shortest time you could be authorized for under Canada’s program (8 months) but shorter than the longest time (three years).

Doesn't the UK have a general skilled-worker visa?

There's a special talent visa that's general but it has much higher requirement than skilled worker visa.

That doesn't make it any less slavery

It's completely inappropriate to repurposes the word "slavery" for H1B visa holders.

Sure, being tied to your current employer in a way that makes it hard leave is a terrible position to be in, but these folks are also well-compensated workers living comfortably in the richest nation on earth. They're free to travel anywhere in the US and are free to leave their job at any time.

Actual slaves don't spend weekends wine-tasting in Napa or cutting work early to catch a Giants game.

I wouldn't ever be "comfortable" with that sword of Damocles hanging overhead.

I wouldn't like it either, but that doesn't make it "slavery". Presumably you have the option to work in your country of citizenship. A slave does not.

Then get a job in your country of citizenship.

Many countries have immigration systems that are similarly bad the U.S.'s.

Add the endless wait time for green card for Indians and you have the perfect recipe for indentured servant exploitation and wage suppression

I think a lot of countries do it this way. I wish they didn't but I think they do, but I may be wrong about that.

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