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Comment by nashashmi | Hacker News Reader

The full story is:

Specialized foreign workers were brought in for repair and specialized work. Korean immigrants are able to come in on ESTA visas for 90 days. No issue there. Labor union claimed the workers were doing union non-specialized work and this broke their visa grants.

Suppose that the plant made special workers do non-special work, the hammer does not fall on the workers. It falls on the plant. Yet ICE was brought in to hammer the workers. This is a big screw up in the legal procedures department.

I don't criticize anyone but this administration is a hot mess. And too arrogant to admit it.

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It's extremely easy to perform union with without realizing it. I was working a software deployment at a plant site where we had uncomfortable chairs, so we brought in chairs from the conference room next door. That turned out to be a union job, so we had to return the chairs and suffer until some union folks could do the same thing.

And I've heard similar stories from other people, including one where union employees intentionally placed debris to obstruct a non-union worker with a cart; they lay in wait until she came along and picked up the barrier, then got her written up for it.

While I support unions generally, I'm convinced that sour experiences of this variety have worked against them politically.

Rippling moved into an old Spotify office in NYC and they were required to use union labor to remove the old signage. They decided to leave the signage up rather than pay the union tax.

When they give lavish amounts of money to executives or VCs do you also call that a tax?

Nope. I was using tax in the sense of "mandatory cost enforced by the government" even though in this case the revenue goes to private entities.

Is there any cost not enforced by the government?

What stops me from killing and eating my local venture capitalists for their protein content?

For you in particular, likely some moral precepts? or are you arguing that the deterrent effect of government punishment is the only thing stopping you? I don't really understand the line of argument.

When we give money to private citizens it's not a tax. When we give money to the government, it often is.

So paying a union person isn't a tax, any more than paying anyone else. Everything is government mandated or regulated. Is paying interest to Chase Bank a tax? They're federally chartered, and I can't set up my own bank, I'm forced to use a regulated entity.

I worked at a software company for shipping terminals. One release, we changed the color of a snowflake icon for better colorblind accessibility. The union said it was brand new software and the terminal had to do an emergency shutdown for a week to retrain.

On the same software who's only difference was that it had a different icon color.

A friend’s company ended up changing their entire business because of this problem. They were providing services as a contractor but kept running into problems with their client’s union workers, who felt like no one should be able to do certain things that seemed very trivial and not specialized (like tightening a bolt or whatever). This work was officially approved but the union workers responded to it in hostile ways - like taking a long time to do their part of the jobs or doing other odd things like making people wait for hours on the floor before anyone showed up.

The company gave up and decided to just sell their product without any services - like having the customer do all the work themselves. It was very inefficient because they had to train their customer’s workers and put together huge amounts of documentation and there were a lot of issues making it work. But the company was able to charge for all of that and basically ended up having the same profit margin anyways. In the end the only person paying the cost was the customer, since they had to deal with work getting done more slowly due to the overhead of training people and a lot of (billed) back-and-forth communication.

>ESTA visas for 90 days. No issue there.

Wrong. ESTA is not a visa, it's a requirement for all travelers to US.

The visa-waiver program (VWP) doesn't include the right to work. You need to have an appropriate visa if you're being paid (or given material benefits) while travelling in US.

Things like interviews or conferences or workshops are not included in the right to work requirement.

That’s not the full story at all. No argument that this administration is a disaster on hundreds of metrics but it’s not clear what’s going on here. At a glance it’s at least possible that this was a pro-US worker policy.

The Asian high tech companies have a history of falsely claiming US workers just aren’t smart enough to do the job when in fact what they really want is to have their own workers come in and work triple overtime at slave wages. It was a huge issue with the TSMC build in Arizona.

If they brought people in to do construction work on either tourist visas or B1 meeting type visas that’s illegal and should be and what happened here makes perfect sense.

Of course enforcing pro-labor laws against multinationals isn’t exactly what this admin is known for, so it’s probably a fuck up. But until we know the details we don’t know.

> Of course enforcing pro-labor laws against multinationals isn’t exactly what this admin is known for, so it’s probably a fuck up. But until we know the details we don’t know.

It is pretty obvious now that the Korean sub-contractors thought they were above board on the proper visas for the consulting work that was being contracted. Now, whether that was actually true or not will take a few years of litigation to figure out, since visa law is complicated. If they were doing custom specialized work (that is definitely allowed by ESTA/B1), then the visas were correct. If they were hammering nails into wood, then the visas were incorrect. See https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyund...

That's not obvious at all. The image in the article you're linking to shows people with hardhats and vests that say "mechanic" on them.

Not only that there's a long history of asian high tech conglomerates taking shortcuts on these kinds of projects:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-06-22-tsmc-semiconductor-fac...

Including this specific one:

https://www.enr.com/articles/60802-third-fatality-recorded-a...

So maybe, maybe not. The fact that the attorneys for the accused deny it isn't exactly dispositive.

Yes, the USA is a PITA for foreign countries to setup factories in, as the Japanese and the Germans learned before, the Taiwanese are learning now, and that's why they prefer to just do setup factories in China instead.

I'm also pretty sure we are screwed in manufacturing because our labor is just too expensive and unskilled/unproductive to justify the price. But that is another issue entirely.

You’re using “pain in the ass” as a euphemism for “has labor laws and higher wages” which is a longstanding PR move that’s been going on forever.

They prefer to setup factories overseas because they like paying lower wages.

Productivity in the US is incredibly high. Our decision to allow manufacturing to be shipped overseas is a political one.

We don’t have to care what companies feel like doing. We have the customers and the money. We can insist.

> You’re using “pain in the ass” as a euphemism for “has labor laws and higher wages” which is a longstanding PR move that’s been going on forever.

You are using “euphemism” as a euphemism for “dysphemism”. (Or, more likely, just using the wrong word; I doubt you are really intentionally trying to put a positive spin on it.)

Now this is the kind of pedantry I was worried had vanished from HN. Bravo.

> Suppose that the plant made special workers do non-special work, the hammer does not fall on the workers. It falls on the plant. Yet ICE was brought in to hammer the workers. This is a big screw up in the legal procedures department.

So if hookers are working the streets, the hammer does not fall on them and will fall on their pimp instead? The cops will just let them go?

The law does not work the way you think it does.

That depends on the writing of the law. If the law forbids a person to sell an illegal service, then the seller is at fault. If the law forbids buying a service, then the buyer is at fault. It is easier to go after the seller/broker (pimp) then it is to go after the service worker, legally speaking, because the transfer of money is through the broker.

Same thing happened with Trump in the hush money scandal. The guy who transferred the money (the lawyer) was at fault. The only reason by which they came after trump was that the books did not record the transfer truthfully, and did so falsely.

Having your lawyer do something illegal on your behalf is also a crime.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/p80ACpPKTHU

And it works the way things are unfolding since the start of this year, highly knowledgeable person sir?

> Suppose that the plant made special workers do non-special work, the hammer does not fall on the workers.

Your boss telling you to violate the terms of your visa doesn't mean you get to do that. They violated their visas, so they get kicked out.

The visa was procured by the business under the auspices of doing business. The business holds responsibility that the worker performs operation for the business in the parameters that the business visa works in. The same goes for H2B visas.

If only it were that simple.

An ESTA or B1 visa lets you attend business meetings. How do you draw the line between “work” and “meeting”?

A sibling comment to yours [1] describes a situation where moving office chairs from one meeting room to another was considered union work. How are Korean experts supposed to know you shouldn’t do that when attending a meeting or you risk being thrown in jail for violating your visa?

That’s an extreme case, but it illustrates that this isn’t some clear-cut case of knowingly doing work that wasn’t permitted.

- - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45184501

> An ESTA or B1 visa lets you attend business meetings. How do you draw the line between “work” and “meeting”?

This is a construction site. Do you have a tool in your hand? Then you’re not in a fucking meeting. This isn’t that complicated.

> A sibling comment to yours [1] describes a situation where moving office chairs from one meeting room to another was considered union work. How are Korean experts supposed to know you shouldn’t do that when attending a meeting or you risk being thrown in jail for violating your visa?

How are you supposed to know the laws of any country you visit? Do you have some kind of universal rule you’re applying here? If I don’t know what kilometers are can I get away with speeding in Switzerland?

> That’s an extreme case, but it illustrates that this isn’t some clear-cut case of knowingly doing work that wasn’t permitted.

The details here seem to be in short supply but if they were acting as construction workers or even foreman on tourist or B1 visas what they were doing is clearly illegal. Hyundai is a multi billion dollar company they’re well capable of knowing and following US labor laws. If they can’t they have no business building a factory in the US obviously.

What evidence do you have that the Korean Hyundai employees were construction workers or foremen?

Why would Hyundai fly that kind of workers from across the world?

The fact that many were wearing hard hats and hi-vis vests in the photos of the raid seems relevant right?

They raided a construction site, not an office building. What do you think they were doing there?

An architect would wear a hard hat and vest to a construction site. Does that make them a construction worker?

Yes of course. An architect is a well established job on any large scale construction project. Do you think all construction workers are unskilled laborers?

If they were practicing architecture in the US without proper work visas it would be illegal.

Ok, you’re saying that a Korean architect working for Hyundai isn’t allowed to visit a Hyundai work site on ESTA or B-1.

What kind of visa do they need to get? Please be very specific.

I’ve had L-1 and O-1 visas to the US in the past. Those were complicated processes that took many months and cost over $10k in legal fees each time. Those visas are explicitly meant for multi-year stays, not just work site visits. But is that the type of visa the architect should get for this business trip? If not, then what?

A Korean architect might well be allowed to come for meetings or to supervise on a B-1. They might not, depending on what they actually do.

The laws are written out and there's lots of precedent. The point I'm making is if there's 300 people with hard hats and hi-vis vests that say "mechanic" on them (to name one example I saw in a video of the raid) there's a pretty reasonable chance they're very clearly on the wrong side of visa law.

You can't typically enter a construction site without a hardhat and hi-vis. Even as a visitor. And even if you can, you may not want to for your own safety. What they were wearing says absolutely nothing about their work.

I mean it says something about their work. It says they were in an active construction site.

What do you think they were doing there? Having a 300+ person “business meeting”?

People who were having a meeting at my home construction site: architect, builders' reception staff, inspectors, interior person, electrician's staff, garden designer, etc. and that's just for a simple house. There's going to be so many more options for a factory.

Yeah if those people weren't authorized to work in the United States, and they did any work at all (rather than strictly doing only "meetings" and then leaving the country again) that would be illegal. This isn't all that complicated.

As you say, it's an "if". There was no testimony so far. For now we don't know what they did there.

I'm just pointing out that no, the photos really do not say much about their work.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. If there are hundreds of people dressed like construction workers at a plant, it's reasonable to think there's a good chance they're doing construction work. If they are it's illegal.

Union rules are not laws of the country. The PC meant to illustrate an example of a harmless rule violation. And the discussion is supposed to be whether it is the visa employee's fault.

Is your theory that they were handcuffed for violating union rules, or U.S. laws?

It sure seems like the ICE simply handcuffed every foreigner at the site.

ICE handcuffed them. And their department is immigration laws. But whatever the reason, it does not hold up on the ICE's side.

I have absolutely zero respect for ICE these days and their ability to be honest about anything.

But with that caveat there are straightforward allegations of violations of well established US law here. The comments about breaking nitpicky union rules are intended to distract from that fact.

Straightforward? Name the laws.

9 FAM 402.2-5(E)(1) (U) Commercial or Industrial Workers (CT:VISA-1288; 05-21-2021)

a. (U) An applicant coming to the United States to install, service, or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery purchased from a company outside the United States or to train U.S. workers to perform such services. However, in such cases, the contract of sale must specifically require the seller to provide such services or training and the visa applicant must possess unique knowledge that is essential to the seller’s contractual obligation to perform the services or training and must receive no remuneration from a U.S. source.

b. (U) These provisions do not apply to an applicant seeking to perform building or construction work, whether on-site or in-plant. The exception is for an applicant who is applying for a B-1 visa for supervising or training other workers engaged in building or construction work, but not actually performing any such building or construction work.

Those are provisions for visa grants. After the visa is given, was there any law that was broken? No.

I agree the terms of the visa explicitly did not allow for applicants to perform construction. And they are accused of doing construction work.

This means the State Department would issue visa cancellations and the company would get sanctioned. Instead ICE went ahead and arrested the employees. That is full overreach. Visa cancellation had not been issued.

That's incredibly shortsighted. Hyundai invested a shit ton of time and money and effort into making a plant in a shit hole of a state to make it less of a shit hole. Now, there's a group of South Koreans who have first hand experience of America being shit. They're gonna go home and tell everyone that will listen, that Americans are all shitheads, and fuck those people, and never come back. Why would Hyundai ever open another American plant if that's how their people get treated? Have you been arrested? It's humiliating. It's not that they broke the rules, it's how they're being enforced. That visa has always been fine for that. If we wanted to change how things work, a competent state department would have telegraphed changes coming down the pipeline months in advance, and spared everyone the humiliation of being abducted by ICE.

This is an insightful comment on what is apparently a multi-billion dollar charity known as Hyundai, and their desire to improve the state of Georgia.

I had mistakenly confused them with the multi-national Chaebol of the same name that is known for ruthless business competition and making decisions to maximize their own profits and shareholder wealth.

You are forgiven. It's pretty confusing, I know. Those people with the different skin and hair color have emotions and families, even though they don't speak English.

What do you suppose the answer to this question is:

> Why would Hyundai ever open another American plant if that's how their people get treated?

I've followed you through this thread and I'm really curious about your political ideology. On the one hand you've been making the stark, cynical observations I expect from leftist: analyzing the company's behavior from a lens of profit motive, discussing how corporations will outsource to other countries to skirt labor law and pay slave wages, defending unions, discussing how immigrant labor is just another form of outsourcing; on the other hand you've engaged in hard-line liberal defense of law for the sake of law: never mind that a bunch of non citizens were just subjected to violence at the hands of the state, perhaps they violated the law and therefore they're subject to whatever degredation the legal apparatus throws at them! Finally, you, perhaps inadvertently, are defending the actions of America's most right wing government it possibly has ever had, continually pulling out their own propaganda lines: "they were violating the terms of their visa and have to go!"

I like meeting people like that, if you were open to sharing how you arrived at this more-complicated-than-normal political ideology, I'd be interested to know more.

I’m an actual progressive who believes government should serve the interests of working people.

We don’t have a party for people like me in the United States any more, we just have two different movements to support corporate hegemony.

And possibly even more corrosive, we’ve just completely stopped enforcing the law against elites. It’s shocking how lawless the world has become, from securities fraud to labor violations to bribery.

I believe there should be strict labor laws that leads to safety and high wages and that multinational companies should not be allowed to evade them to exploit workers.

For most of history that’s just a classic pillar of the progressive left. And by the way it’s almost certainly a majority opinion in this country. The fact that it seems like an alien point of view is a reflection of how completely off the rails the modern political discourse is.

> And possibly even more corrosive, we’ve just completely stopped enforcing the law against elites. It’s shocking how lawless the world has become, from securities fraud to labor violations to bribery.

Well, right, then, this is a leftist position, but that's why I was surprised that you supported any action at all against the workers who suffered the enforcement action. It seems to me the workers are beings scapegoated for right wing propaganda while the ownership class will continue to not suffer any consequences.

> The fact that it seems like an alien point of view is a reflection of how completely off the rails the modern political discourse is.

Yes, I sympathize with leftists in the USA. I can't imagine a more alienating environment. The disconnect between the political system + media, and the actual on-the-ground feelings of the people there, is just incomprehensibly vast.

> Well, right, then, this is a leftist position, but that's why I was surprised that you supported any action at all against the workers who suffered the enforcement action. It seems to me the workers are beings scapegoated for right wing propaganda while the ownership class will continue to not suffer any consequences.

Raiding a huge multi-billion dollar project run by a globally important company, and effectively shutting down a project like this at least for awhile, is absolutely not how enforcement actions are usually done.

There's a huge distinction between doing stuff like this and picking up people trying to day day labor in Home Depot parking lots. It's unfortunate that the individual workers are the ones in handcuffs but at the end of the day if you're going to have rules that stop people from working illegally someone is going to have to be able to show up and remove people working illegally from a job site. If you rule something like that out you don't have laws at all.

Doing this to a powerful company is not normal. That's what makes this situation so unusual and interesting, and why I'm arguing in this thread against people that seem to be making knee-jerk reactions based on who's involved.

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