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Comment by leakycap | Hacker News Reader

No company would ever sponsor someone if the last bullet is part of the deal. You're just killing the visa program another way with that wishlist item alone.

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If they are using the program as intended they would. They are supposed to be looking for skills that are impossible to find in the US. If they are offering a good deal to the employee then the employee should stay, just like someone with full work authorization would.

If they are just using the program to pay less than they otherwise would for labor that does exist in the us, well, then we have another issue.

I would modify the proposal to include a larger annual fee rather than an application fee, so that the initially sponsoring company isn’t solely bearing the cost. There should also be a floor pay rate for the visa holder, something the 75th or 80th percentile of both the company and of income in the MSA the visa holder is located in.

All you're doing is having a gold card program but where the immigrant pays the applying company rather than the government. Seems pointless.

Why is it pointless? I think thats exactly what the people advocating for H1B for specialized workers want.

I dont know if thats a good idea. It does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Im also not sure its a bad idea either, it seems useful from an economic perspective. What i know its not is "pointless", it does do something.

Stopping companies from hiring quasi-indentured servants is a good thing

As you'll see from my other comments about H1-B visas, I agree. However, it doesn't change the fact that the person's suggestion would just be another way to kill the program, not a way to fix it.

If enforcing employee rights kills the employment program, then it stands to reason that the program is built on the premise of them being exploited and therefore shouldn't exist, at least in the form it does.

A lot of those bullet points could and perhaps should be shuffled around and the terms changed, but not in a way where the employees are more or less tethered to the company.

As a counterpoint to my own argument, one could argue that those programs let people escape even worse living conditions, so I guess it could be exchanging a greater form of oppression for a lesser one, which is still better than nothing.

If employers can't employ in the spirit of the H1-B, which to my knowledge is hiring top talent around the world that can't be found domestically, without putting them in golden chains: maybe the program should be killed.

I don't want to be too hyperbolic, but this has the same vibes of "but freeing slaves will impact the economy!" IMO businesses that can't operate ethically shouldn't be encouraged.

That's pretty common in Europe. Temporary work permits can be valid either for a specific job or a specific industry. In the latter case, as long as you can find a job that meets the requirements in a reasonable time, you can quit and stay in the country.

But those work permits mostly concern the individual and the government. The employer is not as much sponsoring them as providing evidence.

Really? Most if not all EU work permits, especially highly-qualified ones are tied to an employer for at least the first 2+ years. If you get fired you have up to 3 months to find another employer who is willing to take over your residence permit.

I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted because it's correct.

People are down voting you so is there evidence that it's tied to a single employerM

I held a work permit in Europe. There are categories of immigrants who can work freely e.g. residence permits granted via family reunification or asylum. However a professional work permit is tied to your employer and this is the case until you get permanent residence (typically after 3 years).

Uhh. No. That's a common misconception held by people that don't actually read their T&Cs. Your worth authorization is tied to "a" employer for the first two years. The employee is completely free to quit and enter into a contract with another employer. All you have to do is go get the name of the employer updated. It's just a formality and nothing else.

Yes, you have three months to find a new job if you're fired, but it's Europe, you most likely got at least a 3 month notice as well.

Here in Norway it's 6 months[1] for skilled workers, and if you get the same position somewhere else you don't need to reapply. If you change position you need to reapply.

[1]: https://www.udi.no/en/answer-pages/answers-skilled-worker/#l...

You are arguing about semantics of residence permit vs work authorization which is not the core of the issue. If you get fired and don’t find a new employer then you leave in 3 months.

Also, it is definitely not just a formality to change employers. For example, on a blue card the new employer must prove to the ministry that they couldn’t find anyone local or EU to fill this position aka “Labour Market Test”. The position needs to be registered in a special gov database to prove that, etc, etc.

The requirements are far from uniform, because each member state sets its own policy. For example, Finland requires the labor market test from ordinary employees but not from those with a Blue Card or those applying for a specialist permit (similar to the Blue Card).

> as long as you can find a job that meets the requirements in a reasonable time

how long is that reasonable time in europe? For H1b it's only 60 days

90d for the first year or two. 180 thereafter

Wait, so if we give the foreign workers the same at will employment rights as Americans, then they are no longer interested?

I thought they needed these foreign workers because no American could do the job?

No, what they wouldn't be interested in is paying $100,000 to help someone enter the country, with no compensation if they ditch you on day one.

The idea would be that you would pay that employee at above market rates, so they wouldn't ditch you on day one because you pay them more than any of their other alternatives.

Right now, the H1B system is used to bring over cheap labor, willing to work for compensation and conditions worse than native labor. This is not the stated goal of the program, the idea was to bring over highly skilled labor doing jobs that no-one native is able to. The system detailed above is supposed to be a way to change it from how it currently is to what it was supposed to be.

Not for an interchange cog. However you can keep someone with a golden handcuffs deal at above market rates if there’s some reason to bring that specific person.

Locals have always been allowed to quit the new job on day 1, and it has never been a crisis for employers.

A company that is confident it is offering worthy salary and career should have no extra reason to worry a foreign worker will quit during first week, than that a local worker would do the same thing.

The only difference a fee would make under such conditions is that locals become cheaper to hire, which is the point.

Part of the proposal is that the employer pays the government a large fee to sponsor the visa. They're not doing that for local workers; it's an entirely incomparable situation.

If you just want someone and not this particular applicant, yes but if you want a particular person to work for you, you will sponsor them regardless of this bullet point.

I totally support bringing in actual specialists, or fantastically talented people from abroad… but it’s painfully obvious how infrequently that happens. I worked with an H1B doing L2 support in the mid aughts. The position required significant knowledge of networking, but nothing close to even a mid-career enterprise network administrator, and it wasn’t a rare skillset for the area. We had plenty of very local candidates when we hired people before, but suddenly, new management decided it was an incredibly specialized, difficult-to-fill, rare job that paid locals an eye-watering 70k/year to start but paid an H1Bs far less than that I assume.

That's the problem. H1B visa is for talent that is almost impossible to get domestically. It should be for bringing in actual specialist.

This is not true at all. Employers will still sponsor talent that they need.

If you are sponsoring an employee for a visa and "it's a great thing they can't quit, it's the main thing that's keeping them here!", then you are abusing the system and should be excluded anyways.

I thought there was no-one else on the market? If you think it will kill the visa program, that means you thought hiring underpaid developers was the goal of the visa program. No-one would change companies if if get paid decently: You leave a bad boss, but you can stay with a with a 10-15% lower-than-market salary just because of the friction of changing (Cue the downvotes: “I’m changing for a cent more” - yes you do when you have energy but most employees absolutely don’t). And employees will stay because they need time to settle in the new country and the welcoming company is generally equipped to make integration easier for newcomers.

Almost all European visa programs have the last bullet point with the stipulation that they have 90 days to find another visa sponsorship job if they leave their sponsor.

Then kill it.

Perfect. More Americans get jobs.

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