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Comment by pbiggar | Hacker News Reader

This reminds us of our privileged position in software. At the moment, it would be difficult for an employer to do the same to a H1B software worker, since you can basically walk into a new job in days. But when you haven't got the protection of an incredibly strong job market, it appears you have no protection at all.

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You may not see this in startup-ville but this is very much happening in IT at companies where software is not the "core competency"

I admit that this happens in some companies. However, it can only happen to developers who either are not good enough to find jobs elsewhere, or are not aware that they could find jobs elsewhere. As such, I feel those developers are not actually trapped, but rather unaware.

They aren't hired because they are good, they are hired because they are cheap, just like in the article.

if you transfer an H1-B, you are no longer cheap.

The only people who care about hiring the best and the "top 10%" is in the valley. The rest of America is fine with B through D... the reason being you selling to untechnical corporate project managers.

The costs to transfer a H1B are less than the costs to get it in the first place (the legal costs are the same, but it takes less work to get the materials together, and you don't need to pay the employee to move).

I believe it is the green card application that is the issue.

Huh? Aren't you basically tied to an employer with H1B? I know you can move to another company but my understanding was that the process is a bit involved. Plus isn't part of the attraction of the H1B program being able to get skill but pay them less than an American would try to negotiate?

It's better but overall it sounds like the same thing to me.

You aren't tied to an employer with a H1B. Your H1B is for one specific employer, but you can transfer the H1B to another employer fairly easily, given about 2 weeks notice.

I've negotiated fairly strongly for my past H1B jobs: again, the strong job market allows this. If the market was weak, then there would be a danger that an employer would have control over whether I could stay resident, and this would provide them with strong leverage. I would be surprised if this was an intended part of the H1B program though: I've certainly never seen anything indicate that it is.

The sort of thing happening to the workers in the article is a form of indentured servitude, which is widely regarded as slavery. I don't believe it is ethical to hold this sort of power over an individual, and IMO, those employers should face jail time. I find it hard to believe a this would be designed into the H2B program.

Your bargaining position will get progressively weaker as the time remaining on your visa runs down.

Why would it do that? Once the visa runs out, you're out, and the employer can't really help with that.

If you're on a H1B visa, you really need to figure out a plan to a Green Card ASAP, unless you're not planning to stay long term.

The less time you have left, the less valuable you are to a new employer. Hiring someone who can work for 6 years makes sense. Hiring someone who must leave in 18 months is much more of a risk. Therefore you are at an increasing disadvantage in any negotiation where your best alternative to agreement is to seek alternative employment, e.g. Salary increases, change of project.

You're right about the green card, however even if you can get the employer support you need, it takes years and further restricts your employment options in the meantime.

Nice point, that does make a lot of sense.

Aren't any applications for Green Card reset when you move on to a new employer?

It's not quite as simple as that, but there is a short window (~2 months I think) where you can't change jobs or move country without resetting your application. After that, you can move jobs but your new employer has to agree to transfer the green card process too.

No, in fact there are supposed to be safeguards in place to prevent this. The ostensible idea behind H1Bs is that the employer literally cannot, for any price, find the talent they need locally. They MUST hire foreign workers to come in and do the job. And the law is written such that the foreign workers--the ones who are there to do a job that no local person can do--get paid what an american worker would be paid to do the same job.

That's to prevent the exact scenario you mentioned: a company hires cheap foreign labor under the H1B program, displacing qualified local labor.

Of course it's all toothless bullshit, so that's exactly how it works, in practice.

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