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Comment by alexeisadeski3 | Hacker News Reader

Correct me if I'm wrong, but $50k actually is good money for an Indian right?

Pretty sure this is just a way for everyone on HN to vent their outsourcing frustrations under the thin guise of political correctness.

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I am not for political correctness but let me try to counter your perspective

Since the Indian employee has a good track record and the company is willing to transfer him to US, lets assume that he has around 8-10 years of experience.

This would qualify the person for about INR 2 to 2.5 M annual pay excluding commissions. This is about USD 35 - 40K

For such a pay, the quality of living of the Indian person would be

(might vary slightly based on the city in India)

1. Owns at least one 3BHK house / apartment right in the middle of the city (~ 10-15 minute commute to office) with groceries/malls within walking distance or max 10 mins drive

2. Drives own car (atleast Honda City, Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Verna), with a good chance of a second car

3. Owns some of the following: iPhone, iPad, Samsung G S4/Note, smart tv, home theatre system, a modern kitchen, full internet connectivity, power backup

4. Good chance of at least one child and that child studying in a leading private school

5. Has a paid help for daily chores (washing, cleaning etc.)

6. All labour for any domestic purpose electric, plumbing, car mechanic etc. are all down right affordable without even a pinch

50K definitely is higher than the 35-40K USD he is receiving and it is upto the person to accept it. However, the person would definitely be compromising as I doubt if the 50K USD will assure the above list when the person chooses to live in the US

USA marketing must be top-notch, if smart people are willing to give up all that to come here.

Yes indeed, if one thing US is best at it would be marketing, but what I have explained is only true for the past decade (2000 upwards). Upto the 90s and before the tech boom, it was very difficult to make a good living in India where the only stable choice then was to take up a government job.

The generation before (those born till 70s in India) had to struggle a lot under newly independent India and its socialistic ideals. That generation also created the craze about going away from India to build their careers. Couple this with the civic issues of India (which are still prevalent) and you end up in the popular view about India in the west.

USA's main export these days is culture, so yeah, I'd say marketing is top-notch.

Its amazing money for someone living in India, but the guy in question was moving to America. If he's good enough for them to want him to work in the U.S., they should be willing to pay him appropriately to do so.

If the worker in question accepted the offer, then if seems that the pay was appropriate.

That's a ridiculous statement. I recently took a job that pays 15% less than I was making, which was already much lower than I should be making, because it was either that or have my family get evicted from our home when we can't afford to pay rent. Just because someone is getting screwed doesn't mean they can avoid it.

I'll definitely be looking for something better, but until I find it I don't really have any good options. I'm sure someone trying to leave India is in a similar situation.

The worker might not be aware of actual living cost in America.

Many people work in the US for far less than $50k/yr and have enough left over for remittances.

Not quite sure if this is illegal though.

I switched from the helpdesk at my first job to being a senior sysadmin working with the highest paid people on site for my gig. My company wanted to give me ~2% raises a year from the helpdesk wage to what was the average for my new position, vs. bumping me up to the avg salary for the new position when I switched teams.

So I would have worked side by site with my peers for ~10 years to catch up to what I should have been paid walking in the door. Since they wouldn't pay me what I should have been worth I quit.

Experiences similar to yours are the biggest reason I'm abandoning a 10+ year career along the same path. Everyone that I've ever known in helpdesk or admin has been completely shit on by an employer with regard to compensation; myself included. I'd say it probably happens more frequently than 1/3 of the time too.

Its Screamingly illegal.

Ask yourself if say worker from the south say moved to a California and a company policy paid blacks less than whites - the courts woudl crucify them

I think the email is being latched on as a motivator too much in this case (because Oracle is obviously evil).

The policy more likely is: We pay X dollars for position Y in the USA, and less than X dollars for position Y in India per company policy. There isn't anything illegal about that. Also there isn't anything illegal about not bumping up his salary if he moved from India to the USA (even though I don't agree with this).

And we we pay X-20% in the USA for non whites for the same job.

Pretty sure whites are paid less than east Asians for same job in US.

Interestingly, the US Supreme Court ruled Asian Indians to be Caucasian, probably white, but not really white. Pretty tragicomic stuff, the old race based citizenship requirements.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5076/

There's no excuse for underpaying employees because of their location or the color of their skin. The proper salary for an oracle employee is probably several million dollars per year, based on their sales, but most of it is stolen by the shareholders and top level executives.

The proper salary for an oracle employee is probably several million dollars per year, based on their sales

Oracle only pulls in 300k revenue per employee. Interesting how that makes each one worth 'several million' a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation

Agreed. The janitors should sue for their rightful piece of the action.

This is not meant to offend, but your response is essentially socialist in nature. If we keep this discussion within the capitalist framework, then the proper salary is simply $1 more than a competitor is willing to pay said employee. Thus it is arguable that this particular employee was extremely overpaid.

> This is not meant to offend, but your response is essentially socialist in nature.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I'm not sure I agree, anyway. Paying people according to the sales value they create leads to pretty unequal outcomes; janitors, clerks, and other unrespected jobs may be forced to scrape by on less than a living wage. Sounds a lot like capitalism!

It is bad, but not because socialism is bad.

It's bad because we're discussing salaries in an ostensibly capitalist environment. The citation of socialist theory is thus a non sequitor.

So employee A who makes the company x million / year should be paid on par with a janitor? I think we just fundamentally disagree on that one.

Not necessarily, but a janitor should be paid a living wage. It's very easy to imagine an executive declaring that any employee who doesn't produce quantifiable profits should get peanuts. (Or "minimum wage," which is not a living wage in most of the US.)

Fine. Yes, the socialist response is that a worker should control what they produce -- a collection of workers together would democraticly control what they create together.

So sure, the socialist argument (or more accurately the labor theory of value) is that a worker (variable capital) produces some value and is then paid a wage for that value which is less than said value. This difference is the surplus value, some of which is used to pay for upkeep or new machinery (constant capital), pay capitalists and some becomes capital for future investment.

If a worker is from India or lives in India and produces the same value as one born or lives in the US they deserve the same share.

Of course, as I said, the real socialist position is not getting a share of what they produce and the rest being controlled by a capitalist but instead collectively what is surplus and how to use it.

The capitalist response is to say you don't deserve the same share (and especially not the full value), thus making the surplus value larger.

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