But when I say H1B workers are "cheap labor" I'm claiming this on aggregate. If we take a charitable view that an H1B worker is paid $5K less than a non-H1B worker per year - and that's very charitable based on the numbers I've heard thrown around - a company like Tata or Accenture is looking at tens of millions of dollars in savings.
Note also my characterization was not on the quality of the work produced by H1B workers: I've seen some good and some bad, just like everyone else really. But having artificially cheap labor is inherently bad, both for the laborers that can't negotiate something better & workers in the rest of the industry whose wages are deflated to match.
Indeed, cheap labor is really only good for one group: the one that's constantly pushing to increase the H1B cap.
That's not pure savings as there are plenty of paperwork costs etc, but you still end out ahead after ~1 year of work. O and just submit a lot of names to the lotto.
I agree generalizing it as cheap labor is not fair, but I do feel sorry for my friends just starting their careers with a serious lack of job mobility.