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Comment by bduerst | Hacker News Reader

Did Disney actually replace their 250 workers with H1B immigrants?

The article seems to be juggling words a bit to make a case against immigration, but later states that Disney only direct employs 10 H1B workers. I presume the agency that is now doing the data center work at Disney is all H1B immigrants, but the article doesn't address that either.

Considering that only 85,000 H1B visas/yr are granted and there are 154,000,000 workers, is this (0.05% of the workforce) really as much of a problem as the article is making it out to be?

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The 85k H1B figure is misleading. Disney doesn't employ these people, they outsource to HCL. HCL hires Indian workers. Who's to say they need H1Bs for these people at all. Also, for every Indian tech team lead in the US, they often hand the work off to a team of ten people back in India who don't need H1Bs at all. The average Indian programming wage I believe is about $3-4 hr.

The question is US companies outsourcing to companies with a primarily foreign workforce, and displacing US jobs. There have been estimates that outsourcing has caused the loss of 1.5-2 million US jobs since 2000. There's several considerations involved including the need to have skilled tech workers in the US, but its certainly a serious societal issue in the US.

No, these 250 H1Bs are not direct petitions filed on behalf of Disney. That would've been great for Florida and the Federal govt.

What these companies do is insidious. Say, you're working for HCL in India, HCL files a H1B for you and sends you over for 6 months to the US and then you come back to India and hand over your H1B to them. Not very clear on the specifics, as I've only heard about it.

So during the time you're in the US, you don't get paid US wages for a H1B s/w engineer, which are pretty good. What you get is a stipend for those 6 months and your regular Indian salary which at the very max for the very best won't be more than $40,000 in conversion.

So these are significant savings for Disney and significant profits for HCL.

In short these are not real H1Bs. But a glaring example of how the system is being gamed.

And also stigmatising legitimate H1Bs in the country and the American product (mostly) companies which champion their cause.

This is wrong on several levels...

- H1B visas require that you list prevailing wage and that it's higher than the average pay for U.S. citizens in the same region. It can be manipulated to a degree, but not at scale (1000s) for a single employer.

- H1B visas are for a minimum of 3 years, not six months, during which the immigrant is forced to live and work in the U.S. (not India), thus spending and paying taxes in U.S.

This is exactly my point that I was getting at about the article - it's creating FUD about H1B immigrants and using Disney's terrible corporate policy to contribute to rumors like the ones you just said. If anything, the H1B program needs more funding for enforcement with employers, but stories like this make it seem like the program itself is the culprit.

H1B visas are for three years. it is profitable for HCL to keep the person in US on the visa, rather than have him work from India. You are wrong in saying that the person has to work in US. The salary is at least above 60K. Normally companies pay 50$/hr. The people they are replacing are normally cost to the company at least double that. The rate in India is normally above 20$/hr and employees get paid less than 6$/hr. All companies move towards lower cost areas, and that is the same thing happening here. Walmart, Apple would rather produce goods in Asia than US. Same way Disney would rather hire h1b and give the work to India.

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