December 27, 2024

FIGHTING OVER H1B VISAS: Elon and Vivek Under Fire From the Right.

The real problem with H1B visas is that companies abuse the process to exploit workers and hold pay down. Here’s an IEEE report on the subject. I’ve seen some people characterizing this fight as the smart people versus the retarded rednecks, but I don’t think you can read this IEEE description of what’s going on and think of it that way. “This difference illustrates an important point about H-1B visas. While some companies pay their H-1B employees’ salaries equivalent to what American workers get paid, many companies do not. In fact, most H-1B visas are used, not by Facebook and other big tech companies, but by outsourcing and consulting companies. And the salaries paid by those companies tell a different story.”

Related:

As a pro-worker President, Trump needs to fix these exploitative arrangements. He should also take on the treatment of another class of abused workers, adjunct professors in academia. “Academics seem to think that the business world is a feudal environment characterized by huge status differentials and abusive treatment of underlings. They think that because, to be honest, that’s a pretty good characterization of . . . the modern university, where serfs in the form of adjunct professors toil in the vineyards.”

UPDATE:

Plus: “The O-1 visa is intended for individuals who demonstrate extraordinary ability in their field — the kind of world-changing talent that any country would welcome with open arms. By contrast, the H-1B visa is often used to bring in foreign workers at lower wages, tied to their employers by a system that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. While the O-1 visa focuses on attracting brilliance, the H-1B program has largely become a mechanism for cost-cutting at the expense of American workers and the foreign workers it ostensibly benefits.”

MORE:

It really is the global town square.

Plus, more thoughts, from Eric S. Raymond:

Posted at 8:24 am by Glenn Reynolds