H-1B visa holders paid less than Americans

[varun]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1967955.cms

WASHINGTON: H-1B visa holders are "taken advantage of" and, contrary to claims by US industry, are paid less salary than similarly qualified American citizens, says a new study.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) vice president Phiroz Vandrevala even admitted that his company enjoys a competitive advantage because of its extensive use of foreign workers in the United States on H-1B and L-1 visas, according to the study by IEEE-USA, a unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

"Our wage per employee is 20-25 per cent less than US wages for a similar employee," Vandrevala said.

"Typically, for a TCS employee with five years experience, the annual cost to the company is $60,000-70,000, while a local American employee might cost $80,000-100,000....

[fasttense]

1. If they could pay them even less they would.

This is why the bushes want a visa program added to any immigration legislation put out by the Congress.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. not the ones I know

they are on average paid about the same or better...of course, it depends on their nation of origin...

sP

[sybylla]

3. I helped one of my husband's co-workers get off an H-1B visa

because he was getting paid less, forced to work more hours (salaried) and treated generally like a slave to the company. He had 6 kids - all school age - had been in the country for several years and had no desire to return to Belgium. Everytime he complained, the employer threatened to screw up the paperwork and get his visa pulled before he could convert it to a permanent visa.

So for years he had no choice but to go along with the crappy hours, the travel that left him stranded in other states away from his family for weeks and sometimes months and the low wages that must have nearly put him at poverty level with six small children.

H-1B visas are constructed to only benefit the employer. There must be a better way to do business than this.

[sharp_stick]

4. Isn't that illegal?

I thought they had to pay H1 holders the same wage as Citizens. Maybe it depends on industry, we have a lot of them here because there just isn't a large enough talent pool to ignore them. They get the same wages as others in those positions. Not only that the company pays for the VISA's and pays to relocate them to a US site. Green card filings and applications for most that want them are also fully company paid.

[bleedingheart]

5. Duh!

I have known this for years...

[newportdadde]

6. Usually its one H1B paid 'okay' then he passes work to 10 offshore paid

like shit.

Forgot to add that then the offshore programmer who doesn't have any real company loyalty and can't think outside the parameters of a mindless robot fucks everything up. Soooo... you have to drag in your American workers to clean up the mess who aren't familiar with what they did because it too expensive to have them do any actual coding anymore and then they get to waste their time.

[sendero]

7. Certainly my experience in the software field..

... is that H1B folks are WORTH less. Most of them have a poor command of english, and that hurts team efforts a lot.

The market is very efficient for most things.

[treestar]

8. Then they are violating the law

Another enforcement problem.

There are only 65000 H-1Bs per year now. Those jobs are being outsourced anyway. This is not worth the time getting bothered about. They are not "stealing" any job that isn't about to be outsourced anyway.

Get training in gardening, not college-diploma jobs, then you can complain about aliens taking your job.