What shortage of programmers?
I’ve been away. We had a death in the family (my brother-in-law) which turned me into a single parent for a few days — a paralyzing experience for an old man with three small boys and two large dogs. You never know how much your spouse does until it all falls for awhile on your shoulders. I am both humbled and a bit more wrinkled for the experience.
While I was being a domestic god a reader passed to me this blog post by John Miano, a former software developer, founder of The Programmers Guild, now turned lawyer who works on immigrant worker issues as a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) a supposedly nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC. I don’t know Miano and frankly I hadn’t known about the CIS, but he writes boldly about H-1B visa abuses and I found that very interesting.
Here’s what I found to be the important section of the post:
An American IBM employee sent me an e-mail chain among the employee, IBM hiring managers, and IBM HR that shows how IBM flagrantly violates the law in regard H-1B usage and immigration status discrimination.
First a little background. IBM has a built-in source to import foreign labor. IBM’s Indian subsidiary (IBM Global Services India) is one of the largest importers of foreign workers on H-1B visas.
When IBM is staffing projects in the United States it can hire locally or use imported labor on H-1B visas provided by IBM India.
Now let me set the stage for the e-mail chain. An American IBM employee in the United States had been working on a software development project for a customer that had recently ended. The employee needed to find another project to avoid being laid off, as it is easier to lay off people who are not working on projects.
The American IBM employee was on an internal IBM mailing list for employees who were available for a new project. The IBM employee received a timely mass e-mail through this list from IBM HR with a job description that started out:
We are urgently seeking Business Analyst resources with Test experience for two positions on the Alcatel-Lucent account.
A lengthy job description and instructions on how to apply followed this introduction. (IBM uses the term “resource” throughout to refer to employees.) The job was located in the United States and the American IBM employee lived close to the project.
The American IBM employee responded to the job posting with a cover letter explaining how the employee’s qualifications matched the posted job requirements, the additional information requested in the job posting, and a resume.
This is the IBM hiring manager’s complete response to the American IBM employee’s application (The IBM employee provided translations of acronyms that I have indicated in square brackets.):
Thank you for your interest in the eBusiness Analyst position on the Alcatel-Lucent account. We are in the process of gathering resumes for this position and will send you a follow-up response once we have had an opportunity to review your qualifications.
Please understand the clients first preference is IGSI [IBM Global Services India] landed resource, then local US candidates, then remote, so these candidates will be in the second group to be considered. (sic)
This manager was forcing Americans to get in line for jobs behind “landed resources” from IBM India. In case you are wondering — yes, this is illegal. See 8 USC § 1324B.
So how can IBM so flagrantly violate the law?
The reason IBM can get away with this disgraceful behavior is that discrimination enforcement requires a complaint. An employee considering a complaint has to weigh the probability of the government prosecuting the case and winning adequate compensation against the risk of retaliation and damage to his or her career. Many companies make severance packages contingent upon employees signing away rights to file such a complaint.
At this point, I am sure the IBM public relations folks reading this posting to formulate their response are thinking to themselves “Rogue hiring manager. IBM does not have a policy of discrimination.” Read on.
The American IBM employee forwarded the e-mails to IBM HR and attached the following complaint:
You included these two positions – below – again into today’s email to “Available”. Per below, they are NOT looking at Americans. Pretty clear.
You would think that IBM HR, upon learning of unlawful discrimination, would disavow the actions of its hiring manager and take decisive corrective action.
Instead, IBM HR actually responded by explaining to the American employee why IBM violates the law:
There are often US Reg [U.S. Regular] seats that also have landed GR [Global Resource] seats open – sometimes the customer will take either as long as they are working onsite – - and the cost difference is too great for the business not to look for landed GRs or to use them if they are a skills match.
There you have it, straight from the IBM HR department. Foreign workers, global resources supplied by IBM India, are so cheap compared to Americans that it is worth violating the law.
This is Bob again, pointing out that the H-1B program specifically does not allow saving money to be an acceptable reason for granting such visas which can only be used, supposedly, for finding workers with skills that are literally unavailable in the domestic work force.
Miano gives half of a good reason why this sort of abuse can happen — that there generally aren’t specific complaints filed against it. I might go further and speculate that there aren’t complaints because IBM’s domestic work force is too intimidated to file them.
What happened to Respect for the Individual?
Here’s what happened: IBM has no fear of the U.S. legal system.
This hearkens back to my last column about regulatory abuse. IBM has the largest internal legal department of any corporation anywhere. IBM has more lawyers on staff than most governments. And IBM’s legal department has been over the years a great profit center, especially through enforcing intellectual property rights. If you decide to sue IBM for violating your patent, you can be sure their first response will be to find half a dozen or more IBM patents that you might have infringed, too. Just the threat of protracted legal action is enough to make most such problems simply go away, IBM is so aggressive.
And so we’ve reached a point where, as this Miano post describes, IBM appears to not even pretend anymore to be in compliance with H-1B immigration law. Why should they?
Condolences to you and your wife on the loss, Bob.
IBM sucks, basically.
This relates today and to the previous post.
China could learn a lot from the US, but vice versa too.
Here in Beijing I am just reading the morning news, and
“A court in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region sentenced to death a former president of a State-owned gold and silver company, North News reported.
Song Wendai, president and chief manager of Inner Mongolia Qiankun Gold & Silver Refinery Co Ltd, was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement of public funds…” this is a copy from a government newspaper website.
Death sentences are often “delayed”, can’t think of the word they use, but it can be a repreive of years. Not sure what happens then. However if not ‘reprieved’, after a review by the Supreme Court which is automatic, they are carried out promptly. And promptly means it…
Reprieves are for two years. If the criminal is able to behave for two years and avoid any criminal behavior, the death sentence will be set aside and they will get life in prison instead.
Bob,
I live in the UK and have been following your recent IBM posts – do the issues you raise get news coverage in the US – are they taken up by any of your politicians?
One of the major presidential candidates made a lot of money by outsourcing jobs in the US to China.
Yes, Obama has made lots of money from investing in companies that outsource to China, but what does that have to do with IBM and it’s importing people from India?
Taking away jobs from Americans is what they have in common. But its quite true that an investor in a company’s stock isn’t responsible for what the company does.
Romney’s Bain Capital. He was CEO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital
Agreed. A CEO is a little bit more than an “Investor”. In a “praising profit-makers”, Randian, right wing society, the answer is clear: Americans need to buck up and pull their own weight. You can keep your penchant for healthy kids and clean streets; just pick up a broom after your shift. If you are lucky and worthy, the Foxconn execs might open a plant and hire your children.
There is some news coverage but what there is isn’t very good, which is why these posts are so popular.
Just look at the web sites for most major news organizations. They are cluttered with ads from IBM. This will tell you a lot about why no one will do an expose of Big Blue.
See also: General Electric.
I am sure many multi-nationals play this game. I just know a lot of IBMers.
I BM U BM………we all BM
…for IBM! I wonder what “BM” stands for. Is it anything like “Bing Is Not Google”? (Came accross both in a google search.)
And that is why I will never, ever allow my company to purchase any product or service by, or remotely related to, IBM.
This clearly ties in with your last post about financial regulation and they provide a sad picture of the way today’s corporations behave. There is no incentive to follow the rules when there is no punishment for breaking them.
[...] Link. Fines are trivial; fines written for 1970 corp income. by jgordon on October 16, 2012 • Permalink Posted in share Tagged pinboard [...]
Bob, are you sure they are abusing H1B visas? As an ex-IBM UK employee I did several assignments in the US on an L1 intercompany visa. IBM used to have blanket authorization to use L1s i.e. there was no quota. An L1 visa allows companies to transfer employees between their own subsidiaries or partner companies.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa
Not that I condone using this for cheap labor but if you must throw stones then perhaps getting the facts clear might improve the message.
From the hiring manager’s email extract:
“Please understand the clients first preference is IGSI [IBM Global Services India] landed resource”
Talk about a big whopper of a lie…
Rupe
Probably because the contract they signed has incentives for them to utilize ‘off-shore’ resources, or ‘Global Resources’. The company I (American) work for (Indian) has similar language in many of its contracts. We are always ‘encouraged’ to use off-shore resources. Whether this is mainly because they want to employ as many Indians as possible or they want to pinch pennies is up for debate. They clearly want to limit the number of on-shore resources they need to have.
“What happened to Respect for the Individual?”
I’m wondering the same thing, for a different reason: by what moral argument is a person in South Carolina more deserving of a job than a person in South India?
This is how the argument would be presented: “Go back to India and find a job there, stop trying to take jobs from Americans in America!”
That isn’t a moral argument, and it contains no reasoning.
It’s mine and not yours is a moral argument.
A nation-state is not an individual – the question the author posed was, “What happened to Respect for the Individual?”
If the job is in South Carolina, and there is an American based in South Carolina that is qualified and available to do the job, then they have more right to the job. If you don’t understand that, then you are obviously a globalist who believes that the UN should run the world as one big, happy socialist commune. Unfortunately the world doesn’t work that way. It’s competitive.
It isn’t that the world works that way.
It is the realization the “world” has been designed that way by those with the most power to enforce it upon you.
I know of many who think they’ve figgered out the way the system works right up until it blows up in their face.
Competition is irrelevant; power is the game!
There are no “rights” to jobs, and protectionism – by design – is anti-competitive.
It’s also protective. Somehow other countries don’t follow your delusions.
Hong Kong (a “region” of a country: China) and Singapore have exceptionally open economies, including unrestricted free trade. Check out their growth rates.
Because South Carolina is part of America and India isn’t.
Which concerns itself with nation-states, not respect for the individual.
Your argument is a bit like communism. It sounds logical but it doesn’t reflect how humans behave. Communism didn’t work because humans don’t organize entirely into groups but they’re not entirely individuals either. If you’ve ever worked with H1b Indians they really stick together. Once they get into a company they will be bringing more of their own.
Well, OK. It’s really the “Lifeboat” dilemma, I suppose, and someone as to be tossed off.
But why toss off the people who have worked for 5, 10, 15, 25, years to help build a company? Many, many IBMers have been laid off, and their jobs given to cheaper foreign workers. Does this change the equation?
IBM isn’t afraid because everyone else is. From employees afraid of losing their jobs to the politicians afraid of losing business support. It is all a mess and until people start having a backbone, take some risk and do the right thing, it will continue to deteriorate.
I especially like the first sentence in second paragraph of the IBM Hiring Manager’s response: “Please understand the clients [sic] first preference is IGSI …” — it’s not us, it’s Alcatel/Lucent that doesn’t want to hire you.
And once again, if it’s Alcatel-Lucent (now a FRENCH owned company) that doesn’t want to hire Americans for their locations within the USA, then both IBM and Alcatel-Lucent are complicit in this entire sick, twisted, cost driven process.
Someday, perhaps not soon, but someday, this will negatively impact ALL of these large companies when American no longer have the standard of living we once did and ergo, no ability to continue to feed the consumer driven monster economy. And then, when Americans have been reduced to THIRD WORLD penury, the house of cards will collapse.
What will the corporate asswipes at IBM, ORACLE, HP and Apple say then?
They won’t care, they are a global company. likely, they will have created enough demand for products in third world nations or china to make up for the loss of demand for products in the US.
It is not obvious to me that the Indian working on this project will be physically located in the USA? And if so, would require an H-1B visa.
More likely located in the Indian office, working remotely. This is the new reality and there is no wishing it away, or playing King Canute.
Landed was 1st preference, remote was 3rd.
While I think the main issue reported in this post is awful, my comments are directed to your graph “What shortage of programmers?”
I recently had a need to hire several programmers for my team. I performed at least 50 interviews before I found any candidates who knew enough for me to consider them. I wasn’t just hiring for senior positions either – the lack of logical ability and lack of actual programming concepts was pronounced regardless of level of experience. I eventually did find three good people with varying levels of experience who all had common sense, basic concepts, and the ability to “think in code” – but the experience really soured me on the abilities of the majority of programmers. We required legal right-to-work in the U.S. without need for sponsorship, and we got candidates who were citizens and candidates with green cards, some born here, some from other countries. I really didn’t care where they came from as long as they were sharp, knew their stuff, and could communicate effectively. Even so, the vast majority of applicants failed on one or more of these counts.
The moral of my story is – there may be a large percentage of programmers out of work compared to all jobs as indicated by that graph – but I would bet you that the majority of them are lousy programmers. There are always exceptions of course, but I theorize that a really good programmer will get snapped up in a heartbeat, even in this tough economy. The crappy ones really are better off finding a new career that is more suited to their individual skills.
Good point! Programming isn’t a profession like Doctor or Engineer. Anyone can call themselves a Programmer.
First, as a programmer I do get requests from recruiters regularly…I typically end up turning down a lot because I’m already employed and not looking. (Right now I am looking; but not serious about it yet.) So I can very well say that yes, good programmers do get snatched up, but only when companies are willing to pay appropriately.
My present employer is a small company – < 20 people at our US office; of which 2 are programmers. We need more programmers – qualified mid to senior level developers; but the US company has no authority to hire on its own, and the parent company won't authorize sufficient funds to hire even one qualified person at an appropriate rate. (I think its because they really want to shut us down; and take everything back to their main office.)
Needless to say, they're trying the fresh-out-of-college-no-experience approach…
And from that I do agree as well – most CS college students do not know a thing about real world programming as most CS programs teach pure theory and nothing that relates to real world programming. The students that do know something are the ones that are pursuing programming outside of class as well – through open source projects, their own studies, jobs, etc; but they are by far not the majority in the programs. Further, they would probably benefit more from a Software Engineering type program that follows more real-world practices and requirements.
The main problem, of course, is that companies do not want to pay what is required for a competent programmer; and the educational system doesn't teach what is required to make competent programmers – just competent professors who are no good outside of academia.
I'm not sure that the problem is any better outside the US either; it just makes it look nicer to pay for the same level of incompetence at a lower price point.
Who screened the resumes for your pool of interviews? What I have seen when I was looking for work is two things. If you don’t have exactly the keywords screeners (real or computer) are looking for, you don’t make the cut. And unless you are unemployed and living close you don’t make the cut. One recruiter told me employers don’t want to wait for you to quit your current job and move when they can find a body ready to start tomorrow.
Over 40 is another reason for rejection these days.
I think you need to focus on your resume-reading skills, or perhaps raise your salary offers to get a better grade of resumes to read. You make work for yourself if you have nothing but a pile of bad resumes. Maybe it pays off, sure seems like people try to do it that way, must be a reason and that would be one.
IBM must hate you
IBM doesn’t UNDERSTAND me. An organization like that, where most of management has never worked anywhere else, is always focused inside. Look at the terminology. IBM uses language like the military uses language — they make up their own terms and insist on their proper usage. The very inability to understand what an IBMer is even talking about labels you as an outsider and therefore suspect. And as an outsider I don’t matter. No, they don’t hate me, but they find me annoying. But if I haven’t made it clear before they are also very, very stupid because IBM is destroying itself from the inside, with each CEO in turn trying to be the last one before the structure collapses completely.
Robert, I hope you don’t kid yourself that anyone at IBM knows (or cares) what you think.
A lot of the employees do, judging from the response to Bob’s columns. And their managers should care also since they too will be out of a job if there is no one left to manage.
I work at IBM. He’s not kidding himself.
This is so true. My managers at IBM have been there so long and they are so recycled (some have been at IBM longer than I have been alive)- they have never seen anything else and never seen the rest of the world. They do things and manage things like we are stuck in the 80s. Its horrible. The worst part is they don’t want to change and they don’t want to accept that the rest of the world is far more technologically advanced. They are killing themselves with their antiquated ways of thinking and managing – instead of investing in technology and innovation(which none of these managers can even seem to fathom the concept of), they only know to outsource labor to reduce costs. IBM – Where ‘I’diots ‘B’ecome ‘M’anagers who think ‘I’ts ‘B’etter ‘M’anual.
With age, comes wisdom and senility. Perhaps that explains IBM’s stock success and customer losses.
Interesting this, all about IBM and its management style. I am retired now since 1998, and did my 20 years as an IT manager, so most of what goes on today makes little sense to me now. In the 80′s, I remember retraining plastic press operators in the art of coding, and by 2000 they had left IBM and had become the companies that made millions off the Y2K scare. This was just one example of many how IBM tried to hire from within, and once had an almost zero layoff policy. I always respected IBM’s people manager policies, and found that to be a comfortable work environment for two decades. However, looking back, we were always payed less than most for the privilege. And now that I am on the outside looking in, all I can do is root for high stock returns that directly affect my retirement savings.
What IBM is purportedly doing sucks but I wonder if it matters. If someone were to pursue legal action why wouldn’t they just offshore the project back to India? To the extent the client is concerned about the money they would be choosing between paying a premium for domestic development versus remote development at a cheaper rate.
I think the original reply needs to be understood from a different point of view: “…the clients first preference is IGSI [IBM Global Services India] landed resource…”. Look at it from the point of view that IBM is not a company providing services but a general contractor hiring subs in order to get a piece of the action. They explain to a potential client that they can locate expensive services or cheaper services, because if they did not offer the cheaper alternative, there would be no IBM contract at all. It’s sort of like the dmca issue Bob brought up in connection with Google and taking down a video. Google just wants to be thought of as an intermediary, not a content provider. IBM is also an intermediary, not a services provider. Like a general contractor, the only service they want to provide is that of match-maker.
First America outsources jobs previously held by Americans; now it is hiring people from other lands to come do the work inside America cheaper than American labour can do. Now would this be outsourcing Jobs within America to outside sources, inside?
Wow.
Did I get the semantics right?
This is fantastic. Now, all America has to do would now be to export all the poor and unemployed in America to foreign lands and what a wealthy country it would be. A nation of billion/million-aires and outsourced hired bodies, the latter of which would save oodles in education, healthcare and pension costs. Ship the sick and elderly back first flight available.
Love the IBM-related content, Bob. This is highly interesting stuff for those of us not “on the inside.”
@John Oakley
L1 visas can be applied for in advance by companies to save time when transferring talent from offices in other countries to USA. Transferee needs to have been an employee for 2 yrs, IIRC. the idea was to streamline integration of key management talent.
H1Bs are entirely different.
Something on this page is pinning my CPU.
ditto
Ditto. I think it’s the display of search terms on the right-hand side. If you turn of Javascript, all is ok. I think I’ll stop reading Cringely’s columns until he fixes this.
Me too.
Google “hosts file blocking”.
Heck – not being hired because an H1-B visa holder is bad – but I was RA’ed so that an H1-B holder could take my position. It all seems so wrong.
L-1 requires only 1 year of working for the company.
The title says it all. Capitalism Sucks. Worst of all those who continue to apologize for capitalism suck. …and there are still people that deny market failure is even possible!
Far from needing less government what most countries need is more government to put a stop to this sort of thing. Never mind invading other countries to control what they do with their oil, how about sending tanks into a few corporate HQs? Maybe start with IBM!
P.S. Then setup a prison camp in Cuba, lock up a few CEOs there and take a very very long time deciding what to do with them.
Cuba is a perfect example of what happens when people who believe capitalism sucks get into power.
Not necessarily. Cuba has been suffering an economic embargo for decades. It might have become like “communist” China now if there had not been an embargo. We can’t judge Cuba without considering the effects of the embargo.
Embargo is irrelevant. China is like it is because they abandoned communism. Cuba under Rual is doing something similar.
Trade itself is a form of capitalism. You’re free to purchase from the lowest bidder of the product that meets your needs. China is successful insofar as they embrace capitalism and participate in world markets. Our fear of Cuba was based on it’s association with the USSR at a time when they thought we would be “buried” by communism while they simultaneously built up their military power. The remaining fear is the lack of free elections in communist countries which means their power is based on military force. It would be great if the Cubans could elect their own governor and become the 51st state so that we would have nothing to fear, or find some other way to convince us that they will not become a threat by allying with another powerful country basing its leadership on military power over its own people.
Or Gotham City and Bane.
So what are you going to replace Capitalism with? Throwing stones and declaring things “suck” is easy – providing value is hard. So provide value – what’s the alternative that’s better?
You heard in the debate about how both candidates want to bring manufacturing back to the US and therefore the associated jobs. Neither want to address the topic referenced in this note. Tens-of-thousands of high skilled tech jobs are being lost to less expensive off shore resource. This is not just an IBM issue. All the tech companies are doing it. Businesses are looking for the cheapest contract possible, and that requires RFPs to have 90+% non-US resource. Companies like Accenture, Wipro, and Infosys are pushing 100% non-US solutions. Businesses are also relaxing the requirement to have the resource work in the US, as it is much cheaper to have off-shore vs. landed. Within the organization I work for, we are over 80% non-US resource on our way to 100% ! My job will be eliminated within the next 2 years and there is nothing I can do about it. Has nothing to do with my competence and everything to do with my address. The only way this issue gets fixed is if legislation is passed that will level the playing field – something like, all contracts for companies based in the US must have at least 50% US workers.
Bob,
The graph at the start of the article shows old data.
I just went to the BLS Web site and they report an unemployment rate for “Computer and mathematical occupations” of 3.5% (down from 4.2% a year ago). http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea30.htm
They also predict substantial job growth for:
Software developers:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151133.htm
Computer programmers:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm#nat
This post reminds me of the business decision Samsung made when deciding to illegally copy the iPhone.
They had the option of ignoring it (Blackberry) or developing something different (Microsoft), but copying it and paying the fine was a better business decision.
You may want to look at http://www.groklaw.net/ before reaching that conclusion…
Yes, because groklaw is the bastion of impartial and unbiased reporting.
Please….
It’s IBM’s money and they can spend it however they want. You, me, and the politicians don’t have a moral right to tell IBM who they can hire and who they can’t. It’s an unfair law and I support IBM’s policy of violating it.
Moral? Companies that put a thumb on the free market scales by paying low wages and then restricting an employee’s freedom to change jobs do not get to claim any moral high ground. H1B workers are paid less, are tied to a specific company and job, and have no leverage when negotiating anything with that employer. If they get to be difficult they can be cut loose and must find another job in very short order with another company willing to play the H1B paperwork game or be forced to leave the country.
You can argue this from a business standpoint if you’d like, but don’t bring morality into it. If they want to hire cheap foreigners and count on big turnover to fill spots, fine. But then find these guys on the open market so they have a chance to fight for fair wages. As it is H1B brings Indian/Chinese/etc wage expectations to American markets without much chance for these workers to be bid upon and it artificially lowers the cost. You want to get all free-markety libertarian then eat the whole crap burger, not just the good parts.
If this were a Facebook thread, I would be clicking ‘like’ right now.
Banks have been doing this for years now. We had a manager at Bank of America announce to a group of employees that they would be reducing the American workforce and replacing them with H1B contractors converted to employees because they could get two of them for the cost of one American staffer. While that may be true, its illegal. Obviously nobody is prosecuting this behavior because of the political clout these companies have.
H1B is effectively destroying this job market for Americans. With entry to engineering level positions all going to H1Bs or offshore, there is no place for a green American to get the on the job training that go many of us where we are today.
Luckily for me, some companies still follow the law. I’m not sure how much longer that will be true as the flagrant violations continue. Please do keep trying to bring this to people’s attention.
Contradiction there. If the alternative to H1B is offshoring, then H1B is not the problem. Software is just able to be written anywhere, so the jobs can go where there is a cheaper talent pool. Animation has gone to Asia as well.
It seems like there are two classes of IBM employees who should sue IBM: First, American’s who have been illegally rejected for positions, or RA’d, by IBM favoring underpaid H1Bs; second, foreign H1B workers who have been paid less than prevailing rates for work in the US. The second group would probably see that as killing the goose, but the first group might be able to get back a few of the golden eggs. While the government may not be good at enforcing white collar crime, a jury of middle class citizens might award enough damages to change the calculation of the cost of ‘doing business’ the IBM way.
You bring up an excellent point. If it really is illegal, as Bob contends, where are the lawyers willing to file class action law suits? Since it’s illegal, they can’t loose.
I wonder if the legal situation is quite what you think, it’s going to depend on what a “landed resource” is. If a team is staffed with H-1Bs and L-1s for a live project, then the job is “technical team resource” and is not linked to the *project*. Then the employer can make an argument (insincere though it may be) that the team is the team, and seeking new work for team members is within the ORIGINAL scope. Is a member “detached” and sent to work on what seems a distinct project, still on the original “team”? I dunno, but I’d hate to bet on the outcome of that argument in court.
Won’t the immigrant experience the same cost of living once in the US as a native, thus requiring an “American” wage to survive?
Not if they don’t require the same STANDARD of living. Benefits are a lot of this. If foreign workers don’t get the same benefits they are 30-40 percent cheaper even if they get the same paycheck. But they get smaller paychecks and accept that because their kids aren’t here but back home and their living situation isn’t a house in the suburbs but corporate apartment they probably share.
plus they can claim ~ 26 deductions on their tax. Things like lodging, food, travel, etc are all deductible if you are a foreign ‘temporary worker’.
When I came to the US on a H1B in 1983, I was claiming 26 deductions.
L1s might earn 25000 or less. They make do.
For that matter I know a PhD who is near the top in his (narrow)field worldwide who came to the US to do a project. He also earned just $25k.
Bob, sorry for you and your wife’s loss. Yes, keeping a family running requires many hands. Some with a skill we are fortunate to benefit from.
The first job of any government is to protect its citizens. Any company is free to hire Indians in India. But if you want the benefits of US infrastructure, law enforcement, military protection, etc., you should hire US citizens when available. That law should be enforced, no excuses, no whining.
Multinational corporations have long had sufficient resources to overwhelm individual employees or customers and even smaller governments. Having bought the political process in the big governments, multinational corporations have acquired additional power equal to or exceeding that of Greek and Roman gods. Corporations are not people, they have become gods and can easily smite all the mortals who stand between them and greater profits.
I am amazed by those who assume markets will remain free even as laws that protect the rights of weaker players are repealed or ignored and artificial monopolies and rent seeking behavior are encouraged. It’s a delusional fairy tale. A free market is like the top floor of a skyscraper. There is a lot of structure that must exist below it for it to stay up.
By the way, when did “democracy” fall out of favor and “free markets” take its place. Have we so abused the first word that all we have left is the poor substitute of the second phrase?
Bob is correct. This does not bode well. If this is the second gilded age, where are the progressives?
I spend a year on an L1 visa in CA some years ago.
I think problem is that H1Bs are tied to a sponsoring companies. If once the individual had landed in US they were fully free to work in any job they wanted for six years it would level the playing field for all. There would be no advantage to choosing a foreigner. If a H1B started on a low salary they could move job just like an American would. It would then just be about skills and not cheap labor.
American like to keep us foreigners separate – in reality they might serve their own interests better if they extended greater rights to us (at least in area of labor law).
I worked for IBM for 23 years after I became a widow with three children my manager called and let me know my job was outsourced to India. IBM actually had me train the folks in India for my job. I wonder how many other IBMers out there have lost their job due to outsourcing?
About 30k! if not more…
If the resource was coming from IBM India, I don’t think it is against the law since the resource is already an IBM employee. The resource can then be brought over on an L-1 visa. This has no maximum like the H1-B. And with IBM having as much weight as they do, they more than likely get every L-1 visa approved that they want.
Bob’s column is based on this link: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9208961/Top_H_1B_visa_user_of_2010_An_Indian_firm . But it looks like IBM is only 5th on the list of H-1Bs, so you make a good point.
Bob,
I was thinking about what you have said about their consulting services and have been wondering one thing. Why would anyone hire them? Is it the name/brand “IBM”? Is it incompetence on the hiring side? Is it a special drug that their sales force slips in a potential victims coffee?
Tom,
I read somewhere that if you hired IBM and they messed up, no one would blame you. But if you hired a less well known company and they messed up, you would be blamed.
In the days when IBM was a company of quality and good moral guidance with great dedicated customer facing employees that was indeed the case. That is no longer true or even promoted by customers. Many times the reason they choose IBM is for deep pockets that they can sue or even threaten with bad press, although IBM bad press is so prevalent nowadays even that won’t induce management to make things right with a customer they’ve screwed.
It’s amazing how brand-blinded most people are. Today, even though many know IBM is a poor company to do business with, they are still attracted to the allure of that old brand.
Many firms doing business with IBM in services over the years don’t even fathom how much they’ve lost in dealing with IBM. Many client customer corporate processes, even those that could be considered proprietary, especially in the IT field where studied by IBM consultants and sometimes even developed at client expense and then re-used and re-sold among their competitors. Few of the old IBM Consulting Group (pre-IGS) realize that in their contracts many of the deliverables where Type 2 materials, which should never be re-used by IBM in any other contracts, but they were used over and over again.
Glad I’m out of there.
Respectfully it’s only when you’ve worked in vendor management you realize how fubared the whole IT industry is.
As a vendor manager running IT projects onthe client side let me tell you there is next to no difference between the big system integrators. You go with them because you have someone to sue at the end andmany offer finance.
So many companies churn through vendors and consultants like an evil cartoon overlord. One failure: despite years of good service gets people the permanent boot.
At the end of the day though nothing beats in house real IT. But that takes courage, intelligence and a real work pipeline in today’s 30 and 90 day management culture.
[...] a post discussing IBM’s cavalier attitude toward US immigration law, Robert X. Cringely wrote: “IBM has no fear of the U.S. legal [...]
I can attest that the scenario outlined in this article is not a one-off. I had exactly the same situation happen to me. The language used in IBM’s communication is nearly identical to what I received from my manager while I was on the “bench” and saw a posting on the internal jobs system. I was a perfect match for the position, yet was told that the opening was for “landed resources” only.
I’m so glad to be out of IBM now. It was no fun to be “just another resource.”
[...] IBM ignores the law on H1-B visas. No real surprise in the US today. Of course, this is the vision for America of Romney specifically and the GOP in general. Strangely, a lot of people they fully intend to screw will vote for them. Is it a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome? [...]
IBM’s behaviuor is the result of a 30 year revolution
completed by the 911 covenanter Bush:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_Revolution#section_1
The history of the US seems to follow Scotlands ,with the clearances and
Now Infosys is setting up subsidiaries in US. Then they can pretend as US company and get the visas.
the law speaks to hiring. The example given is a choice between two already employed workers for an assignment. Am I missing something? Not trying to be an IBM apologist, but don’t understand how this article claims IBM “flagrantly violates the law”.
I am sure you will “understand” and find what is missing when you are the one who is impacted.
trust me, I have been impacted. But that doesn’t change the fact that this article is about IBM breaking laws and not caring when in fact the example, as I understand it, is perfectly legal. So we need to change the discussion to improving the laws.
H1b becomes involved when one the employed workers is a citizen of a different country from the US, hence a foriegn worker needs a special visa to work here.
Why do you assume that the “landed resource” is a current employee, as opposed to a resume and contact number? My (admittedly not recent) site visit to an Indian resource center strongly suggested that they would do whatever it takes to fill an opening; one of their managers’ explicit selling points was how quickly they could hire more resources when needed.
the landed resource is a current employee of IBM India. Sorry, I know this sucks but you have to wrap your head around the fact it’s not illlegal and stop trying to hold IBM to a moral standard, that’s not going to happen.
They are an employee of IBM India before they “land” in the US. They may or may not have been an employee at the time they were selected for the position. At some level, you can argue about whether or not that matters, but it does mean that IBM wasn’t really always choosing between two current employees. (And I should say that IBM was not the parent company of the site I visited. That said, the local managers were asked why the client shouldn’t just switch to IBM at the same time it switched to India — and they did not pretend that the “large available talent pool” from which they could draw a “flexible workforce” for specific positions was an advantage over IBM India.)
Well, this is what happens when you start importing millions of people from a country where there is no law. They bring their lawlessness with them, spread it around corporate America, and turn America into a lawless country too. As Peter Brimelow said “A country takes on the characteristics of the people it imports”. The corruption in India is spreading worldwide and wrecking civilization as we know it.
IBM sucks, and is the worst IT place to work…its definitely not your father’s IBM anymore, its morphed into a behemoth that exists to get the top level execs rich, at all other’s expense. And Congress passed the H-1B laws, with full knowledge and loop holes that companies would not follow it, and would pay lip service to it, and would flagrantly violate it, since the Congress here in the US is the lackeys for the large corporation. The 1 % and Congress, are all in the same.
Read 8 USC § 1324B carefully – it is written to protect immigrants from unfair treatment. It does not protect American workers from losing jobs to foreign workers with legal status in the United States. So if they are cheaper, they are more likely to get the job. While exploitive, this is not illegal – at least not from the section of United States Code that was supplied. If John Miano has another legal angle, please have him post it here.
“… foreign workers with legal status…” I think Bob’s point is that if the “legal status” is an H1B visa, they may have received it illegally, or at least not within the legal definition of an H1B visa. In other words, if the Supreme Court had to decide whether Congress’s intent behind creating H1B was applied in a particular case, they would conclude it was not and therefore the legal status granted by the H1B is not valid. Laws are complicated and subject to interpretation, so it’s up to the legal system to tell IBM they broke the law. If the legal system fails to do its job, so-called “laws” will continue to be “broken”.
[...] IBM has for years been one of the worst, leveraging its IBM India operation as a source for candidates to bring over preferentially for empty job spots over U.S. Employees. [...]
The fact that this blog even exists means that all of you moaners and complainers have lost. You don’t want the free market because you can’t cut it in a free market. You want affirmative action. Shame on you.