What progressives need to understand about about the H-1B program.
* It is not only for truly "high skilled" workers, despite the program usually being referred to as "high skilled visa".
* Many employers abuse the program to get controllable workers who are more easily abused than Americans.
* In my direct experience, the H-1B program has zero to do with compassionate immigration policy. The people who arrive on these visas are generally from the higher classes in their home countries. These workers are coming here to get what is an enormous salary to them based on the exchange rate (at the expense of their family life in the home country of course). (To my knowledge there is no preference or consideration given under the H-1B program to circumstances warranting asylum or protection under other programs.)
* EVERY job filled under the H-1B program, removes an opportunity from the "opportunity pool" that could and instead should be directed to creating opportunities for historically oppressed and marginalized people in this country. << I would expect progressives to support creating better opportunities for African-Americans and other groups that are at a disadvantage in our society.
The below article illustrates one of the more insidious factors of the program as currently implemented (emphasis added):
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/h-1b-workers-put-in-long-hours-to-reach-the-american-dream
Yup, being sent back and probably not being able to get back in, due to the lottery system.
That's not exactly an equal power balance, huh?
That requirement was based on the idea that H-1B workers’ conditions would be improved to match U.S. labor standards, Sarasota, Fla., attorney Sara Blackwell told Bloomberg Law. Instead, it appears that employers are downgrading those standards across the board, she said.
Um, ya THINK ????
Okay, that was a naive fantasy to begin with. Here's an example of how it really works:
Another former H-1B worker at TCS said he put in “almost 12 hours a day for most of the time.” Only eight or nine hours were actually worked in the office—but employees were expected to log into the online system once they went home, and again on the weekends, he told Bloomberg Law.
Workers earned $60,000 to $65,000 per year, based on a 40-hour workweek, he said. But “the concept of overtime didn’t exist,” and no extra pay was allocated for working up to twice that amount of time, he said.
The same worker said employees were provided paid sick and vacation leave on paper, but were never actually allowed to take it. Anyone who called out sick was still expected to log in and work from home, he said.
Choudhary says these conditions not only exploit H-1B workers but create an industry that drives out everyone else. “A normal American would never be able to work for them,” he said.
Please read the full article at the link:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/h-1b-workers-put-in-long-hours-to-reach-the-american-dream
And this is just focusing on the work hours aspect. There is much more about the program and its consequences that is highly anti-labor.
And yet, when I searched DU to see if this article had already been posted ... I gave up after reading just a few threads on the H-1B topic ... so much misinformation - and in some cases a dismissive attitude that "these jobs pay well, so why should progressives care about this?"
- this is why I sometimes want to give up on Democrats. Except republicans are evil. But then, for people who don't care about the other things I care about (environment, women's rights, LGBTQ and minority rights, etc), the attitude of not giving a shit about workers, even workers that make a decent salary (let's not talk about hourly rate though), is one more nail in the coffin of them EVER voting for a Democrat. You don't care about me? Why the HELL should I vote for YOU?
For what it's worth, I will always vote for the better option on issues across the board, and it's been a very long time since I've seen a republican even pretend to be better than the Democrat on most issues. But in any primary, the only Dem that gets my vote, has to be a supporter of workers' rights, including understanding the H-1B program and wanting appropriate changes to it.
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