Fired IT workers file lawsuit claiming H-1B workers replaced them

[OhioChick]

Workers file suit against Molina Healthcare and its outsourcer, Cognizant

July 12, 2011 03:53 PM ET

Eighteen IT workers in California have filed a lawsuit against their former employer claiming they were replaced by H-1B workers from India and then laid off in violation of the state's anti-discrimination laws.

In the lawsuit, the 18 workers say that IT managers at Molina Healthcare Inc. increasingly catered to the Indian workers while leaving U.S. workers, mostly security analysts and programmers who earned at least $75,000 a year, feeling excluded prior getting laid off last year.

The lawsuit, filed in April in Los Angeles Superior Court against Molina, its CIO at the time, and Molina's outsourcer, Cognizant Technology Solutions, contends that over a period of several years the U.S. workers were marginalized as the IT department became dominated by Indian nationals. The laid off IT workers used anecdotes to make part of their case.

For instance, the workers describe an IT department that took to celebrating Indian holidays, while Indian managers "actively discouraged U.S. workers from celebrating U.S. holidays and traditions, such as Christmas, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, by assigning mandatory work that, in order to be timely completely, required work during holidays traditionally celebrated in America."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218349/Fired_IT_workers_file_lawsuit_claiming_H_1B_workers_replaced_them

[CaliforniaHiker]

1. This will be a lawsuit to watch

Considering the unemployment rate in the US, I will be very interested in the outcome of this lawsuit.

[valerief]

2. Hell, we've all been laid off due to H1Bs. nt

[LiberalEsto]

3. Fannie Mae's IT dept. in Herndon, VA is called "Little

Bombay".
My husband is the only non-Indian in his location, working for a federal contracting firm.

I agree that discrimination is taking place.

The problem is, it's not technically ethnic discrimination, it's discrimination against American citizens who want to be paid enough to live on.