So Cal Edison fires hundreds of IT employees and replaces them with H-1Bs

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2886369/so-cal-edisons-it-layoffs-are-abuse-of-h-1b-program-says-us-lawmaker.html

by wwweston • 11 years ago

22 5 11 years ago

a3n• 11 years ago

what often happens is that U.S. workers, as is the case at Edison, must train their visa-holding replacements if they want a severance package.
Edison said it is in full compliance with immigration law, "and is not hiring H-1B visa workers to replace displaced employees."

Because they hired the H-1Bs first, so they could be trained. But now they have too many employees, so someone has to be let go. Who should it be, who should it be ...

aburan28• 11 years ago

Welcome to the "STEM" shortage myth

kkowalczyk• 11 years ago

The title of this article is a manipulative propaganda.

If you don't bother reading it, it suggests that Edison hired people on H1B as their own employees and then fired existing employees.

The facts in this article are that Edison fired some IT employees and instead hired contractors from Infosys and Tata.

Those contractors are employees of Infosys and Tata, they don't work for Edison. Implying that they do is the first attempt at misleading readers.

Another fact is that some of Infosys and Tata US employees are H1B visa holders.

So it's possible that some of those H1B holders will end up working but the article doesn't actually make that statement other than a hearsay (a statement made by someone (in this case apparently an Edison worker being laid off) but not verified by the "journalist" writing the article) i.e. it's quite possible that none of the people who will replace Edison employees are on H1B.

We just don't know and the article either is so poorly written as to hide the facts behind the headline or is maliciously or incompetently distorting the facts.

spydum• 11 years ago

Really? That is quite a bit naive. I can tell you there is no question about who will be replacing the workers, this is exactly the same runbook every corp who has hooked up with these body shops.

There will be a mix of H1B onsite and offshore, just like Infosys/Tata/Wipro/etc have been doing for nearly two decades. The FTE folks will be required to train their replacements with enticements of severance, and continued employment for a few months. Heck, even some of the times, the body shops will end up hiring those FTEs at same or lower rate (with less benefits), until they can replace them offshore. Management will give the remaining employees the bullshit spiel about global workforce, staying competitive and how these wonderful partners have hundreds of thousands of phD's just waiting to roll up their sleeves and bring leverage and major vendor relationships to the table.

I'm not sure why Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama, who raised the issue) is only now making noise, or why computerworld is just now printing articles.. but this is a surprise to no one, unless they have had their head in the sand.

vonnik• 11 years ago

tech recruiter here. these jerks are ruining it for the rest of us. it's very hard to find certain kinds of talent, and the US is wasting H1Bs on this kind of thing.

So Cal Edison fires hundreds of IT employees and replaces them with H-1Bs

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