In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us/in-turnabout-disney-cancels-tech-worker-layoffs.html

by jonburs • 11 years ago

67 53 11 years ago

lmg643• 11 years ago

This doesn't seem like great reporting - largely unrelated to the Orlando event that triggered the NYT article.

This worker's blog seemed pretty insightful: https://plus.google.com/+KeithBarrett/posts/PWA6BXs7dbS

Taking his comment about revenue focused technology being developed in that office, it doesn't seem like it was a smart business move to lose the experience of the staff they had in place already.

learc83• 11 years ago

H-1Bs are supposed to be used to fill jobs for which qualified Americans can't be found, but to get around this, Disney lays off workers and brings in a consultancy to take over. The consultancy employs the H-1B workers, not Disney.

There are so many loopholes that it seems like the only solutions are to either create a well funded agency/department to oversee this, or to increase the price far enough that H-1Bs are only viable as a last resort.

protomyth8• 11 years ago

In my wildest dreams, I wish the tax system would allow the deduction of salaries and benefits payed to citizens but not to foreign workers. That would change the incentive for companies. Or, add a tax on foreign workers to help pay unemployment for citizens.

sremani3• 11 years ago

they already do collect medicare and social security from foreign workers.

untog• 11 years ago

It doesn't actually seem that complicated - just stipulate that H1B workers must work on site, for the company they are employed for, not as a contractor.

Obviously that would need enforcement, but they already do checkups on some of these things, and if they're paired with high enough fines these outsourcing firms won't risk it.

sremani3• 11 years ago

Follow the money, the US corporations are at least in their mind are saving a lot of operational cost with Outsourcing, so they do lobby for H1B workers of outsourced company to work in their campuses.

Its not a coincidence that decades of Visa abuse is ignored, there are bigger forces than these outsourcing companies namely, the chamber of commerce et al.

xienze• 11 years ago

The other trick is to run job ads with impossible requirements (10+ years of Node.js, etc.) and hey, what do you know, we just don't have the skills required in this country!

kenrikm• 11 years ago

I recall back in 2010 I saw job postings looking for a minimum 5 years experience writing iOS Apps. Never mind that the iOS SDK was only two years old at that point. #sigh

bsder3• 11 years ago

The solution is for H1-B workers to auto-convert to a green card after 12 months. Period. The company has 12 months to complete a security check and has to fund it itself.

Now, if the company really needs a worker brought in on an H1-B, they will be very happy and the H1-B queue will continuously clear itself. However, if all they want is an indentured servant, that will get quashed when the green card arrives.

Everybody wins--except for companies who abuse the H1-B program. Which is almost all of them. Which is why you never hear this solution.

rtpg• 11 years ago

Exactly. The primary issue with H-1B is that it's attached to the company. As a nation, it's in our interest to pull in people with (supposedly) unique skills, and to incentivize them staying in the country.

If the visa is not attached to the company, then the wage deflation effect will be much more minor. After all, the visa holder could just go to the company next door and get a higher wage if the initial company tries to pay too low a salary.

gohrt• 11 years ago

Not everyone ones: American citizens who compete with immigrants for jobs. Or H1B immigrant's compete for overall quota spots with other immigrants, so those lose.

kansface• 11 years ago

Won't companies just fire the H1-Bs before the year is up and keep the treadmill rolling?

rbanffy2• 11 years ago

This would be an interesting solution, in special if at the end of the year the worker's transition into green card regime were conditioned to passing a test not unlike the one people applying for citizenship do and, if the worker does not pass, that spot cannot be used by the hiring company for a certain period. Requiring companies that "rent" H1B workers to American clients to actually invest and depend on their staff would probably make the business model of abusing work visas less profitable.

I see a lot of H1B workers that would not fit my notion of "skilled" except for vanishingly narrow fields (those you can master after a week of training).

Zigurd• 11 years ago

I would add to that that H1-Bs should be auctioned. That way, they are more likely to be used for high-value people coming to high-value R&D positions, not lo-wage seat-warmers for outsourcing shops.

geebee2• 11 years ago

This would be a huge improvement, though it doesn't address a more fundamental issue: why should tech companies should have the power to bestow temporary residency on workers? This is an unusual aspect to a labor market, especially at this kind of scale.

The justification is that that there is a critical shortage of software developers (at any price? at market rate?) that threatens the US economy, so we should allow corporations to bestow "front of line" privileges on tech workers that other classes of immigrants don't get.

I don't buy it. Why wait a year, why not just award the green card the moment the immigrant shows up. And why require that the immigrant have a job offer from a tech company? In short, why not just let people immigrate, and allow them to enter the job market in response to market signals?

A dental hygenist earns about as much at the median in SF as a software developer. A registered nurse earns quite a bit more. Why not allow immigrants to choose those fields just like US citizens get to? Why force them to study tech fields and work even a year for disney in a tech role to get to come here?

th0waway• 11 years ago

nope, just means they have 12 months to get the next indentured servant lined up. lose/lose, still.

tsotha3• 11 years ago

The H-1B visa should be eliminated. It's been nothing but a scam from the start. If there's a demand for a certain type of skill high wages will attract people to the field.

jahewson• 11 years ago

High wages are not enough. It takes time to train people. It can take years. Demand for experienced workers can't be satisfied with newly trained workers. Demand for skilled workers can very easily exceed their supply.

A good example of this problem currently is nurses in the Bay Area. They are very well paid however there is still a shortage because there isn't enough teaching available. The teachers are of course experienced nurses, so there's no way to increase the supply of teachers without further reducing the supply of nurses.

So while supply and demand will solve them problem eventually, you might have to wait 20 years and in the world of business someone else is going to eat your lunch during that time.

danmaz742• 11 years ago

A simple enough solution is to require H-1B to be given only if the salary is X% above the industry average for the position. Then companies will only use them for people whose skills are actually difficult to find in the USA.

Edit: wording

dagw2• 11 years ago

That would just lead to employers redefining which "industry" a particular position is in.

protomyth8• 11 years ago

Thinking about it, perhaps some fine Congress Person could add a line to the H1B regulations that specifically states that an H1B cannot be billed out to other parties.

Animats• 11 years ago

"The Labor Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into two outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys..." Disney was using both. And suddenly, Disney management decides that maybe violating labor law isn't such a good idea.

The US has reasonably good labor laws, but weak enforcement and too-small penalties.

jamhan• 11 years ago

Now if only the Australian government would follow suit and follow through with investigations of similar practices here. Abuse of "skilled immigration" 457 visas is rampant.

rbanffy2• 11 years ago

I am more than a bit shocked. Of course I assumed there would be some abuse of H1B visas, but I never imagined a company would give the workers being displaced proof of such abuse.

6stringmerc• 11 years ago

Let me get this straight - just as soon as the Department of Justice opens an investigation into the two major consultancies, Tata and Infosys, Disney decides to walk-back its plan of layoffs and replacement?

At the end of the day, I'm sure this will get swept under the rug and nobody in an Executive position - at any company (Tata, Infosys, Southern Cal Edison, Fossil, Disney, etc) - will actually face prosecution as an individual for manipulating / corrupting the system. However, there may be a job or two lost in shuffling around in order to sign a declaration that "We admit no wrongdoing and promise not to do it again" which ties up the investigation and puts a bow on it. Case closed.

Yet another metaphorical example of how the top tier of "business leaders" and decision makers pander to the top tier of the richest individuals ("investors") and have absolutely no disincentive to continually gutting the middle class and young generation of US Citizen workers who are ridiculously underemployed at this time.

In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs

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