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H1-B Visas: How To Create Their Need Through Greed [1]

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Date: 2024-12-31

I was inspired today by contributor Iamina566’s H1-B Visa post to share my own story. It’s a story about creating a need where one does not exist. I worked in IT as a Project Manager for 20+ years. At first I worked for Motorola, which was at one time a great place to work (sigh). Then I worked for various internet start ups as they set up the internet we have now through preexisting cable company infrastructures. Then I filled in as a contract IT employee for various companies changing out their email and storage solutions. I worked as a contractor at one of these corporations and witnessed how they created the “need” for H1-B visas.

This is how it worked: BIG CORP 1 pitched a business plan to SMALLER CORP 2. BIG CORP 1 offered to take on SMALLER CORP 2’s entire IT department and IT employees for an agreed upon fee. The selling point was because they have an extensive IT history, they can do things smarter and cheaper for everyone involved. IT is their specialty! They are known internationally. This will save SMALLER CORP 2 lot’s and LOT’S of money, too. All SMALLER CORP 2 IT employees will now be BIG CORP 1 employees, but still work there right in the same building at SMALLER CORP 2. Same chair. Same employees. Same desks. More productivity! And BIG CORP 1 offers stock options, better benefits and more mobility for SMALLER CORP 2’s employees. A seamless transition is promised! Everyone seems happy, albeit nervous, with the coming change.

The contract between corporations is signed. BIG CORP 1 already knows how to make this profitable for them because they’ve done it many times before. First they offered SMALLER CORP 2 employees their own jobs back as promised. BUT (drumroll please) with a 25% pay cut. I’m sure some management folks from both companies involved knew this was coming, but they kept it all secret. Employees were given a few weeks decide on a pay cut or a severance. Lot’s of employees took the severance. The ones remained were not happy employees. And, all of a sudden there were lot’s and LOT’S of open IT jobs. I was hired as a contractor to fill as a Project Manager short term for one of these open jobs (unbeknownst to me at the time).

Next, BIG CORP 1 “attempted” to hire US employees. They advertised the open IT jobs at the 25% reduced rate (below market). So, not many applied. Those who did apply accepted the lower pay only because they weren’t really qualified. A few got hired and then got fired because of this. Then, since BIG CORP 1 was technically unable to hire anyone to fill the open spots, they had met the benchmark to use H1-B visas to fill the open jobs — all the while whining that they could not find enough technically skilled US employees. They had plenty of employees, they just didn’t want to pay them.

Most the H1-B employees who came in were men who seemed not very comfortable working with women. NOT GOOD. Women being welcome in IT, science and other STEMs is important. A lot were techies from India where BIG CORP 1 had a presence already. You see, BIG CORP 1 was already international. Oh yes. They’ve been around making lot’s of money for themselves through various nefarious schemes for a very long time. The H1-B employees were paid crap wages (which created an even more hostile work environment for the remaining US employees that stayed with SMALLER CORP 2). Many lived with 8-12 other H1-B employees in one apartment — like a dormitory. The H1-B visa employees (many of whom already worked for BIG CORP 1 in India) were promised they could take their one month of vacation a year all at once to go home to visit family if they’d move to the US... just like the poorly paid workers in China get to do. And, they’d pay them more than they paid them working in India. So they came to the US and worked all the hours that they could. And, they sent ALL of their money home. Then they went home for a month every year. Then they got a new H1-B Visa and came back.

Turns out, all of it was a greedy scheme for two already super profitable corporations to replace higher paid American workers with H1-B visas employees from the beginning. A game to gut a company and bring in minimum wage (or just above that) IT employees. No one was happy, except BIG CORP 1 and SMALLER CORP 2 who got so much richer. Did they need the money? No. Did they love the money? YES. I understand that SMALLER CORP 2 used to be a great place to work, too… but it was just so very sad to work there. Heavy sigh. That was the nail in the coffin for my IT career — witnessing that type absolutely ruthless corporate greed. I do something completely different now (yes, there is still greed but less). Ever wonder why STEM graduates aren’t finding jobs? THIS IS WHY. No company or rich stockholder gives a shit about American jobs or American people or American kids graduating from college that can’t find jobs. It’s all about money. Period. If the gaps in H1-B Visa laws aren’t fixed to stop them from being the greedy bastards that they are, then they’ll just keep abusing the system to make more money… until there’s nothing left to take.

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