US Law Allows Low H-1B Wages; Just Look At Apple (networkworld.com) 237
An anonymous reader writes: If you work at Apple's One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino as a computer programmer on an H-1B visa, you can can be paid as little as $52,229. That's peanuts in Silicon Valley. Average wages for a programmer in Santa Clara County are more than $93,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the U.S. government will approve visa applications for Silicon Valley programmers at $52,229 -- and, in fact, did so for hundreds of potential visa holders at Apple alone. To be clear, this doesn't mean there are hundreds of programmers at Apple working for that paltry sum. Apple submitted a form to the U.S. saying it was planning on hiring 150 computer programmers beginning June 14 at this wage. But it's not doing that. Instead, this is a paperwork exercise by immigration attorneys to give an employer -- in this case, Apple -- maximum latitude with the H-1B laws. The forms-submittal process doesn't always reflect actual hiring goals or wage levels. Apple didn't want to comment for the story, but it did confirm some things. It says it hires on the basis on qualifications and that all employees -- visa holders and U.S. workers alike -- are paid equitably and it conducts internal studies to back this up. There are bonuses on top of base pay. Apple may not be paying low wages to H-1B workers, but it can pay low wages to visa workers if it wanted. This fact is at the heart of the H-1B battle.
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In one continuous line.
Re:Explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
15 years ago, Apple hired me on an H1B, and my starting salary was $140k, then they paid everything to convert my H1B to a green card. None of this includes joining and yearly bonus stock options (at the time, RSU's these days) or yearly cash bonuses. They also paid relocation and first few months of rent in a pre-arranged location.
I'm not special. There were several dozen of us in the (weekly) new-employee orientation meeting, most of whom were s/w engineers.
Oh, and I (or rather, my small company, that Apple bought) wrote ILM's digital asset management system for films like Star Wars (ep1), James Bond films, digital commercials etc. mostly in PHP. That sold for $40k/pop... Indeed, just like any language, it's possible to write crap code in PHP, but used properly it's a powerful tool.
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A 'digital asset management system' keeps track of all the assets, like the cameras, PCs, copying machines, folding chairs, power drills, ladders, forklifts, etc. Correct?
Re:Explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
TL;DR: Not really.
I'm guessing that's more of an "asset management system". Ours was orientated around the video. As cameras roll, we digitised the footage by tapping into the tape deck monitor output, we had RFID tags on each tape, and we had LTC/VITC timecode from the deck. We therefore had a unique reference for every frame laid down, as it was laid down (ie: there was zero ingest time, which was - and still is to a large extent - an issue with asset management systems).
The system then sent each frame to a centralised database server that had a webserver on it, and I wrote a streaming (ok, this part was in C :) server and a streaming player for Linux, Mac, and Windows that understood our custom streaming format. There wasn't anything complicated about the format, it was basically motion-JPEG data served from an HTTP interface, so the player would send the URL "http://asset-server/tape-rdid/timecode-from/timecode-to" and get an application/octet-stream back which was each file (common headers stripped), where a file was an individual frame in JPEG form.
What this let people do was record out in the desert, and have their digital dailies sent back via a satellite upload to home base via rsync, and the team at home base could "see" (we only supported quarter-res images at the time, the internet wasn't as fast as it is now) the footage, reliably locate frames on tapes, and discuss/annotate/create EDL (edit display-list, basically a set of timecode-timecode ranges) sequences and play around with it as if they had the tapes right there, even if it was at a low resolution.
On a more prosaic all-in-house system, the act of using a Discreet Inferno or Flame system (which controlled the tape decks in a post-production suite) would automatically log footage into our system, so the non-artist types could use our "virtual VTR" system to review and create play-lists which could then be sent to the machine room with the certainty that what they'd composed in their web-browser would be what ended up on the tape that would later be delivered to clients. This freed up a lot of the tape-deck use which could then be put to more profitable use by the post-house.
There was at least one time when I got a angry phone call from a client who claimed our system was screwing things up. They'd created their EDL for the client using our system and then sent the job to the tape room to be generated, and of course creating that new tape would automatically log the new footage into the system (because it was writing to a tape in a monitored tape deck). They looked at the output footage of the generated tape in their browser, and it wasn't right. After a bit of tracking things down, it turned out the tape room had inserted the wrong master tape, so we saved them the indignity/embarrassment of sending footage from a *competing* client out the door. That alone, in the eyes of the director, was worth the cost of the system.
We had similar procedures for rendered footage from 3D systems (Shake etc. at the time). Again, everything was collated into shots/scenes etc. on the database server. We had rules that would be applied to directories full of frames that would parse out sequences from arbitrary filenames that were differentiated only by a frame number in the filename. That's actually harder than it looks - there is *no* standard naming convention across post-houses :) I separated out the code into a library, wrote a small commandline utility called 'seqls' which was *very* popular for parsing out a directory of 10,000 files into a string like 'shot-id.capture.1-10000.tiff' ...
All of this is (I'm sure, I haven't kept up to date) commonplace today, but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. I'd say about 90% of the code was PHP, there were various system daemons in C, there were video players for the major platforms in C/C++ and there was a kernel driver for the linux box in C that handled the incoming video, digitised the audio, and digitised the LTC
Sounds like indentured servitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Government benefits from importing cheap labor. Rich landowners (now corporations) benefit from cheap labor. History is replete with rich people trying to get richer by importing slaves and/or indentured servants.
It never works out well for society in the long run, but in the long run you're dead anyways, so might as well make some more money and bribe some more gov't officials while you're here, right?
Doesn't matter which political party is in power, doesn't matter whether a politician is a leftist or a rightist, they ALWAYS import more cheap labor... because they want to benefit the rich (and by extension, themselves). Trump ran a campaign saying he will put a stop to this, and now that he's in power he's already he's backpedaling. He's just turning into Clinton Lite. I'll bet you large sums that if Bernie was elected, right about now he will be finding excuses to import more cheap labor too.
Healthcare in the US does that too. (Score:2)
How many people in the US are staying at jobs they hate because they're terrified of losing health care coverage? ACA lessened that, so no wonder Republicans are desperate to scrap it. Can't have the plebes thinking they can just quit on bad employers, can we?
True story (Score:2)
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Yep, and I bet that owner justified it all in his head that she was getting more "value" out of the insurance so it's still cheaper for her to work 20 more hours a week than to pay for the meds out of pocket at another job. So he's actually doing her a favor!
How did the ACA not make that worse?? (Score:2)
How many people in the US are staying at jobs they hate because they're terrified of losing health care coverage? ACA lessened that
The ACA took away the option for catastrophic insurance the poor could get, for a fairly low premium.
Now trough ACA you get the same $8k deductible for a policy but for a monthly payment that is 10x (or 100x) as much as what you use to pay for the same deductible...
How is that "lessened"? Now there is even more fear to losing insurance. I feel that personally, before I didn't
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So maybe I am not up on the nuance of the problems facing some of ACA users. Regardless, the basic point stands. In the US, unlike most of the other developed nations, your medical care is closely linked to your employment which makes job mobility that much harder. It makes it more difficult to report employers for small (or large) violations for fear of reprisal that will affect that medical care. Agreed?
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So maybe I am not up on the nuance of the problems facing some of ACA users.
"Some" being "the vast majority".
A huge reason Trump won is that all of the people forced into the ACA are up on the "nuances" of being shafted by private luxury insurance they are forced to purchase. Not much different than forcing the poor to buy a new Mercedes every year. At least that would get them to an emergency room for free.
. It makes it more difficult to report employers for small (or large) violations for fear of repris
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And if you quit, and can't afford to pay for COBRA, or get fired and same?
See up here in Canada, we pay out of pocket... er.. zero dollars per month for healthcare coverage. If we're employed associated taxes are taken, if we're not, then nothing extra out of pocket. So when switching jobs or thinking of just quitting because your work environment is awful, healthcare coverage doesn't even come into the thought process.
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Indentured servitude isn't far off. When someone's status in the US is H1, first off they aren't considered a resident of the country. So while they can do something like get a driver's license, they have a lot of problems trying to get loans or credit cards, housing, or even go to school. They have no bargaining power with their employer, they don't have any leverage to ask for a raise or any other benefits because if the employer fires them then they have to leave the country now. My wife doesn't work
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Consumers pay wages, as the revenue pays your wage.
Trade tends to improve wealth. I've done the analysis for eliminating Chinese imports of pants and it's pretty hard to not net-loose American jobs unless you pay about minimum wage; that's not the problem, though. The loss or gain of unemployment statistic will buff itself out with labor force growth in a few short years (like 1-3). In all cases, however, you end up with more than doubling the cost of pants--meaning consumers are able to buy less stuf
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Good point.
Lincoln was a Republican but not exactly a free trade idealog. He would do things contrary to subscribed political ideologies if he felt it would better serve the interest of the people.
"If I give my wife twenty Dollars, to buy a cloak and she brings one made in free-trade England, we have the cloak but England has the twenty dollars; while if she buys a cloak made in the protected United Slates, we have the cloak and the twenty dollars."
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Your value system of "they should just buy less" isn't universal. You may think it's a good idea to reduce global economic activity (i.e. buy less stuff) but others, especially those working in any market remotely associated with clothing (retail, marketing, shipping, textiles) who want jobs obviously want consumers to buy more.
It's what I tell my mom every time she complains about how much tech gadgets Americans buy (old Chinese lady). Global economics doesn't hit home until I tell her "I wouldn't have a j
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They're economizing their time. They could spend hours repairing their clothes, or buy new clothes when theirs start to fray. My clothes fray after a couple years and need replacement or reconstruction.
Here's the thing: I spent $18 on a shirt from China. I don't want to spend $157 on a shirt from America 2 years later when that shirt has a small hole worn in it from being worn two days a week and washed once per week. I also don't want to spend $15 on a spool of thread that's going to last forever, $9
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Your analysis ignores that those lower wages paid to workers also reduce the purchasing power of those workers, who are also your customers.
So while the device may be cheaper in absolute dollars, it's still "expensive" thanks to lower overall pay.
That's the problem with applying microeconomics to macroeconomics - The former is an open system and the latter is mostly a closed system (imports & exports make up a tiny fraction of US GDP, so you're mostly selling from US companies to US consumers).
Your anal
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Actually it isn't that simple. Price competition exists in every market. That includes the labor market. There are many highly intelligent people all over the world who would happily work for far less than $93000. It really is an insane amount of money for a relatively easy (from an intellectual pov) job. American workers who make that much really are in a union like situation where for whatever reason the price of their labor is being kept artificially high. Obviously some (the ones with jobs) American pro
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Government benefits from importing cheap labor. Rich landowners (now corporations) benefit from cheap labor. History is replete with rich people trying to get richer by importing slaves and/or indentured servants.
It never works out well for society in the long run, but in the long run you're dead anyways, so might as well make some more money and bribe some more gov't officials while you're here, right?
Doesn't matter which political party is in power, doesn't matter whether a politician is a leftist or a rightist, they ALWAYS import more cheap labor... because they want to benefit the rich (and by extension, themselves). Trump ran a campaign saying he will put a stop to this, and now that he's in power he's already he's backpedaling. He's just turning into Clinton Lite. I'll bet you large sums that if Bernie was elected, right about now he will be finding excuses to import more cheap labor too.
The US is a country of immigrants. When new immigrants come in, the pre-existing immigrants generally find themselves on a higher rung of the economic ladder. Everyone here before is in a slightly better position. This is often not a quick process, and can take several generations. These immigrants, while cheaper than existing workers, are generally considered to be a net benefit at some point. Some immigration is good. Nobody today would seriously argue that Irish immigrants to the US in the 1860s-19
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Bingo, that's it. You win slashdot for today.
Oh, and BTW for the original headline- what is "Allowed by law" and what is "allowed by overworked bureaucrats bribed under the table" are two vastly different things.
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For wanting to get rid of politicians?
The only reason some of them are still alive is just that they ain't worth the jail time.
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That may be true, but what other choice was there?
On one hand, you had a politician who openly and proudly proclaimed she will import as much cheap labor as possible. And was well known for having gone from being dead broke to a net worth of $100 million, pretty much exclusively from political cronyism (no one really believes Wall street bankers gave her $500,000 per speech because she had a pleasant voice)
On the other hand, you had a guy who so far has not taken any political bribes, and who said he will p
Re:Sounds like indentured servitude (Score:5, Insightful)
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The classification thing is bullshit. The CIA works for the President. NOt the other way round. If the President wants to share some information with a foreign power because it will help the USA he can do it. Who decides what is best for USA? Not the CIA. Not CNN. The people do and they select a representative to do it for them. Its called the President. All this outrage is basically undemocratic.
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You are talking about Special interests not Checks and Balances. Why is it Ok to share intelligence with Israel but not with Russia? Trump has been very open in his campaign that he will move away from the policy of confrontation with Russia and the people selected him. Maybe the people want Russia to be an ally rather than a bugaboo used to justify the employment of thousands of highly paid "Analysts" and "Talking Heads" . Are you surprised that these analysts and talking heads are doing everything in the
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Go ask your Dad.
I'm serious. If you really have so little grasp on how events of the last few decades have shaped things today perhaps you should talk to someone who has seen those events unfold.
That line is something I never expected to read from a "conservative" American and it kind of shows how all values and all lessons of the past are considered of less worth than incumbency. It should be more than just doing anything at all so your
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The "Cold War" was used to justify a massive MIC for many years. After it was over instead of getting a peace dividend Bush got us involved in Iraq which led to 9/11 which led to the never ending "Wr on Terror". All Bugaboos to keep us scared and generate employment for "Analysts". I am not a Trump supporter. If anything I supported Sanders but I am loving how the Washington establishment is squirming when then trough of slop is being pulled away. CNN and WP feed at the same special interests trough.
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And it wasn't even the CIA's intelligence- it came from the Israelis.
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Every nation looks out for its own interests. Israelis would share US shared intelligence if it helped their national cause. e.g. They are helping Al Qaeda in Syria because it keeps Syria unstable and no threat to Israel. This is even though they know Al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11. If it is in US interests to get Russian cooperation against ISIS by sharing intelligence so be it. If this burns an Israeli spy tough luck. A judgement call has to be made that is the benefit worth the loss. The President is b
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Hang on, being annoyed about a President acting like an absolute monarch is undemocratic? Please explain.
Would you have put up with Obama doing this?
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The president doesn't get to arbitrarily break laws, or communicate sensitive information to hostile foreign powers. What next, you will defend him selling the blueprints for the nuclear submarines, complete with highlighted weak points?
I'm far from a fan of the current president. However, as the chief of the Executive Branch, the President (this, the previous, or the next one) has the ultimate authority over his subordinates. The CIA, FBI and NSA all report to the President, and as such POTUS has the authority to declassify any information he (or she) wishes to, and share it with whomever he feels is needed.
Remember that you have no idea what is going on. Maybe those blueprints for nuclear submarines are exchanged for hyperdrives, or th
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However, as the chief of the Executive Branch, the President (this, the previous, or the next one) has the ultimate authority over his subordinates. The CIA, FBI and NSA all report to the President, and as such POTUS has the authority to declassify any information he (or she) wishes to, and share it with whomever he feels is needed.
Ha!, I think the Time Magazine read my comment: http://time.com/4780593/presid... [time.com]
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That's what we get for electing people over the age of 60.
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Clinton was just another politician. She wasn't especially corrupt...
I can only guess at your definition of corrupt.
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Of course you knew that but just wanted to throw mud at someone who is now politically irrelevant and is almost certain to never hold another political office for the rest of her life. Why bother? It's over and you got a Manchurian Candidate instead of business as usual.
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"Clinton endured a 25 year long smear campaign"
Actually, it's been at least 43 years. She was a junior counsel on the legal team advising the House about impeaching Nixon.
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Perhaps not US ones, and offering bribes is a different collection of stories that would probably span many volumes about many places, eg.New Jersey "deals" with politicians to get things done etc. The one offering inducements to Castro was especially amusing - who would have thought Casto would be honest enough to both turn it down and not use it as an excuse to crow about the evils of American capitalism?
The guy is slime and on
A lesson in spinning (Score:2)
The cost of living in the bay area is demonstrably bananas ( that's the technical term ). By offering depressed wages, they're simply trying to do their part to make the bay area more affordable to the common man. :D
Re: A lesson in spinning (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is a shortage of STEMs with 20+ years experience willing to work for 40k a year. It's absolutely impossible to find any.
Re: A lesson in spinning (Score:4, Insightful)
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The H1-bs just cram 5 people into a one bedroom apartment.
Not realistically. At best, three people (two in bedroom and one in living room). The days of 20 people sharing one room is long gone.
Draining the Swamp (Score:2)
Luckily, all this H-1B abuse will be a thing of the past, once Trump "drains the swamp".
If only he could get all those press alligators off his back...
#meetthenewboss
*YAWN* (Score:2)
Yea, we already know this. It would be better to report that the H1B program is either dismantled at most or at least fix it to where things like this no longer happen.
Immigration (Score:2, Insightful)
How about we just allow these H1B candidates to immigrate? Then they can be citizens and pay taxes on whatever salary they accept. They might even buy some foreclosed houses.
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How about we just allow these H1B candidates to immigrate? Then they can be citizens and pay taxes on whatever salary they accept. They might even buy some foreclosed houses.
That is the most practical solution ending the problem of visa-based slavery, but I doubt the Americans will ever do it. They idolize Saudi Arabia and the UAE for their greater materialism, and wish to inculcate the same mistreatment of workers - especially "foreign" workers. That allows their politicians to wag the dog and blame the other for the systemic economic problems they fail to address.
L is more abused than H1-B (Score:5, Interesting)
L visas let the employer pay the foreign employee's home town wage for up to a year while in the US. When I lived in China for a couple of years I interviewed with the local IBM office about database consulting. They wanted to fly me to the US on an L visa while paying the local wage of about $1K USD which would be OK there in town but not in L.A. The hiring manager assured me on the 3rd level interview that they did it all the time and it was no problem. Then I mentioned that as a US citizen I couldn't be sent on any kind of visa and I couldn't work in the US for sub-minimum wage. He hung up and I couldn't get him to answer when I called back. Since they wanted to hire and send me immediately but an L visa requires a prior year of employment, minimum, they were obviously quite handy at lying on the paperwork. Think about this the next time big blue sends in a consultant from another country.
How do you survive? (Score:2)
Hire wages aren't enough (Score:3)
The program needs to be shut down. It was created to solve a labor shortage that never existed. Companies just don't want to train. If you want to work in America you invest in America. If you don't like it you can leave. We've got plenty of everything anyone would want.
Raise the wage (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech companies don't want to do this.
Why don't we just bring back slavery? It would be more honest.
I mentioned this elsewhere (Score:2)
These are suppose to be the best and brightest the world has to offer. Either that or employees that are so desperately needed that training isn't an option. Start at $300k/yr and adjust for double inflation (so they can't cheat there too). That's about
Re:I mentioned this elsewhere (Score:4, Informative)
but $120k isn't nearly enough. Training is expensive, and these people come pre-trained on the cheap thanks to the crazy low cost of living in their countries (supported by a massive underclass, no safety net and no environmental or employee protections). These are suppose to be the best and brightest the world has to offer. Either that or employees that are so desperately needed that training isn't an option. Start at $300k/yr and adjust for double inflation (so they can't cheat there too). That's about what a PH D in a profitable field makes, right?
I think $120k, with control for future inflation, is about right. I have worked for several international companies. They all invariably needed to bring in compliance officers, liaisons to the home office, and similar positions. You really need someone with experience and clout back at the home country. A local person, even one fluent in the language, is not an effective advocate. There would only be a couple of these types of roles in the $100-150k range, all the other employees would be locals (but paid similarly). $300k is too high and would put a damper on investment and hinder international business.
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Why don't we just bring back slavery? It would be more honest.
This is even more insidious than slavery because they have tricked people into begging for these shitty jobs and thus working their asses off to keep the job. To make the deal even sweeter for companies, they don't have to provide housing for them and when they don't/can't work as hard as they used to, you just send them back and get another.
Modern wage slavery is diabolical.
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You're getting more than a little hyperbolic. Do you know any H1-B employees? They aren't tricked, they knew what they were doing and nearly all of them not only would but will do it again. There are problems with the system, sure, but wild claims like yours really don't help your case, they just encourage people to dismiss you out of hand.
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Silicon Valley says it is hiring the best engineers. Why are they almost all Indians?
We should be studying Indian culture and the Indian education system to determine what is superior about their culture and education so that we can replication their success in the United States. Americans need to become more like the Indians in order for us to succeed in the world engineering market.
i call bullshit (Score:2)
h1b visas are transferrable. if your skills are worth $2k/y more than you're paid (roughly cost of transfer, if that) you can find a better paying job within a couple of weeks.
Obligatory slashdot editing joke (Score:2)
This is sensationalist bullshit. Apple is not hiring software engineers in the valley for anywhere close to $52k. Infosys, Tata, et al. import bargain basement engineers. Apple is bringing in the top talent, and those people have no problem finding another employer to sponsor their H-1B if they want to job hop.
As a software engineer, I want H-1B engineers to come work at Apple in the valley. They start or strengthen companies here which then leads to more demand for engineers, and that's a huge plus to my m
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Why is "the best talent" almost always Indian? Which Indian companies should we be afraid of out competing our American companies?
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Why is it so hard for so many humans to treat other humans as though they are
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" it isn't easy to uproot your family, let alone twice. It is stressful and disturbing."
And it is almost always an error that isn't worth the compensation.
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You don't say? (Score:4, Insightful)
Low wages is the entire point of the H1B program.
Fix this! (Score:2)
Visas should only be allowed for positions posted with a salary of $250,000 or higher. There's plenty of qualified and/or trainable talent for jobs under that level.
Placement companies should get 1% of the annual take home pay for the candidate upon retention. One payment, one time.
By taking away the low cost incentive to the hiring companies and the huge profit from the consulting company the visa program will dwindle pretty quickly.
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You appear to have completely, totally and embarrassingly missed his point.
If the skillset is that fucking hard to find then it's worth $250k. If you want to pay less, train someone.
You don't have to pay local staff $250k, you can hire them for less. You just can't use the fact that they wont join you to write cobol for a lower salary than they can get in Michigan using modern tools to justify importing foreign labour.
No, it isn't (Score:5, Interesting)
No. This battle is not just about the wages paid the H-1B workers, it is allowing allowing there to be any H-1B workers if there are US workers who could perform the task at any price or do so with reasonable training (in high tech environments new employees generally need up to 12 months to get up to full speed).
H1B workers should not be allowed in to keep current wage levels, to reduce leverage skilled employees have in the local free market, and certainly not to replace/displace local workers. H1B workers are for when local talent does not exist. Period. The same is also true of the back door using accelerated degrees from foreign nations to get student student visas for US grad schools. US schools might be willing to sell out since these students pay max tuition and US companies having programs which then pay for/reimburse the education costs might make this feasible but it isn't in the overall interest of the United States.
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The problem with these Laws is Location and cost of living is different across the country.
55K in a rural area. Is enough for a modest home, and a acre or two of land. Where you income can take care of a family of 4.
Or if you move to a different location, 55k you will be at poverty.
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Then why not move to that rural area?
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty. Maybe it's the access to infrastructure, better job conditions, better health care, better career prospects, nicer weather, better beaches, etc.
I don't get all those things where I live (Alabama). I telework, so I could move to the bay area and nothing about my job would change. But my employer isn't going to provide a higher wage for the same work. No employer would, nor should they be f
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Then why not move to that rural area?
I'm trying to negotiate moving to a low cost area but my employer is reluctant to let me go from Silicon Valley. They have an extremely hard time finding people to fill the positions here. They don't want to pay the average $108K per year salary because workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere will want a pay increase. I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty.
I was born and raised here. My parents were born in the middle of the Great Depression, knew what poverty was, and lived
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I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Right, this is what I meant by the perk of "better career prospects".
Just because I have no desire to own two Tesla cars at the same time doesn't mean I'm living in poverty.
Of course not. The talk about poverty was in response to the previous post, in no way asserting that everyone who lives in Silicon Valley is poor.
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The talk about poverty was in response to the previous post, in no way asserting that everyone who lives in Silicon Valley is poor.
But this is Slashdot. If you can't afford x number of whatever, than you're a poor schmuck.
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Are you going to be able to retire?
That's what the side business is for. Once it's generating significant cash flow, I can pay myself a salary, contribute 100% pre-tax to a qualified retirement plan, and, with corporate matching, put in $54K per year. That's a lot more than you can do with a 401K ($18K per year) and IRA ($5K per year).
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So that side hustle you have going on must involve reminding the kids to buckle their seat belts before the Super Himalaya starts moving. Nice...
Content creation. If I can sell it today, I can sell it for the next 30 yeas.
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That's a mighty big "IF," friend. It also assumes that the market for it will remain for the next 30 years, which is another big "IF".
There's no "IF" about it. I make more money from ebook sales than I do from first serial right sales to anthologies. The virtual shelves have no expiration date. If I maintain this side business while working a regular job for 30 years , I'll have significant royalty income in retirement
Which piece of yours would you consider your best? Which are you proudest of?
On the fiction side, it would be "The Giggling Mongoose: Scarlet Hearts" [amzn.to]. My bestselling essay is, "Death At A Hell's Angels' Funeral: Driving Past The Memories " [amzn.to]
The $0.99 price model is dead. I'm in the process of revampin
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I make four times as much working for a Fortune 500,
Good for you!
[...] but I don't fix printers all day either.
Neither do I!
Face it, you are the IT equivalent of a janitor.
No, I'm a senior system admin with responsibility for 80K workstations. I create tickets for the local techs to work on.
[...] we don't mop the floors [...]
Neither do I!
Now go fix printer 2C-HPTreeDestroyer.
Call 1-800-IBM-HELP for assistance (you must be 21+ to call).
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Back when I was in IT support I made more while being responsible for a couple hundred machines at most.
The local site techs are responsible for ~1,500 systems each.
If anything you say is true not only are you seriously underpaid but you're also in serious denial about it.
This is my first job as a system administrator. All my fellow system administrators also make $50K+ (the national average for family of four). I just happened to live in a more expensive region.
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You are getting low-balled.
When you don't have a four-year degree, that's typically the case.
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Sometimes getting what you are worth is simply a matter of ASKING for it.
If you'll note, I'm a contractor. Negotiation is a luxury. The choice is to take a job at the specified rate or find a job somewhere else. Since this is a five-year contract, I'm in a much better position to negotiate for a $100K+ per year job. But I do expect recruiters and hiring managers to low-ball since the last 30+ positions I had prior to the five-year contract were short-term contracts (i.e., four hours to one year).
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You don't GROVEL for a job. Have some self-respect.
Were you out of work for two years because of the Great Recession?
Did you take a job with a moving company to work 20 hours per month for six months while hiring managers told you were overqualified for minimum wage jobs and recruiters told you were unemployable for everything else?
Did you file for Chapter Seven bankruptcy and end up with only $25 in your checking account?
Did you spend two years working seven days a week, taking whatever job that came along to support yourself?
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Dude, sometimes the hardest you work for the lowest pay, the more they push you down. If you lowball your prices all the time then clients will start to think you suck at your work and be even more derisive.
I've seen it happen.
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You are officially the lowest paid senior system admin in the country. I'm calling Guinness.
Yes and no. "Senior" is in reference to my 20+ years technical career. I've been system admin for nearly three years. When I go for my next job, I expect recruiters and hiring managers to low ball me on salary.
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You are a junior/mid level sysadmin, who happens to be old.
I'm quite young. Most of my coworkers are in their 60's and 70's.
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This place is for us [...]
Slashdot is an open forum. You should try Reddit. They may have a Beavis and Butthead forum that you and your friends can join, as it's obvious that none of you have graduated from high school to adulthood.
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Why do I need to call IBM for help with my HP printer?
Call the number and find out.
I hope this is not the advice you give to your lusers.
When I worked the IBM Help Desk, we gave out that phone number to annoying users. They called back shocked — SHOCKED! — to find out that IBM operated a sex phone line (IBM stopped using the phone number in the 1980's). We would apologized and give them the current help desk number.
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No wonder why you are making shit for pay with a level of professionalism like that.
I think you misunderstand the nature of IT Support. I'm not paid to be nice to the users. I'm paid to get the job done. If a user wants to make my job difficult, I can return the favor and suffer no consequences. Why? Because the user got in the way of getting the job done. At the end of the day, that's the only thing management cares about.
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When the CEO has trouble, you never consider that at all.
Most Fortune 500 companies have a separate executive IT staff to service their needs. The only time I ever interact with executives is when they're praising me for getting the job done — and then letting me go because I completed the contract three months ahead of schedule.
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How do I get the phone sex? All I got offered was a Caribbean cruise. :(
May have changed in the last ten years. I've never personally tried it. Not my thing.
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Then why haven't you already gotten a better one instead of reminding Slashdot daily about your low salary?
Because I'm on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
(Let's see which pre-written excuse he uses this time.)
You didn't see that one coming.
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Yes, you are a the embodiment of a karmic nut punch, creimer.
Been there, done that.
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The racism bleeds through so much. The vast majority of employees in SV are not H1B; they're US citizens. And they are roughly 50% white (lower than national average by a whole lot). Source: http://fortune.com/2015/07/30/... [fortune.com]
So no, it doesn't look like "a suburb of Mumbai". Though yes, there are a lot of Indian and Chinese workers here (again, mostly either permanent residents or US citizens). But that, of course, didn't stop you from from assuming they're "all H1B imports".
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