The DOJ is investigating numerous companies for L-1 fraud, and the DOL is auditing all H-1B dependent companies.
The H-1B and L-1 Visas are modern day Jim Crow laws, subjecting American hi-tech professionals to abuse at the hands of India, Inc.
Here's my letter to David Boies (famed attorney):
Mr. Boies,
I am reaching out to you for some advice.
I am programmer and have been working in I.T. for about 15 years. Recently I started having a hard time finding new contract gigs, and the contract rates have been cut drastically to the point that they are about the same as a full time employee, minus the benefits.
I know my industry has been impacted by offshoring, but even more stunning is the massive influx of low-wage, mostly low-skill workers from India. These workers come over under the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to fill a mythical programmer shortage. This is a canard created by the hi-tech companies so that they can suppress wages and displace American I.T. professionals.
Recently, I was forced to start looking for work all over California because I couldn’t find anything in O.C. I even flew to Sacramento to interview for a contract in Modesto, and was prepared to leave my family for a few months. I never got the offer, which was good.
Instead, I spent three weeks contracting at an Indian software company that develops systems for the pharmaceutical industry, and worked on programs for Amgen. The experience was a nightmare. I was the only white male on a team of 15, with four being non-Indians. The staff spoke Hindi all the time, and it was a sweatshop. The company had flown in seven coders and QA people from New Delhi and they lived in a motel around the corner.
Fortunately, I found another contract and was able to walk out of the place. I didn’t give notice and enjoyed departing. One of my contractor buddies had interviewed for one of the two programming positions, and he was rejected. He is a really sharp guy and could run circles around the folks they brought from India.
I was so disgusted with the whole situation that I reported the company to the Dept. of Labor for H-1B fraud. They should have hired locals and instead flew in a crew from India. A DOL agent in S.F. took the case, and I talked to him yesterday. He said very few cases are prosecuted because there are so many loopholes. He is filing a report but said that their preliminary investigation determined that the case was out of their jurisdiction. He urged me to contact the Civil Rights department of the DOJ that handles L-1 fraud.
Companies like the one I worked for bring in millions of workers under intra-company transfers through the L-1 program, and they are supposed to prove that no local worker can fill the spot. The system is so corrupt and full of loopholes that any company can be technically compliant and still avoid hiring Americans. An immigration lawyer even gives seminars on how to avoid hiring U.S. citizens:
http://www.businessweek.com/...
The reason I am contacting you is because I feel that there is rampant discrimination against American workers going on in the I.T. industry at the hands of the Indian software lobby. If you walk into some of the I.T. departments, you will see 80-90% Indian staffs. They have a monopoly, and exploit workers from India by confiscating their passports and forcing them to work unpaid overtime. These workers show up in big companies and American workers are forced to train them, and then the citizens are fired. IBM just laid off 5,000 U.S. employees, and many were forced to train their Indian replacements. There is massive fraud and corruption in the system, and American programmers are being decimated. Many are leaving the field.
With the bad economy, displaced I.T. professionals are starting to organize and agitate to abolish these guest worker visas. It is becoming evident that offshoring software development doesn’t save companies any money, so they are trying to use these visas to ship in programmers who can be onsite and compliant. The infrastructure is horrific in India, and there are so many obstacles to creating and running corporate computer systems that it has become a fiscal liability to do all work offshore. But the big companies like Wells Fargo, State Farm – anybody that needs massive I.T. manpower is now bringing the cheap labor here.
The net result is that guys like me see their wages declining and work scarce. I know people that have been looking for jobs for months. They can’t get interviews because the Indian lobby has cornered the market and staff only their own people.
I think there is a potential for a large class action lawsuit against American tech companies, the Indian bodyshops, and the Indian offshoring consulting companies like Infosys and WiPro. You may have heard about the Satyam scandal. There is plenty of anecdotal and statistical evidence that Americans are getting forced out of the global I.T. industry. For example 55,000 of the 65,000 allotted H-1B visas in 2007 went to Indian workers, who are essentially indentured servants, forced to work for one company and frequently abused. The companies have pitted the foreign workers against the local employees and the industry is in chaos; the imported workers lack the skills to do the work, and the Americans are forced to train them or get fired.
I suggest that the time is ripe for a civil rights battle. American I.T. professionals are getting displaced in large numbers, and the H-1B lobby and India, Inc. want to lift ALL visa caps. This is nothing more than an attempt to arbitrage employee wages.
What say you?
Regards,
Kevin Flanagan
http://itgrunt.com/...