H-1B work visas are supposed to bring foreign workers to the U.S. to do specialized work for a few years when companies have trouble finding American workers to do those jobs. Tell that to Leo Perrero and Dena Moore, two former Disney employees who were replaced by H-1B workers—who they had to train to do their jobs. Perrero and Moore:
… have filed class-action lawsuits in federal court in Tampa against Disney and two global consulting companies, HCL and Cognizant, which brought in foreign workers who replaced them. They claim the companies colluded to break the law by using temporary H-1B visas to bring in immigrant workers, knowing that Americans would be displaced from their jobs. [...]
The Labor Department opened investigations of the outsourcing companies — the direct employers of the temporary immigrants — at Disney and at Southern California Edison, a utility that laid off hundreds of American workers in 2014. The investigations are continuing. At least 30 former Disney workers also filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that they faced discrimination as American citizens.
The lawsuits by Mr. Perrero and Ms. Moore are based on the rules for H-1B visas, which were designed by Congress to bring foreign workers with special skills into the country. Employers are required to declare to the Department of Labor that hiring foreigners on the visas “will not adversely affect the working conditions of U.S. workers similarly employed.”
“Was I negatively affected?” Ms. Moore asked. “Yeah, I was. I lost my job.”
Let’s be clear: This is about Disney and other employers and about American policies, not about workers on temporary visas. You have to focus on the system that makes abuses possible, not on the individuals trying to get by within that system.
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