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I can't speak for the tech industry only the system as a whole.
I think people calling it slavery or likening it to some kind of bonded labor are obviously exaggerating to a degree.
The only situation where its clearly problematic are for countries like China and India that have massive populations but still have the same green card cap as a nation a tenth of their size.
Everyone else on an H1b would generally be working towards a green card on a timeline of 3-5 years. Yes mobility is limited during that time (though not absolutely so) but I can't think of a country on earth where new immigrants don't have to work with their hands tied to a degree.
Right now employers only have to pay the prevailing wage to an H1b employee. This can be significantly less than the median.
I think the median should be the absolute floor. One can make an argument to have 75th percentile be the floor also.
I think if a company is allowed to pay below median wage for a large number of employees they should be forced to invest in local education / apprenticeship. Even if they are allowed to, there should be strict caps on this.
There are many H1bs that get paid above the median wage in the US but I think conversations around the tech sector tend to dominate so the perception is that these are mostly lower wage entry level workers. It's really the tech sector that has exploited the system the most so I think it's worthwhile distinguishing tech H1bs and therefore considering more significant restrictions on a sectoral level.
It is very close to slavery. Your employer gets absolute power over you and your immigration status. "You're fired" means "you need to leave everything you built and everyone you love behind".
Are you gonna risk leaving your family behind and being banned from the country to join a union? To protest bad work conditions.
It is a scourge of a system that legitimizes the exploitation of immigrants.
Since this is the tech industry, I'd add, to protest unethical practices towards end users?
I am curious since it appears you are Canadian, what reform would you propose? The LMIA system in Canada faces similar issues but for a shorter period since immigrants with a high enough score on their application can secure PR within around 2 years. During those two years Canadian employers have similar leverage over immigrant employees. However under the American H1b system if you're terminated, you have up 60 days to leave which is often not enough time to secure a new sponsor. Under the Canadian LMIA system you have 90 days and can potentially apply for a temporary visitors extension which allows immigrants and their families a better shot at staying. This delverages the employer to a degree.
There are several different aspects of policy that can be tweaked but the employer leverage is really a tough one to eliminate. Though it can certainly be cushioned by removing barriers to PR and offering a longer grace period in the event of termination as Canada has.
I think the systems employed in the middle east where passports are confiscated and more overt coercion is involved are closer to slavery.
The conditions you describe certainly exist but are the nature of employment based immigration everywhere. It's hard to imagine any country forgoing that initial period of leverage in their corporation's favor. What's uniquely exploitative in the US is keeping people in visa limbo for a period of 10 to 15 years because each nation has a cap of 7% of total green cards regardless of size or level of immigration. That mean the number of greencards available to a nation of 1 billion is the same as the number available to a nation of 20 million.
In the end it's not the population of an immigrants origin country that matters, it's how many are coming to the US. If there are a larger number of immigrants admitted from one country via H1b then there should be a greater number of green cards alotted. This way that exploitative relationship doesn't stretch for 10 to 15 years which allows employers to engage in questionable labor practices.
Immigrants have always had to come in, put their heads down, and work. That's the nature of moving to a new country. To a degree, anyone (even locals) that joins a new employer has a probationary period and has to avoid making waves initially, at least in the many parts of the country with at will employment. Those circumstances are not likely to change.
Instead we should be focussed on immigrants getting at minimum fair (median) pay and having a clear pathway to permanent residency to curtail an employer's ability leverage visa status.
If there is another "nation of immigrants" that does it better I'd be interested to hear about it. As far as I know Canada's LMIA system faces similar issues.
Damn that crazy bro.
17ish years in tech here…
H1-B’s at one of my previous companies (2015-2017) were regularly working 70+ hours a week and getting paid less than new hires coming out of college.
They often were either isolated, or stuck within their one self made cliques of other H1-Bs from their country of origin. They did not try to socialize or make friends. More often than not, they’d leave and go home within 2 years. You could feel the despair and unhappiness.
Aside from how it impacted the H1-Bs (which from what I saw was almost all negative and fucked up), I wasn’t thrilled about seeing a multi-billion dollar org making so much extra money, and then not really distributing it correctly.
The H1-B thing helped one group of people to the detriment of everyone else at that org. I’m pretty sure you can figure out the only group that it benefited.
This sounds more like H1b fraud (failure to meet prevailing wage for hours worked) on the part of the company rather than an issue with the H1b visa itself. More oversight is certainly necessary to ensure American companies don't break the law.
Ya, it really may have been.