An investigation exposes the murky underbelly of Indian H-1B visa holders 'indentured' in America.
Here's a Janus image for you. On the one side, half a dozen H-1B workers bunkered in a choked 'guesthouse' in America, anxious to be summoned by their labour broker to a job they know will pay discriminatory wages and mean long hours. When they do get the job, the broker often pockets a cut and can even sue if the employee quits or switches jobs.
Cut to India where hundreds of young men line up outside the offices of the very same labour brokers, ready to pay out large sums for their American dream.
The nightmarish story of the 'indentured' Indian tech worker in America has found its most recent rendering in a graphic novel published by The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), a non-profit American organization. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012 and 2013, CIR may just be in the running again for its work on the mercenary practices of the tech 'in-sourcing' industry, which thrives on the inflow of highly-skilled Indian tech workers on H-1B visas.
CIR's graphic novel has been scripted and sketched by Silicon Valley reporter Matt Smith, who along with fellow journalist Gollan, spells out the tech staffing firms' damning five-point modus operandi - 1. Companies lure Indian workers to the US with phantom jobs. 2. Workers are often unpaid (brokers withhold salaries). 3. Brokers demand cash for visas. 4. Workers often feel pressure to "spice up," or falsify, their resumes (brokers often suggest they do this in order to get hired). 5. Bonding and penalties are heaped on workers who quit. They also write about the culpability of US government departments that have looked past H-1B violations.
Smith and his colleagues, Jennifer Gollan and Adithya Sambamurthy, spent a large part of their year-long investigation tracking down workers who would actually talk to them. "The wall of silence from Indian IT workers can only be compared with attempting to investigate an organization under a strict Omerta," says Smith on email. "Early on I was writing and calling people I found through LinkedIn and Nexis, and databases such as Benchfolks, chat rooms such as MyVisajobs and Goolti.com, and a list of industry contacts used by labour brokers. Ultimately, it turned out that the most effective way to find workers willing to talk was to go physically to local courthouses with a digital scanner in hand, seeking to find lawsuits involving suspect companies."
Few victims are willing to challenge staffing companies or employers in court because judgments against Indian workers who have 'violated' their contracts by switching jobs or quitting before time can incur penalties in excess of $50,000, CIR discovered.
Gobi Muthuperiasamy took that risk. The software engineer from Madurai spent three years in court when his labour broker sued him for switching jobs. Although Muthuperiasamy won the case, and didn't have to pay his broker a penny, he was still poorer by $25,000 in legal costs.
Muthuperiasamy is among the few who have fought back. Others are anonymously outing their employers. 'Client charged 87.5/hr. I am paid 30/hr. 10,000 USD bond in India. I hate my life' are among gripes posted on the CIR site and are standard fare on peer forums like Goolti.com, Nostops.org and Immigrationvoice.org. Rajiv Dhabadkar, founder of the advisory National Organisation for Software & Technology Professionals (NO STOPS) claims the website receives about 300-400 posts every day, often anonymous, detailing work-related horrors. "I recommend younger students look elsewhere, at Australia perhaps," says Dhabadkar.
You'd think these cautionary tales would dispel H-1B queues. But the cap of 65,000 H-1B visas for 2015 was met in five days last year. Indian nationals received more than 67% of all H-1B visas, and more than 28% of all L-1 visas (a more specialized work permit) issued worldwide. "The US Mission in India issued more than 1,00,000 H-1B visas in FY 2014, more than at any other time in history," a US Consulate General Chennai spokesperson says.
But media reports like CIR's have shaped the campaign for visa reform in America. While Obama's Executive Order on immigration last month largely addresses the issue of undocumented immigrants, it also allowed the documented, highly-skilled immigrant job mobility, transfer of Green Card application across jobs, permitting some spouses to work, revising and expanding anti-discrimination provisions of immigration law and providing more comprehensive anti-retaliation protections.
"It's a harsh world for the H-1B, like bonded labour. While there's a whole industry built on telling you how to score this visa, no one tells you what comes after," says Vikram Desai, vice-president of Immigration Voice, an advocacy group set up by Indian tech workers to campaign for equal rights for high-skilled immigrants in the US. "We think coming to America is a step forward. And we're okay with not having equal rights and not having our spouses work. We should learn from the Latin Americans, who rally together and campaign for their rights despite being undocumented immigrants," says Desai.
For More update Please
Here's a Janus image for you. On the one side, half a dozen H-1B workers bunkered in a choked 'guesthouse' in America, anxious to be summoned by their labour broker to a job they know will pay discriminatory wages and mean long hours. When they do get the job, the broker often pockets a cut and can even sue if the employee quits or switches jobs.
Cut to India where hundreds of young men line up outside the offices of the very same labour brokers, ready to pay out large sums for their American dream.
The nightmarish story of the 'indentured' Indian tech worker in America has found its most recent rendering in a graphic novel published by The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), a non-profit American organization. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012 and 2013, CIR may just be in the running again for its work on the mercenary practices of the tech 'in-sourcing' industry, which thrives on the inflow of highly-skilled Indian tech workers on H-1B visas.
CIR's graphic novel has been scripted and sketched by Silicon Valley reporter Matt Smith, who along with fellow journalist Gollan, spells out the tech staffing firms' damning five-point modus operandi - 1. Companies lure Indian workers to the US with phantom jobs. 2. Workers are often unpaid (brokers withhold salaries). 3. Brokers demand cash for visas. 4. Workers often feel pressure to "spice up," or falsify, their resumes (brokers often suggest they do this in order to get hired). 5. Bonding and penalties are heaped on workers who quit. They also write about the culpability of US government departments that have looked past H-1B violations.
Smith and his colleagues, Jennifer Gollan and Adithya Sambamurthy, spent a large part of their year-long investigation tracking down workers who would actually talk to them. "The wall of silence from Indian IT workers can only be compared with attempting to investigate an organization under a strict Omerta," says Smith on email. "Early on I was writing and calling people I found through LinkedIn and Nexis, and databases such as Benchfolks, chat rooms such as MyVisajobs and Goolti.com, and a list of industry contacts used by labour brokers. Ultimately, it turned out that the most effective way to find workers willing to talk was to go physically to local courthouses with a digital scanner in hand, seeking to find lawsuits involving suspect companies."
Few victims are willing to challenge staffing companies or employers in court because judgments against Indian workers who have 'violated' their contracts by switching jobs or quitting before time can incur penalties in excess of $50,000, CIR discovered.
Gobi Muthuperiasamy took that risk. The software engineer from Madurai spent three years in court when his labour broker sued him for switching jobs. Although Muthuperiasamy won the case, and didn't have to pay his broker a penny, he was still poorer by $25,000 in legal costs.
Muthuperiasamy is among the few who have fought back. Others are anonymously outing their employers. 'Client charged 87.5/hr. I am paid 30/hr. 10,000 USD bond in India. I hate my life' are among gripes posted on the CIR site and are standard fare on peer forums like Goolti.com, Nostops.org and Immigrationvoice.org. Rajiv Dhabadkar, founder of the advisory National Organisation for Software & Technology Professionals (NO STOPS) claims the website receives about 300-400 posts every day, often anonymous, detailing work-related horrors. "I recommend younger students look elsewhere, at Australia perhaps," says Dhabadkar.
You'd think these cautionary tales would dispel H-1B queues. But the cap of 65,000 H-1B visas for 2015 was met in five days last year. Indian nationals received more than 67% of all H-1B visas, and more than 28% of all L-1 visas (a more specialized work permit) issued worldwide. "The US Mission in India issued more than 1,00,000 H-1B visas in FY 2014, more than at any other time in history," a US Consulate General Chennai spokesperson says.
But media reports like CIR's have shaped the campaign for visa reform in America. While Obama's Executive Order on immigration last month largely addresses the issue of undocumented immigrants, it also allowed the documented, highly-skilled immigrant job mobility, transfer of Green Card application across jobs, permitting some spouses to work, revising and expanding anti-discrimination provisions of immigration law and providing more comprehensive anti-retaliation protections.
"It's a harsh world for the H-1B, like bonded labour. While there's a whole industry built on telling you how to score this visa, no one tells you what comes after," says Vikram Desai, vice-president of Immigration Voice, an advocacy group set up by Indian tech workers to campaign for equal rights for high-skilled immigrants in the US. "We think coming to America is a step forward. And we're okay with not having equal rights and not having our spouses work. We should learn from the Latin Americans, who rally together and campaign for their rights despite being undocumented immigrants," says Desai.
No comments :
Post a Comment