Bloomberg News reports that major U.S.-based companies are using the H-1B visa program to fill low-wage Indian college graduates into white-collar jobs in the U.S., while hiring American college graduates. was discriminating against.
The company, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., repeatedly promised to hire more U.S. graduates, but those promises were “all smoke and mirrors,” said employee Sonya McLaughlin, a U.S. hiring manager. spoke.
“The whole business model is built on cheap labor in India,” she told Bloomberg. ” [Indian] Cognizant is looking for people with visas. ”
of article The title is “Insider tells how tech giants treated Indian H-1B workers better than U.S. employees.”
Bloomberg pointed out that:
In October, a jury in a federal class action lawsuit returned a verdict finding that Cognizant intentionally discriminated against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees from 2013 to 2022. verdictThis reflected previously undisclosed findings from a 2020 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation that focused on discrimination claims based on race and national origin. Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant is prioritizing workers from India, most of whom joined the company's roughly 32,000 U.S. employees on visas known as H-1Bs. did.
This article sheds light on the new immigration challenges facing President Donald Trump. He was just elected on a promise to stop illegal immigration and labor smuggling, but many of his business allies are worried about the wide variety of career-starting products that young American graduates need. It wants to protect the influx of Indian and Chinese university graduates into the workforce.
The Bloomberg article said Cognizant plans to appeal the jury's decision. “Cognizant provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and does not tolerate discrimination in any form,” a company spokesperson said.
“Cognizant complies with federal laws regarding visa worker pay…. [and] “We do not agree that there is a financial incentive to hire visa workers,” the spokesperson said.
white collar staffing agency
Companies are “offshoring almost everywhere” [white collar] “This is because there is no labor market test in America to determine whether a person can get a job,” said John Miano, an attorney with the Center for Immigration Studies.
President Joe Biden's pro-immigration politicians are accelerating white-collar outsourcing. For example, at a major immigration law firm, Reported on December 9th:
The Department of State (DOS) has released an update for J-1. Exchange Visitor Skills List (“Skill List”) Enabled December 9, 2024. The revised list removes numerous countries, expanding opportunities for current or former J-1 nonimmigrants to remain in or return to the United States.
The Cognizant ruling and Bloomberg article are “validation of what we've been doing for the past few years,” Kevin Lin, founder of the US Tech Workers, told Breitbart News. He added:
These employment visa programs are designed to displace American graduates, not to recruit the best and brightest. There are many [other visa] There are programs out there that allow us to bring in the best talent. And what we need to do is have that discussion. [business] Groups that say we need more skilled immigrants.
“What we have to do is invest in the American workforce and teach them how to no longer discriminate against the American workforce,” he said, adding:
I'm sure they'll be fine. A major casualty of this 'India migration era' has been the lack of onboarding of the best talent, sacrificing innovation and productivity. We introduced ordinary workers, which hurt innovation and productivity and reduced America's competitiveness. We currently have a large number of Indian nationals in management positions, who we recruit and promote ourselves. This is a huge blow to professionalism because professionalism is not a meritocracy.
After inflation, the salary for a U.S. graduate is stagnated According to stastista.com. The Center for Immigration Studies reported on August 30 that since 2008, “compensation has increased at a rate of just 0.15% per year” for technical graduates. Meanwhile, business groups are calling for more white-collar immigration.
Many American graduates who are pushed off the career ladder by visa workers never regain their income or career prospects.
The underlying problem, Lin said, is that Wall Street and corporate executives seek cheap labor for short-term profits. He said the policy would destroy innovation, professionalism and productivity at companies such as Boeing and Intel. “This efficiency model is what white-collar Americans have suffered for the past 30 years,” Lin said.
By contrast, Elon Musk's rocket business cannot use visa workers because of Cold War-era technology export restrictions.
The Bloomberg report includes comments and legal testimony from U.S. graduates who worked at Cognizant.
For example, Abiy Israel was hired to oversee enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, Bloomberg writes.
In 2018, an Israeli team produced an internal report that found significant racial disparities in Cognizant's “involuntary layoff” rates in the first eight months of this year. Black employees are 23 times more likely to be fired than Asians. [mostly Indian] workers, the data showed. For Hispanic or Latino employees, the rate was 16 times higher than for Asian employees. For white workers, it was eight times that amount. (Asian workers are overwhelmingly Indian; [H-1B and other] According to the report. ) Israel told the jury this was some of the most extreme racial disparity he had ever seen. He also said that when he contacted his Cognizant recruiter about these findings, his boss told him to stop sharing the data beyond human resources leaders.
The large supply of visa-compliant workers also allows executives to ignore the advice of U.S. experts. Bloomberg reported one example:
When Christy Palmer joined Cognizant in 2013, she relished the opportunity to work for a multinational company serving some of America's most iconic companies. In court proceedings and in an interview with Bloomberg, she said it didn't take long for her to start to feel out of place, uncomfortable and, at times, scared. At a customer meeting in 2015, a Cognizant director was having trouble answering questions about a report Palmer had written, so she stepped in to try and answer them. Palmer and another person at the scene said the director interrupted her and yelled at her to shut up.
numbers
At least 250,000 new middle-skilled workers arrive in the United States each year seeking entry-level white-collar jobs. They come with an H-1B, L-1, H4EAD, or L-1 work visa, are granted an Optional Practical Training (OPT) work permit granted after matriculation, or use a tourist visa. This can be obtained by bypassing customs officials at the airport.
Once in the United States, most immigrants are absorbed into many corrupt ethnic employment and job sales networks that exclude millions of ordinary American graduates. Most visa workers are rented to U.S. branded companies by a number of Indian-owned staffing companies.
Both Facebook and Apple were fined a token amount after the federal government found evidence of discrimination against Americans.
Foreign white-collar visa workers hold at least 2 million jobs that would otherwise go to young American graduates. Replacement workers can be very lucrative for tech investors, with each dollar saved in salary gaining about $20 in equity value.
Cognizant is a staffing company Released in India It was founded in 1994 by Indian immigrants who worked at Dun & Bradstreet on Wall Street. The company is currently based in Teaneck, New Jersey. board Reports primarily to large investors. vanguard and blackrock — A person who owns at least 50 percent of a company's stock.
many Low cost, medium skill Indian graduates working for U.S. staffing agencies hope to earn U.S. residency and citizenship in exchange for years of hard work and low pay.
Meanwhile, the Indian government is using diplomacy and trade agreements to help export graduates to jobs in the United States. It is also possible to collaborate with allies. indian caucus In Congress — to protect white-collar staffing firms employed by executives and investors at Fortune 500 companies.
The case is Palmer v. Cognizant Tech. Solutions Corp., 17-cv-06848, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Los Angeles.
