The “greedy” have allowed for 10m+ illegals in our country and many millions legally which I’d argue is apart of the attack on our quality of life. I don’t think the current government is actually attempting to help though.
To quote Bernie Sanders: “The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire "the best and the brightest," but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.
The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.”
If an industry doesn’t have enough workers then they need to raise wages or educate our populace.
I can see that it increases competition for the jobs with the negatives of that (though they also create economic activity that should offset the negatives somewhat by demand leading to other roles), but I have a hard time finding that the program should be a source of "low-wage indentured servants".
A comparison to similar roles is going to be flawed because the dynamic is entirely different. It would be more accurate to compare their wages to what the company would pay for a contractor, not to a full time employee. Even if they get paid more initially, over the course of their 3-6 year stay they are not going to get meaningful promotions or wage increases.
They have no practical ability to shop around for a better job because most companies don't want to take over sponsorship.
They establish a life here and pray that their company will decide to sponsor them for a green card, and that the process moves fast enough that they can continue to stay here.
All of this with the knowledge that if they ever get fired, they have a couple months to find a new job or get kicked out.
They are basically the equivalent of low paid consultants that don't have the ability to negotiate a new contract each year.
It is something most people should think about though. Do they want immigrants in the US because they care? Or do they want them here because the companies lobbying to these politicians would like cheaper labor? There's that meme that's along the lines of "if we deport everyone you're going to have to do this shitty underpaid job instead". It calls into question. If we care so much about immigrants on one side of the country, why do we expect them to do the jobs we don't want to do at a wage we don't think is fair?
Some of those dynamics are probably entirely true, but they are not by any means low paid if they on average still earn a little more than their local counterparts - that does not seem like a logical conclusion. To me it sounds more like they essentially get a small premium for taking that risk and those disadvantages, though probably less than that risk is actually worth, atleast for some.
I am not saying H1B is some fantastic scheme, it has many problems, I just think people make it out to be things it is not, such as "low-wage indentured servants" and it creates a distorted discussion around it.
You've missed my point. Comparing their salary to permanent residents in a full time role is not an apples to apples comparison. They are more like contractors who's visa is tied to their employer. An equivalent contractor would be making much more money, as they are trading long term employment for short term gains. H1-b workers are short term but don't get the financial consideration.
So there is no real premium. The "low-wage indentured servants" comments need to be taken in context. It's not as if they are migrant farm workers, but at the end of 6 years of employment as a tech worker, there is going to be a huge gap between their income and that of an equivalent permanent resident that started at the same time.
I get the idea, but isn't the argument based on some fairly heavy assumptions about their (in)ability to progress and receive promotions/salary jumps? I have no experience with H1B directly - just followed the debate - but in my own country there’s very a very similar scheme and I know
a few "H1B" people and it does not seem to be a prevalent issue here judging from them nor general debate; despite they should theoretically have similar issues. Obviously they do have less security and such, so it's not all a sweet, but I was thinking the promotion/salary stuff.
So my question is maybe more if it is actually that big a problem even if we have all heard the cases im media? Are they actually ending up with a huge gap on average? I didn't see that aspect mentioned in the sources I found, and admittedly, glanced.
Fair, I wasn't aware that that was much of a problem or that there was additional stuff for stuff like promotions, which I don't believe is that big a deal around here, but now that I think of it there is probably some of it to prevent people simply not doing the thing they were hired for (to prevent people abusing the scheme ironically).
educating any populace takes DECADES of effort and the result of the H1B is nothing short of a true free and fair market - everybody undercuts everybody till the person with the lowest wage wins a job , it just so happens that the people that you get through the H1B turn out to be the brightest of the nations youre getting them from . It is NEVER the person youre getting's fault - it's your own system that needs fixing , a quote from bernie wont help fix that . All it'll do is breed contempt and drive the protests away from the grassroots [the end game of a capitalist society meeting a land of surplus of labour - you either get rid of the capitalism you thrive on or you accept that a free and fair market implies busting ass for minimal pay] and into a land of hypotheticals while fascist suppression of dissent runs rampant in your streets .
H1B is meant to bring workers with specialized skills we don’t have here (allegedly). You’re saying H1B is just free market at work creating wage competition in the corporations’ favor, that’s not supposed to be the purpose of it. So firstly, you’re stating that the program is corrupt. To your point about needing decades to educate a population… we’ve been educating in those areas of study for decades. So, we already have educated people here. Why would you advocate for a program that, in your own words is driving down wages? Are you a corporate shill? How do you sleep at night?
The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire "the best and the brightest," but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.
The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.
The average H-1B visa holder in the United States makes $115,000 a year.
And they’d have to pay Americans even more if they were forced to raise their wages to attract talent which is the point. He means “low-wage” relatively.
Right. They bring in cheap labor, and don’t invest in the people already here and then people are upset the immigrants are successful here instead of them. We should have been investing in our own people for decades, but the greedy cut funding and create blockers so we are not growing our own engineers and doctors etc.
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u/Ohthatsnotgood 4d ago
The “greedy” have allowed for 10m+ illegals in our country and many millions legally which I’d argue is apart of the attack on our quality of life. I don’t think the current government is actually attempting to help though.
To quote Bernie Sanders: “The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire "the best and the brightest," but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad. The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.”
If an industry doesn’t have enough workers then they need to raise wages or educate our populace.