Code Load On Cyber Coolies

The alarm bells may have started ringing a little too soon. Indian infotech firms  like Infosys began losing the confidence of sharehol­ders last month when bills pro­­posing cha­­nges to the H-1B visa programme, which allows nearly 1.5 million skilled Indians to work in the US, were tabled in Congress. If passed, the legislations could make it harder for Indian companies to send workers here바카라�or for US businesses to hire them. Statements by President Donald Trump that he will review 바카라�abuses바카라� of visa programmes made the bills appear even more ominous.

But Indian diplomats in Washington DC as well as local advocates of immigration reform say it is too early to worry. For one, there is nothing new about efforts to change the H-1B system. 바카라�Some of these bills were introduced in the previous Congress too,바카라� said an Indian embassy official. 바카라�But it is very difficult for them to get through.바카라�

A total of 85,000 H-1B visas are allotted every year, but applications last year were more than thrice that number. Winners are chosen by computerised lottery. Indians get nearly 70 per cent of these on average. Many work for India-based technology companies such as Tata Consultancy, Wipro, Infosys and Mahindra, although US multinationals including IBM, Amazon and Microsoft also apply for and get H-1B visas in large numbers.

Three Congressional bills, premised on the bel­ief that the H-1B system is being exploited to the detriment of American workers, were tabled in January. One, introduced by Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, tries to make it more expensive for firms to hire foreign workers. It proposes to raise the minimum wage of H-1B workers to $1,00,000 per annum from $60,000바카라�the floor set in 1998. But it only targets firms with over 50 emp­loyees, at least 15 per cent of whom are on H-1B.

A more comprehensive bill, tabled by Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, calls for doing away with the lottery and favouring companies wil­­ling to pay the highest salaries to foreign emp­loyees. Potentially, this could make it even more expensive for firms to hire H-1B workers.

A bipartisan bill tabled by senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin also proposes to scrap the lottery system. But it gives priority to foreigners educated in the US, especially those with advanced degrees. As workers more likely to get H-1B visas under this would be the 바카라�best and brightest바카라�, it would also make it much costlier for companies.

The H-1B programme is intended to allow companies to hire highly skilled workers from abroad when they can바카라�t find such employees among Ame­ricans. These bills assume that the spirit of the law is not being met바카라�that firms are exploiting it to hire foreign employees willing to work on low wages, denying jobs to Americans in the process.

But Ashwin Venkatraman, a petroleum engineer from India who was on H-1B until last year and has recently launched his own cloud computing start-up for the oil and gas industry, said that is not the case. 바카라�There isn바카라�t enough local talent to take up all the jobs on offer,바카라� he said. 바카라�In oil and gas (sector), there is a shortage of technical workforce. That is broadly true for all technology-oriented industries. Foreign workers are not replacing American workers, except perhaps in software services.바카라�

Some argue that the economic stimulus provi­ded by H-1B workers helps create jobs for Americans. A report by Partnership For A New American Economy, an immigration reform thinktank, said that 바카라�workers who received H-1B visas from 2010-2013 will create more than 7,00,000 jobs for US-born workers by 2020바카라�. States such as California and Texas, which host among the highest numbers of H-1B workers, will benefit the most.

바카라�This H1B scheme has been crucial in making US companies competitive globally, in increasing their client base, in increasing their innovation,바카라� Nav­­tej Sarna, Indian ambassador to the US, told CNN. 바카라�The Indian tech industry has been creating jobs here. Indian firms have invested $2 billion in the US. They have paid $20 billion in taxes. Nine of the top 15 companies in India are American. This is a relationship which is symbiotic.바카라�

But Vikram Desai, a tech firm worker on H-1B since 2005, welcomed the proposals to 바카라�enforce바카라� the H-1B system. Desai said technology companies have built an entire business model based on exploiting legal loopholes바카라�a model that not only denies jobs to deserving Americans but also abu­ses immigrant, and especially Indian, workers.

바카라�The H-1B system is meant to make up for shortage of skills locally바카라� rather than as a backdoor for exploiting cheap labour, Desai says. 바카라�The law says H-1B should be offered only when an American wor­­ker is unavailable. It also says (immigrant) wor­­kers should be paid the prevailing wage. Companies should be fair and pay the wages workers deserve, irrespective of their origins. Any bill that stops this exploitation of immigrant workers and displacement of American workers is welcome.바카라�

The main reason why immigrant workers, especially those from India and China, can be easily exploited is the massive backlog of applications for permanent residency from these countries, he exp­lains. Because of country-wise quotas for 바카라�green cards바카라�, it can take an Indian or Chinese wor­ker decades to get this, which forces them to keep extending their H-1B status year after year. With their green card application under review, such workers 바카라�can바카라�t change jobs or even return home to attend family funerals,바카라� Desai says. 바카라�Their lack of options makes them easy targets for exploitation by companies, especially in terms of unfair wages.바카라�

Eleven years ago, Desai, along with some friends, founded Immigration Voice, a non-profit organisation that is creating awareness about the issue as well as pressure lawmakers to do away with cou­­ntry-wise quotas for green cards to make the immigration system fairer. 바카라�That, ult­imately, is what will make the difference,바카라� he says.

Although Desai, too, conceded that the 바카라�Trump effect바카라� has given the H-1B bills more publicity than usual, he saw their reintroduction either side of the president바카라�s inauguration as coincidental. 바카라�Issa바카라�s bill was also introduced in September last year. After the Congress dissolved in December and a new Congress was constituted, Issa reintroduced it. That바카라�s how Congress functions,바카라� he adds.

Grassley and Durbin바카라�s bill, meanwhile, has been in Congress since 2007. The only new H-1B bill is the one introduced by Lofgren바카라�but she is a Democrat in a sharply Republican Congress, and the chances of that bill getting all the way through are probably the slimmest.

That said, the new president바카라�s protectionist tendencies and anti-immigration stance are not to be taken lightly바카라�nor his willingness to issue executive orders bypassing Congress. A week after joining office, Trump ordered a temporary ban on imm­igration from seven Muslim-majority countr­ies, sparking protests and concern from the technology industry about its foreign workers. Although the order was stayed by the cou­­rts, Trump바카라�s press secretary, Sean Spicer, has said the president could issue more executive ord­­ers on immigration and visas, including H-1B visas.

In recent years, tech firms have spent milli­ons of dollars pushing for 바카라�reforming바카라� the H-1B system by raising the annual cap, which would

allow them to hire more foreign바카라�and particularly Indian바카라�workers. For now, though, they would be hoping that the system stays just the same.

By Saif Shahin in Ohio