from Hacker News

Jury finds Cognizant discriminated against US workers

by huy-nguyen on 12/11/24, 5:13 AM with 65 comments

  • by bastard_op on 12/11/24, 8:13 AM

    Cognizant, Tata, Infosys, the list goes on, the all have been gaming the system for 30 years now to funnel people to the US like Mexican Coyoties. They're not in the game to hire US people, it's all about funneling as many Southeast Asians as possible here.

    Talking to many friends over years having been through it to come here, I view it a bit like old (like 18th century old) indentured servitude of Europeans trying to get to the US however possible that they'd sell themselves into contractual slavery as "indentured servitude". It was later stopped, but for a time it was a good deal for everyone involved, wink wink. The slaver/outsourcer got cheap labor showing up to sign away, now a captive workforce, all to get shipped off to the promised land with the hope the poor bastard can pay off the debt working for nothing near what the slaver/outsourcer gets, all while waiting on an immigration list that may never happen.

    It's all better than anything they'll get in their home land, so they'll bet big and do anything just to get to the US to drop an anchor kid to force naturalization. Same(ish) game from 200-some years ago, just with a modern progressive spin and abuse of terrible government regimes.

    The other scam is they run them through Canada for quicker immigration than US, and then just move to the US as Canadian citizens faster than waiting on a direct list to the US. Anything for that Murican dream and soaking up Murican dollars.

    Now with this despotic regime for 2025, we'll see how immigration works out, but all the slavers pay big lobbies, so they'll keep on keeping on for sure.

  • by paxys on 12/11/24, 7:34 AM

    Shocking absolutely no one. It is no secret that outsourcing companies like Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, HCL, Wipro, Accenture, E&Y have been openly abusing the H-1B visa and the immigration system as a whole for decades. Lawsuits and fines are just a cost of doing business for them.

    Meanwhile the debate surrounding it always devolves into "pro immigration" and "anti immigration" with the same generic talking points and all of the actual substance is lost.

  • by th0ma5 on 12/11/24, 7:06 AM

    The next administration's think tank's plan to solve this is to eliminate the program altogether. There was also talk in a video I think from Jamelle Bouie of the NYT talking about these groups going further and declaring anyone that subsequently went on to be naturalized while living here under these and other programs to have their citizenship revoked. The idea being that only applying for citizenship under the slow process while you are in your home country will be seen as legal, and this is a part of the Chevron Deference ruling. I'd love to hear anyone weigh in on that from a legal standpoint, or offer anything specifically refuting it, and of course all of this will be immediately challenged, so, no reason to feel like the fight has been lost before it has begun.

    Some stuff about wanting to highly restrict these programs:

    https://www.rnlawgroup.com/project-2025-and-work-based-immig...

    https://www.murthy.com/2024/07/29/how-project-2025-could-imp...

  • by mitchbob on 12/11/24, 5:55 AM

  • by cmxch on 12/11/24, 2:24 PM

    Suggestion:

    Let the programs continue but consider assessing a hefty fee to those requesting such individuals that replaces all forgone salary adjusted to current day dollars for all citizens impacted - from 2003 onwards up to current day (and beyond) no strings or taxes attached.

    If we really want the people, the firms will have no problem paying for the damage, much like how externality costs are assessed.

  • by bigfatkitten on 12/11/24, 6:56 AM

    In 2003, Jeff DeMarrais would've been on TV telling us that there were no Americans in Iraq.

  • by impish9208 on 12/11/24, 9:22 AM

  • by dartharva on 12/11/24, 8:55 AM

    All the USA would have needed to prevent instances like this was some minimal sensible updating of their skilled immigration policies adapting to market shifts, something you can expect from any mature government.

    Instead the country sticks to something that was passed TWO DECADES AGO without bothering to make even hygiene changes. Downright amazing, if you ask me. Even the primitive socialist governments of failed states aren't this complacent with macroeconomic controls.

  • by codedokode on 12/11/24, 8:29 AM

    I don't think "discriminating" is a good term here. If the case was "you do the same amount of work for the same amount of money as our foreign workers, but we don't like the color of your skin" it is one thing. But if the case is "we don't like you because you do less work than our foreign workers and ask more money for it and on top of that you don't want to move into the office", it is a completely different thing.

  • by mathattack on 12/11/24, 7:45 AM

    You don’t say!