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by joj123
2075 days ago
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Wait, are you in good faith comparing H1B workers to slavery? I am not an expert on American history, but if you did, that escalated quickly :). The only rebuttal I have is, that no employee on Infosys is forced on a Lufthansa economy class seat to Newark airport. They do it by choice. The whole "their code is horrible" is shifting of a goalpost. If that's true (and it might well be), then stop hiring them. If businesses see the point you are making, they'll stop hiring them. On FAANGs adding value - I 100% agree. FAANGs add way more value than any Indian consulting company and that's reflected in the market cap of these companies. But surely,one can appreciate that FAANGs add value and that they lobby to have laws created in their favor. My limited point is that I don't think these American companies (which benefit from the new H1B rule) have any higher moral ground to claim with respect to their stance on immigration laws. Also, A higher wage is an odd way to restrict hiring. A FAANG company can pay much higher wages for low-end coding job than Indian consulting companies ever can. So, if a FAANG hires the same Indian kid, at 120K/yr and have him/her do the same shitty job that the consulting company does, there's nothing here that stops it (please correct me if I am mistaken) |
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Yes. Now I will pre-emptively call out that there is a wide step function gap between slavery and indentured servitude, and indentured servitude and H1B workers. H1B workers can always leave and return back to their country of origin. In this sense they are neither slaves nor bonded serfs. You are well within your rights to question the comparison.
But the question is if we have a binary classification, should it be between slave and non-slave, or should be between free and not free? The historical context of this country post abolitionism implies through the civil rights movement that it should be the latter. And that is why I made the comparison, clumsily hyperbolic or not. When some residents are not free, there is a chilling effect for citizens nationwide. Wages are depressed for all workers. The space is made for a culture of "I'd rather hire an H1B than not because they'll be more loyal because they have no choice." This culture corrodes national freedom.
> So, if a FAANG hires the same Indian kid, at 120K/yr and have him/her do the same shitty job that the consulting company does, there's nothing here that stops it (please correct me if I am mistaken)
The difference is the incentive structure. The consulting company is based on essentially ripping off the customer by selling a high interest loan to them. It runs on services with razor thin margins which are predominantly returned to the owners rather than reinvested in the firm. Fundamentally, the firm owns no proprietary IP, and is not structured to accrete nor reward the long-term strategic thinking that FAANGs do.
The FAANG may pay that same kid 120k a year but that share grant could easily result in 300k a year with appreciation over the long-term. Because they are giving the employee long term incentivization, they are going to want to see long term results or else that employee will get PIPped. Beyond that, if that employee can hack it at 1 FAANG and is underpaid, they'll just go to another one which pays them market. But the gulf between WITCH body shops and FAANG is wide because the employee gains the skills which give them mobility at the latter and not the former.
All of which is a long way to say that body shops dilute the labor pool by exploiting an externality and creating a market for lemons by flooding it with low quality product. I think they create a situation where no one wins but the proprietors of the body shop, at the expense of the rest of society.