H-1Bs are supposed to be used to fill jobs for which qualified Americans can't be found, but to get around this, Disney lays off workers and brings in a consultancy to take over. The consultancy employs the H-1B workers, not Disney.<p>There are so many loopholes that it seems like the only solutions are to either create a well funded agency/department to oversee this, or to increase the price far enough that H-1Bs are only viable as a last resort.
Let me get this straight - just as soon as the Department of Justice opens an investigation into the two major consultancies, Tata and Infosys, Disney decides to walk-back its plan of layoffs and replacement?<p>At the end of the day, I'm sure this will get swept under the rug and nobody in an Executive position - at any company (Tata, Infosys, Southern Cal Edison, Fossil, Disney, etc) - will actually face prosecution as an individual for manipulating / corrupting the system. However, there may be a job or two lost in shuffling around in order to sign a declaration that "We admit no wrongdoing and promise not to do it again" which ties up the investigation and puts a bow on it. Case closed.<p>Yet another metaphorical example of how the top tier of "business leaders" and decision makers pander to the top tier of the richest individuals ("investors") and have absolutely no disincentive to continually gutting the middle class and young generation of US Citizen workers who are ridiculously underemployed at this time.
This doesn't seem like great reporting - largely unrelated to the Orlando event that triggered the NYT article.<p>This worker's blog seemed pretty insightful: <a href="https://plus.google.com/+KeithBarrett/posts/PWA6BXs7dbS" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/+KeithBarrett/posts/PWA6BXs7dbS</a><p>Taking his comment about revenue focused technology being developed in that office, it doesn't seem like it was a smart business move to lose the experience of the staff they had in place already.
Thinking about it, perhaps some fine Congress Person could add a line to the H1B regulations that specifically states that an H1B cannot be billed out to other parties.
<i>"The Labor Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into two outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys...</i>" Disney was using both. And suddenly, Disney management decides that maybe violating labor law isn't such a good idea.<p>The US has reasonably good labor laws, but weak enforcement and too-small penalties.
Now if only the Australian government would follow suit and follow through with investigations of similar practices here. Abuse of "skilled immigration" 457 visas is rampant.
I am more than a bit shocked. Of course I assumed there would be some abuse of H1B visas, but I never imagined a company would give the workers being displaced proof of such abuse.