In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs

H-1Bs are supposed to be used to fill jobs for which qualified Americans can&#x27;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&#x2F;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&#x27;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 &#x2F; corrupting the system. However, there may be a job or two lost in shuffling around in order to sign a declaration that &quot;We admit no wrongdoing and promise not to do it again&quot; which ties up the investigation and puts a bow on it. Case closed.<p>Yet another metaphorical example of how the top tier of &quot;business leaders&quot; and decision makers pander to the top tier of the richest individuals (&quot;investors&quot;) 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&#x27;t seem like great reporting - largely unrelated to the Orlando event that triggered the NYT article.<p>This worker&#x27;s blog seemed pretty insightful: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plus.google.com&#x2F;+KeithBarrett&#x2F;posts&#x2F;PWA6BXs7dbS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plus.google.com&#x2F;+KeithBarrett&#x2F;posts&#x2F;PWA6BXs7dbS</a><p>Taking his comment about revenue focused technology being developed in that office, it doesn&#x27;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>&quot;The Labor Department said last week that it had opened an investigation into two outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys...</i>&quot; Disney was using both. And suddenly, Disney management decides that maybe violating labor law isn&#x27;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 &quot;skilled immigration&quot; 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.