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@knittingknots2 @Npars01 why are you boosting a story from someone who says Trump should deport immigrants?

Also, as an immigrant, I am disappointed to see people fall for the H-1B FUD.

Nativism is nativism no matter what side you're on.

https://hachyderm.io/@skinnylatte/113740934443671413

@skinnylatte @Npars01 Because knowing what is being said/what's being done keeps us from being blindsided by events.

@knittingknots2 @Npars01 sure, but i see people posting and agreeing that H-1Bs suck. this is a very dangerous path for liberals to go down. sure, billionaires suck, but H-1Bs are people whose lives are going to be impacted even if you don't like the program.

Americans First is still nativism.

@skinnylatte @Npars01 Yes it is - but it's newsworthy because of the civil war between factions of the GOP coalition are fighting over it, and whatever side wins will have a big impact on people, one way or the other.

@skinnylatte @Npars01

Multiple things going on: some immigrants (and especially the labor contractors hiring them) are being brought in to work at lower rates of pay and restrictions than native workers - i.e., exploitation. Then there's nativism, prejudice on skin color/religion and so on. All which can be turned into wedge issues to rally people.

Sadly, what with destabilization, climate issues and so on, this is going to get worse world wide. And it's far from a US only issue.

It sucks.

@knittingknots2 @Npars01 H1Bs are cheap labor is not true. There's a prevailing wage. Lots of people saying stuff about H1B that is not true at all. There are two extremes of H1B: contractors who onshore outsource, and regular foreign workers.

I'm concerned that even Democrats are starting to say close the door (read Robert Reich's post on Substack about this, and the comments). The anti-foreign sentiment scares me more than during the first Trump administration, because it's now 'both sides'.

@skinnylatte @knittingknots2 @Npars01 Don’t believe the hype. A lot of online “both sides” noise is BS. Sure some people will fall for it but it is likely a lot of propaganda.

The real story is the intra-MAGA rift on this issue

@yappari @knittingknots2 @Npars01 sorry, as an immigrant I am sensitive to xenophobia on all sides. I don’t believe that leftists or liberals are better on immigration, they never have. it’s unsafe to assume that they are. actual people’s lives are at stake, and it’s important to speak out no matter where it’s coming from.

@skinnylatte @knittingknots2 @Npars01 Agree that it’s important to call it out from every direction. Just don’t let the propaganda distort reality. One thing we know from experience in Trump 2.0 is that so much of it is BS

@mpotter @skinnylatte @knittingknots2

There's always a cost savings with visa indentured slavery because of the US health insurance system.

If one of these workers are injured on the job or get sick, or are exposed to toxic chemicals - - they're sent home immediately.

There's lots of reports of worker's comp paperwork "vanishing", overtime timesheets being "misplaced", and vacation accruals not being coded accurately on payrolls.

The exploitation of visa workers isn't just ...
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...just with salaries.
They are expected to tolerate working conditions that locals don't have to tolerate.

Example: putting up with a psychopath who expects you to sleep at the office while he drives the business into the ground.
https://fortune.com/2022/11/16/elon-musk-email-twitter-extremely-hardcore-long-hours-high-intensity/

https://qz.com/elon-musk-twitter-illegal-sleepover-1850456087

https://www.fastcompany.com/90821123/can-your-boss-make-you-sleep-at-work-musk-twitter

https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/twitter-employee-whose-pic-of-sleeping-in-office-went-viral-laid-off-report-101677476903754.html

@Npars01 The loss of a job doesn't bother me so much. I've had layoffs before or quit when a merger wrecked a company. The problem is the chilling effect the tax bill had on my ability to find a new job.

Recruiters call it the "global labor pool." You know the routine, "We hire the best people WHEREVER they may be."

@mpotter

Isn't it odd that money is globally mobile but a host of mechanisms exist to restrict & meter the movement of labor?

An influx of outside labor is used to suppress unionization drives.

To intimidate workers into not asking for cost-of-living raises.

To create precarious gig economy jobs. To disguise mechanical turks as "AI initiatives".

To hobble job hunts like yours.

@samiamsam @knittingknots2 @Npars01 you can help by being very skeptical of the H1Bs are just cheap labor to replace Americans narrative then, because that isn’t true (they are not cheap). They are being exploited, and everyone suffers, including Americans and H1Bs, but perpetuating the myth that they are less-than Americans is still nativism no matter who says it.

@skinnylatte @knittingknots2 @Npars01

I've worked with H1B visa holders

I don't consider them 'less than' anything

the people i worked with were great and they were locked in in ways American workers are not in their quest for a green card

I felt bad because I was able to move to a better job for more pay and full insurance while they were locked in to the company i left

@samiamsam @skinnylatte @knittingknots2

A tale of visa indentured slavery:

One day, our conference room was jam packed with 8 programmers. No warning from management. No indication of what they were to work on. No instructions on how they were to be onboarded. Just getting laptops configured & with password access; setup cost most of the team a week of productivity.

Over a period of 3 months, they worked 10 hour days, six days a week, on "contract work".

It was never specified ...

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...what that was to the rest of the team. They reported directly to the owners. They lived dormitory-style in the owners' basement. Only one spoke English well enough to tell us they hadn't eaten all day.

Their work was never checked into version control. No code reviews. No project docs. No hand-off documentation. It was incorporated into the main application largely untested.

After they went home, it was discovered that though the work was of decent quality, it was a mess of ...

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...of post-implementation headaches. The support call volume ballooned. Nearly the entire customer support team quit.

Found out years later that the owner was cooking the books & getting fraudulent government subsidies for "training".

The CFO headed back to England to avoid discussions with the authorities.