Back during the Obama administration, the Dept. of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs starting bring suits against some major tech industry players regarding various discrimination charges, in many cases related to the H-1B work visa. Remarkably, OFCCP has been able to continue this work under the Trump administration. Their latest move is even more remarkable. Some excerpts from the article:
…[OFCCP now accuses Oracle of] favoring recruitment of Indian workers in the country on visas so it could suppress their wages…
The company “preferred Asian recent college and university graduates to all others,” the OFCCP charges. To back that claim it offered this statistic: of some 500 hires of recent grads between 2013 and 2016, 90 percent were Asian.
The population of recent grads Oracle would be targeting based on their relevant studies and the type of available positions is 65 percent Asian, by contrast, the complaint states.
Making matters worse, for several years Oracle didn’t hire a single black or Hispanic recent graduate.
The preference for hiring Asians is even more pronounced among those working in the country on Visas.
That includes a program within Oracle that looks to hire a set number of graduates every year from Indian academic institutions, the complaint states.
Because those people are dependent on Oracle to work in the U.S., their wages are easier to suppress.
DOL’s view of H-1B has oscillated heavily over the years, from one administration to another. In fact, Bill Clinton’s first Sec. of Labor Robert Reich himself has oscillated over time in this regard. To see OFCCP’s actions has been both surprising and gratifying.
You can read my previous posts on OFCCP (I have been slightly involved) here and here. By contrast, EEOC has been profoundly disappointing, due I believe to severe bias in its director.
Upon Closer inspection 
[…] Norm Matloff, PhD. at UC Davis has a great post about it over on his site. […]
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What’s been fascinating is the various “spin” titles along with selective content on the various news articles about this.
Variants of women and immigrants discriminated against – only addressing pay, and not the racism of mainly Indian H1B hires.
For those interested, the lawsuit document can be found here, https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20170071.pdf
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Quote: When the lawsuit was initiated, an Oracle representative said the complaint was “politically motivated.”
???
Anyone care to fill in the blanks, on how the original Complaint filed against Oracle was supposedly “politically motivated” ?
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About time. The so-called “Justice” Department will hopefully make an example of them.
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Great news Norm. Glad I was sitting down when I read it. I can’t believe it. We win for once!
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May just be a temporary win. Oracle will hire brilliant lawyers.
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Federal contracts have requirements, and, if tech’s going to take in federal requirements, they’re going to be audited and scrutinized. This is long overdue.
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It’s nice the US govt has finally realized what has been happening for decades. The next big scandal will come when they start to examine the credentials of all those Indian H1B workers. The fake degree machine has been running full force forever as well. It seems the UK and the Middle Eastern employers have finally started checking up on what they are really paying for and who they are letting in to their countries.
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Wrong strategy, for reasons I’ve given. And BTW, don’t count on DOL prevailing in this suit, or even being given support by other fed. agencies.
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I have no confidence the DOL will do anything to protect American workers or any workers. I see this as a PR stunt to pacify the anti-immigration tsunami in the US. It is obvious to me that Oracle is being targeted to protect Google and their ties to the deep state. Monopolies rule in the former republic.
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Oracle has many federal contracts and those contracts come with personnel staffing obligations.
There are other Silicon Valley companies that’ve refused to turn over their personnel records, but I don’t know if/how that was resolved.
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“It’s nice the US govt has finally realized …”
They’ve always known. They’ve not only known, they’ve actively suppressed enforcement of the programs’ integrity.
Trump has changed this. And Business Round Table is boiling mad over that and demands “deference” to previously unscrutinized approvals for visa renewal applications.
The ones they aren’t scrutinizing, those who are in the employer-sponsored green card queue, pending.
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USCIS have started scouring for fraud, and many are being rejected. Either qualifications of worker found to be fraudulant, or not “specialized”, or job is deemed not requiring “specialized” beyond run of the mill bachelors.
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That’s small stuff.
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From the CRN link, “Because those people are dependent on Oracle to work in the U.S., their wages are easier to suppress.”
I thought that H-1B workers could change employers. The indentured servitude argument does not appear to hold water.
A paper by Ron Hira shows the Immigration Yield (Immigration Yield = Green Card Applications/ New H-1B Workers). Infosys comes in at 16%, IBM at 11%, and almost all the others come in at less than 5%. It’s hard to imagine that a guest worker would put up with low pay or a high work load for a low chance of getting a Green Card.
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Once again, people fail to understand the difference between the “Intels” and the “Infosyses.” Ron’s paper, as you see, uses the term “Offshoring Business Model,” meaning the Infosyses.
The Intels, e.g. Oracle, generally apply for green cards for their H-1Bs. So if a worker is not already being sponsored by the employer, there is a good chance that they WILL be. That would make them reluctant to change employers.
BTW, for the Infosyses, my guess is that there is blacklisting going on. An H-1B would have the right to change to a new employer, but it may be that no one wants him.
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Americans working for Indian body shops say yes, they look to be non-compete.
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“Oracle, generally apply for green cards for their H-1Bs”
???
Oracle has a huge facility in Delhi.
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The people in Delhi are not H-1Bs.
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Oracle, like many other H1B employers, use H1B, to feed their offshoring operation.
To claim they generally apply for green cards for their H1Bs – do you know that?
I’ve never looked at their H1B versus GC sponsorship rate.
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Ron Hira has looked at green card rates. But to me, it’s irrelevant; a company that sponsors its H-1Bs for green cards is not “better” than those that don’t. On the contrary, GC sponsorship gives them extra opportunity for abuse.
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The visa goes to the employer, not the foreign worker.
– Foreign worker is authorized for that one job, at that one company location, for the duration of that visa. Change of job or location, even within the company requires change of visa petition application. This is new enforcement of worker qualifications as “specialized”, and verification that job requires “specialized” and verification that the job is for the duration of the visa length requested.
– Foreign visa’d worker’s US job search is limited to those who’d sponsor an H1B hire. I believe this requires, for most, a new visa application for the new employer. This type, transfer to new employer, is not subject to annual “cap”, 65K and another 20K for Masters, one of the reasons the H1B count is far beyond the purported 85K “cap”.
– Many (if not most) foreign visa’d workers are here for a green card, and many an employer will string them along til end of second (renewed) H1B, and file for employment based green card during their 5th year here. Unless/until their application reaches a certain stage of approval process, they’d lose that pending green card approval if they change employers. Many are pushed toward the door at that point, as companies are anxious for refresh with a new/cheap H1B. To lay them off and have their green card application lost sends a loud and clear signal to potential new hire H1Bs that “we’ll potentially sponsor you for a green card” is a farce, so they typically won’t do that.
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Americans are the MOST TRANSACTIONAL people, if an American (person, company or even government) give you a penny they know and make sure that they get it (or more) back. Do you’ve any idea how much money Oracle makes in India (it will be $4BILLION by 2020, was almost $3BILLION last year)? And this company is selling quite an old technology stack (note that relational data is a thing of past, but short-sighted Indian decision makers (especially governments who buy these) don’t have a clue)
American workers (especially blacks, latinos and old) also need to introspect as to why their own companies are going great lengths (even possibility of such lawsuits) not to hire them, you know why they will file needless lawsuits etc. at drop of a dime (and obviously don’t upgrade their skill sets in timely manner).
Based on my transactional point above (and a bit off-topic), and to stress the transactional nature of Americans, I’d famously said (after Obama’s election) that Americans will not elect a person of color to be their president for next 50 years (even 100) after this. Also the reason why K.Harris don’t even have slim chance to be a president (after Obama Americans now feel accomplished that they repaid everything for 200 years of slavery).
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Harris has the best chance among all the Democrats, I’d say.
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“you know why they will file needless lawsuits”
What is most remarkably ironic, Norm, is the people who come here from 3rd world, want the opportunity law and order brings, without actually following the law that created it.
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“you know why they will file needless lawsuits”
That’s a fairly good summation of benefit of hiring foreign labor: subservient. Whether experiencing wage theft, or unsafe work terms, or illegal work terms, they don’t file “needless” lawsuits. Well, til after they get green cards in which case some sue for back wages.
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