Screwed Over By Foreign Workers & Corporations The Dream Is Over (debt, employers)

[guesthouston]

New investigative report showed that Tesla Motors’ contract company, Eisenmann, paid a smaller Slovenian company, Vuzem, to hire foreign workers through the B-1 visa program. The companies misrepresented the foreign workers in order to obtain the visas so they could import cheaper, foreign labor instead of hiring American workers.

The B-1 visa allows foreign workers to enter the U.S. for temporary and limited work purposes, such as to join a conference or to supervise or train U.S. workers in a specialized skill. The visa does not permit the worker to perform hands-on jobs that U.S. workers can do and under this visa a worker cannot receive payment from a U.S. company. The visa can last up to six months and there is no set cap for the number of visas allowed each year, 6.2 million B-1/B-2 visas were issued in 2014.

The B visa, along with the L-1 visa, could displace thousands of American workers and depress wages if the United States ratifies the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement.

Gregor Lasnik, a Slovenian worker hired by Vuzem, has a pending lawsuit against Tesla Motors, Eisenmann, and Vuzem after being injured while helping to build Tesla’s new Fremont plant.

According to court documents Lesnik’s visa application included a letter written by Robert Keller, Eisenmann’s Chicago area-based U.S. purchasing manager, to the U.S. consulate stating that Lesnik would be working for a European subcontractor and had “specialized knowledge” to help build a new paint shop for BMW in South Carolina. The letter also assured that that Lesnik’s employment would “in no way adversely affect the employment of citizens of the United States.”

The visa application also included a hotel reservation in a South Carolina and titled Lesnik as a, “supervisor of electrical and mechanical installation”, even though he had been an unemployed electrician in his country and spoke only a little English. After being approved for the B-1 visa Lesnik was told he would actually be going to California and helping to build Tesla’s new plant.

This misrepresentation on B-1 visa applications has become a common problem, Infosys, an IT firm, was fined $34 million in 2014 for circumventing B-1 regulations among other offenses.

Overseas contractors use the B-1 visa to import foreign workers that will work long hours for low wages, even though it violates visa and labor laws. Lesnik says he was making the equivalent of $5 an hour while working on the Tesla plant. An American company had lost the Tesla contract bid due in part to higher labor costs.

“We have concluded that there is widespread abuse of the B-1 visa in the Bay Area,” said Michael Eastwood, assistant district director of the San Jose area office of the U.S. Department of Labor.

“It’s the wonderful world of unregulated visas,” said Daniel Costa, an immigration law and policy researcher at the Economic Policy Institute.

All three companies refused to comment on the pending legal case. Tesla and Eisenmann deny responsibility since Lesnik was directly hired by Vuzem

Silicon Valley imported cheap labor

[Item1of1]

Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts

Actually if we did have the work ethic of the Depression generation

Dear god is that what it's come to? Well, what will be, will be.

Here's to hoping you get your wish.

[Item1of1]

Originally Posted by Nickchick

I mean the other candidate wouldn't have been better. Most politicians are either crooked or don't know what they are doing. Not to mention the president does not have all the power so even if you elect a well meaning president they might have a team that makes decisions that aren't so good. You may be screwed either way because not one single person has all the power.
Also even if the little people do have power on a decision the majority wins. If you didn't like something you would have to ban together to get other people to agree with you and that might require manipulation which is not morally right.

Trump in particular is of the managerial class. Since the H1B program is a source of imported managerial talent - in other words, outsiders who start from the top or close to the top (much like Trump himself) - and since the managerial class tends to look out for its own, it can be expected that an election of Trump will result in the continued crushing of the labor force every which way but up.

Hillary, on the other hand, is into finance. The working people may get some snazzy new loan or refinance existing loans. Anybody who falls outside the purview of the financial system will likely be wheeled off to jail, just like in the '90s. Anybody who doesn't own stock will be systemically excluded from whatever opportunities will be presented to the public via the stock market.

Trump may actually slow the decline in new firm creation, but the jobs will be dead-end and low-wage because new firms won't bother to open if they can't keep labor costs minimal.

No matter who wins, if you are in an "innovative" sector you will be working for an imported H1B -- one of the 20,000 fresh with an American master's degree in hand, thoroughly imbued with thousands of years of cultural experience crushing anyone and everyone below them...and levels of corruption, toxicity and entitlement heretofore unseen in the USA though it may seem hard to believe at first.

[pappjohn]

Tesla Motors avoids hiring American workers.
Even worse Telsa gets Obama subsidies from taxpayers.
Well, I'll never buy a Tesla. Never!

Trump will go after Tesla, just watch.

[ATG5]

Originally Posted by pappjohn

Tesla Motors avoids hiring American workers.
Even worse Telsa gets Obama subsidies from taxpayers.
Well, I'll never buy a Tesla. Never!

Trump will go after Tesla, just watch.

Please don't hold your breath on that.

[blisterpeanuts]

Originally Posted by pappjohn

Tesla Motors avoids hiring American workers.
Even worse Telsa gets Obama subsidies from taxpayers.
Well, I'll never buy a Tesla. Never!

Trump will go after Tesla, just watch.

How horrible! An American businessman, who invents a better car, and sets up a plant to manufacture it in California, and who paid off his government loans with interest.

Let's just ban entrepreneurs, problem solved.

[blisterpeanuts]

Originally Posted by Item1of1

Trump in particular is of the managerial class. Since the H1B program is a source of imported managerial talent - in other words, outsiders who start from the top or close to the top (much like Trump himself) - and since the managerial class tends to look out for its own, it can be expected that an election of Trump will result in the continued crushing of the labor force every which way but up.

Hillary, on the other hand, is into finance. The working people may get some snazzy new loan or refinance existing loans. Anybody who falls outside the purview of the financial system will likely be wheeled off to jail, just like in the '90s. Anybody who doesn't own stock will be systemically excluded from whatever opportunities will be presented to the public via the stock market.

Trump may actually slow the decline in new firm creation, but the jobs will be dead-end and low-wage because new firms won't bother to open if they can't keep labor costs minimal.

No matter who wins, if you are in an "innovative" sector you will be working for an imported H1B -- one of the 20,000 fresh with an American master's degree in hand, thoroughly imbued with thousands of years of cultural experience crushing anyone and everyone below them...and levels of corruption, toxicity and entitlement heretofore unseen in the USA though it may seem hard to believe at first.

Capitalism not working out for you? Try Cuba or North Korea. Or one of the corrupt theocracies of the Middle East or Africa.

As for owning stock, the barriers to entry have never been lower. Anyone can open a brokerage account with Etrade, TD, Fidelity, or a dozen others, and trade stocks for $8 a transaction.

Anyone can open a business, too, and run it their own way. If you'd rather more Americans be employed, feel free to employ them. Otherwise, you're just telling others how to spend their money.

[Item1of1]

Originally Posted by pappjohn

Tesla Motors avoids hiring American workers.
Even worse Telsa gets Obama subsidies from taxpayers.
Well, I'll never buy a Tesla. Never!

Trump will go after Tesla, just watch.

He wants to go after Amazon but Amazon is too embedded in the American psyche at this point. Low prices and free shipping have created a vast pool of goodwill guarded by gates electrically-charged against the likes of Trump

Tesla is an easy target because the ambitions of the founder, even with subsidies, are incredibly risky, and even if they do pan out, will likely never affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Americans except possibly to somehow, say, put more cars on the road and make traffic worse. It's true that Tesla does manufacturing in the US, but to the managerial class (of which Trump is a member) this is anathema to the managerial class ethos of wage-crushing (i.e. moving anything labor-intensive outside the country) and importing additional managers if need be to make sure the surplus value, or profits, or spread, or whatever is socialized solely amongst themselves.

In the annals of money-losing tech-y companies Amazon is "doing it right" by letting the financial markets effectively subsidize its losses via the stock price. Tesla is not doing it right by relying on various governments to give it money.

[Item1of1]

Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts

Capitalism not working out for you? Try Cuba or North Korea. Or one of the corrupt theocracies of the Middle East or Africa.

As for owning stock, the barriers to entry have never been lower. Anyone can open a brokerage account with Etrade, TD, Fidelity, or a dozen others, and trade stocks for $8 a transaction.

Anyone can open a business, too, and run it their own way. If you'd rather more Americans be employed, feel free to employ them. Otherwise, you're just telling others how to spend their money.

The idea that the US is capitalist is obnoxious. As they say, oligarchal capitalism isn't capitalism at all! It's irrational, though common, to believe industrial policy has no effect on people's lives. There are more competitive economies, countries with better upward mobility, and more transparently-governed places. We can all learn from them to the extent that we are capable of learning anything.

Cuba and North Korea aren't on the list, nor are any theocracies, though such places are extremely management-heavy so I can see why you'd recommend them to me. If the US doesn't have what someone wants, just send them to your pal up the street!

Stock gains have zoomed right by the majority of Americans, not because there aren't enough websites or people willing to invest on their behalf, but because most Americans don't have enough money to invest in the first place. Obviously that's a serious "barrier to entry" to all but the most deluded theocrat

[MDude25]

I support strict limitations on H1B visas, deporting illegal immigrants, and punishing employers who hire illegals. We also need to limit work permits to foreigners.

The TPP agreement is also a problem, I've read it will send many more jobs to Asian countries.

You guys may want to consider voting for Trump as much as you may not personally like him. Hillary just doesn't give a damn about American borders and the American worker.