Firm fined $45,000 over alleged H-1B favoritism

A Pittsburgh computer consulting company accused of showing a preference for H-1B temporary visa holders in its job vacancy ads has agreed to pay a $45,000 fine as part of a settlement with the federal government.

During a monthlong period in spring 2006, the firm iGate Mastech published 30 job postings, that, by the U.S. Department of Justice's description, "expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other legal U.S. workers." That behavior violates the Immigration and Nationality Act's provisions, which bar employment discrimination based on whether the applicant is a U.S. citizen, the Justice Department said.

"We are committed to protecting the right of all authorized workers in the United States against citizenship status discrimination," said Grace Chung Becker, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division, which conducted the investigation and said it would continue to monitor iGate's practices.

In addition to the fine, the settlement requires iGate to train its recruiters and to post a "nondiscrimination statement" on its Web site.

A list of frequently asked questions at the Justice Department's Web site says that in job postings, employers "may not express a preference for H-1B candidates or other individuals requiring sponsorship or employment visas."

An iGate representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. The company, founded in 1986, describes itself on its Web site as a provider of "technical and functional consulting services to Fortune 500 corporations, on the technologies that drive their businesses," with clients including Carnival Cruise Lines, Exxon Mobil, Ford, GE, IBM, and Verizon. It has locations in Europe and Asia and employs about 1,000 people.

The Justice Department's action comes just a few weeks after U.S. immigration officials reported receiving more than 163,000 petitions vying for a congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 visas. Another 20,000 slots are reserved for foreigners holding advanced degrees from U.S. universities. H-1Bs allow foreigners with at least a bachelor's degree in their area of specialty to work in the United States for up to six years.

Some members of Congress have proposed doubling or tripling the cap in response to intense lobbying from large high-tech companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Google. They say they need more visas to fill critical gaps in their operations, particularly since so many foreigners obtain math, science, and engineering degrees from American schools, or they'll be forced to move more work offshore. Meanwhile, other politicians have voiced concerns about abuses of the system and have proposed measures that would require employers hoping to hire H-1B workers to do more to seek qualified Americans first.

[sanenazok]

Wow a $45,000 fine

I wonder how they calculated that one! The recruitment firm probably rakes in that much in revenue in a week. Profits might be a third of it. Ouch it burns. Kinda like charging me 10 cents for failing to pay a toll.

[MadLyb]

Actually

With 1000 employees and assuming 900 are billable, and a bill rate of $75/hr, then their weekly intake would be $2.7 million. Assuming a profit margin of 20% (probably small since they focus on H1-B users), their weekly gross profit would be $540K.

$45K would be the petty cash fund.

[tmccrack]

$45,000???

HAHAHA... That sure sends the right message. They probably saved that in just one or two new hires. Article said they had 30 postings. In other words, we will only slap the hands of the most egregious flauntings of the law. Nothing but business as usual for that firm.

[michael_o]

Once Bush is gone

Maybe a Justice Department cares about enforcing the laws of this country will focus on whether there was complicity by their clients, Carnival Cruise Lines, Exxon Mobil, Ford, GE, IBM, and Verizon, and assess more appropriate fines. This firm and its principles should have been permanently banned from sponsoring H1B's; clients of the body-shop should be banned from using H1B or similar labor for 5-10 years.

[shikarishambu]

$45000 = salary of one H1B resource

Now that should stop iGate from doing this again.

[igl00lgi]

Why is this company still around?

They should fine this company out of business.

[igl00lgi]

Write letters to the appropriate people.

I have just written a letter to my federal legislators along with a letter to Justice Dept. These companies need to be hit so hard they face bankruptcy. They also need to hold the corporate officers criminaly liable for allowing this to happen. Until we start putting some of these people in jail and applying fines that really send a message this is going to continue to occur. Ohh, I forgot as some seem to think... H1B fraud never occurs... Yea right.

[MTGrizzly]

A Joke

Personally, I am surprised they got any penalty, at all.

The current administration is so anti-labor/pro-management I
can't believe they did something about a company looking to fill
30 positions with foreign workers. Makes one wonder how
many times the company did this in past...

The Bushies claim to want to get immigration under control. At
the same time, they don't want to deprive their big corporate
allies of cheap labor... The whole thing is a farce...

[georgiarat]

Political Blame

Let's stop with the political blame as there is plenty to go
around. The Bush Administration does not care to protect our
tech workers, manufacturing workers, any workers. The
Democratic Congress is no less complicit. The Tech industry in
the Valley, in Washingon (as in Redmond), etc are all heavy
Democratic supporters and they support more H-1B visas as
well, they will not protect manufacturing (except moving their
lips for their district) or any other jobs and allow illegal
immigrants to come in and drive down the price of labor at the
low end at the same time H-1B visas are used to drive down
wages at the upper end.

[eliminateoil]

H-1B visas

A 45,000 dollar fine is like fining the oil companies 1 million dollars for bidding the price of oil up so high. It is pocket change compared to what the companies and the recruiters made doing this. It will do nothing to eliminate the problem. Put the CEO's in jail, that would cause a change in their practices.

[aka_tripleB]

$45,000 is a joke

Monetary fines never stop people from continuing to repeat the offense. Look at people who repeatedly speeders, parking violations, and delinquent library books. Heck, felony charges don't even stop some repeat offenders. I've seen arrest records, long arrest records, where there are files several inches thick of the same crime. I've also been required to indict people, and most were repeat offenders.

There needs to be harsher penalties. Revoke the companies? ability to apply for H-1B visas for a set length of time for each offence. Require companies to give specific reasons to applicants why they aren't qualified for the job; that way you give companies less ground to say, "no one qualified applied for the job" and give applicants chances to improve to apply for similar jobs in the future. As things stand right now, companies will not speak to you about why you are not qualified for a job.

[Jake Leone]

Where's JoeF2 and JoeLam888? What h-1b got their tongue?

This is direct evidence of discrimination.

And direct evidence of a slap on wrist by the Bush Administration.

This company cost U.S. citizens 100 of thousands of dollars in opportunity, and all they had to pay was a lousy 45k.

The Bush administration could care less about the U.S. economy and the U.S. citizen worker.

What the Bush administration has demonstrated so far, we'll bring you high oil prices and take your job away all at the same time.

[JoeF2]

The laws work

As usual, the trolls come out.
But this case shows rather nicely that the laws work. Companies that violate the laws get punished.
But of course, anti-H1s like Mr. Leone are too dense to get that...

[AmericanITWorker]

Save your comments for the Department of Homeland Security

DHS is inviting comments on their 17 month emergency extension of F-1 status for pending H-1bs. They cite Bill Gates' latest testimony with Congress. (I'm pretty sure that no one was there to represent the opposite point of view: i.e. the over subscription of H-1b's is nothing more than a subsidy to high tech companies). All posters to this blog have until June 9 to get your comments in to DHS:

Here's the URL with the info:
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/press_opt_ifr.pdf

[BCCM]

The entire employment practice is discriminatory and there has been a heated discussion about this on another blog. We always tell people especially american minorities, "this is a fake economy". The real reason foreign H1-B's are hired is simple. They are not covered by state and federal employement law including unemployment insurance while Americans are. These are classified as temporary jobs so they are not covered and less expensive to maintain. I've known many students on these programs who are in the meantime simultaneously applying for a path to citizenship while provinding cheap labor resulting in displacing americans. It's about money. That Bill Gates says in hearings, "we need the A student mathematicians and engineers and american students will be hired from resulting job creation by the A student", is just plain double speak. So what's left for ordinary americans to do? You become a lobbyist or a madam in Washington D.C. Jobs which are indistinguishable from one another.

SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html

[srikrishnan24]

Discrimination is due to sweat shopping or body shopping of h-1b workers.
Most of these workers are paid less than 25% of the billing dollars.

NRIsoft, calling itself an un-sweatshop, is paying h1b workers 92% of billing. I used to work for a large consulting company that paid me $18 while it was raking in $79/hr.

you can go to the website http://www.nrisoft.com

Is it the sweat shops to be blamed or ignorant h-1b workers, for lack of information?

Ultimately, when the H1 workers are paid US wages, sweat shops will soon go out of business, if no H1 worker is available to work at Indian wages.

[srikrishnan24]

"H-1B workers lack information" Discrimination is due to sweat shopping or body shopping of h-1b workers. Most of these workers are paid less than 25% of the billing dollars. NRIsoft, calling itself "the un-sweatshop", is paying h1b workers 92% of billing. I used to work for a large consulting company that paid me $18 while it was raking in $79/hr. you can go to the website http://www.nrisoft.com Is it the sweat shops to be blamed or ignorant h-1b workers, for lack of information? Some times these sweat shops use fear tactics, by having them sigh bond and holding passport as ransom, both of which are illegal in the United States. Ultimately, when the H1 workers are paid US wages, sweat shops will soon go out of business, if no H1 worker is available to work at Indian wages.

[benjaminstraight]

benjamin straight writes: 45k? How did that number come up?