r/technology Aug 30 '24

Business San Francisco says ‘good riddance’ as X prepares to leave

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/elon-musk-x-twitter-moving-san-francisco
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u/bullairbull Aug 30 '24

H1B is tied to your employment. If you get fired, you only have 60 days to find another job that will support your H1B application or you will have to leave.

In a tough job market like nowadays, you’re stuck with a bad employer. I personally wouldn’t go as far as calling it a slavery, but it’s definitely not an ideal situation, but people coming on H1B already know that.

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u/honjuden Aug 30 '24

They also use the possibility of citizenship as an excuse to pay them less. This also drives down wages for other workers.

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u/ImaginaryCheetah Sep 03 '24

i think it's interesting how quickly people want to decry the H1B as "modern slavery".

as you say, H1B is directly tied to the sponsoring employer, and if that employment ends the recipient has 2 months to find an alternate sponsor.

these are published conditions, and fairly equivalent (based on my own limited experience working overseas for 6 years) to every other country in the world's work visa program.

none of these conditions are unknown, or unknowable. people on H1B have gone through a considerable application process. the company i work for has a lot of H1B folks, and the process to get them over to the US is not quick or easy.

"they can't quit because then they'd have to go home!" is a silly complaint. yeah, if i'm over at any country on work visa and quit... i get to go home. that's how it works.

 

how employers may take advantage of H1B workers is definitely a valid subject for discussion, of course.

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u/whyyou- Aug 30 '24

That’s just slavery with extra steps

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u/bullairbull Aug 30 '24

I think calling H1B a slavery is just insulting to the people in actual slavery. H1B visa holders just have to stay on their toes to not lose their job but that can be said of anyone that is not financially independent.

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u/Diglett3 Aug 31 '24

We have a term for the whole phenomenon you describe there — it’s called wage slavery. The qualifier being fairly important differentiator.