Comment by chung8123

9 hours ago

For one thing, if you get laid off you only have two weeks to find another job or you need to leave the country. This balance of power is lop sided so the employer can get away with abusing the employee unreported.

No, green cards actually remove that constraint. You are a permanent resident, and you’re allowed to live in the US permanently. Irrespective of employment.

  • The future green card is dangled in front of the employee as the carrot to get them to put up with this situation for years.

    And depending on where you are in the green card process, you might have to start all over again if you change employers.

    • not true, you can only "dangle" the PERM which gives you an I-140 petition. PERM is usually approved within 12-24 months. That's it. You cant dangle anything and cant force a bona fide employee to be a "subservient slave labor" like some people would imagine this process.

      Once the I-140 petition is approved (14 days), and I-485 is pending for 180+ days, and employee can easily leave to another employer, it only takes them to file couple forms like transfer of H1B and transfer of I-140.

      So the most you can keep the employee on a leash is ~2-3 years which happens to be median tenure at tech.

      the immigration discourse is filled with false information, and for this reason I prefer only immigration attorneys discuss the matter as they are the most qualified of all the quirks and nuances of the US immigration law.

      2 replies →

OK,got this part - this is referring to abusing the employees.

I read the former comment like that they are abusing/missusing the "technical Greencard mechanics" to get their employees past some checks/approvals/permissions/whatever or acquire whatever "special benefits" by working around whatever rules

  • It's pretty simple: you work as much as we tell you or we fire you. And good luck finding another job super fast with another company willing to sponsor a visa. This is the abuse. Plus, I think the pay is also not that great compared to US counterparts.

    • not true, the tech is not a coal mine or a cotton farm. you cant whip your employees and keep them on a short leash.

      please spare me stories of "abused tech workers" who have middle six figure comp, free lunches, unlimited PTO, bunch of perks, generous 401k matches and infinite matcha lattes.

      absolutely delusional discourse.

Which also "conveniently" means those employees can effectively never unionise.

  • US citizens in tech never unionized themselves, because unionization will lead to stagnation. and tech industry is the opposite of stagnation