250 laid-off at Disney, replaced with Indian H1-B workers

This special visa for qualified workers in the tech industry is found throughout the world. If you have a specialized skill, you are going to be welcomed with open arms almost anywhere.

Even if Disney had done nothing, those workers with H-1B visas would be competing with those disney employees because disney does not operate in a vacuum. Their competitiveness would be reduced simply because there are more of them competing for the same jobs. As that competition drives the price down, it will allow for more jobs to be created thanks to the increased competitiveness in the market.

If you were the only licensed burger flipper in the country, you could walk into the best burger restaurant in the country, put your muddy feet up on the owner's desk, light a smelly cigar and blow smoke at the "No Smoking" sign while laying down the law as to what you will be paid for your burger flipping services. And you'd get it. Then if a hundred thousand burger flippers were to flood the borders and the licensing requirement dropped, you'd be offering to wash the bosses car on weekends for free, if he would be willing to pay you minimum wage for that same job.

The upside to all of this would be a lot more burgers being flipped, which is supposed to be good for the country as a whole. Sure, it'll negatively affect you, but you only had that gig in the first place because of government regulations which artificially raised the value of your degree in American culinary arts.

 

Here ya go...and what's with the sarcasm in your posts? Corporate America is screwing over American workers by utilizing a loophole in the program. These same corporations that the right refers to as "the job creators". I never said that this particular program provided tax breaks so do not misquote me, but they are in fact taking advantage of every way they can to avoid paying taxes via more loopholes which the GOP never seems to want to close....and we all know why.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers

 

If you think I misunderstood what you meant, I would say it's your fault. This is what you said.

That's why the sarcasm.

As far as corporate America screwing over American workers by utilizing a loophole in the program, yeah. But as I noted in a previous post, it doesn't seem to be a loophole that many on the left have an interest in fixing.

 

Let Disney take its multi national resorts and pound sand with them. This is an American marketplace with American consumers who need to learn to use their consumerism as the weapon it is. They need to demand that businesses that expect a piece of the marketplace act in the best interest of the American economy. If not they should expect the boycott of the American people, I know I for one will never spend a nickel on anything else Disney produces. To hell with them.

 

What loophole are they taking advantage of?

And that article uses an example of a man who has an engineering degree and over ten years of experience, but he supposedly can't get a job because of this work visa program. If he can't get a job, but some yahoo from India can take his job, I'm guessing there's more to the story, such as he simply can't compete.

That's how competition and the free market work. Incompetent workers cannot compete against competent workers, and the dross is filtered out. This guy is the dross.

 

Good luck with your boycott.

 

Is it just the Obama Immigration problem at work?

 

But we must remember that when women demanded jobs in 1960, they did not realize that there ARE only so many Jobs available.
They doubled the Unskilled Labor Force, which lowed the wages to what we see today, $7/hr.

What we need do is pass increases in the Min Wage over the next 5 years, so that $20/hr is what people make.
We need ask women to drop out and start raising their children again.
Pre-school, after school, day care, and such programs need disappear as husband become back in style.

When Min Wages rise in time like today, there are no massive layoffs, because every comopany has already cut to the bone.
And, every other employee also gets a raise,too, since they mus earn more than thenewbies.

 

..and you are a "job creator" taking offense? My sarcasm was not directed at a person posting on this forum, it was directed at the entire bogus concept and idiotic misleading term brought to us via Frank Luntz. Get it now?

It's the policy of Democrats to close the loopholes, which the GOP has been fighting against doing...

It’s Simple Math – GOP Refusal to Close Tax Loopholes Means They Hit Everything Else Harder
http://democrats.budget.house.gov/p...-tax-loopholes-means-they-hit-everything-else

 

The example was meant to illustrate that the logic you were using is ridiculous. It can't not be the fault of the person actually doing the thing in question.

 

Yes, they doubled the work force which not only resulted in higher unemployment and lower wages for unskilled jobs, but also raised the cost of living because the GDP during the 70s was going bonkers. It started levelling out in the 80s because by then, a two-income household was the new norm. The most striking increases in prices were in necessary goods and services. Housing and medical went through the roof, resulting in less disposable income.

I realize that this top-down approach to making the economy work in a particular way is quite popular with many, but economics doesn't work like that. It's a dream world where the laws of supply and demand don't apply. If you're going to fix things so that everybody is better, why not dream of everybody having a money tree? Everybody harvests their orchards and nobody will be hungry or poor.

When you do something like artificially raise the minimum wage through legislation, there is always a negative reaction by the market. With the minimum wage, it is higher unemployment for the people that can least afford to be unemployed. It's like raising the price of a loaf of bread to five dollars. People will stop buying bread at the local piggly wiggly, and will start making their own bread. Then all of those bakers are out of a job.

It's a nice dream to think that politicians can legislate the laws of economics, but the fact is that they can't.

No, it doesn't work like that. People invest their money in order to make a profit. By taking a percentage of the profits from a particular business out of a sense that they aren't paying their employees enough, they will either make that up in other ways, or they will sell off the business and invest in something else where they can make a profit. No matter what a particular business decides to do in response to a rise in labor costs, it will hurt the people who can least afford to be hurt.

 

You just said you weren't talking about tax loopholes, and here you are, providing a link about tax loopholes. I've said it before but apparently you still don't get it, but tax loopholes have nothing to do with H1-B program. Good grief.

 

These 250 jobs were held by highly skilled Americans, many had worked for Disney for 15 to 25 years, and they averaged about $100,000 a year. These were programmers, the techs that kept the ticket reservations running smoothly, the guys who kept the computers and software the fancy rides need to not kill people operational. The supposed protections that the H1- by B law has that are supposed to protect American workers from being replaced foreign temporary workers are not enforced (a pattern seen in the last 5 administrations) and have no teeth. The displaced workers have no legal recourse. Refusing to train their replacements provides and excuse for the employer to fire for cause, and then the employee won't even qualify for unemployment.

 

And you would lose your eligibility for collecting Unemployment compensation and possibly severance pay. How long do you think it might take to get a new job at a comparable wage? do you have sufficient savings to tide you over during that period?

 

Great points. I won't be making any special effort to get to Disney's parks; not after hearing this.

 

Yes they did hold the severance packages hostage, and refusing to train the replacements would give cause for firing the employees and denying them Unemployment compensation.

 

There should be some advocacy for immigration reforms and out sourcing of jobs. This new trend is disturbing lots of American families. What about the laid off employees, what they gonna do and how they gonna raise their families?
Corporate greed is now a never ending game. It has to stop sooner or later.

 

If you don't think the powers that be at Disney know the hiring practices of the contractors they employ you are an idiot. Of course they know, and they fully approve. It increases the bottom line for their share holders even if it harms the economic fabric of this nation. They don't care about our nation and have become anti-american.

 

Not just the parks throughout the world, but also broadcasting which means that unless you want your kids watching divorce court on saturday mornings, they're probably going to be watching something produced by disney. They also own ABC so whatever is on that particular network is also on the boycott list. ESPN is owned by disney, so forget that. And that new Avengers movie that is coming out is also on the do not watch list because they own the rights to marvel comics. And of course major holdings in pixar, hulu, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Reminds me of a blog I once laughed my way through that detailed the daily life of somebody that was boycotting China. They'd go shopping and had a rule that they would not purchase anything that was manufactured in China.

They gave up in the end, but it was a funny read.

 

If they closed the shop solely because the union came in it would be a violation of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and they'd find themselves in court.

 

I think you might be amazed at the cost of negative publicity. There is a reason corporations spend billions on advertising and PR to improve their public image. I can guarantee you that Disney is quite aware of the negative public opinion generated by this stupid greedy move and I just hope that threads like this continue to inform people that Disney is not worthy of their consumer dollars.

 

Actually, a company can shut down completely rather than negotiate and not be in violation of the law, but that will not be the case. They will find some "consolidation" excuse.

 

Creating more American jobs="anti-American" in your mind and you call me an idiot? How many people do you employ? If you are so American, hire these guys. You can call them your Freedom Freeloaders.

 

I'm sure it will cause a few people who haven't been to disneyland since the 60s to swear off of going to disneyland for at least a month or two. The fact is, they cater to children, and if daddy's little princess wants to go watch frozen, daddy's little princess is going to watch frozen.

and if you do have the balls to tell her that you're boycotting disney because they hired some indians instead of americans, your wife probably isn't going to care and will just take her anyway. That doghouse gets real quiet and lonely at night, and with you stuck between two females that don't care about these things, you're gonna give in and admit defeat.

 

There are plenty of alternatives.... Disney is nothing special, amusement parks are a dime a dozen.