This Judgement Is Baaaaaaaaad News!

Date: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 10:37 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com

This recent lawsuit at:
http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/immigdaily/dol_news/2002,0723-ramachandran.pdf
spells bad news for American workers and H-1Bs. The judge's ruling is a
classic example of why employers have the ultimate advantage in H-1B
disputes.

In this case an H-1B named Veena Ramachandran accused the company Blue Star
of paying her below the prevailing wages. The judge in so many words said
"tough luck".

Job Classification and Position Swapping:
Employers often hire H-1Bs into a lower job position so that they can pay a
lower salary. In this case they hired Veena as a sales manager but had her
do all sorts of administrative duties. This is basically a bait and switch
game that pits the H-1B against the employer. In this case the judge said as
long as the employer fills in the blanks with the proper codes they can
switch positions any way they please.

Federal Regulations does not mandate that an H-1B nonimmigrant’s
actual position correspond with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’
job descriptions, only that a DOT three-digit code and an employer’s
own title for the job be listed.

Dubious wage surveys:
Employers can use any wage survey they want to justify prevailing wages,
even if it's their own. This makes it impossible to prove fraud unless the
company is stupid enough to use the government's SESA survey. Few companies
make this mistake and here is why:

She argues that Blue Star instead used a non-standard wage study in
support of its prevailing wage rate as stated on its LCAs.

“the employer is not required to use any specific methodology to
determine the prevailing wage and may utilize a SESA, an independent
authoritative source, or other legitimate sources of data.”

See http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/Library/Archives/LCAs.htm to see what is
being talked about here.

Replacing American Workers:
Ahhhh yes, the major complaint that I have always had with the H-1B program.
Companies can fire Americans and keep their H-1Bs. This de-facto worker
replacement can occur unless the company is H-1B dependant. Dr. Norman
Matloff's research shows that 1% of the companies in the US are considered
dependant. The judge correctly ruled that it is OK to replace American
workers with H-1Bs. Veena even admitted Blue Star replaced American workers
but that wasn't enough to convince the judge that anything was illegal. The
bottom line is that 99% of the companies in the US can replace American
workers anytime they want to.

I find that the regulations concerning displacement and failure to

recruit

U.S. workers do not apply to Blue Star because Blue Star is not an H-1B

dependent

employer

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