H1B Tech Service Workers Sue Employer

by Tracker

H1B Visa workers, usually high-tech and one of the largest sources of the Asian Indian population in the U.S., may unexpectedly be another exploited group in the U.S. Two Asian Indian workers, Vishal Goel and Paueesh Gopal, have filed suit against the Patni company, an Indian contract employer. They claimed that they were paid a base salary of 23,000 dollars, in violation of Patni's promises. Goel and Gopal were contracted out to work for State Farm Insurance in Illinois. Patni had previously paid fines to underpayment of its employees and thus has a record of employee abuse. This is the first suit that H1B visa workers have filed against a technology service company.

There are an estimated half million H1B visa workers in the U.S. Four of the five largest companies applying for these visas are Asian Indian ones, like Wipro. The lone exception is Microsoft. The Asian Indian Technology service companies are highly profitable. Among Indian H1B workers, they are all known to abuse their workers. Many of these workers have tolerated this because of the relative disparity of wages compared to India.

Aside from exploiting workers, how U.S. companies employ the H1B workers may lead to increased layoffs and lower wages for domestic technology workers.