Laid-Off Americans, Required to Zip Lips on Way Out, Grow Bolder

[Independent voter]

So companies are laying off skilled tech workers and hiring foreigners because foreigners work for much cheaper. Often times these companies make the laid off workers sign NDAs or non-disclosure-agreements saying they won't discuss the layoff.

I've never been replaced by a foreign worker but I quit a job once and they hired an H1B or a foreign worker to replace me.

It's not only poor workers who have to fear globalization.

These people are likely to vote for Trump.






http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/us...ow-bolder.html

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. — American corporations are under new scrutiny from federal lawmakers after well-publicized episodes in which the companies laid off American workers and gave the jobs to foreigners on temporary visas.

But while corporate executives have been outspoken in defending their labor practices before Congress and the public, the American workers who lost jobs to global outsourcing companies have been largely silent.

Until recently. Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers.

Marco Peña was among about 150 technology workers who were laid off in April by Abbott Laboratories, a global health care conglomerate with headquarters here. They handed in their badges and computer passwords, and turned over their work to a company based in India. But Mr. Peña, who had worked at Abbott for 12 years, said he had decided not to sign the agreement that was given to all departing employees, which included a nondisparagement clause.

Mr. Peña said his choice cost him at least $10,000 in severance pay. But on an April evening after he walked out of Abbott’s tree-lined campus here for the last time, he spent a few hours in a local bar at a gathering organized by technology worker advocates, speaking his mind about a job he had loved and lost.

“I just didn’t feel right about signing,” Mr. Peña said. “The clauses were pretty blanket. I felt like they were eroding my rights.”

Leading members of Congress from both major parties have questioned the nondisparagement agreements, which are commonly used by corporations but can prohibit ousted workers from raising complaints about what they see as a misuse of temporary visas. Lawmakers, including Richard Durbin of Illinois, the second-highest-ranking Senate Democrat, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, have proposed revisions to visa laws to include measures allowing former employees to contest their layoffs.
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“I have heard from workers who are fearful of retaliation,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “They are told they can say whatever they want, except they can’t say anything negative about being fired.”

Lawyers said the paragraph Mr. Peña and other workers object to in their separation agreements is routine in final contracts with employees who are paid severance as they leave, whether they were laid off or resigned voluntarily.

“It’s a very, very common practice,” said Sheena R. Hamilton, an employment lawyer at Dowd Bennett in St. Louis who represents companies in workplace cases. “I’ve never recommended a settlement that didn’t have a clause like that.”

But former Abbott employees said the provisions had stopped them from speaking openly with elected officials or appearing at congressional hearings.

“It is very frustrating that you can’t share your story with the public,” said one former Abbott manager, who had worked for the company for 13 years, rising to an important supervisory position. He had prepared a 90-page manual for his foreign replacements showing how to perform every detail of his work. With a disabled child who requires medical care, he said he had to take his severance and its nondisparagement clause, since it extended his medical benefits. So he asked to remain anonymous.

“I’ve been laid off before, I can understand that,” he said. “But these visas were meant to fill in gaps for resources that are hard to find. This time the company actually asked me to transfer my knowledge to somebody else. That changes the equation.”


According to federal rules, temporary visas known as H-1Bs are for foreigners with “a body of specialized knowledge” not readily available in the labor market. The visas should be granted only when they will not undercut the wages or “adversely affect the working conditions” of Americans.

But in the past five years, through loopholes in the rules, tens of thousands of American workers have been replaced by foreigners on H-1B and other temporary visas, according to Prof. Hal Salzman, a labor force expert at Rutgers University.

In March, two Americans who had been laid off in 2014 by a New England power company, Eversource Energy, spoke at a news conference in Hartford even though they had signed nondisparagement agreements. Craig Diangelo, 63, and Judy Konopka, 56, said most of the 220 people facing dismissal had been required as part of their severance to train Indian immigrants with H-1B and other visas.

In a protest, departing employees posted American flags outside their cubicles. As they left, they took the flags down. Mr. Diangelo took a photograph of the flags in his final days at the utility. At the time, he and Ms. Konopka spoke with reporters, including from The New York Times, but they did not want to be quoted, even without their names.

In January, Senator Blumenthal spotted the photograph in an article in Computerworld, a tech industry publication, and was dismayed to learn of the layoffs so long after they happened. In a letter to the company, the senator questioned whether the dismissals were “accomplished through apparent abuses” of visas, and he demanded assurances that former employees would not be sued if they spoke with government officials.

In a forceful reply, the Eversource general counsel, Gregory B. Butler, said the company had not violated any laws, and its nondisparagement provisions were a “standard form release” that did not restrict former employees from discussing their layoffs “with you or anyone else.”

Mr. Diangelo said he was not so sure the company would refrain from legal action if he spoke to the news media. But, he said, “I finally got to the point where I am tired of hiding in the shadows.”

[Hexian]

Are you the new Greymane?

[hellosaltygoodness]

what's the problem? they could have refused the settlement. they were paid handsomely for their silence - almost as much as some people make in an entire year, in fact.

[Powerogue]

So these companies can afford $10,000 severance pay to basically bribe people to not criticize their corrupt workplace, but they can't pay for the workers themselves to stay?

[Theodarzna]

So these companies can afford $10,000 severance pay to basically bribe people to not criticize their corrupt workplace, but they can't pay for the workers themselves to stay?

IMHO more businesses decision are about exorcising power than they are purely about money.

[Kellhound]

Companies should be fined $100,000 for each H1B they use, $1,00,000 if it is used to replace a laid-off American worker.

[Krastyn]

So these companies can afford $10,000 severance pay to basically bribe people to not criticize their corrupt workplace, but they can't pay for the workers themselves to stay?

One time payment. They don't have to spend that every year.

Even then, it is likely that they will save more than $10,000 a year by switching people.

[Kellhound]

How exactly do you fine someone for doing something legal?

It called a fee.

[Kellhound]

Next time just say that then. Fines are a punishment. Fees are not.

Fees can be a punishment for using/doing something that is legal but the government doesnt want you to use/do.

[Berengil]

This is the kind of sht that generates support for Trump. Race to the bottom will eventually fck even the rich.

[Kellhound]

That's not a punishment. It's an incentive to do it the other way. The "punishment" is the baseline.

A purpose of a punishment to be an incentive to not do something....

[Hexian]

No, he's adding his own thoughts and experiences to the articles. Genn just posts an article and calls it a day.

I dont see new thoughts and experiences...

[Kellhound]

According to your usage of the word, if Coke and Pepsi products were normally the same price, but I only ran a sale on Pepsi products to clear out some older stock and you only drank Coke products, you'd call it a punishment, which is obviously absurd.

Your example has a monetary incentive to do something (a reward), not one to not do something (a punishment).

A smoker is punished for smoking by taxing cigarettes at a rate that (in my state) doubles the price of them.

[Kellhound]

Still not a punishment. Punishment assumes wrongdoing. Fine assumes wrongdoing. Fees and incentivizing or disincentivizing something do not carry that implication.

If you want to be that naive, I cannot change your mind.

[Baelic]

Can't wait till all you Americans realize that Capitalism left unchecked is just as bad as pure socialism (or any pure economic system)

[Deleted]

Isn't this what you call capitalism?

[alexw]

Companies should be fined $100,000 for each H1B they use, $1,00,000 if it is used to replace a laid-off American worker.

No need to do that. The problem with H1B visa's is that H1B employees are tied to the company that got it for them. It means that companies can pay them less than american workers because they can't leave that company without getting kicked out of the country. Simply change the law governing H1B's to untie them from the sponsoring company. H1B workers can then move to anywhere that pays better, meaning that there is then no incentive to swap out Americans for cheap H1B's because the H1B worker will immediately leave for higher pay elsewhere if they are being paid below market rate, and companies are not going to go to the hassle and costs involved in bringing them in as cheap labor, if the instant after they do those workers leave.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Companies should be fined $100,000 for each H1B they use, $1,00,000 if it is used to replace a laid-off American worker.

That's big government though, it's interfering with free market to tell companies who they can and cannot hire. Why do you love big government? Why do you want to expand government power? Do you hate free market?

[Ripster42]

Why would they vote for trump? He says he's against h1b visas and then says he's for keeping foreign workers here on h1b visas. He's full of shit.

[Pangean]

No need to do that. The problem with H1B visa's is that H1B employees are tied to the company that got it for them. It means that companies can pay them less than american workers because they can't leave that company without getting kicked out of the country. Simply change the law governing H1B's to untie them from the sponsoring company. H1B workers can then move to anywhere that pays better, meaning that there is then no incentive to swap out Americans for cheap H1B's because the H1B worker will immediately leave for higher pay elsewhere if they are being paid below market rate, and companies are not going to go to the hassle and costs involved in bringing them in as cheap labor, if the instant after they do those workers leave.

Actually using the H1B's to replace existing workers is a fundamental abuse of the system and of course douche bag companies have no issue exploiting loopholes to do so. Closing loopholes for replacing Americans in positions is one step. Your suggestion is also a good starting point for preventing wage/hours of work abuse by companies. And of course cutting off companies who have abused the system from the program permanently is a good step as well.

Some have said that this will drive folks to Trump are of course ignoring his postion(s) on H1B's. He was against them, then for them and I am sure it's changed multiple times since the debate where he said:


During the Republican debate Thursday night, Donald Trump was confronted by Megyn Kelly about his stance on H-1B visas, to which he responded with “I’m changing, I’m changing.”

Kelly asked, “Mr. Trump, your campaign website to this day argues that more visas for highly skilled workers would ‘decimate American workers.’ However, at the CNBC debate, you spoke enthusiastically in favor of these visas. So which is it?”

Trump immediately answered that he was changing his position.

“I’m changing, I’m changing,” he said. “We need highly skilled people in this country and if we can’t do it, we will get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley we absolutely have to have, so we do need highly skilled. And one of the biggest problems we have is people will go to the best colleges, they’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton. As soon as they are finished they get shoved out.

“They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately. They are not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brainpower in this country.”

Kelly followed up by clarifying, “you are abandoning your position on your website.”

Trump responded that he was softening his position in order to keep talented people in the United States.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/trump...g-im-changing/

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Why would they vote for trump? He says he's against h1b visas and then says he's for keeping foreign workers here on h1b visas. He's full of shit.

He also admitted he used them at his companies.