• cogman@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    So let’s be really fucking clear here on what Vivek and Musk want. It isn’t more immigration. They want disposable tech workers that they can ship back to their countries of origin when they misbehave. They want the power dynamic they have over H1Bs that they don’t have over US citizens.

    What Musk and Vivek can’t find isn’t “motivated” americans. They can’t find cheap american tech workers who have to take abuse or else they get deported.

    This is, BTW, why right wingers focus so heavily on border control but not employment enforcement. You could end 90% of undocumented workers today if you penalized businesses found employing them. And it’s real fucking easy to find those businesses. Go to just about any farm in the US.

    The reason for boosting ICE funding is so a business owner can turn to their undocumented employees and say “If you don’t fall in line, I’ll call ICE and deport your ass”. This allows them to issue all sorts of abuse at their employees that they can’t get away with for US citizens.

    This is why open borders or easy paths to citizenship is important.

    • Tyfud@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      This is spot on.

      Source: I have worked in tech for 27+ years and have seen multiple outsourcing/offshoring events happen. Still happening in my place of employment really.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 day ago

      I’ve seen this tech bro corpo slave labor H1-B mechanism in real life for a long time, it’s always been disgusting.

      I talked to an H1-B coworker at my going away party when I was leaving a toxic tech corpo job, and she remarked, almost in tears, “I’m so glad you get to leave!” I remarked to her, “well, if it’s so bad, why can’t you just leave?” “They’d send me back to India.” That particular job had one working 7 days a week rather frequently throughout the year to meet always unrealistic deadlines. The H1-B employees basically lived at the office.

      I also remember talking to a new coworker that came from India at one company and he explained to me that this particular company was used as the easiest path to get from India to America. Probably more stories I’ve forgot off the top of my head, because there were so many.

      One of those employers also had a greater-than-zero suicide rate of employees.

      Time and time again the corpos claim they can’t find the talent they need domestically when there’s plenty. (Which is the legal mechanism they use to apply for or increase H1-B employees.) They just don’t want to pay domestic salaries to workers that may actually be able to push back on their rights as humans.

      Fuck tech bros.

      • Botzo@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        I put myself in the firing line in front of an H1-B I had taken under my wing when the sales started slipping under the new VC installed “execs.”

        At least we both got some solid severance, and freedom.

        He’s doing great in a new job and I’m enjoying my hobbies and trying my hardest to stay away from tech.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        The H1-B employees basically lived at the office.

        I was an H1-B around Y2K. I was at a good company, until we sued IBM and they gaslit the shit out of everyone. They actually kept the H1s around so we didn’t get kicked out of the country, or until we could find new jobs and go home to a job instead of being homeless – and even then, they manufactured reasons to give us a lengthy severance and hand-over, like they gave the naturalized employees. I left before I was at risk, for other reasons, and worked from my home country until the lawsuit costs ate my job too.

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      This is a reason I haven’t quite heard yet. It really makes sense when you hear these tech fucks who claim everyone needs to work 80 hours and not join unions etc. Your H1s can’t complain about anything due to not only losing their job, but their life here too.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      They want disposable tech workers that they can ship back to their countries of origin when they misbehave.

      Exactly. They want indentured laborers and if they had been smart enough to tell the other conservatives, the other conservatives would have gone along with it.

      But they’re not smart people.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        4 hours ago

        This was always the unspoken convention between the business elites and the guys that railed against immigration and abortion. You can keep talking about it as long as you don’t actually do anything about it. At some point the true believers just took over and thought they should pull the trigger on all those things.

        It doesn’t help that Democrats have no idea how to talk about this issue either. Banning H1B visas and forcing companies to sponsor for a full green card would probably be pretty popular with every constituency of the Democratic party (unions, liberals, recent immigrants, …).

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        20 hours ago

        But then the whole pro-worker schtick wouldn’t work and they might have lost the election.

    • SkavarSharraddas@gehirneimer.de
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      1 day ago

      The same is probably true for Musk’s obsession with Mars. When you own everything there including the transport back here you own the people there as well.

      • Windex007@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’d take odds that his mars ambitions are not only what you said, but that he didn’t even organically come up with the desire. I’d bet he just saw Total Recall in theaters and walked out and was like “yep, I wanna be the bad guy from that movie”

          • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            Musk is obsessed with Sci-fi. He even has a child named X that he raises gender-neutral following a weird sci-fi book to the letter.

            BTW despite the gender-neutral child he completely freaked out about Xs transgender sister. Consistently is not necessary

            • Windex007@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              There might be consistency in his logic if it’s predicated on women being lesser than men. FtM would make sense to someone like that, but MtF would be absurd.

              I think a lot of trans hate is really just a manifestation of misogyny.