| Taqwus 2003-03-19, 11:07 am |
| Here is an article I found.
I wish this would happen more so americans can start getting thier jobs back
Suit: Sun fired US workers to hire lower-paid Indians
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 3/18/2003
lawsuit filed yesterday in California alleges computer giant Sun Microsystems Inc. laid off thousands of American high-tech workers in order to replace them with younger, lower-paid engineers from India.
The lawsuit, for which class-action status is being sought, is certain to intensify an already fierce debate between technology companies and American engineers over the future of the H-1B visa program. Such visas let companies temporarily bring foreign workers into the United States.
Companies say that H-1B visas provide well-trained workers who have skills that are hard to find in the domestic labor force. But US workers say that at a time of high unemployment among American engineers and computer programmers, the H-1B program is mainly being used to bring in cheaper workers from overseas. The California case, filed in state Superior Court in Santa Clara, was brought by Walter Kruz, 52, who was employed at Sun from May 2000 until late 2001, at a time when Sun was laying off about 2,500 of its workers in the United States. While Kruz is currently the only plaintiff, his attorney, James Caputo, plans to sue on behalf of hundreds of other Sun workers who he believes received similar treatment.
The lawsuit claims Sun had a bias in favor of hiring people from India, citing as evidence statements made this year by Sun's Indian-born cofounder, Vinod Khosla, on the CBS television program ''60 Minutes.'' Khosla was quoted as saying that at Sun, people from India ''are favored over almost anybody else.''
According to the lawsuit, hardly any of those laid off by Sun were people of Indian descent. Instead, the company created a performance evaluation program that required managers to classify a certain percentage of workers as underperformers, the suit alleges. At the same time, workers who had been at the company for a short time were exempted from this evaluation program, ensuring that few H-1B visa holders would be subject to it. As a result, most of those found to be underperfomers were older, American-born workers.
At the same time, the suit alleges that Sun was applying for permission to bring in about 2,400 foreign workers, mostly from India, to fill technical jobs. Many of these jobs were advertised in the United States, as federal law requires. But the suit alleges that Sun refused to consider any of the laid-off US workers for the positions. In effect, the lawsuit claims, Sun sought to ensure the jobs would go to Indian workers on H-1B visas.
By law, H-1B workers are supposed to receive the same pay US workers would get for the same jobs. But Kruz's attorney, Caputo, said this requirement can be easily evaded. ''By and large, these new workers are younger and less expensive,'' he said, ''and additionally tend to be a little more compliant, because of their awareness of their circumstances. . . . They don't have the kinds of protections that most citizens have.''
Kruz claims discrimination based on race, national origin, and age. He seeks compensation for lost wages, attorneys' fees, and unspecified punitive damages.
A spokeswoman for Sun said that her company's attorneys had not had a chance to review the complaint. But she noted the company had successfully defended itself against similar charges.
The most recent such case involved a former systems administrator, Guy Santiglia, who filed similar discrimination claims with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and with the departments of Labor and Justice. All three agencies dismissed the claims, ruling that Sun's use of the H-1B program was appropriate.
Sun also will be defending itself against discrimination charges in federal court. In January, Caputo sued in US District Court in Colorado on behalf of 43-year-old Gail Matthews, as well as other Sun workers allegedly displaced by H-1B visa holders.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/0..._Indians+.shtml |