Train your replacment

Wall Street Journal Blogs
Infosys Employee Testifies on Alleged Visa Fraud
By Megha Bahree and Miriam Jordan
July 28, 2011, 10:48 AM IST

ConputerWorld
Fired IT workers file lawsuit claiming H-1B workers replaced them

Workers file suit against Molina Healthcare and its outsourcer, Cognizant
By Patrick Thibodeau
July 12, 2011 03:53 PM ET

Eighteen IT workers in California have filed a lawsuit against their former employer claiming they were replaced by H-1B workers from India and then laid off in violation of the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

In the lawsuit, the 18 workers say that IT managers at Molina Healthcare Inc. increasingly catered to the Indian workers while leaving U.S. workers, mostly security analysts and programmers who earned at least $75,000 a year, feeling excluded prior getting laid off last year.

SFGate
BofA: Train your replacement, or no severance pay for you
June 09, 2006
David Lazarus

“If people want their severance packages, they have to train their replacements,” a senior engineer at one of BofA’s Bay Area facilities told me. “There’s nothing in writing that says this — the bank’s been careful about that. But it’s made clear at meetings what we’re supposed to do.”
 

Shirley Norton, a BofA spokeswoman, confirmed that while workers aren’t being explicitly told they have to train their replacements or risk losing severance pay, they are being instructed that severance pay is contingent on satisfactorily completing their jobs.

Completing their jobs, in turn, can include training replacements from India, she said.

San Francisco Business Times
Bank job: You’re fired, now go train your replacement

Date: Sunday, November 24, 2002, 9:00pm PST

Sure enough, dozens of Indian tech workers have been visiting BofA’s major tech centers in Concord, Jacksonville, Fla., and other cities around the country recently. They’re getting training on work they’ll do back at home for about half what departing employees are paid. The bank confirms that some laid-off workers are being required to help train new ones (and not speak to the media) as a condition of receiving severance.

The fact that BofA is simultaneously cutting jobs here, outsourcing similar work and requiring old job-holders to train new ones shouldn’t lead anyone to assume these moves are in any way related, a spokeswoman insisted.

“Our sourcing strategy and these job cuts in response to economic conditions are completely separate,” said BofA spokeswoman Juliet Don in San Francisco.

BusinessWeek
GlobeSpotting with Steve Hamm

IBMers Training their Replacements?
Posted by: Steve Hamm on March 10
Pleasonton Weekly.com

Tri-Valley University brought students and spouses into U.S.

Times of India cites ministry report
by Glenn Wohltmann
Pleasanton Weekly Staff

Department of Justice

Why not just take the pink slip and tell your boss to shove it? How widespread is this practice of forcing people to train their replacements? How does it work? Do other companies do similar things?

In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security on Tuesday, Jay Palmer, the whistleblower at Infosys, said the company “intentionally violated our visa and tax laws for the purpose of increasing revenues.” Mr. Palmer accused Infosys of frequently violating U.S. visa laws and of staffing multiple client projects with illegal employees, including at Goldman Sachs, American Express, Wal-Mart and Johnson Control, among others.

Tri-Valley University not only brought students over to Pleasanton on illegal visas, but many of those students brought their spouses here as well, according to The Times of India.

The paper cites an Indian ministry report that says a number of immigrants got their spouses admitted at Tri-Valley, which helped them get an extended stay of up to eight years with illegal student work permits, or brought them into the United States through dependent H-4 visas, the report says.

Once in, some secured admission in accredited universities and got F-1 student visas. Later, many shifted to Tri-Valley, according to the report cited by The Times, which said the university gave them the opportunity to work from day one, although Tri-Valley was not authorized to do so.

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

iGate Mastech Inc. to Pay $45,000 in Civil Penalties to Settle Discrimination Claim

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice today announced that iGate Mastech Inc. (iGate), a Pittsburgh computer consulting company, has agreed to pay $45,000 in civil penalties to settle allegations that iGate discriminated against United States citizens in its employment practices. The settlement also requires iGate to train its recruitment personnel and to post a nondiscrimination statement on its Web site.

The settlement stems from the Department’s finding that, between May 9, 2006, and June 4, 2006, iGate placed 30 job announcements for computer programmers that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other legal U.S. workers. Such preference constituted citizenship status discrimination and is prohibited by the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Read more at Economic Immigration