[HN Gopher] Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, D...
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Apple discriminated against US citizens in hiring, DOJ says
Author : nataz
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-11-10 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| superduty wrote:
| Is this the same DOJ going after SpaceX for the opposite?
| umeshunni wrote:
| They're going after both companies for discrimination on the
| basis of national origin.
| PabloRobles wrote:
| SpaceX works on (potentially) military techologies covered by
| ITAR protection.
| TMWNN wrote:
| ... which makes the DoJ going after SpaceX for allegedly
| _not_ hiring refugees /non-citizens all the stranger.
| staringback wrote:
| Well, they are seemingly allow to hire permanent residents
| and are not restricted to citizens only. If there was a
| citizen only requirement this would be a non issue.
|
| You aren't allowed to exclude somebody who would otherwise
| be eligible because their work permit has an expiry date
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Because those people were able to legally do some of those
| jobs, but SpaceX _chose_ not to consider them because it
| would be more administration /bureaucracy for SpaceX. Ergo,
| discriminating on the basis of their status.
|
| It was the same with disabilities, leading to the creation
| of the ADA. Companies would argue that they shouldn't have
| to hire someone in a wheelchair because it would cost them
| money to build wheelchair ramps and other accessibility
| aids.
| bubblethink wrote:
| The reality is that the regulations and restrictions in
| the other direction are much more severe. It's not that
| SpaceX cares about whom they hire; they'd hire anyone
| competent. The gov. will come down hard on export control
| and other issues if SpaceX slips up. So SpaceX
| essentially said fck it, just be a citizen or LPR. And
| this is more a sign of exasperation than anything else.
| avereveard wrote:
| there's no contraddiction there, discrimination is bad both
| ways
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Both are illegal in most circumstances, so yes.
| randyrand wrote:
| gotta toe the line! or just hire more robots, much easier.
| okwubodu wrote:
| Not the opposite. The full group referenced here is "US
| citizens and certain non-US citizens whose permission to live
| in and work in the United States does not expire," and they
| went after SpaceX for discrimination against the latter
| (refugees and asylees, specifically).
| paulddraper wrote:
| Same in the sense of "discrimination"
|
| Opposite in the sense of the direction of the discrimination.
| robotnikman wrote:
| It says Apple agreed to pay the fine, but does this mean they
| will actually stop discriminating in their hiring?
| paulddraper wrote:
| The only person who can conclusively answer that would need a
| time machine to speak to you.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Unclear, but they committed to certain changes in behavior as
| well as 3 years of DOJ monitoring, so the fine is not the whole
| story.
| jws wrote:
| The DOJ wants them to allow electronic submission of
| applications to PERM jobs and to publish these jobs anywhere
| they publish other jobs. Apple agreed to this and to train
| their relevant employees about the issue for three years.
|
| The article doesn't come right out and say it, but the case
| seems to have turned on PERM jobs being only available when
| there isn't a citizen/refugee/permanent-resident available to
| fill the position and that applying in paper was an
| unreasonable hurdle to these classes and that the positions
| should be advertised as widely as other jobs to ensure they
| aren't missing potential protected class workers who might like
| to apply.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| From what I've seen, often these jobs already have a
| candidate in mind and the "post the job listing" is a pro
| forma requirement. So this is the government forcing the
| company through extra checklist that will end up in the exact
| same candidate being hired anyway.
| jmspring wrote:
| I'm sure many US-based tech companies can be blamed for
| preferring the cheaper option ... I would think our visa process
| plays no small part here, further the lax compliance on what
| "special skillset" means in the case of H-* visas.
|
| The system allows it, why not take advantage of such.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Work visas of this type should pretty clearly provide a path to
| at least permanent residency, otherwise the workers are captive
| employees, and, in any case, highly educated skilled workers
| that an employer is arguing they can't replace out of resident
| populations seem like a population that even people that want
| restrictions on immigration would consider good candidates for
| it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I thought an H1B is a dual-intent visa and has a documented
| path towards permanent residency. Does it not?
| tomohelix wrote:
| It sorta does. After 5 years of H1B, you can file for a
| green card. The problem is over those 5 years, you are
| living on the edge. If you are unemployed for over 60 days
| cumulative, your H1B is terminated. Remember, it is
| cumulative, so between your first job and your second job,
| you needed 30 days to do interviews and such, and another
| 10 days to move to the new job, then you only have 20 days
| left to find the next job if that second job also lay you
| off at some point during those 5 years.
|
| It can be nerve wracking. For someone to build their entire
| lives here and then risk having it all taken away in less
| than a month. Most native citizens won't ever understand
| that feeling. That forces H1B to keep up the best work they
| can because their entire lives and family and almost
| everything they have achieved is riding on that single job.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Dual-intent just means that you're _allowed_ to be
| interested in permanent residency. If you have a B-2
| visitor visa, for example, customs won 't let you into the
| country if you tell them you're hoping to stay. The actual
| process of permanent residency has to come from a separate
| program, such as the PERM one Apple used here.
| koolba wrote:
| H1B should be an annual auction so that the fair market value
| is captured by the country as a whole. Existing employers
| should be required to pay the latest market price to maintain
| their visas.
|
| That would boost wages for all other workers and
| discriminatorily raise costs against orgs that do not want to
| "hire American".
| davidw wrote:
| Markets and auctions are often good ways of allocating
| things, but a big flaw with this is that there is still
| some arbitrary, "magic number" of H1B visas to auction. The
| current number is not derived from anything empirical, it's
| just a number some politicians picked.
| koolba wrote:
| > The current number is not derived from anything
| empirical, it's just a number some politicians picked.
|
| That's fine too. If it's too low, companies can lobby to
| have it increased. If it's too high, workers can lobby to
| have it reduced.
| salamandersss wrote:
| I would argue path to PR on humanitarian grounds, but not
| citizen centric ones. It's probably ideal from a citizen's
| perspective to be like Dubai and attract talent with easy
| professional temp visas and then shitcan them the second they
| run out of money or become inconvenient.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I find it interesting that Apple hasn't done what many other
| large US corporations have done and just open offices in a
| country like India. Then they essentially get rid of any US
| based employees. No H1B's needed and you're still paying
| pennies on the dollar for the work.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Try working with people on a 12 hr time difference. It's very
| difficult.. I don't believe it truly works. I don't think
| management at some places know it doesn't work because they
| aren't involved in the actual work.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| DOJ press release: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-
| department-secures-25...
| justrealist wrote:
| This is the thing where when you want to sponsor a specific
| employee for an H1B you have to post notices pretending to look
| for American citizens instead.
|
| Every FAANG is guilty of this. Every startup is guilty of this.
| There is no law less adhered to in the US.
|
| Everyone posts the notice on the office fridge or the
| receptionist stand or runs some newspaper ad to cover the nominal
| letter of the law. It's completely pointless.
|
| Just to add some context here.
| rhuru wrote:
| Well, stupid laws will get stupid compliance.
|
| The idea that asking companies to fire their existing employer
| just to hire some "citizen" employee is dumb beyong measure.
| H1B visas should not exist in first place. Just give green card
| and let the person be citizen.
|
| The problem is compounded by the racial quota for Indians in
| greencards. Indians are extremely good at hacking systems and
| longer they stay in that queue, they would totally destroy this
| sort of idiotic system. (This is a complement to Indians).
| pridkett wrote:
| Are you telling me all those job opportunities in the back of
| IEEE Spectrum where they give 1 line job descriptions and tell
| you to mail your resume to some anonymous post office box
| aren't actual job opportunities? I can't believe it!
|
| In other words, professional societies are complicit in this
| too.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I wonder if they didn't do it, ifthe argument would be made
| that "look, these companies didn't even advertise in IEEE
| Spectrum!" so they follow along and advertise there as well.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Those tricks definitely occur, but they are also not required
| in most cases: the relevant obligations only apply when (1) the
| employer falls under the regulatory definition of either an
| H-1B dependent employer or a willful violator , BUT NOT IF (2)
| the candidate is paid at least $60k per year or has a relevant
| master's degree.
|
| In our industry it's rare for condition 2 to be false, even
| when condition 1 is true. So usually they can just be brazen
| about not trying to find American candidates. Regardless, non-
| discrimination rules still apply.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| As the article describes, a competitive job search is always
| required for PERM certification. The employer needs to fill
| out a DOL form (https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/of
| lc/pdfs/9089for...), in which section I(c) requires two print
| advertisements for the job opportunity, and section N
| requires certifying that the opportunity was "clearly open"
| to US workers but no US worker who qualified was found.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm pretty sympathetic to Apple here. The article makes it sound
| like they did this for no reason, but the point of these hidden
| PERM positions is to be escape valves for the bonkers H1B system,
| which otherwise requires that skilled, valuable employees get
| booted out of the country after 3-6 years. If the government
| doesn't want Apple jumping through loopholes they should pass a
| more reasonable skilled visa program.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Still a bit hard to explain why Apple appeared to be hiding
| these jobs from qualified native candidates, refugees, and
| asylees.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Because they don't want to be compelled by nonsensical
| immigration restrictions to fire and deport an existing
| employee they're happy and hire someone else in their place.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| I worked at a company owned by some large banks. When the
| immigration lawyer came for a meetings roughly once per year, the
| place got super quiet. Everyone I worked with did basic stuff ...
| docker, Spring Boot, and I didn't understand how such basic
| positions needed visas in such a large metro like Phoenix. Yet,
| the pay was comparable ... there must be some angle I don't
| understand.
| supportengineer wrote:
| "You will obey your manager or you will be deported" is very
| powerful.
| rexpop wrote:
| Frankly, it's too powerful. We need much stronger protections
| for workers if we're going to continue down this route. Such
| threats undermine labor's bargaining power, driving down
| wages and working conditions.
|
| How can we expect to operate a democracy when workers have
| this gun to their head?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect that this is more a "certain managers wanted certain
| types of employees," as opposed to a systemic, companywide decree
| from Up High (like IBM's ageism).
|
| Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about
| salaries. If anything, a lot of managers like H1Bs, because they
| can drive them like slaves. I've seen exactly that, in front of
| my own eyes. It's pretty disturbing, if you are a manager like
| me.
| Jochim wrote:
| Weren't Apple one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy to
| suppress wages between the large tech companies a few years
| back?
| rexpop wrote:
| Yes, ten years back[0]:
|
| > In one email exchange after a Google recruiter solicited an
| Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be
| fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt's
| note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley
| face.
|
| > Apple, Google, Adobe and Intel in 2010 settled a U.S.
| Department of Justice probe by agreeing not to enter into
| such no-hire deals in the future. The four companies had
| since been fighting the civil antitrust class action.
|
| 0. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-google-
| settlement-i...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good point. I am willing to stand corrected, but I've also
| seen what I've seen.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Apple just makes too damn much money to worry overmuch about
| salaries.
|
| Apple is a publicly traded company whose shareholders would not
| tolerate overpaying for labor.
|
| Further: Apple was caught colluding with other major tech
| industry employers with regards to hiring/salary.
|
| So please do go on about how Apple doesn't care about labor
| costs.
|
| And also, look at the wages and benefits for Apple Store
| employees which are shit for the level of technical expertise
| they're expected to have and the products they're selling
| (there's usually at least some correlation between compensation
| and the cost of goods being sold - obviously not anything
| approaching linearity.)
|
| Then look at how Apple store staff are starting to unionize,
| much to the terror of their Head of Retail, who likely makes
| half a million dollars a year in cash compensation alone -
| $250/hour, which is more than ten times the base wage for a
| retail employee (supposedly now $22/hour.)
|
| Your naivete is pretty stunning. There isn't a single corporate
| employer on the planet who doesn't do everything they can to
| minimize labor costs.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Your naivete is pretty stunning._
|
| Yeah, you know, this is a professional forum. I may not be
| important to your career, but a hell of a lot of other people
| that are, hang out, here.
|
| That's one reason I don't write stuff like that.
| raincom wrote:
| Well, if X is working for a manager M for 3 years at Apple(for
| that matter, any company), M wants to make sure that wheoever
| applies to X's role during the PERM process (labor
| certification to ensure that no US citizens/perm residents are
| available to fill X's role) gets dinged 100%, no exceptions
| whatsoever. The way they can ding applicants takes shape in
| different forms: (a) make the job very very specific, thereby
| showing that other applicants don't have specific skills (b)
| make the job very generic, then ask for very very precise
| skills that X's role needs (c) make the interview really tough
| (d) add extra rounds of interviews, etc.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >Apple agreed to pay up to $25 million in back pay
|
| I'm sure that will be devastating for a company with 162 Billion
| in cash and really make them think twice
| tomohelix wrote:
| Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that
| probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking
| about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor
| certification done in H1B.
|
| PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a
| lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is
| because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often,
| it requires an advance degree and higher qualification than H1B
| too, PhDs or experienced masters. The money is paid upfront and
| USCIS then look into it and approves PERM on a case by case basis
| often taking a year or more. Then when the PERM passes, the
| applicant can finally get on the green card backlog and wait a
| few more years, or a decade if you were born in the wrong
| place...
|
| This is to say the quality of applicants here is very high and
| Apple actually felt it was worth it to invest tens of thousands
| of dollars on each of them just for a green card gamble, which
| the employee can get then quit Apple immediately after and
| nothing can be done to them because they are now a permanent
| resident. No such thing as wage depression or abuse at this point
| because they are for all legal purposes, an equal to any American
| once they have EB2.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| You are writing like we are talking about rocket scientists.
|
| PERM applies to both EB2 and EB3 (so in real world anyone
| making from as low as $50k+/year depending on role qualifies)
| and most bodyshops apply for green card for all employees -
| it's just part of business cost. For EB2 PhD is not needed - MS
| from online paper mill is enough. For EB3, any degree works.
|
| It's not tens of thousands in cost - it's below $10k all in.
| PERM Fees to USCIS are around $1200.
|
| The whole system is abused to the end and need to be completely
| gutted and redone so high end engineer working for Google
| making $700k was differentiated from Wipro employee making
| $80k. Right now they are in the same queue. Prevailing wage is
| a joke as it does not include stock options and does not
| reflect real salary levels.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process
|
| It's not rigorous or demanding; it's a mostly pointless
| bureaucratic exercise in bogus paperwork where lawyers and the
| gov. make bank. From the article : It also required all PERM
| position applicants to mail paper applications, even though the
| company permitted electronic applications for other positions,"
| the DOJ said.
|
| >Apple actually felt it was worth it
|
| Apple doesn't feel. It's just commonsense and market pressure.
| The alternative would be indefinite indentured servitude.
|
| Dept. of Labor takes a year to evaluate these PERM
| applications. PERM has charming and quaint requirements like
| taking out an ad in a Sunday newspaper so that applicants can
| apply and other nonsense. All while the employee is already
| working for the company on a visa. The whole thing is farcical.
| giobox wrote:
| > there is a distinction that probably escapes most native
| citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B.
|
| > Often, it requires an advance degree and higher qualification
| than H1B too, PhDs or experienced masters.
|
| Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the PERM process applies when H1B
| holders seek to gain permanent residency too - at least that's
| been my experience. It also applies to the L1 etc:
|
| https://www.lawfirm4immigrants.com/h-1b-green-card-transitio...
|
| PERM certification is required to get a GC on an H1B (it's not
| needed to get an H1B, just required when the H1B holder seeks
| to get permanent residency).
|
| There's another side to this story that the linked article
| doesn't cover; many in the PERM process have lived in the USA
| for a long time and established families, children, communities
| etc. To deny them during PERM literally means to ship them and
| their American children "home" to a country they may not have
| seen for 20 years.
|
| The solution as always is pretty simple - we need to divorce
| immigration status from employment - the processes should not
| be linked. This would at a stroke remove incentives for less
| scrupulous employers to abuse the system too.
| pavlov wrote:
| This.
|
| If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at
| Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these "applicants" are
| actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant
| visas whom the company wants to retain.
|
| There is no reason to assume that they're being paid any less
| than others at Apple. They're already in the country and have
| been doing the work for years. Why not give them a path to a
| green card? Why make the company jump through hoops like having
| to advertise a position that's not actually open?
|
| I'll admit that I'm biased because I was in this process at one
| point. But the notion that I was taking the job of a native-
| born American was ridiculous because I had been doing the job
| in London before. So if anything, I brought a UK job to USA.
| And to turn that into a green card, the company would have to
| advertise the job on their website. It makes no sense.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| My company's goal seems to be to hire every Indian south of
| Hyderabad. I do wonder when Americans are going to wake up and
| realize these high-paying jobs could be going to them.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The unstated truth here is that when you advertise in order to
| get PERM certification, you really don't actually want to get
| applications. The 99% scenario is you've already got an employee
| who is on a non-immigrant visa, that you're invested in, and that
| you want to get onto the green card trajectory.
| VinLucero wrote:
| What are the incentives at Play here? You seem to know the
| rules of the game.
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