American IT workers who have been replaced by H-1B workers are claiming discrimination based on national origin and taking their case to court. These court cases are responses to the increasing practice of organizations, especially in the IT industry, of laying off American employees after they have trained their H-1B visa replacement. American workers are forced to train their foreign worker counterparts as a condition of their severance pay.
Currently, there are at least seven IT workers at Disney who are pursing federal and state discrimination complaints over their layoffs. These complaints are the first step to litigation. There are also ongoing court cases against two of the largest India-based IT firms, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services for discrimination based on citizenship.
Sara Blackwell, a Florida attorney, who is representing seven of the Disney workers at its parks and resort division said the the Disney IT workers "were terminated because they were American citizens and all their replacements were foreign-born Indians."
These layoffs have received national attention, prompting federal interest in examining this practice. The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices was asked by 10 U.S. senators in April to examine the IT layoffs at Southern California Edison (SCE) and to determine whether SCE or its contractors were "engaged in prohibited citizenship status discrimination."
Read more at Computerworld.com.
