Hot Air reports that one of the several issues that await Donald Trump when he becomes president is the flagrant abuse of the H-1B visa system by companies like Disney to try to lower their labor costs. The H-1B system is meant to give companies access to skilled employees that they would not otherwise acquire in the domestic labor market. Disney seems to have definitely abused the system by firing existing employees in its IT department and replacing them with H-1B workers from India who are willing to work for lower wages and fewer benefits. To add insult to injury, Disney required the laid off workers to train their replacements and to maintain a “positive attitude” as a precondition for getting their severance package.
30 of the 250 laid off IT workers have decided that a positive attitude does not put food on the table and are filing suit.
The situation provides a problem and an opportunity for Donald Trump. President Obama has been compounding the abuse of the system by handing out green cards to the H-1B workers allowing them permanent residency status even if they become unemployed. Ending this practice should be a no brainer for Trump.
How to crack down on companies that abuse the H-1V visa system is another problem entirely and may require legislation to add civil and criminal penalties to punish companies like Disney for doing what it did. Trump’s Justice Department will likely also conduct an investigation of its own, delving into the question as whether the civil rights of the people who were let go were violated.
The plaintiffs in the suit are claiming racism. Most of the people who were fired were white while their replacements were from India. The gambit may be a stretch, but it may be enough to put pressure on Disney and give it an incentive to settle.
Indeed, Disney would be well advised to settle the case and pay a little money, reinstating the 250 people with back pay, interest, and penalties.
President Trump could make a scapegoat of the company. As Lockheed Martin recently found out, one tweet from Trump can hit hard in the price of company stock. Disney does not need that kind of grief.
