Justice Department Slaps IBM Over H-1B Hiring Practices

Dawn Kawamoto writes "IBM reached a settlement with the Justice Department over allegations it posted discriminatory online job openings, allegedly stating a preference for H-1B and foreign student visa holders for its software and apps developer positions. The job openings were for IT positions that would eventually require the applicant to relocate overseas. IBM agreed to pay $44,400 in civil penalties to the U.S., as well as take certain actions in the way it hires within the U.S. The settlement, announced Friday, comes at a time with tech companies are calling for the U.S. to allow more H-1B workers into the country."

Re:Are you F*cking kidding me!!!

[kpainter]

No shit! They could hire at least 4 dudes for that $44K!!

$44,400 fine -- That'll teach 'em!

[innocent_white_lamb]

Yep, a whole $44,400 fine. That's got to sting a multi-billion dollar company. Bet they won't dare try that again.

This is an outrage!

[M. Baranczak]

The heavy hand of big government continues to stifle the economy. Just think how many jobs they could create if they still had that $44,400.

Another example of overbearing government

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM agreed to pay $44,400 in civil penalties to the U.S.

Well gee, why don't you make them switch the way the toilet paper falls over the roll as well, you fascists!

$44.4K fine for Big Blue?

[bobthesungeek76036]

I've seen strip club tabs higher than that...

Re:We need IT unions now and better training

[DNS-and-BIND]

LOL. What is this, 1955? Labor unions don't exist to help workers. Labor unions exist to help labor union bosses and funnel money to one particular political party. That's it.

Maybe once upon a time, a long time ago, labor unions had a point. Not any more. They are corrupt cannot even keep their own members from deserting. Why are their members deserting? Because labor bosses don't give a shit about their members. Moreover unions are racist [google.com.hk].

The cure you propose is worse than the disease.

Re:Are you F*cking kidding me!!!

[St.Creed]

I count 7 posts before you Godwinned the thread. That's pretty fast work, Slick7!

Computer programming is not IT!

[CommanderK]

Both the summary and some commenters make the same huge mistake by putting IT people and programmers in the same bucket. A C++ programmer has completely different skills and responsibilities from a PHP/HTML programmer, who has a completely different job from a network/system administrator. The latter could be considered IT (and their pay is usually lower), whereas the former are developers (requiring extra creativity and more skill, and are better paid). In my experience working in the Bay Area, there really is a shortage of competent high-skill systems developers/programmers (the kind of guys who design Google and Facebook infrastructure, like Big Table), but not a shortage of PHP or Java programmers or sysadmins.