Patrick Thibodeau
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Patrick Thibodeau
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Lawsuit seeks the secrets behind the H-1B lottery
Two business immigration groups have filed a lawsuit seeking information about how the H-1B visa distribution system -- including the visa lottery -- works. It alleges that the U.S. has no right to keep most of the records secret.It is not surprising that the H-1B distribution system is coming under scrutiny in a lawsuit. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) this year received 236,000 H-1B visa petitions for the 85,000 visas allowed under the current cap. The agency distributes visas each year via a lottery. The odds -- roughly one-in-three -- create a lot of frustration for applicants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Publisher of LA Times and Chicago Tribune sends IT jobs overseas
Tribune Publishing Co., a major newspaper chain, is laying off as many as 200 IT employees as it shifts work overseas.The firm, which owns the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant and many other media properties, told IT employees in early April that it's moving work to India-based Tata Consultancy Services.Interestingly, the Tribune IT employees were notified within weeks of a similar announcement involving IT employees at the McClatchy Company, another major newspaper chain.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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House lawmakers work to replace the hated H-1B lottery
Two U.S. House lawmakers are involved in a bipartisan effort to change how H-1B visas are allocated, moving away from a random lottery and using salary offers instead.The legislation by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has not yet been introduced. It's uncertain whether it will be put forward anytime soon or whether this effort to reach a bipartisan agreement will stick. While staffers have met to discuss the bill, and Issa has indicated support for a joint effort, it has little chance unless Issa is firmly behind it.+ RELATED: With H-1B visa, diversity doesn’t apply +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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House GOP seeks $120M for visa fraud-catching software
House Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation intended to bolster the scrutiny of people entering this country. Its impetus is last year's terrorist attack by a married couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. and wounded 22. But the bill's provisions will affect all visas, including the H-1B.The legislation, submitted Thursday and led by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, specifically requires analytics software "to ensure proactive detection of fraud" in the immigration process.The software analysis requires the government "to utilize social media and other publicly available information" to determine whether an applicant is a security threat. One of the San Bernardino attackers, Tashfeen Malik, had allegedly posted allegiance to ISIL on Facebook, something which wasn't revealed until after the attack. She and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, were killed by police in a shootout.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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House GOP seeks $120M for visa fraud-catching software
House Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation intended to bolster the scrutiny of people entering this country. Its impetus is last year's terrorist attack by a married couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. and wounded 22. But the bill's provisions will affect all visas, including the H-1B.The legislation, submitted Thursday and led by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, specifically requires analytics software "to ensure proactive detection of fraud" in the immigration process.The software analysis requires the government "to utilize social media and other publicly available information" to determine whether an applicant is a security threat. One of the San Bernardino attackers, Tashfeen Malik, had allegedly posted allegiance to ISIL on Facebook, something which wasn't revealed until after the attack. She and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, were killed by police in a shootout.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Newspaper chain sending IT jobs overseas
The McClatchy Company, which operates a major chain of newspapers in the U.S., is moving IT work overseas.The number of affected jobs, based on employee estimates, range from 120 to 150.The chain owns about 30 newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, where McClatchy is based; The Fresno Bee, The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The State in Columbia, S.C. and the Miami Herald.In March, McClatchy IT employees were told that the company had signed a contract with Wipro, an India-based IT services provider.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD The IT outsourcing price wars are on +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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White House worries about bad A.I. coding
The White House is doing a lot more thinking about the arrival of automated decision-making -- super-intelligent or otherwise. No one in government is yet screaming "Skynet," but in two actions this week the concerns about our artificial intelligence future were sketched out.The big risks of A.I. are well-known (a robot takeover), but the more immediate worries are about the subtle, or not-so-subtle, decisions made by badly coded and designed algorithms.+ ALSO: How enterprises can use artificial intelligence +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Former insider’s book explores morality of offshore outsourcing
In New York City, IT employees of EmblemHealth recently staged a protest over the decision to outsource their jobs. CEO Karen Ignagni told the employees the company needed to modernize its platforms and didn't have the money or expertise to do this work.Among those at this protest was Phillip Tsen, a former outsourcing project manager. It was once his job to move IT work to outsourcing firms.By joining the demonstration, Tsen wanted to show his support for EmblemHealth workers losing their jobs. Emblem's justifications for its wholesale layoff of its IT employees are similar to those Tsen once made as an outsourcing project manager. The difference is that he just doesn't believe in those arguments anymore.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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U.S. uncovers $20M H-1B fraud scheme
The U.S. government has indicted a Virginia couple for running an H-1B visa-for-sale scheme the government said generated about $20 million.Raju Kosuri and Smriti Jharia of Ashburn, Va., along with four co-conspirators, were indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).The scheme involved, in part, setting up a network of shell companies and the filing of H-1B visas applications for non-existent job vacancies.Workers were required to pay their own visa processing fees and were treated as hourly contractors, the DOJ alleged. Treating H-1B workers as hourly contractors is in violation of the program rules, the government said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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U.S. efforts to build next-gen supercomputer take shape
For decades, the U.S. took for granted the doubling of supercomputing power every 10 years, roughly in line with Moore's Law. But once a petascale system was reached in 2008, it gradually became clear that the next leap -- a system 1,000 times more powerful -- would be difficult.Initially, some believed such a system -- an exascale computer -- was possible in 10 years, or by 2018. But problems emerged. It took too much power, and it required new approaches to applications to utilize an almost unimaginable level of parallelism involving hundreds of millions of cores. Another problem to solve was the need for resilience, or an ability to continue to working around multiple ongoing hardware failures expected in a system of this size.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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U.S. efforts to build next-gen supercomputer take shape
For decades, the U.S. took for granted the doubling of supercomputing power every 10 years, roughly in line with Moore's Law. But once a petascale system was reached in 2008, it gradually became clear that the next leap -- a system 1,000 times more powerful -- would be difficult.Initially, some believed such a system -- an exascale computer -- was possible in 10 years, or by 2018. But problems emerged. It took too much power, and it required new approaches to applications to utilize an almost unimaginable level of parallelism involving hundreds of millions of cores. Another problem to solve was the need for resilience, or an ability to continue to working around multiple ongoing hardware failures expected in a system of this size.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Feds seek public input on the future of IoT
The U.S. government believes the Internet of Things (IoT) has enormous economic potential across all industries. Its machine-to-machine technologies can reduce automobile-related injuries, usher in an era of precise weather forecasting and automate all types of processes.But what impact will IoT have on jobs? Will it create more than it destroys? And what happens to all the data devices generate?With those kinds of issues at stake, the U.S. Department of Commerce is now seeking public comment on the "benefits, challenges and potential roles for the government in fostering the advancement of the Internet of Things." There are 28 questions, and multiple sub-parts to some questions. It's a long list.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Feeling angry and betrayed, IT workers mount protest
In midtown Manhattan Wednesday, around 25 EmblemHealth IT employees and their supporters held a protest over the firm's decision to shift work to IT services firm Cognizant.On the sidewalks next to EmblemHealth's midtown offices, they yelled "Protect U.S. jobs," "Keep jobs in the U.S.A." and, to the people passing by: "It's our jobs now, your jobs next." They waved signs and slowly moved along.The IT employees gathered for the protest outside St. Michael's Church on 34th Street near 9th Avenue, across from EmblemHealth's office.INSIDER: Network jobs are hot: Salaries expected to rise in 2016 A small contingent of plainclothes security, dressed in suits, watched. There was never any tension or reason for security to become animated. There were a few moments of humor, particularly when everyone made way for a tiny, sunglasses-wearing poodle on a leash that walked by with its owner.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Rejecting employees’ pleas, EmblemHealth CEO sets major IT layoff
EmblemHealth CEO Karen Ignagni told employees Tuesday that "several hundred" IT and operations workers will be laid off as a result of a decision to hire services firm Cognizant.The announcement came just as IT employees at the New York-based insurer began an effort to convince the firm not to move the work to an outsourcer.Ignagni explained her decision in a video to employees that was posted on YouTube by attorney Sara Blackwell. The Florida attorney, who is representing displaced Disney IT workers, has been helping the EmblemHealth IT employees organize.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Verizon is offshoring jobs, records say
A key issue raised by labor unions in their weeklong strike against Verizon is the offshoring of work. The unions say Verizon has plans to send more jobs overseas. Verizon isn't saying what it is doing in this respect, but there is a paper trail of documents filed by its employees that point to offshoring.The union contends that Verizon wants, in a labor contract, to shift more jobs to contractors. Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers are on strike."They want the ability to contract work -- as much as 50% -- the great majority of that is offshore," said Marilyn Irwin, president of the Washington area Communications Workers of America Local 2108. CWA is one of the unions involved in the strike.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Verizon is offshoring jobs, records say
A key issue raised by labor unions in their weeklong strike against Verizon is the offshoring of work. The unions say Verizon has plans to send more jobs overseas. Verizon isn't saying what it is doing in this respect, but there is a paper trail of documents filed by its employees that point to offshoring.The union contends that Verizon wants, in a labor contract, to shift more jobs to contractors. Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers are on strike."They want the ability to contract work -- as much as 50% -- the great majority of that is offshore," said Marilyn Irwin, president of the Washington area Communications Workers of America Local 2108. CWA is one of the unions involved in the strike.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IT employees at EmblemHealth fight to save jobs
IT employees at EmblemHealth are organizing to stop the New York-based employer from outsourcing their jobs to offshore provider Cognizant.Employees say the insurer is on the verge of signing a contract with Cognizant, an IT services firm and one of the largest users of H-1B workers. They say the contract may be signed as early as this week.They fear what a contract with at IT services offshore firm may mean: Humiliation as part of the "knowledge transfer" process, loss of their jobs or a "rebadging" to Cognizant, which they see as little more than temporary employment. Many of the workers, about 200 they estimate, are older, with 15-plus-year tenures. This means a hard job search for them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The pain of training your replacement
At New York Life, IT employees are training overseas workers to do their jobs. It's a difficult task that takes an emotional toll, and there are odd rules and processes to follow.The training starts with sessions over the Web with the offshore contractors. Eventually, the IT employees expect to train the contractors in-person.One IT employee, who is training replacement contractors, said she has been told by management not to ask the contract workers any questions. Even simple queries, like, "Did you have a chance to read this document?" or, "Are you familiar with this technology?" to the contract workers, from India-based Tata Consultancy Services, are not allowed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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U.S. gets 236,000 H-1B petitions, a new record
The U.S. received 236,000 H-1B petitions for 85,000 visas available under the program's visa caps, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said Tuesday.The visas are being distributed via a lottery, which means only about one in every three petitions will be approved.The U.S. received 233,000 H-1B visa petitions last year, the previous record. The U.S. accepts visas on April 1 for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.If history is any guide, a majority of the demand for the visa is coming from IT services, offshore outsourcing firms.INSIDER: Network jobs are hot: Salaries expected to rise in 2016 Critics believe the high number of visas represents a form of "ballot box" stuffing by IT services firms in response to the lottery system. Applicants can apply for a visa for someone who is not an employee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Envisioning a 65-story data center
Two Italian architects have designed a data center that challenges how the structures are built. Instead of constructing a flat, sprawling complex, they are proposing a data center that reaches skyscraper heights.At this stage, the data center designed by Marco Merletti, who works in Paris, and Valeria Mercuri, who is in Rome, is just an idea. But it's gotten recognition. The pair, who are both 28, recently received third place honors in the annual Skyscraper Competition held by architecture and design journal eVolo.From a visual perspective, the circular, futuristic-looking "Data Tower," as Merletti and Mercuri call it, almost seems like something out of Star Trek. But it incorporates sustainable technology for efficiently cooling hundreds of thousands of servers, while increasing reliance on automation. Its ideas are grounded in existing technologies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here