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Skilled Workers -- or Indentured Servants?

... Nowadays, however, the weak economy has sparked an outbreak of abusive treatment among the legions of white-collar employees who flocked to the U.S. on perfectly valid visas during the late-1990s boom. Usually, theirs are cases of employers who don't pay full salary or benefits. Often, like Kutty, the employers are immigrants, too, so they know how the system works.

Indeed, labor law violations involving workers on H1-B visas, which are designed for skilled employees, have jumped more than fivefold since 1998, according to the Labor Dept. Back-pay awards for such employees have soared by more than ten times.

LESS WILLING TO QUIT. In response, agency officials have stepped up H1-B investigations. They agree there could be thousands of H1-B workers who don't file complaints because they fear the loss of their visa. "We take very seriously this fear about coming to the government to complain," says D. Mark Wilson, deputy head of the Labor Dept.'s Employment Standards Administration, which enforces labor laws.

The spreading problems stem from the stagnant economy, officials say, which is driving some companies to cut costs by unscrupulous means. At the same time, the scarcity of jobs has left many skilled immigrants more dependent on their employers and less willing to quit if trouble starts.

The abuses have been particularly widespread in high tech, which used H1-Bs to bring in tens of thousands of programmers and other professionals when companies were desperate for help during the boom. But with the jobless rate among computer scientists and mathematicians at 6%, vs. a mere 0.7% in early 1998, many workers are more vulnerable.

SEARCHING FOR SPONSORS. Experts point out that the U.S. work-visa system gives employers tremendous power over immigrants. More than a million people are employed in the U.S. under visas for skilled workers. While the rules for each visa type differ, all require immigrants to get a U.S. employer to sponsor them. So if employers yank their sponsorship -- which they can do for almost any reason imaginable -- the immigrant often must return home and try to find another sponsor -- an arduous task.

"They don't have the usual rights that U.S. workers have," says Eileen Appelbaum, a professor of labor economics at Rutgers University. "You're essentially an indentured servant." ...