Tesla has changed a few of its US staff who have been let go as a part of a giant wave of layoffs earlier this yr with international employees utilizing H-1B visas, which CEO Elon Musk is now campaigning to extend.
During the last week, Elon Musk has been selling the rise of H-1B visas, that are used to convey international employees into the US for “specialty occupations.”
Certified international employees have to be sponsored by an organization to get the visa, which lasts three years, extendable to 6 years, after which the holder must reapply.
The visa holder should preserve employment on the visa sponsor to retain the work visa. The employee must depart the nation if the employment ends for no matter purpose. This has led to some criticism because it provides super energy to the employer and might result in a contemporary model of indentured servitude.
Whereas there are apparent advantages to bringing expert employees into the US, persons are divided on the problem as a result of these employees are sometimes paid lower than US employees, placing adverse strain on compensation, particularly within the tech business, on high of the ethical questions on holding visas over the heads of international employees.
That’s why the US Congress has mandated a 65,000 visa cap limiting the variety of H-1B visas that may be issued every fiscal yr, plus an additional 20,000 for international individuals popping out of graduate applications at US universities.
Tesla has been a giant consumer of these visas, and its CEO, Elon Musk, has been utilizing his newfound political affect to advertise growing the cap of H-1B visas. He obtained vital pushback from his new associates on the correct aspect of the political spectrum within the US, who see this visa as getting used to steal jobs from Individuals.
He’s fairly passionate in regards to the subject, to say the least:
To be truthful, Musk didn’t come to the US on a H-1B visa. He got here on a scholar visa, and later, his personal brother admitted that they have been unlawful immigrants within the early days of launching their Zip2 startup within the US.
Tesla’s use of H-1B visas
Over the previous couple of days, a number of present and former Tesla employees reached out to Electrek to disclose that Tesla ramped up its use of H-1B visas to switch US employees it let go throughout a wave of layoffs earlier this yr.
We reported that roughly US 15,000 staff have been let go at Tesla round April 2024. Each division was affected, however the layoffs have been concentrated in Texas and California, the place Tesla has extra employees than wherever else.
Present and former Tesla staff stated that lots of the laid-off US employees have been changed by international employees utilizing H-1B visas.
These claims are backed by US Division of Labor information, which present that Tesla requested over 2,000 H-1B visas through the time it was shedding US employees (through Reddit):
Once more, there’s a cap of 65,000 visas for your complete US yearly, and Tesla alone tried to recover from 3% of them.
Tesla employees stated that many staff let go have been extra senior engineers with increased compensation they usually have been changed with junior engineers from international nations at a decrease pay.
Electrek’s Take
To be clear, I’m not taking a stance on H-1B right here. It looks like there ought to be good makes use of for this visa, but it surely actually may be abused. My objective is to share extra data that would clarify why Elon would need extra of this visa for his companies, and possibly not for the correct causes.
On the core, individuals see the issue of hiring employees from different nations who’re prepared to work for decrease pay than US employees – taking jobs from Individuals and placing strain on total compensation within the US.
There’s actually worth to the argument. Elon’s counterargument is that the US doesn’t have sufficient expert employees, and he wants to rent individuals from different nations to compensate.
This argument additionally has some worth, particularly for particular sectors, like manufacturing engineering, which has grow to be much less standard within the US.
Nonetheless, at Tesla and with Elon, the issue is far deeper than this.
The issue stems from the employer’s weight over the employees as a sponsor of their visas. Elon is famously laborious on employees, and he doesn’t like the normal 40-hour workweek. He typically pushes Tesla staff to work 60 to 80 hours per week.
Many Tesla staff have fortunately carried out this for years, and the primary motivator has been the assumption in Tesla’s mission to speed up the appearance of electrical transport with the intention to curb local weather change.
Some individuals nonetheless consider on this mission, however Elon has eroded it over the previous couple of years by shifting give attention to self-driving and advocating for eradicating EV incentives within the US. It’s changing into tougher to make individuals consider that Tesla’s important objective is to speed up the appearance of EVs when its CEO is speaking extra about Tesla changing into “probably the most beneficial firm on this planet” than its impression on local weather change. And let’s not neglect that he has spent an amazing quantity of effort and cash over the past yr to get deniers of the human impression on local weather change elected.
However he has discovered one other efficient strategy to encourage employees to work tougher and for longer hours: maintain a visa over their head.
The character of the H-1B visa being hooked up to your employer places super strain on the employees.
On high of it, Tesla, like many different firms utilizing H-1B visas, tends to rent from nations the place longer workweek are already the norm. For instance, India is already totally on a 6-day workweek.
I don’t wish to Tesla employees killing themselves working 80 hours per week, but when they do it passionately, by selection, for what they consider to be an amazing mission, it’s laborious to argue in opposition to that. It’s their selection.
But when they do it as a result of they need the “American dream” and they’re afraid that getting let go will kill or decelerate their probability of immigrating as a result of they’re within the nation on a H-1B visa, that seems like exploitation to me.
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