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Infy, TCS, Wipro abusing L-1 visas: US unions
By siliconindia staff writer
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Thursday, 05 February 2004, 20:30 IST
WASHINGTON : Amid growing resentment in the US against outsourcing, labour organisations here have accused Indian IT majors Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies of "abusing" the L-1 visa programme to bring in cheap manpower to take over American jobs.
These companies were acting as "bodyshops", bringing in foreign workers through the L-1 system and then subcontracting them out to other businesses, Michael W Gildea, Executive Director of the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, America's largest labour federation, told the House International Relations Committee yesterday.
Some of these firms and others like them had a "troubled history" under the H-1B visa programme. "Yet, these firms are now among the biggest users of the L-1 programme supplying Indian IT talent to a who's who of the Fortune 500 corporations," he said.
The L visa programme is designed to bring management executives and experts to companies owned by their employers with operations in the US .
L-1 visas are for "intracompany transferees" and L-2 visas are granted to their spouses and dependent children.
Dan Stein, Executive Director for American Immigration Reform, told the Committee that that unlike applicants for other categories of temporary employment visas, L visa holders need not maintain a legal intent to return home.
This makes it easier for them to get on track to petition for permanent resident status "and makes something of a mockery of the idea that this is a temporary visa programme," he said.