Disney Fires American Workers To Replace Them With Outsourced Immigrants

Disney is in the firing zone for allegedly firing its American workers and asking them to train their replacements. About 250 Disney employees were laid off and their jobs were transferred to immigrants brought on a temporary H-1B visa from India. To add to the indignity, the laid off employees had to train their replacements to work effectively in the company.

About 250 employees from Disney were told by the company that their job profile was being made redundant and they were given 90 days to find a replacement. Majority of these workers were technically qualified and did data management jobs within the company. The company has brought in workers on an H-1B visa through an outsourcing from India. A former worker told New York Times, “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”

The H-1B visa is at the centre of a fierce debate within the congress. There are stringent guidelines that specify that the H-1BN visa should be used only to fill positions where American workers cannot be found. It also specifies that outsourcing should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. About 8,000 H-1B visas are given every year and they are very much in demand. Companies like Microsoft, Google and Facebook have been pressurising the government to increase the annual quotas.

Disney has been putting a spin on the layoff by referring it as a structural reorganisation. The company also said that 120 of the laid-off employees took new positions within Disney, 40 preferred to take retirement and only 90 employees were left without a job.

It is not only Disney that has taken advantage of the several loopholes in the visa policy. Companies like Southern California Edison, Fossil and many other technological companies have been bringing in outsourced employees. Experts like Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University, feel that the companies save almost 25 to 49 percent in wage savings. As organisations focus on savings, it has been a night mare for American technology workers to find equitable jobs in their own country.

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