Tesla has changed a few of its US workers who have been let go as a part of an enormous wave of layoffs earlier this yr with international staff 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 deliver international staff into the US for “specialty occupations.”
Certified international staff must 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 great energy to the employer and might result in a contemporary model of indentured servitude.
Whereas there are apparent advantages to bringing expert staff into the US, persons are divided on the problem as a result of these staff are sometimes paid lower than US staff, placing adverse strain on compensation, particularly within the tech trade, on high of the ethical questions on holding visas over the heads of international staff.
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 folks popping out of graduate packages at US universities.
Tesla has been an enormous 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 acquired important pushback from his new buddies on the suitable facet of the political spectrum within the US, who see this visa as getting used to steal jobs from Individuals.
He’s fairly passionate concerning the situation, to say the least:
To be honest, Musk didn’t come to the US on a H-1B visa. He got here on a pupil 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 few days, a number of present and former Tesla staff reached out to Electrek to disclose that Tesla ramped up its use of H-1B visas to exchange US staff it let go throughout a wave of layoffs earlier this yr.
We reported that roughly US 15,000 workers 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 staff than anyplace else.
Present and former Tesla workers mentioned that lots of the laid-off US staff have been changed by international staff utilizing H-1B visas.
These claims are backed by US Division of Labor knowledge, which present that Tesla requested over 2,000 H-1B visas through the time it was shedding US staff (by way of Reddit):
Once more, there’s a cap of 65,000 visas for the whole US yearly, and Tesla alone tried to recover from 3% of them.
Tesla staff mentioned that many workers let go have been extra senior engineers with increased compensation and so they 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 as if there must be good makes use of for this visa, however it definitely might be abused. My aim is to share extra data that might clarify why Elon would need extra of this visa for his companies, and perhaps not for the suitable causes.
On the core, folks see the issue of hiring staff from different nations who’re prepared to work for decrease pay than US staff – taking jobs from Individuals and placing strain on total compensation within the US.
There’s definitely worth to the argument. Elon’s counterargument is that the US doesn’t have sufficient expert staff, and he wants to rent folks from different nations to compensate.
This argument additionally has some worth, particularly for particular sectors, like manufacturing engineering, which has develop into 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 arduous on staff, and he doesn’t like the standard 40-hour workweek. He typically pushes Tesla workers to work 60 to 80 hours per week.
Many Tesla workers have fortunately finished this for years, and the primary motivator has been the idea in Tesla’s mission to speed up the appearance of electrical transport to be able to curb local weather change.
Some folks nonetheless consider on this mission, however Elon has eroded it over the previous few years by shifting give attention to self-driving and advocating for eradicating EV incentives within the US. It’s changing into tougher to make folks consider that Tesla’s important aim is to speed up the appearance of EVs when its CEO is speaking extra about Tesla changing into “essentially the most priceless firm on the earth” than its impression on local weather change. And let’s not neglect that he has spent an incredible 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 inspire staff 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 great 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 staff killing themselves working 80 hours per week, but when they do it passionately, by alternative, for what they consider to be an awesome mission, it’s arduous to argue towards that. It’s their alternative.
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 looks like exploitation to me.
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