NEW YORK CITY, New York – One of the largest outsourcing firms operating in the United States has reached a $1 million settlement after being accused of undercutting Americans with foreign labor.
In a statement, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that Infosys, an India-based outsourcing firm, would be paying a million dollars after an investigation into the firm’s abusive practices.
According to the allegations by New York State, Infosys illegally obtained foreign workers through the B-1 visa, which is a non-immigrant foreign visitor visa, and got them to take jobs that Americans had previously done.
Foreign nationals in the U.S. on the B-1 visa are not allowed to work, unlike those on the H-1B , which Infosys is notorious for using.
“Infosys workers using B-1 visas were doing work that would otherwise have been performed by U.S. citizens or H-1B visa holders, and were paid significantly less than what comparable U.S. workers or H-1B visa holders would have been paid in the same positions,” the New York Attorney General’s office stated.
“But in order to avoid the difficulty and expense of obtaining such visas, the office contends that Infosys knowingly and unlawfully obtained temporary visitor visas (B-1 visas) instead,” the statement said.
Infosys is no stranger to lawsuits. Most recently, as Breitbart Texas reported, a former executive at the company said he and other Americans were discriminated against because they were not of Indian descent.
“Infosys maintains roughly 200,000 employees working in the United States,” the lawsuit against Infosys states. “While roughly 1% of the U. S. population is of the South Asian race and national origin, roughly 93%-94% of Infosys’s United States workforce is of the South Asian national origin (primarily Indian). This disproportionately South Asian and Indian workforce, by race and national origin, is a result of Infosys’s intentional employment discrimination against individuals who are not South Asian, including discrimination in the hiring, promotion, compensation and termination of individuals.”
The lawsuit states that Infosys specifically uses the H-1B visa, where more than 100,000 foreign nationals are allowed to enter the U.S. every year to take American jobs, to further discriminate against non-Indians.
“Infosys has gone to great lengths to obtain its primarily South Asian work force in the U. S., in particular by utilizing professional H-1B and L-1 work visas to bring South Asians (primarily Indians) into the United States to work in information technology (“IT”) consulting roles, as its IT consulting business model dictates, and other non-IT capacities, including to replace or supplant non-South Asians,” the lawsuit continues. “Plaintiff’s career at Infosys exemplifies the systematic pattern of discrimination at Infosys.”
Months ago, the Trump Administration called out outsourcing firms like Infosys, Tata Consulting Services, and Cognizant, accusing them of contracting with major U.S. corporations in order to mass lay-off Americans and replace them with cheaper, foreign workers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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