Apple reaches $25M settlement with the DOJ for discriminating against US residents during hiring | The DOJ said that Apple's hiring practices favored visa holders and left out US citizens and perma...

Technology@lemmy.world – 273 points – 11 months ago

Apple reaches $25M settlement with the DOJ for discriminating against US residents during hiring | The DOJ said that Apple's hiring practices favored visa holders and left out US citizens and perma...::This is the largest amount that the DOJ has collected under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

aka 0.03% of their reported profits for the 2023 fiscal year. This isn't even a slap on the hand or a penny found under the couch. This is a grain of sand on the beaches of a planet on the other side of the galaxy.

As has been said many times: Laws are made for everyday people like you and me, not for megacorps like Apple.

Would be fun to fine companies by percentage with increasing values for repeat offenses.

While we're at it it would be cool to peg CEO pay to the lowest position available so that if the CEO wants a raise everyone else gets a proportionate increase.

Cool, but tricky. It’d have the effect of simply contracting out loads of positions to sketchy labor companies

Which is why you include contracted, temporary, part-time and full-time workers. And/Or set limits on the number of contracted workers compared to full/part/temp time workers for the same position. Close the loop holes.

Close the loop holes

big business owns Congress, they'd just ~~bribe~~ lobby for new loopholes to exploit

peg CEO pay (...) CEO wants a raise

This sounds like you're talking about salary. This strategy would need to be tied to executive compensation.

Check out the wiki on how convoluted and fucked up executive compensation can get.

And peg politicians' pay to minimum wage.

That's how punitive damages are supposed to work, according to John Grisham

To put this into perspective, if you make $100k/y: this is $30

In other words: a joke

Edit: and full disclosure: I’m a full-blown Apple fan

For more perspective, you'd need to make $100k/y net income tax. As a random example, in North Carolina with state and federal taxes, not accounting for any deductions, that'd be about $142k/y.

Adding this because with personal salaries people typically see and think of the gross number.

This would be like issuing me a $1 fine for speeding; here's two dollars, now I'm really gonna speed.

The cost of doing business. At the expense of you and I

the US is so anti labor its a joke

Might as well just call it a fee rather than a fine or settlement.

What was the benefit there, paying lower salaries for workers on visas? Can employers pay lower salaries for non citizens/residents?

Not just lower base salaries, its also that the good employees are at a greater disadvantage in negotiating raises / work conditions because an employer declining and letting them go instead would mean a loss of a work visa (if they don't find other work) and potential deportation.

For example, Apple can't legally mandate an 80hr work week. But being an at-will employer, they CAN just fire anyone working 40hrs/week for nebulous "performance concerns". Who is more likely to decide to work 80hrs on their own to hit impossible performance targets? The guy who has unlimited time to go find another job or the guy who if he doesn't find another job in 3 months has to pull his kids out of school and move halfway across the world?

You have a work visa worker by the balls way more than a full citizen.

Closed work permit for a single employer is the reason. I think a work permit should be closed to a single employer for 1 year then it can be open which will help reduce employer greed.

Not sure this logic tracks. PERM is a program that transitions the current visa holder workers to instead have a green card (aka no longer need a visa). If I were to follow your logic, Apple would be incentived to make the PERM postings more accessible.

The point of these PERM postings is to prove to DoL that the current employee deserves a green card because they're not easily replaceable. If a qualified applicant applies to the PERM posting, they are not hired. It just delays the PERM process for the visa worker. If Apple wanted to keep the threat of deportation, doing the opposite of what they were fined would make more sense? Why would they want to fast track a green card for them?

Visa holders are both paid less and willing to put up with more shit in fear of losing their job.

And work a shit ton of overtime.

I haven't worked with very many visa holders until my current position. The visa holders are online working from 7AM to 10PM, all the time.

I'm not working 80 hours a week, sorry. You're getting 40 hours. I'll give 45 on occasion.

Easier to abuse position of power. Visa people need to stay employed to stay in country.