US workers sue Disney, Cognizant and HCL over jobs lost to H-1B visa abuse

WASHINGTON: Leo Perrero went into the office meeting in October 2014 at the Walt Disney World in Orlando thinking something good was in store for him. He had worked at Disney for 10 years, first as a contractor and then as a direct employee, he had aced a performance review just the month before the meeting, and there were good indications that he was in for a promotion and bonuses.
There were two-dozen others at the meeting, all knowledgeable and experienced, all believing like Leo that something good was in the works for them. When a senior Disney executive who they had never worked with or seen before strode into the room, the vibes changed. Without much ado, the executive told them that their current jobs would be ending in 90 days, but that they would have new and better jobs after that — only they would have to re-apply for them.
In the meantime, their current jobs would be turned over to new guest workers from a contractor who Leo later found was HCL, an IT major from India. Leo and his American colleagues would have to train them.
“We were shattered. It was a humiliating experience,” Ferrero said in an interview with TOIon Monday arranged through his attorney Sara Blackwell, who is representing him and another similarly displaced clients in a lawsuit against Disney, HCL and Cognizant Technologies. The lawsuit claims that the companies colluded to break US laws by using temporary H-1B visas to bring in immigrant workers, knowing fully well that Americans would be displaced.

“The compensation aspect of the lawsuit is secondary. What we are seeking first is an ending of the blatant and constant abuse of the H-1B visa programme by American companies and their foreign collaborators,” Blackwell said, referring to the guest worker visa used by many companies to bring in skilled foreign workers.
But Perrero maintained in the interview that they are not so skilled after all. He described having to train them over a period of 90 days, the first month of which they spent just watching and recording on video and audio what the American workers did. After the initial period of knowledge transfer, they worked alongside the US workers during the second month, and in the third month they took over the job and the US workers were tasked with ensuring they did everything correctly and there were no glitches.
“There was a lot of negativity in the air. They don’t feel comfortable, we don’t feel comfortable. There isn’t a great deal of camaraderie,” Perrero, who has a bachelor’s degree in information technology and 15 other certifications in IT, said. He described the HCL workers he trained as being very young and inexperienced.
Disney meanwhile denied any wrong doing in a statement and said the lawsuits are “based on an unsustainable legal theory and are a wholesale misrepresentation of the facts”. The company said it hired more than 100 people back into other roles and offered one of Blackwell’s clients, Dena Moore, another position at comparable pay. Blackwell challenged Disney’s assertion, saying Moore was given a runaround for several weeks before she was offered a 30-day contract.
“Our complaint is not against the H1B programme itself, which is fine if it is executed within the rules. Our problem is with its misuse. Companies are lying and falsifying facts and documents,” she said, asserting that neither she nor her clients have anything against India or Indians.