Tesla has changed a few of its US staff who had been let go as a part of an enormous wave of layoffs earlier this yr with overseas staff utilizing H-1B visas, which CEO Elon Musk is now campaigning to extend.
Over the past week, Elon Musk has been selling the rise of H-1B visas, that are used to convey overseas staff into the US for “specialty occupations.”
Certified overseas staff should 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 go away the nation if the employment ends for no matter motive. This has led to some criticism because it provides large 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, individuals are divided on the difficulty as a result of these staff are sometimes paid lower than US staff, placing detrimental strain on compensation, particularly within the tech business, on prime of the ethical questions on holding visas over the heads of overseas 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 overseas individuals 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 obtained vital pushback from his new pals on the best 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 challenge, to say the least:
To be honest, Musk didn’t come to the US on a H-1B visa. He got here on a scholar visa, and later, his personal brother admitted that they had 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 couple of 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 switch US staff it let go throughout a wave of layoffs earlier this yr.
We reported that roughly US 15,000 staff had been let go at Tesla round April 2024. Each division was affected, however the layoffs had been concentrated in Texas and California, the place Tesla has extra staff than wherever else.
Present and former Tesla staff mentioned that most of the laid-off US staff had been changed by overseas 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 (through Reddit):
Once more, there’s a cap of 65,000 visas for all the US yearly, and Tesla alone tried to recover from 3% of them.
Tesla staff mentioned that many staff let go had been extra senior engineers with larger compensation they usually have been changed with junior engineers from overseas 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 needs to be good makes use of for this visa, however it actually might be abused. My objective is to share extra data that would clarify why Elon would need extra of this visa for his companies, and possibly not for the best causes.
On the core, individuals see the issue of hiring staff from different nations who’re keen to work for decrease pay than US staff – taking jobs from Individuals and placing strain on general compensation within the US.
There’s actually worth to the argument. Elon’s counterargument is that the US doesn’t have sufficient expert staff, and he wants to rent individuals from different nations to compensate.
This argument additionally has some worth, particularly for particular sectors, like manufacturing engineering, which has change into much less in style within the US.
Nevertheless, at Tesla and with Elon, the issue is way deeper than this.
The issue stems from the employer’s weight over the employees as a sponsor of their visas. Elon is famously exhausting on staff, and he doesn’t like the normal 40-hour workweek. He usually pushes Tesla staff to work 60 to 80 hours per week.
Many Tesla staff have fortunately accomplished this for years, and the principle motivator has been the assumption in Tesla’s mission to speed up the arrival of electrical transport so as to curb local weather change.
Some individuals nonetheless consider on this mission, however Elon has eroded it over the previous couple of years by shifting concentrate on self-driving and advocating for eradicating EV incentives within the US. It’s turning into tougher to make individuals consider that Tesla’s principal objective is to speed up the arrival of EVs when its CEO is speaking extra about Tesla turning into “essentially the most priceless firm on this planet” than its impression on local weather change. And let’s not overlook that he has spent an incredible quantity of effort and cash during the last yr to get deniers of the human impression on local weather change elected.
However he has discovered one other efficient technique to inspire staff to work tougher and for longer hours: maintain a visa over their head.
The character of the H-1B visa being connected to your employer places large strain on the employees.
On prime 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 a fantastic mission, it’s exhausting to argue in opposition to 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 appears like exploitation to me.
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