Lawsuits filed against Disney, Cognizant, HCL.
AB Wire
Two former laid-off American tech workers at Walt Disney World in Orlando, have filed a class-action lawsuits in federal court in Tampa against Disney and two global consulting companies, HCL and Cognizant, alleging that they were replaced by H-1B visa workers from India and forced to train them.
Leo Perrero and Dena Moore claim the companies colluded to break the law by using temporary H-1B visas to bring in immigrant workers, knowing that Americans would be displaced from their jobs, according to a report in The New York Times.
The lawsuits by Perrero and Moore, who each filed a separate but similar class-action complaint on Monday, represent the first time Americans have gone to federal court to sue both outsourcing companies that imported immigrants and the American company that contracted with those businesses, claiming that they collaborated intentionally to supplant Americans with H-1B workers.
A furor over the layoffs in Orlando last January brought to light many other episodes in which American workers, mainly in technology but also in accounting and administration, said they had lost jobs to foreigners on H-1B visas, and had to train replacements as a condition of their severance. The foreign workers, mostly from India, were provided by outsourcing companies, including the two named in the lawsuits, which have dominated the H-1B visa system, packing the application process to win an outsize share of the quota set by Congress of 85,000 visas each year, the Times reported.
The Labor Department opened investigations of the outsourcing companies — the direct employers of the temporary immigrants — at Disney and at Southern California Edison, a utility that laid off hundreds of American workers in 2014. The investigations are continuing. At least 30 former Disney workers also filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that they faced discrimination as American citizens.
Sara Blackwell, a lawyer in Sarasota representing the former Disney employees, said the suits charged that the companies lied under oath when they said that no Americans would lose their jobs, reported the Times.
Disney has vigorously denied any violations, saying it requires its contractors to obey all laws. Disney has said all but 95 of the tech workers laid off in Orlando were rehired to other positions or moved on voluntarily. Last year, it canceled 35 layoffs scheduled in other areas of the company.
HCL and Cognizant have said that they carefully comply with United States laws. Cognizant has said that it employs many thousands of Americans in this country, with H-1B workers only a minority of its labor force.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an international association of tech workers, posted an online petition to encourage Americans who were displaced to file complaints with the Justice Department, the Times report said.
Breitbart reported last week that the Federation for American Immigration Reform has launched an ad campaign aimed at sounding the alarm about how the nation’s immigration system has been used to displace of American workers.
FAIR launched an ad FAIR last week in Florida, the state where the Walt Disney Company laid off a slew of American workers and replaced them with cheaper, foreign guest workers.
FAIR says the ads will run on radio, television, and online. They feature Leo Perrero, one of the laid off Disney workers.
“A Disney executive walks in and delivers the news that we have 90 days to train our foreign replacements. If we don’t do that we won’t get our severance pay or bonuses,” Perrero says in the ad. “I just felt extremely betrayed and humiliated to go through that,” he adds.
1 Comment
Good! It’s about time Disney gets sued over their horrible deeds. So many companies throughout the US are doing this, and Americans have been ignorant and blind for far too long. If you think that this rarely happens, or it’s just a small fraction. Then you’re a fool, and need to open your eyes. We’ve lost over a million jobs within the last 10 years due to H-1B workers, and unless we stand up now. Then it’ll be a million more by 2020.