In October 2024, a jury in California found that Cognizant, an H-1B body shop (a staffing company that rents imported tech workers out to other firms) had discriminated against U.S. workers.
Those of us who have been in industry were only surprised by the amount of time it has taken for such a verdict to come down. The discrimination and rampant abuse in the body shop industry should have resulted in a massive crackdown long ago.
Bloomberg has just published an article about the Cognizant discrimination case including interviews with plaintiffs and statistical data about the company.
Bloomberg found:
- About two-thirds of the firm’s US-based employees were from India.
- American workers were twice as likely to have their employment “terminated” – by resignation or dismissal – as were their counterparts on visas.
- For Black and Hispanic or Latino workers, the annual rates of such terminations were about three times higher than for Indian nationals.
Until the one of the big body shops is given the well-deserved immigration death penalty for a few years (i.e., debarred from importing foreign workers), the abuse will continue.