As Black Lives Matter protests rage across the state and country, Governor Ned Lamont continues to support policies that oppress American minorities in the workplace.
Lamont has asked for a special session in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month. But even if changes are made in our state’s justice system, things won’t change for CT minorities in STEM occupations.
An interesting offshoot of the Black Lives Matter protests has been the #shutdownstem movement . It aims to fight systemic racism in the field and, among other things, change hiring practices.
Even before American companies started to ramp up the use of male Visa workers from India in their IT departments, American women and minorities were woefully under-represented in this field.
But in the last 10-20 years, as Indian IT oursourcing firms have started to dominate entire metro markets like Stamford, this situation has only gotten worse … particularly so for African Americans.
It’s really a shameful waste, because minority STEM workers are some of the most innovative and skillful programmers and security professionals in the game. But they continually get passed up for job opportunities and venture capital money.
And this has become a big deal, as a pandemic-fueled recession has raised the unemployment rate to a level not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
And while all this is going on, an India-based IT outsourcing firm (Infosys) is raking in millions in CT taxpayer funds, as they stack their Hartford offices with workers from India. Infosys will get $18M over the next several years if they hire over 2,000 people in Hartford. But Gov. Lamont did not insist on contract language that would require the hiring of Americans.
So, as workers in Connecticut contemplate the possibility of long-term unemployment, more and more foreign workers enter the state – and it’s all being sponsored with tax dollars.
While Infosys denies the widespread use of foreign workers, they refuse to publicly reveal the Amercan vs. non-American breakdown of their workforce.
This is not surprising to us. Our sources are telling us that they are hiring mostly foreign workers who hold OPT, L-1 and B-1 Visas.
This fits a pattern of the company’s past practices. They have an absolutely horrendous record of hiring Americans. Their offices in America are largely staffed by Indians . In fact, they paid a $34M fine for rigging the Visa system to bring in even more foreign workers.
Lawsuit after lawsuit has been filed against Infosys, including one filed by an African-American woman in Texas, who was fired after speaking out against the company’s preference for hiring Indian men in the US. Ms. Davina Linguist was the head of diversity of recruiting at Infosys – but was fired after she spoke up.
With a track record like this, you’d have to wonder why state leaders would encourage Infosys to set up shop in CT. But Ned Lamont – before he became governor – was one of the architects of the deal! He sold Infosys on the idea of coming to Hartford – and later bragged about it on the campaign trail, offering it up as evidence of his business acumen.
Gov. Lamont is certainly not the only one seeking to discriminate against Americans. It’s all part of a trend that’s playing out all across the country. While government leaders and corporations deny any bias against American workers, lawsuit after lawsuit keep getting filed. The latest proof of discrimination came recently, when Project Veritas intercepted a Facebook internal memo that specifically advises managers to hire foreign Visa workers over Americans.
US Techworkers, a group that advocates for the rights of American tech professionalis, has well documented this phenomenon and is actively lobbying our leaders in our nation’s capital. Most recently, they’ve been instrumental in blocking the passage of recent legislation that would award India nearly all Green Cards issued by our country over the next 10 years. They’ve also debunked the myth – a skills shortage – that has been the excuse for bringing in more and more foreign workers.
Eric Weinstein, Managing Partner of Thiel Capital, has been railing against the discrimination of Americans in STEM for years. He believes Visa programs should be shut down immediately and the myth of a worker shortage is a “sham.”
We’ll end this piece by asking Governor Lamont one simple question: Do black lives matter in hiring?