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Journalism of Courage
Giving Infosys a much-needed breather,a federal court in Alabama has thrown out the harassment case filed by one of its US employees,Jack Palmer. He portrayed himself as a whistleblower who had outed the Indian IT giants abuse of visa regulations. He alleged that Infosys had bypassed US immigration laws and brought in on-site engineers from India on B-1 visas meant for short-term business visitors. He claimed that Infosys was deliberately avoiding the trouble and expense of getting H-1B visas for its workers. H-1B visas have been extraordinarily difficult to get,given the hostile US climate on outsourcing. The Indian IT industrys visa rejection rate has risen to nearly 10 per cent lately.
This case is heavily freighted on both sides. Infosys is one of the most potent names in the heated domestic debate over US outsourcing. Across the board,US politicians have set their face against the idea of a nimbler,more productive global business President Obama has looked at it exclusively in terms of American job loss,without acknowledging the higher costs in the US. He has,in fact,made it the basis of his biggest attack on Republican challenger Mitt Romney casting himself as a champion of insourcing. HSBC and Standard Chartered have been hauled up in the US for outsourcing key banking functions and jobs to India. In such a fraught atmosphere,Infosys being held guilty would be a godsend for those who want to tar Indian services as subpar,much like the Mattel case becoming a lightning rod for all those who wanted to demonise Chinese manufacturing.
