A jury has found that an organization that gives 1000’s of staff to the Silicon Valley tech industry and other Bay Area employers intentionally discriminated against non-Indian staff.
The jury's verdict against Cognizant, founded in Chennai and now headquartered in New Jersey, got here Friday in a class-action lawsuit involving allegations that the corporate abused the H-1B visa process. The visa is meant for staff with specialized skills, and Silicon Valley tech firms rely heavily on it to draw top talent and in addition recruit staff for lower-level jobs through Cognizant and other staffing firms.
Three U.S.-born staff described within the lawsuit as “Caucasians” — Vartan Piroumian of California, Christy Palmer of Arizona and Edward Cox of Texas — sued Cognizant in 2017 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Another plaintiff described as Caucasian, Jean-Claude Franchitti, a green card holder from France, later joined as a plaintiff.
The lawsuit alleged that Cognizant displaced many non-Indian staff by first removing them from projects and “benching” them without work, after which keeping them on the bench until they were fired in keeping with an organization policy had been.
Cognizant said Monday it was “disappointed by the ruling” and would appeal.
“We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and have created a diverse and inclusive workplace that fosters a culture of belonging where all employees feel valued, engaged and have the opportunity to grow and succeed,” the corporate said. “Cognizant does not tolerate discrimination and takes such claims seriously.”
Federal government data shows that Cognizant obtains H-1B visas for a whole bunch of Indian residents annually to work within the Bay Area, said Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies the visa and testified for the plaintiffs within the trial. Data from 2023 shows that Cognizant placed H-1B holders with Bay Area employers starting from Google, Meta and Apple to PG&E, Kaiser Permanente and Walmart.
The H-1B has turn into a political flashpoint. Critics point to abuses including the alternative of U.S. staff with visa holders, while the tech industry is pushing to extend the annual cap on recent visas to greater than 85,000.
The Bay Area Council's most up-to-date research found that just about 60,000 H-1B foreign nationals received approval to work for Bay Area firms in 2019. The overwhelming majority come from India.
Because Cognizant favors Indian staff, the corporate seeks as many visas as possible, and the corporate has turn into a top recipient of H-1B visas by submitting visa applications tied to “jobs that don't exist.” are, the lawsuit says.
The rules for the H-1B require that firms applying for it have a position that the visa holder will fill, Hira noted. Obtaining visas for non-existent jobs “crowds out companies looking for the only real worker they want,” Hira said.
Piroumian, a highly experienced software engineer, began at Cognizant in 2012 and was “prematurely removed multiple times from positions supporting Cognizant customers and replaced with less qualified Indian…employees,” the lawsuit says. In mid-2017, the corporate “benched” him after which fired him six weeks later in accordance with the corporate’s policy of firing employees after greater than five weeks on the bench, the lawsuit said.
Cox, who also has many years of experience, began at Cognizant in 2014 and was fired in January 2017, the lawsuit says. He applied for several open positions at the corporate, but “less qualified Indian…employees were selected” and he was fired in April while on the bench, the lawsuit says.
Palmer, who was hired in 2012, had not been fired but was also “repeatedly” faraway from projects and replaced with Indian staff, including after a forced transfer from Tucson, Arizona, to California and after one other transfer from California requested by Cognizant to Phoenix. the lawsuit alleged.
Palmer also claimed she was intentionally excluded from most team meetings and that the few times she was invited, Indian managers turned their backs on her when she spoke, the lawsuit said. She claimed that discrimination and a hostile work environment forced her to resign in 2016.
Franchitti, a pc science doctor, was hired in 2007 and, during his nine years as a director and executive at Cognizant, witnessed the corporate favoring Indians with visas, the lawsuit said. In securing recent business for the corporate, his manager “staffed the client projects with employees from India who had visas, rather than non-Indian members of Mr. Franchitti's group who were already in the U.S. and available for this work were available,” he allegedly told the lawsuit.
The allegedly fraudulent letters are a part of Cognizant's plan to secure large numbers of H-1B visas and construct a “robust inventory” of Indian nationals to position in U.S. firms as opportunities arise, it said of the lawsuit.
“These individuals will receive preferential – if not exclusive – priority for new U.S. positions as they become available,” the lawsuit said. “Non-Indians are disproportionately relegated to the bench as jobs are given to…Indians.”
The majority of Cognizant's U.S. workforce is on visas, most in jobs for which there’s “an abundance of capable and qualified U.S. workers who can do the work and want the jobs,” Hira said.
The jury beneficial that the court award punitive damages to Cognizant.
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