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Guest
Hi,
My Resident State is NJ and I work at a client
site in PA, USA.
My situation is a pandora box. Any interested attorney
can be ovenight hit and all big corporations would be
scared of him/her. This is not remarks for marketing
or pressing my point, this is just an observation from
an humble foreign H1-B Visa worker who came in search
of the all-famous American Dream and got in terrible
mess! And there are thousands of them!
Here is the situation:
I came to US on H1-B visa issued to me by a small US
firm who had (or still has) representative in India.
This was 3 years ago. When I arrived, they promised
me for filing for greencard and after 6 months they
did also. And I was soon sent to the client site for
working. But as I became aware of company's situation,
my pay etc.. I found they absolutely operated from
the garage and they did not have any kind of HR
nor employee rules/employee manual or anything.
I drew attention by calling them or sometimes e-mailing
without success. I found I was being paid much much
less than the industry standard for foreign H-1 Workers.
I was never given any guidance/notes/rules about my
medical coverage, nor was I ever given pay-slips. I used
to know about my total pay only from W-2 form that used
to come once a year.
Then as I began asking about my greencard process,I used
to get very vague answer like 'matter is with lawyer'
and when I demanded to contact the lawyer, reluctantly
I was given the contact but then lawyer would never
reply exact details about the status of my case etc..
So this was a game that was being played by the employer
and the lawyer to keep me at the client site( they both
are related at some family level) and
whenever I asked them, they provided me with similar
vague, incorrect information.
So in this way I lost extremely valuable time just by
going by good faith in people and company here in US, be
it a lawyer or my employer.
I also lost a couple of good employment offers by other
companies due to such incorrect information being
passed to me. Moreover, when I had chance to join the
client company, my employer brought out a 'non-compete'
clause and deprived me of my opportunity. Where as I
have not signed any kind of 'non-compete' with my
employer. Can I sue this employer on following ?
- Unfair employee treatment.
- Providing unfair information.
- Paying much less than prevailing wages
for people with my skills and experience.
- Wasting my valuable time by telling me lies
about my greencard process.
- Making me go through extreme agony and stress
because of this.
- Generating an extremely bad image of American
business in my mind, a foreign national, I am
sure US courts would be sensitive about nation's
image. Just imagine if I write about this
in newspapers in India!
I have quite a bit of proofs for all these. Moreover
I have extremely good credentials about my work
at the client site. Also I have very good witnesses
to this situation. I would like to go for a law
suit if any attorney would like to take this up.
Of course I am not very rich so I can pay only
a moderate fee. But those details can be worked
out I guess. So can I look for some help??
Please reply me at my e-mail address for more,
Thank You,
-Chetan Bhatt
My Resident State is NJ and I work at a client
site in PA, USA.
My situation is a pandora box. Any interested attorney
can be ovenight hit and all big corporations would be
scared of him/her. This is not remarks for marketing
or pressing my point, this is just an observation from
an humble foreign H1-B Visa worker who came in search
of the all-famous American Dream and got in terrible
mess! And there are thousands of them!
Here is the situation:
I came to US on H1-B visa issued to me by a small US
firm who had (or still has) representative in India.
This was 3 years ago. When I arrived, they promised
me for filing for greencard and after 6 months they
did also. And I was soon sent to the client site for
working. But as I became aware of company's situation,
my pay etc.. I found they absolutely operated from
the garage and they did not have any kind of HR
nor employee rules/employee manual or anything.
I drew attention by calling them or sometimes e-mailing
without success. I found I was being paid much much
less than the industry standard for foreign H-1 Workers.
I was never given any guidance/notes/rules about my
medical coverage, nor was I ever given pay-slips. I used
to know about my total pay only from W-2 form that used
to come once a year.
Then as I began asking about my greencard process,I used
to get very vague answer like 'matter is with lawyer'
and when I demanded to contact the lawyer, reluctantly
I was given the contact but then lawyer would never
reply exact details about the status of my case etc..
So this was a game that was being played by the employer
and the lawyer to keep me at the client site( they both
are related at some family level) and
whenever I asked them, they provided me with similar
vague, incorrect information.
So in this way I lost extremely valuable time just by
going by good faith in people and company here in US, be
it a lawyer or my employer.
I also lost a couple of good employment offers by other
companies due to such incorrect information being
passed to me. Moreover, when I had chance to join the
client company, my employer brought out a 'non-compete'
clause and deprived me of my opportunity. Where as I
have not signed any kind of 'non-compete' with my
employer. Can I sue this employer on following ?
- Unfair employee treatment.
- Providing unfair information.
- Paying much less than prevailing wages
for people with my skills and experience.
- Wasting my valuable time by telling me lies
about my greencard process.
- Making me go through extreme agony and stress
because of this.
- Generating an extremely bad image of American
business in my mind, a foreign national, I am
sure US courts would be sensitive about nation's
image. Just imagine if I write about this
in newspapers in India!
I have quite a bit of proofs for all these. Moreover
I have extremely good credentials about my work
at the client site. Also I have very good witnesses
to this situation. I would like to go for a law
suit if any attorney would like to take this up.
Of course I am not very rich so I can pay only
a moderate fee. But those details can be worked
out I guess. So can I look for some help??
Please reply me at my e-mail address for more,
Thank You,
-Chetan Bhatt