Attorney says Disney displaced US employees with foreign guest workers

Share
Disney
Walt Disney World entrance in 2010. photo By Jrobertiko (Denis Adriana Macias) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Rob Lorei

The presidential race so far has brought a lot of attention to illegal immigration and its affect on low wage jobs, but there is growing attention on the practice of major companies using the H1B work visa to replace US workers with imported, cheaper foreign workers. The H1B visa was originally intended to fill highly specialized job positions when companies could not find domestic workers who could do them. But as the New York Times reported over the summer, companies like Disney have transferred labor to firms who bring in temporary foreign workers, often having the laid-off American workers train their own replacements. 250 IT workers at Disney World in Orlando  were laid off and replaced with H1b workers earlier this year. Today we talk to civil rights attorney James Otto, who is suing Disney on behalf of the workers in Florida and hundreds more in California.

You may also like

Half of Florida households struggle to afford basics, United Way report reveals

Listen: A report from the United Way shows that almost...

Kelly Butterworth and Kevin Miklaski pose in WMNF's studio 1
Countdown Improv Festival on Art in Your Ear

Improv invades Ybor City in August. The Countdown Improv Fest has...

Bikes on Cross Bay Ferry. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News
Pinellas Sheriff’s Office implements new way to bolster pedestrian and bicyclist safety

Pinellas County initiative for pedestrian and bicyclist safety has been...

The Scoop: Fri. July 26th, 2024 Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF

The Rays trade a fan favorite player, Pinellas County discusses...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Da' Soul Kitchen
Player position: