U of California Under Scrutiny for IT Outsourcing

The University of California, San Francisco, last week came under fire for its decision to fire about 80 IT workers and replace them with services from the Indian IT company HCL Technologies, Computerworld reported. The $50 million, five-year contract with HCL is a cost-cutting measure, the university said, brought on by declining health care reimbursements and rising costs associated with the Affordable Care Act. Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren, who represents California's San Jose-based 19th District, said the university is "misusing" the H-1B guest worker visa program. The program has attracted controversy particularly because of technology companies' reliance on the visas to bring foreign workers to the U.S., sometimes, critics say, at the expense of American workers.