You Re Fired: Case Study

#1 You’re Fired could be evaluated through Marxist theory in relation to how both American workers and business owners would react to it. What if everyone had the same opportunity as everyone else? What if a business or a government had the ability to provide that said opportunity, while also doing so at an even cheaper rate? The Immigration Bill of 1990, also known as H1B visa, was created to help the US find engineers and scientist while also providing a pathway to citizenship. Now, this sounds like a cook-cutter deal: giving businesses the option to “fill gaps in the workforce from overseas, with highly skilled employees that cannot be found in the US,” without taking away jobs from those in the United States. The Marxist theory argues

that the class system is at the root of social problems and must be ended by a revolution of the working class. Former Congressman Bruce Morrison, who authored the bill, said that this was good for the American people. This plan would essentially provide competition for companies to have the best workers, which in turn would allow the company to be fully functional across the board. But, what has happened in the last 25 years is that companies have claimed that they can’t find enough skilled or qualified workers. This has led to an increase of outsourcing. It is no longer looking to fill gaps (with the H1B visas) but to completely give jobs away to help maximize a profit. Essentially, it’s no longer about competing for the best talent, but getting cheaper talent to fulfill the same role. Bruce Morrison is quoted in the clip as being “outraged.” He continues on to say that foreign workers are now being brought over from abroad, which is causing a displacement of American workers.
The Marxist theory goes on to say that ideas present in culture mislead the masses and encourage them to act against their own interest.

As stated earlier, the H1B visa program sounded good in theory until American workers started losing their jobs Robert Harrison, was the first gentleman interviewed in the 60 Minutes clip. He said that he was called in to a meeting with 80 other IT workers at the UCSF Medical Center and was advised that their jobs were being outsourced to India. Robert Harrison claimed that he was “pissed” that he was losing his job to foreign workers. What makes matters worse is that not only did he have four months before he was let go, but that he had to train the person coming to take his job. Robert Harrison said that he would imagine himself striking the person he was training, which is something that was completely out of his character. Others workers interviewed in the clip said that it wasn’t just on-the-job training as much as it was “knowledge transfer.” What could be noticed in this clip was that while the workers were protesting the company outsourcing their jobs that it wasn’t something they had ever expected to do. A gentleman from India was interviewed and he said that the workers were clearly making much less than those whose jobs they were taking. He said that it wasn’t that they were more skilled, but that they were cheaper. These companies, who were using the H1B visas, clearly had the interest of the business its primary focus, while

truly encouraging them to ask against their own interest.