US Senator Schumer calls Infy 'chop shop'

Criticising companies outsourcing highly-paid American jobs, a US Senator has described Indian IT major Infosys as a "chop shop", a place where stolen cars are dismantled and parts sold separately.

The comments were made by Democrat Senator of New York Charles E Schumer during discussions on the Border Security Bill, a $600-million emergency package aimed at strengthening security along the porous Mexican border.

"The emergency border funds will be paid for by assessing fees on foreign companies known as chop shops that outsource good, high-paying American technology jobs to lower wage, temporary immigrant workers from other countries.

"These are companies such as Infosys," Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday.

The comments made during the discussion are posted on the Senate website.

When contacted, an Infosys spokesperson said the company would not like to comment on the Senator's remarks.

Schumer also pointed out the bill would not affect the high-tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft that play by the rules and recruit workers in America.

The $600 million-spending bill approved by the Senate would see significant hike in application fees for H-1B and L1 visas, which are most sought after by Indian IT professionals.

The proposed bill would hike the visa fee to $2,000 per application on those entities that have less than 50 per cent of their employees as US citizens.

Infosys has thousands of employees in the US. For the three months ended June 30, the company had raked in 67.3 per cent of its total revenues from North America.

After the passage of the bill in the Senate, Democrat Senator of Missouri Claire McCaskill on Thursday said the proposal would increase fees for particular companies that exploit two categories of visas -- H-1B and L.

"A handful of foreign-controlled companies that operate in the United States--such as Wipro, Tata, Infosys and Satyam--rely on H-1B and L visas to import foreign workers to the US.

"The Senate Democrats' border security proposal would increase the visa fees paid by these companies by roughly $2,000 per visa application," she had said in a statement.