I see a story within a story here. How come an American corporate funded NGO decided to study only emissions from Volkswagen and not any of its American counterparts. Seems very similar to the American corporate funded NGO activists in Canada that rally against pipelines and block all such projects but these very 'NGO's' keep mum about American oil. It looks like these three engineers were just used as unwitting pawns in a larger game.
6
If only he had been illegal and DACA status, he would be allow to stay.
Alas, he only had a legal work visa with caveats.
18
It looks like the US lost a man or labor force could use. I reckon that he came on a student visa and then a work visa and when his job ended so did his visa. After living here for so long he must have learned to like us.
I hope he does not give up on returning.
17
The NYTimes has no idea why this man was laid off. He was here on a green card - that's not a permanent stay. More than likely, he either didn't get the job done the way his boss wanted, wasn't transferable to a new job that was desired over the last role, or had issues getting along with 'someone' or a group. People are laid off every day. Some of them qualify as extremely intelligent. Nonsense story intended to stoke division - hate the corporation. That's all I read here these days.
6
@Ma,
He was not here on a green card. A green card is issued to document permanent residency which is not limited to employment status. Depending on nationality, a green card may have to be renewed every ten years.
11
@Ma He was on a visa.
6
@Ma
I think you read WAY too much into this story. Sometimes a story is just a story. There is not always a hidden agenda.
Sometimes stories are just written because they are interesting. The interest here it that the article casts some light on the possible difficulty of US car business at the moment. Alternatively it sheds some light on the difficulty of whistleblowers: either that they don't get to keep a job or because they don't get hired.
Alternatively you can read it as a story about what it is like being an accomplished highly educated workers on a visa.
It can happen to anyone.
11
The whistleblower is always the one who takes the fall for every atrocities committed. Ones you let the cat out of the bag, you are no longer valuable. The message is very clear, " the system always win."
15
@darebillionaire He is not a whistle blower in the sense that he did not blow the whistle on his employer. He was a grad student at West Virginia University in Morgantown and was not employed by VW, nor did he work for GM at the time. I really don't see a story here.
1
@Satyaban indirectly I still see him as a whistleblower, because he unveil the secret that VW had been covering up.
4
More knowledgeable journalist work has to be done about the case of this skilled worker in the automotive industry. As we learned with Boeing in aviation, competitiveness is apparently so crucial in those areas that a too skilled and independent worker could become a potential 'threat' for the company's decision makers. How can you muzzle bright brains and knowledge?
9
@José Ramón Herrera As the late Steve Jobs is reported to have said, “We don’t hire people and tell them what to do. We hire people so they can tell us what to do.”
5
VW should hire him.
18
All every worker ever wanted was a fair share of his piece of the pie now being consumed by stockholders and CEOs.
14
He got lucky when he discovered Volkswagen had committed lying about how much there car polluted.
The way he discovered it was not a act of genius.
GM had no reason to keep him more than any other employee who worked for them as he had no special value to them.
4
Isn't he qualified to get a cut of the $33 billion? I thought the US has a reward program for whistleblowers. He should get a lawyer. A really good one.
21
Senator Chuck Grassley has a history of defending whistleblowers & has sponsored whistleblower protection legislation which passed. Did this engineer contact Sen. Grassley? I don’t know if it would help him but he has nothing to lose. Whistleblowers, despite their important & valuable function, almost always suffer tremendous punishment.
13
Come back to India, man!
Such a general case of brain-drain for India. India needs you at regulatory, advisory levels...you might not earn big money, but cost of living is low too!
You've done nothing wrong! GM just tried to use & throw you.
17
Deporting Dr. Kappanna after 60 days, but letting Milo Yiannopoulos stay? I believe this shows the priorities of this administration to let the "right" ones in.
16
To set the record straight, Hemanth Kappanna did not plunge VW into a scandal. VW plunged itself into this scandal. Kappanna help revealed the fraud.
25
Try a Japanese car maker. They make better cars anyway - even in their NA plants.
3
US Profited 33 Billion Dollars in Law Suit. He was Shown doors Out. OK. Dont act too Good
6
From the article, it is hard for me to see any connection between the lay-off and revealing the fraud.
I happen to know the massive lay-off in GM months ago. Seems like many employees with H1 visa were involved. Well, I don't have the statistic for sure about such assumption.
I have ever worked for a such giant company with relative long companies history. It ends up that I decided never work for such companies any more. There was always restructure, no appreciation for unique personal value, and supervisers care much more company politics than the development of either the company or their employees.
8
The point of the story is irony.
4
This is how our unregulated capitalism work. The corporations rule and it is all bottom line driven.
The government regulatory agencies are in bed with the corporations.
Someone exposing organized fraud on the part of corporations are marked as dangerous. It is much safer to be a team playing idiot to survive or rise in the corporate hierarchy than even a genius whose loyalty is not a guarantee.
Mr. Kappanna could have done a great job with our EPA.
20
"He was one of about 4,000 G.M. workers laid off in what the company called a “strategic transformation.” So much for Donald Trump's promises for bringing/keeping Auto jobs back to the US.
28
I see the ugly prejudices showing up here because the person in the story happens to be from another country (India). Dr Kappanna has a Ph.D. from a reputed US University and has done enormous service to this country and its people and its environment with his investigative work on VW's dishonest and criminal fraud. It also lead to the discovery of other automobile companies committing similar fraud. To let him go is not an innocent happenstance. It is an act of retribution. GM has no use for Dr Kappanna's skills and work ethic? Really?
17
@Subhash: Maybe he was on the tail (pipe) of GM.
4
Martin Winterkorn, Oliver Schmidt, Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, Stefan Knirsch, Carsten Nagel + 7 others - these people are being brought to justice on multiple counts of fraud due in large part to
Dr. Kappamma and his team.
Then Dr. Kappamma is let go by GM for basically the same reason (greed) that persuaded those indicted men to unlawfully conspire and deceive millions of people.
I'm grateful to Dr. Kappamma and that the NYT's has highlighted his plight... but I'm left wondering what is it that makes such intelligent people value greed over integrity and profits over good deeds?
13
Explain to me where it says we owe immigrants a living let on citizenship.
5
Explain to me where that was even a suggestion...
I take it you’re of the belief that immigrants only take and have nothing useful to offer in spite of the highlighted commendable action.
If you live in America, you are yourself an immigrant-offset a few generations.
18
After Mr. Kappanna's work at Volkswagen, why GM hired him is a mystery to me. Was it a corporate "catch and kill"?
The agency that should have hired him is EPA.
11
@The Observer
He didn't work for VW, did you read the article?
He was a research student doing a Phd, then he worked for GM.
5
GM exists today only because of a government bailout. Their vaunted management team and division structure could not keep labor costs in line. It now seems as if they are micro managing their labor force by the numbers and completely ignoring the unique value of certain employees. This appears to be a very complicated choice on their part.
8
Having no permanent residency after having been living and working in this country for seventeen years with no criminal record is evidence that a country that prides itself a nation of immigrants does not care much for an immigration system that works.
41
@Peter Melzer You aren't serious, are you? This isn't about immigrants, it's about a company doing what it has every right to do. He didn't have a green card, he was never promised a job for life. Immigrants are not promised anything when they come to another country, except the freedom accorded by their status, which in this case gave this man access to a PhD (earned, of course) and a great deal of experience. For so many to imply that he was some kind of genius is a joke. He could have actively looked for another job and then gone for a green card and residency. However, he's not entitled to anything. We have the freedom to work, to study, but not to stay in the US unless we have permanent residence. And that's the way it should be.
4
@Ma,
Re "He could have actively looked for another job and then gone for a green card and residency ", the story does not tell us what he tried or did not try. Perhaps, you are implying too much.
I was not joking. Applications for permanent residency should not require lawyers and should not take more than a decade.
5
Yes. We need more Kardashians not engineers with 17 years experience. So what if he found a fraud with 30 Billion dollars, was he at the Met gala last nite. Really dude, get your priorities straight.
15
I'm very sorry for Mr. Kappanna. I'm also bewildered by an incongruity that this story reveals. How is it that in a time of supposedly amazingly low unemployment levels, a man with his education and experience cannot find a job in 2 months time? There must be something wrong with how we calculate unemployment. I know lots of well-educated, talented people who have been looking for work for months. I also know lots of well-educated talented people working at dead-end jobs because that's all they could find.
I saw this same pattern when I lived in Europe in the years right before the Great Recession.
27
@Nancy-- Agreed. I looked for a decent job for 18 months before giving up. Several headhunters told me that I was the best fit for a particular job but instead a younger person was hired. I'm 62 and it's a fact that if you're over 50 it's difficult to find a good job.
My nephews who are in their 30s say that most of their college-educated friends never found decent jobs and patch together livings by working several low-paid jobs in restaurants or stores.
19
@Nancy
When people who require visa sponsorship look for the jobs, the HR department frequently nixes these applications given the grueling requirements of the HIB visa and the costs these visa accumulate. (about $5-10K everything included-recurring every 3 years).
Thats why he couldn't get a job easily with 60 days.
12
@Nancy,
when you check out our local real estate market, it sure does not make you feel like boom time. Yes, unemployment is low. But people can't afford to buy a home. In our neighborhood renters and Airbnb replace live-in owners.
4
This is the strangest set of responses to a deftly-written and thought-provoking article. It’s fascinating that a graduate student had this much impact, and alarming that he was let go with so little ado. The subtext, that the two might be connected, seems bizarrely lost in the letters below about wages, and another extraordinary posting that suggests business should be immune from ethical considerations or even legal ramifications, and that GM was right to let Dr. Kappamma go.
10
It's not true that highly skilled workers (that includes a Ph.D.) are paid lower wages in this country. GM hired Dr. Kappamma for his research findings. When things blew up in their face, they let him go. Dr. Marc Besch and Dr. Arvind Thiruvengadam are employed in universities. Universities have a different set of ethics from industries. They of course pay less than industries do and for their research, they depend on grants . Most probably, Dr. Kappamma was not aware of the different set of ethics that industries have. I hope he will have a good life in India.
4
Struggling to find anything news worthy here.
He was downsized and also caught up in the long queue of qualified persons of Indian origin waiting in to get permanent residency.
Tough but happens everyday.
On the bright side, he has a PhD from a reputed US university and can find a great job in Bangalore even at 41.
13
@Linus The point of the article, to me, is that Mr Kappanna discovered a flaw that became a scandal. It's hard to imagine, though certainly possible, that he was dumped because of his actions. "Tough but happens everyday" is more apt to be applicable to what upper level management does when a whistleblower blows the whistle -- time to go home for good.
5
4000 laid off. Yet highest unemployment in a long time. Something bubbling up under Trumps upcoming trillion dollar deficit? Short term gain looks good for a couple three years. Then the bad news hits. Hopefully the Dems will be in a position to pull us out of it (even as they get blamed for it).
14
VW should hire him.
8
Mr. Kappanna, just as the H1B engineers imported into Silicon Valley, was a tool to keep American engineering salaries low.
There are billions of people willing to work for less outside the United States. Let them all in, and wages in the US will collapse further.
Mr. Kappanna, having worked for GM and being familiar with US technology can find a job in the rapidly growing automotive industry in a second - at Indian wages
14
@John
Where does it say his salary was less than other GM workers? You have no facts only prejudice.
25
@Julie Tea
Julia, John's comments did not specifically say "less than other GM workers". It said "American engineering salaries low" which includes all engineers in all companies and employment situations.
Engineering salaries are where they are because many bright young people see law and finance people getting much higher salaries and say to themselves "I can do that instead of Engineering and make more money."
It is a classic supply and demand situation. If more of anything, even fruit, is available than sellers (in this case Engineers) will get less money for their services.
This is good for the buyer and consumers but discourages prospective Engineering students.
3
He should have gone to Canada where permanent residencies are granted much faster for well qualified professionals.
9
GM has not changed with regard to quality. In 1987, I bought a Buick sedan. Within one year, I was told the paint had dust, which caused chipping in the car's paint.
GM would not fix the defect, so I went to arbitration--what a joke. GM said it was up to standard.
I HAVE NEVER PURCHASED A GM PRODUCT SINCE.
You can win a battle but lose a war--that's GM.
21
If you had to allow one person to migrate, would it be someone of his caliber, or someone who's amassed at our southern border?
How should policy be set such the country benefits foremost?
How much merit should be involved when deciding whom to take in?
9
@MS This depends on whose wages you want to depress--highly educated Americans or close to minimum wage Americans.
11
@MS If you can't find someone to cut your grass, you would not advertise the job in scientific journals looking for a PhD.
1
If the universe could right wrongs...he would immediately be hired by the Environmental Protection Agency for a key watchdog position. But that's not going to happen with this current administration. Maybe after 2020.
53
Ms. Barra decided to move the entire passenger car production to China, where wages are 1/6 th.
And so he goes. Just like the folks in Lordstown
GM is keeping Pickup and large SUV's production in the US as those are protected from cheap imports by a 25% import tariff since 1964
19
@Carl,
if free markets reigned, GM would have disappeared from the face of the Earth ten years ago.
10
For those making casual remarks about how he should “apply for citizenship”: it’s a long, arduous process for legal immigrants from India, a country that is severely backlogged in the system along with China. People who applied in April 2009 are only now being processed for green cards. That’s 10 years minimum wait time. It’ll be another 5 years for those people to be eligible to apply for citizenship. That’s the law.
You can shrug your shoulders and say “tough luck,” but think about this: people like him contribute to the economy, pay taxes and social security, and have zero guarantees that this is where they’ll retire. By now he’s probably paid in his quarters of soc sec, but unless he enters the country every six months—a huge burden when you’re halfway across the world—he won’t see a dime of it.
This story does make sense to cover because ordinarily companies like GM fight to keep their H1-B workers, especially ones like this man. One would think someone who is directly responsible for making your product better and safer would be one to keep, move elsewhere, another branch. It’s not like all of GM is going out of business.
And it’s high time someone talks about how it is that a legal immigrant stays here for 17 years and counting and by law is still not eligible for even permanent residence, let alone citizenship. It’s a travesty to keep undocumented immigrants waiting, but legal immigrants get the cold shoulder?
And yes, I’m in the same boat he is.
133
@Desi
He could always apply directly to Congress for citizenship just like that other "U.S. citizen," Rupert Murdoch.
9
@CDW
Thanks for the chuckle.
3
As a grad student, he did the field work on a project designed by a Professor at West Virginia University. This implies that he is a capable person at certain engineering task, but neither a genius nor a heroic whistleblower. If he lived in the US for 17 years, he arrived in 2002, probably on a student visa. What was he doing in the US for 12 years before he got his degree from WVU in 2014??
Then he got an H1B via from GE and was able to work there for 5 years. He can now return to his native Bangladore with valuable skills learned in the U.S. (probably partially at taxpayer expense from the $70,000. grant he was involved in.)
Sure, he'd rather stay in the U.S. But there is no great injustice here.
19
@MBR
Likely scenario: Went to school, went to work, went back to school... or is that a privilege only Americans have?
14
@Desi
No. BUT the intent of student visas is to allow people from other countries to benefit from study in the US and there is merit to them returning home so that their home country can benefit. It makes no sense for everyone who come on a student visa to stay in the US.
To rephrase, the benefit to a society of having people educated in the U.S. should also be available in other countries.
3
@MBR
He would have paid lot in social security, Medicare tax, health insurance (which is rarely used heavily by young people). I think you are not aware that USA government does not return SSN money collected from temporary workers when they go back to their country. For people with European citizenship they might be returning back but not for Asian origin.
9
It is just amazing that a company as well positioned and regarded would go to such great lengths to devise a system to cheat on emissions, simply to save money. It is like Well Fargo stuffing accounts on people to boost business. Where have the basic ethics of business gone, and where do these companies get the idea that it is ok to cheat? Or is it that all or most companies cheat and VW and WF simply got caught, and the rest are sailing along?
21
@david g sutliff
Having done a lot of research on how the pharmaceutical industry works (after losing a close family member to a hidden, lethal side effect - hidden by the company for the sake of profit), I came to the conclusion that there are few, if any, truly ethical companies in the world. This is particularly tragic when the products in question can cause death.
7
“Where do these companies get the idea that it is okay to cheat?”
It starts at the top. Look at Trump, that’s were.
3
@david g sutliff,
not only private companies but also whole administrations have failed in their judgement and continued to stick to the program with deliberate lies like VW's management. Check out Barbara Tuchman's 'March of Folly'. As if we never learned, it would happen again in 2003. At least, the VW managers got jail time.
Perhaps this happens because we perceive our leaders' misjudgment as their failure. Therefore, they cannot admit to themselves and others to be wrong.
The fact is that he has for years and four months work experience with GM. His previous time in the US was all in academia.
His work on the VW project was admirable (where he appeared to be an implementor rather than instigator) but really his loss of work concerns GM.
Although four years may seem like a long time, work in the auto industry these days is fragile, and it seems that losing his position was similar to production associates in Lordstown Ohio; when business changes jobs are lost.
It is sad that he could not find another position in the time available, but please do not imply that any of this was related to his work on VW cheating scandal. If that were true he would not have been with GM for 4+ years.
10
@Larry Dulude
Why not, Larry? A Ph.D. student is not implementor but really an instigator. Perhaps, you can be excused for not knowing how a doctoral research is done in engineering schools. Seems though you resent having competition from smart people of a different nationality. Dr Kappanna is identified as a whistle blower and so undesirable for the auto industry that fraudulently robbed the customers all over the world (not just US) and destroyed environment all over the world. But US has benefited the most, to the tune of 33 BILLIONS! Shouldn't US share a small fraction (10%) of that bounty with those four (including the professor) ? Kappanna would have more than 800 million and then US would have begged him to stay!
4
Welcome to the real America.
This guy should have got his Green Card by now and should even have been rewarded American citizenship.
But the entire focus of (the liberal) Political class is on the illegal immigration.
It routinely takes 12 + years for highly qualified Indians to get their Green cards (and 5 more years to be eligible for Citizenship)-so many things can (and do) go wrong in between.
As an academic Physician I was the ONLY one in my Midwestern state with a certain board certification and expertise. I helped build an ICU and added 10+ more jobs (via my hospital). My reward? Still in line for a Green card in spite of being in the US for 14 years and at risk of losing my visa/livelihood if the visa officer is having a bad day.
93
@jack
I feel your pain. We are a physician on a visa in the country for 17 years household, too. In rural America. No end in sight on the waiting.
I’ll just add a small correction: it’s the entire political class that focuses on illegal immigration, liberal, conservative, and everything in between. And not just political class, even the fourth estate. Because legal immigration just isn’t a sexy enough issue for people to bother with. Won’t get votes, won’t sell subscriptions.
24
Why can't he get a job at the EPA?
14
Most likely he was on H1B visa. It is itied to an employee. That is, if the job is lost, he should find somebody else to sponsor. It is likely that he applied for a Green Card. The processing of GC takes around 10 years or more for Indians (as opposed to 2 or 3 years for Europeans or Mexicans or, just about most nationals -- it is a quota system for each country).
Yes, he could have become a citizen. That meant, he should stay in the same job (even a promotion and change in the role could invalidate the GC as well as H1B) for a decade. Perhaps he changed jobs rebooting the process.
I have seen in often enough where highly qualified people stick to the same job just so that green card process is not jeopardized.
13
@Aarkay
The whole process of Green Card approval is ridiculous. The nationality determines how fast a person gains green card. Currently, Indian applicants have over 10-year waiting for approval.
US is not like most other countries with regard to citizenship. US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are essentially countries settled by immigrants (not native populations) in the last 2-3 hundred years. These countries have greatly benefited and progressed (economically and technologically) by the immense contributions of recent immigrants. The current POTUS is one such example. Intel, Google, Tesla, etc are creations of first or second generation immigrants. So, please don't brush aside so casually.
3
@Subhash,
perhaps the difference between the countries you mention and this country is that the US never was member of the Commonwealth.
So he was able to live, study then work in the United States on a guest visa for 17 years?? Or a green card. Which should be called a gold card. How does that make sense other than in dollar and sense terms. Again it is our immigration and naturalization service that is skewered to the corporate greedsters. What job did he take away from an American citizen? The corporate climate is to educate and hire cheap engineers from whatever country they can get them then slowly lay off Americans because they make too much. If this is part and parcel of globalization, which it is, then perhaps it is not that beneficial after all. Other than to the shareholders who only seem to see value in share price.
16
@Critizenq How does it make sense for an exceptional talent like this to HAVE to work on a green card after 17 years? He should have been free to work here as long as he wanted, and we should have felt grateful to have him.
If you think our technology is so far ahead that we can afford to pick and chose which first-rank engineers we'll allow to work for us, you're wrong.
If you think engineers at this level are so common that GM could hire another one without taking them away from a comparable job, you're wrong.
If you think that engineers at this level interchangeable parts, and GM could necessarily find anyone to replace his particular skill set at any price, you're wrong again.
31
The article doesn't detail whether the three people in the department were low on the seniority totem pole. I've worked with a great number of H-1B visa people. It's a concern to them to know they have continuing work, or can move from job to job before the visa runs out. Those I've known have scrambled to find new work and found it. Is it that this man's work was so specific he couldn't find new employment in the states? Would be interesting to know how many H-1B people annually find themselves returning to their home country due to loss of work in the States.
7
I hope he gets a job at Boeing
33
@Er Or a job on oil rigs, which trump is now going to let be self inspecting.
10
The emissions regulations are modeled on a driving cycle established empirically by observing actual operational accelerations, decelerations, and idling in a standard urban route. The tone of this article throws shade on VW where it does not belong: off-cycle emissions are by definition not part of the test. Automakers breathe the same air we all do, and they have no wish to harm themselves or others by poisoning that air.
2
@OldEngineer, is that why VW had to pay $33 billion in fines for lying and cheating? Is that why two former company officials are now in prison and the former CEO is likely to end up in prison, eventually, as well?
39
Former VW diesel owner here. VW took advantage of its predictability to design software that recognized the test cycle. They turned up the emissions controls during testing, and down for normal driving, @OldEngineer, resulting in extra tons of particulates and carcinogens emitted into population centers. You are very naive if you don't understand that companies often do things for profit that are harmful to others. VW executives knew exactly what they were doing, and got only a tithe of the "shade" they deserved.
44
Of course corporations always act in the best interest of public health. Everybody knows that!
8
He had been in the U.S. for 17 years, staying after he completed his education and clearly following a long term career path.
I'm assuming his deportation is connected to his employment status; at least my take away from his story.
I wonder if he ever considered applying for citizenship which would have ensured his right to live here independent of his ties to an employer.
1
@jb
1. He was not deported. He left under the terms of his visa, which was probably work related.
2. You cannot apply for citizenship when you're on a work visa. You need to transition to permanent residency - also known as a green card.
This happens to thousands of expatriates every month, the only difference being that most of their stories don't make it to the New York Times.
48
@jb
Sheer ignorance of immigration process is evident here! One cannot seek citizenship without being a green card holder for 5 years at least! Even after 17 years, Kappanna could not qualify for just the green card. How could he apply for citizenship? Isn't it injustice that somebody who contributed so much (33 Billions) and attained such level of education and skill set has to leave the country because he was laid off?
10
In American industry, when the going gets tough, the vulnerable are always the first to be punished while the corporate titans receive increased compensation – beyond their already ludicrous packages – for "taking tough steps" to keep the shareholders happy. The game is rigged, the 1% always wins, and the middle class continues its slide into financial inequality.
40
And now India has a great engineer to help build their economy. That's a good thing. The brain drain of migration from developing countries to the US is not a good thing.
17
@Neildsmith
Yeah, right. Brain drain from all countries of the world built USA over the past two centuries. India has contributed tens of thousands of highly esteemed physicians and surgeons, hundreds of thousands of engineers, and professors, and maybe a million or so future captains of industry and academic captains. You want to get rid of all those?
6
Volkswagen should hire this guy!
10
@rv,
definitely, in Chattanooga.
How does this man not qualify for a genius visa especially when someone like Melania Trump does ? This man’s research was significantly helpful in helping our environment and brought a cheating corporation to its knees . He should get the genius visa and work for the EPA or regulatory body.
The US is a country run by corporations and insurance companies with robber baronesque white men reaping the profits while spouting “land of the brave and free” to the gullible and ignorant.
152
@QWERTY
He needs to apply for one first. My guess is he got complacent.
3
@Vivian
Not every genius visa is approved. There are plenty who fall prey to reject quotas and the adjudicating officer simply having a bad day. There are undeserving geniuses who get visas, and deserving ones who don’t.
Don’t blame the victim.
13
@Vivian
Your “guess” is insulting and based on what exactly? There is in no way enough information in this article to know any such thing.
10
Someone like Hemanth Kappanna (STEM Ph.D., exceptional contribution to his field) should have been fast-tracked to get a green card.
In all the shrill discussions about immigration, too much attention is being paid to illegal line-jumpers and too little to people like him.
Mr. Kappanna, I feel bad for what has happened to you. I wish you the best. Hope you find a job that is worthy of you soon.
114
This is rug sweeping corporate style- and a lumpy rug it is...
Somebody informs on a misdeed and the lights shine.
There is a pat on the back and trumpets sound.
Time passes.
No good deed goes unpunished- a rat is a rat and by syndicate rules EVERY rat has to pay. It's like fingering a 'made man' and no matter how egregious the 'made man's' crime the informer is doomed.
Exactly how many crooked bankers went to jail in the banking crisis of 2008? You see. Financial mobsters know you just get out the checkbook and pay off the politicians of BOTH parties. Nobody broke ranks.
Pharmaceutical companies have hooked a swath of a whole generation on drugs- but what does that matter when the fine is in the millions and your making billions- get out the checkbook and payoff the political parties. How many pharmaceutical overlords are in jail- NONE.
If you want to know the truth- FOLLOW THE MONEY.
46
G.M. said this week that Mr. Kappanna’s dismissal “was not related to any emissions compliance concerns or related issues.”
Here, now pull the left one (but not too hard).
13
He was "downsized", big deal, happens to thousands every year. If he wanted to stay in the US seems like he had 20 years or so to apply for citizenship.
4
@TED338
He was on a work visa. You cannot convert that work visa into an immigrant visa without a corporate sponsor. And it take years after you are sponsored. Once you get that immigrant visa or a green card, you have to wait five years after the green card to apply for a citizenship. Now you know why he couldn't get to stay....Not that simple!
30
@AnilWagle
Time consuming, yes, difficult, not so. I began two sponsorships in 2008, one naturalized just before Thanksgiving last year and the other just after the New Year. You have to want it and work for it.
1
@TED338
Nationality and the category of your application determines how fast one's application is approved for green card. MOST applicants from India (all with advanced degrees) have a waiting period of ten or more years because of the quotas allotted. Perhaps, you are not very well informed of all the intricacies!
6
I believe as whistleblowers they are ‘entitled’ to part of the fine levied. In his case, it could be quite a sum. He needs a good lawyer.
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I fail to see the reason behind this NYT article. I’m not sure how the VW scandal ties into his dismissal from GM, there’s only a whiff of diffuse implied things. GM has idled whole manufacturing plants, including the one in Oshawa, ON after the provincial government poured billions into helping keeping it opened in 2008-2009. Thousands of people are let go, are you guys going to do an article about each one of them?
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@Bogdan
The VW scandal happened because of this man’s research. That’s why it’s in an article about him. He thought outside the box and that led to big changes in consumer use of diesel vehicles in Europe.
Unfortunately for him US immgration policy did not think outside the box in his case.
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@Bogdan
I didn't realize Ontario poured billions into keeping a GM plant open. The U.S. taxpayer did the same for the company here in the U.S. - and it just shut down the plant in Lordstown, Ohio - shipping the jobs to Mexico.
3
Mr. Kappanna is obviously highly intelligent, skilled, learned and ambitious--exactly the kind of person we need more of in the US. That GM is too short-sighted to recognize the investment they made in this person only means that they've done an excellent job of training him to continue to do excellent work for...someone else, in another country.
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It's a shame the US regulators didn't hire him to ensure compliance and detect manipulators. If our government functioned well, that's what would have happened.
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One thing upper management really hates is for someone to come along and be right when he points out the errors in their thinking. If it turns out there was some engineer at Boeing that tried to point out the flaws in the MCAS system of the 737 max, then that engineer is working on borrowed time. Nothing is more sure to get you punished than being right when all the big bosses are wrong. Think of the Challenger space shuttle. And of course there was Bob Lutz, who lead GM to within a whisker of bankruptcy, yet was treated like an all-knowing auto guru after he retired with a golden parachute.
In other words, failure is far better for your career than making your bosses look bad. I imagine that's the main part of the reason the auto big shots hate Elon Musk. Every day he is proving how wrong the old dinosaurs in auto's top management are regarding electric cars. They simply cannot face the fact that the Rube Goldberg complexity of the gasoline engine will be replaced by the simplicity of electric motors.
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GM obviously new about his VW work at WVU when they hired him, so I doubt that this was the reason he was let go.
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There are jobs in food service and gigs at Uber. Engineers, not so much. MAGA.
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It's hard to believe that he was dismissed in a routine downsizing. I wonder what he was on to.
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@Betty Good point!
14
Welcome to Corporate America. It's true that his research had a huge impact on the industry but GM doesn't owe him a job for life.
I'm not seeing that he is being singled out due to his research but rather the company has decided his work is no longer needed.
I hope that he hooks on with another auto manufacturer as he knows the industry and has talent. But I can't see that GM has done anything wrong here by following procedures to reduce it's workforce to meet it's labor needs.
15
I have a good feeling he will find another job.
11
...Nothing personal, "they just needed to meet the numbers".
What? Who said this? GM's h.r. or Volkswagen's engineers? I'm confused.
8
Why does GM constantly do this. Too big to fail. You make some decent products, but your position is falling and has been since I would say 1976. But this guy should stay in the U.S. He has talent-he contributes. He will go to Kia or Toyota. But GM execs-order that new G6 for yourselves-you deserve it. One day it will be auctioned off and we will all say-gee-we saw this coming.
32
"The emperor has no clothes" while VW , consumers and now GM pay the price. A great engineer/scientist now has nothing but his honor of having done a "great thing"..thank you
56
Whistle blowers, beware. There are really no protections in corporate America..
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@Shahbaby
It certainly sounds like the industry has a black list of "troublemakers" and whistle blowers. If they work for you, find a way to get rid of them unrelated (for the company records) that has nothing to do with "the list".
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@Shahbaby
Another good reason not to buy a GM product.
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