Disney sued after replacing tech employees with immigrant workers

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Two former Disney employees have filed separate class-action lawsuits against the entertainment giant claiming they conspired to replace their jobs with cheaper immigrant workers on temporary US work visas.

Leo Perrero and Dena Moore both claim that they were illegally fired from their IT jobs at Walt Disney World in Orlando and replaced by foreign workers who they were forced to train. Both workers also accused HCL Inc and Cognizant Technologies of abusing the H-1B visa program.

Sara Blackwell, the attorney representing Mr Perrero and Ms Moore, told the Orlando Sentinel that the lawsuits aim to “kick [outsourcing companies] at their business model, to stop them from systemically abusing the immigration system.“

Disney claimed that the lawsuits are "based on an unsustainable legal theory and are a wholesale misrepresentation of the facts."

"Contrary to reports, Ms. Moore was offered another position in the company at comparable pay, and more than 100 of the workers affected by the changes were rehired," the company said in a statement.

"Hundreds of employers use the H1B visa program, including the New York Times, whose current CEO is working in the U.S on an H1B visa, a fact that it regularly fails to disclose in its reporting.”