Disney in court for displacing US workers with H-1B visa holders

Disney World and two outsourcing companies have been slapped with a federal lawsuit by two of its former technology staff alleging that they conspired to displace American workers with cheaper foreign labour brought to the US on H-1B visas, mostly from India.

The two former employees - Leo Perrero and Dena Moore, who were among 250 Disney tech workers laid off from their jobs at Walt Disney World in Orlando in January 2015 - have also dragged two IT companies HCL Inc and Cognizent Technologies into this class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit aim to "kick them [outsourcing companies] at their business model, to stop them from systemically abusing the immigration system," said their attorney Sara Blackwell in a statement.

However, Disney denied having done any wrongdoing. "These lawsuits are based on an unsustainable legal theory and are a wholesale misrepresentation of the facts," the company said in a statement.

Disney said it hired more than 100 people back into other roles and offered Moore another position at comparable pay. It said hundreds of employers use H-1B visas and it complies with all applicable employment laws.

In a statement, Cognizent claimed that it fully complies with all US regulations regarding H-1B visas.