Obama on H1Bs

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/26/qa-with-senator-barack-obama-on-key-technology-issues/



Seems a bit of well spoken spin, regarding "skills shortage" - especially these days are more and more people WITH such degrees and more are losing jobs to offshoring.

Or how helpdesk jobs paying $10/hr require a Bachelors degree. (Talk about overqualification; the usual excuse for denying people work in unrelated fields...)

Or, if nothing else, that's the current paranoia.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=6&threadID=179848&start=0
This article gets to the point about education; we could all have such degrees, and more, and nothing would be different.

If I am suggesting anything, it's that the core problems regarding America are being ignored; supplanted by a separate, mostly tangential issue.

Especially if the "global economy" fails and the countries we're currently helping stop relying on other countries to keep their economies afloat, in favor of putting themselves first. (I wonder if this "global economy" is what was envisioned in the first place; I'm honestly not so sure.)

and get the truth out. At least, Obama may be willing to listen if we can just get his attention.

Are there any organizations now??

I won't disagree in that education IS a problem in America, and he's right to address that, but we need to be encouraging our own -- and I think he is better able to do that than pretty much everyone else who ran for President this time 'round.

I think even he is a thoughtful listener. And he has a difficult job of keeping everybody reasonably (not completely) happy. Which is a diplomat's job.

I have reasonable optimism for the future, regardless, and like I said, this is a paranoia. And it may be nothing more than that. (I hope!)

There are plenty of qualified technical people out of work in the us. Not only that, but fewer college students are taking tech courses because they know the jobs are going to visa holders and overseas. Bring back the jobs and there will be plenty of students ready to learn.

When my company puts an ad in the paper, they get hundreds upon hundreds of resumes.

this is the type of crap that started labor unions to begin with

But I'm bothered by the way the writer seems to be actively discouraging going to college. It's clear that while he's seen through some of the corporate b.s. he hasn't made the full journey to understanding. He throws out concepts like people being "overqualified" for jobs without context or explanation. "Overqualified" is plutocratspeak for "smart and educated enough not to be a malleable worker bee". He also views a college education as nothing more than a credential to be obtained for career purposes. This attitude is typical of MBAs. They can't see the value of higher education as an end in itself. IMHO a college education should be available to all Americans, regardless of where they end up working afterward. What is wrong with carpenters or short order cooks knowing how to think critically, apply logic and reasoning, and having an appreciation for art and literature?

I don't understand what he means by this: "Poverty will not disappear, it will become very well educated. This could crash our economy in the next five to ten years." Is he suggested that uneducated poverty will delay the coming of the crash? How so? Seems to me that poor people who are literate and know a thing or two would be far better situated to organize and improve their lots than if they were illiterate and ignorant.

Something sorely lacking in America as evidenced by McCain\Palin supporters.

that's what scared me, when reading into that combined with the "dime per dozen" candidates.

Education is always a good thing, you bet. But the core problems are down to cost; GM claims health care and they (like everyone else) does nothing. Now people say it's education costs; so how does one convince educators to stop raising their rates 10+% every year? It's a growing chasm. At least on perception and the last few months have shown me some of mine have been wrong...

Grains of salt, I suppose...

we're in deep doo-doo. If anyone out there is a really good, highly experienced ski teacher or mountain guide let me know - I can get you a job instantly. And, no, we can't hire U.S. citizens to do these jobs since we can't find folks with the skills, attitudes and experience. Try finding somebody with 15 or 20 years of experience in a challenging job, who speaks two or three languages, who can work seasonally in each hemisphere and make be satisfied with $50,000 a year.

I admit that this is not the tech industry issue, but it is an H1-B issue. It's not all in one basket.

if you don't hire them?

Teaching, patrolling and guiding in the mountains is a tough row to hoe. There are no short cuts and the pay in the early days sucks. We hire every single qualified U.S. applicant we can, and we're still short. Unless you love the life there is no reason to do it, and right now there just don't seem to be enough folks in the U.S. who love the life; there is no tradition of pursuing these jobs in this country. Some people do, but they're rare romatics. We hire inexperienced people and train them, but most don't come back more than a few years. Also, very few kids in the U.S. become fluent in multiple languages, and our clientele requires that in the top ranks.

Try moving to some of the priciest places to live in the country, taking a job that could pay well, and could pay very poorly, depending on snowfall. Go to clinics every day you're not working and shadow classes with good teachers on your days on when you don't get assigned a lesson. Tag along as an unpaid guide aspirant on climbs you want to take people on and watch the lead guide like a hawk. Don't even think of adding to his/her work load since the primary responsibility is for the herren's life, not some supernumerary's. Do that for 8 or 10 years and you've got your foot in the door. Do it for another 8 or 10 years and you'll have a somewhat dependable income and a sustainable lifestyle.

It's Love Over Gold. I make no claim otherwise. It makes no sense. I did it for over 25 years and was doing OK, then started to wonder what I was going to do when I hit 70. I moved into I.T. and found my way back to the mountains after I'd gained skills and some experience. Now I accept 50% or less of what my skills would command in metro areas with high tech industry, but I live in Jackson Hole and ski 120 days a year.

If it's worth it to someone, it's there, but it just doesn't seem to be attractive enough to most folks these days. When I hire for my department I get 100's of resumes from people who claim they'd do anything to come work here, at least until they here what we pay and what it costs to live here. I have what I call my 'Discouranging Word' email that I send out to try to get people to understand what they're getting into if they come to work here. The HR director saw it once and said it's a miracle that anyone every takes a job with me. But really, it is love over gold.

Notice, however, that we don't go after H1-B's for I.T. workers, or any other skilled positions. We manage to hire those folks from the U.S. The instructors and guides are another issue entirely, and it hurts us not to be able to get them.

I can understand the continuous need for foreign workers for something like that and it's not like thousands of American jobs are at risk of being displaced. This is not the case for numerous more common skilled occupations like IT and engineering. The list of jobs that "there just aren't enough qualified Americans for" is ever growing, even as unemployment rises at an alarming rate.

try to get our long time instructors and guides back into the country, and we don't seem to be able to make much headway. I admit that we're just a tiny blip on the screen, but it's my blip, I live and work in it, and it bothers me.

Perhaps you should start by creating a journeyman-ship program of your own. I see no excuse for not investing in our own youth.

there are. We just don't get enough applicants who want to work in the snow at -20F and be responsible for the lives of customers who seem to exhibit a death wish when faced with hostile terrain. We try to supply them they can afford and we give them all the hours we can outside of teaching when there's no work. It's still a very hard game to be successful at, especially for kids from the U.S. In other parts of the world there are national schools that teach the basic skills, there are programs to move novice instructors from country to country while they gain experience and there are even state provided pensions for those who manage to survive to a ripe old age.

I don't claim that all efforts to bring qualified workers from overseas are of this same nature, but I do claim that there are cases in which there really aren't qualified U.S. workers, and in which there are unlikely to be any. I agree totally with the other poster who points out that this is a pretty rarefied case, but it's an example of a situation in which the H1-B's are working and are needed.

and for most things employees could be taught from within and do their own efforts as well.

The multi-lingual thing does add a very real dimension, which I had not considered.

Still, of the 12 times I've dealt with offshored support, only ONCE was there a satisfactory result. They were all multi-lingual but that didn't mean they did a good job.

Though I still have to crack a jibe and this bit is IT-related: 15~20 years, corporations wouldn't hire that person saying they're overpriced or overqualified... Especially when most companies, according to a job placement center, start to get rid of people who've been around for 5 years. (Even I take that with a grain of salt, but it doesn't sound like a complete work of fiction either.)

Oh, in seriousness I agree - the issue is a complex one; multi-faceted and not one-sided.

been on the hill for 5 years. Of course, some of the bathrooms are in pretty hard-to-find places!

On the IT side: I run IT for the resort. When I tell other folks in the field that I've been here since 1988 I get a range of unbelieving stares. Of course, it's not really the same job. When I came here there was no network between buildings and I was the IT department, all by myself, now we have technology all over the mountain, WAN connections to satellite offices, a web server in Virginia, a little bit of just about every kind of tech around and a team of 6. But still, there is at least some time each winter that I spend doing things like skiing through a clilff band to get to a lift line to climb to the top of a lift tower to clear rime off a wireless antenna in a driving blizzard. Let's see'em outsource that. :-)

Doesn't mean that if they can't do the job at 200MPH that they should be left to rot.

And, being in IT myself, I am stunned by many end users I've sat in various classes with or even train. True, it's not their field and most of them proverbially push papers for a living...

Despite my own feelings (which are admittedly quite animated at times and mostly due to irrational paranoia), I still have to stand back, take a breath, and look for other perspectives. I have appreciated your responses; and not in all cases is it due to "cost control". Many times, possibly if not probably... (nothing is ever so one-faceted, and I've got to remind myself of that often too...)

You/Your company expects to find someone with 20 years of experience, speaks several languages and only pay them 50K/year with a Bachelor of Computer Science??

We pay the best wages in the industry for experienced teachers and guides. A BSCS is not required.

My own situation is different. Yes, we pay way under scale for what I do, but that's a life style choice and I'm glad to make it. I tell people that I make less to be able to live all the time a life style that others who make a lot more get to do a couple of weeks a year. I take the other $50K a year in 'psychic benefit'. Very simple.

They work part time. Plenty of experienced instructors. The H1-Bs get the lower end job like the ski rental desk. This, like tech and just about every other job that "can't find a USA worker to fill it" is really about not paying enough IMHO.

There should be better training and retraining programs, but companies need to start paying the going wage, rather than driving it down by importing cheap labor.

What's your local hill like? Ours is 4,250 vertical feet and 5,000 skiable acres of some of the most challenging skiing in the world. Many of our clients are looking for instruction on terrain that your part timers would be challenged to ski at all, let alone teach on. At the other end, we're short on low intermediate terrain and the folks teaching new skiers here have to get them up to a skill level where they can enjoy our terrain. Again, not skills most ski teachers have. Our hill is also one of the most complex in North America. It takes a few years just to learn the hill well enough to figure out where your supervisor is telling you to go; the document of named terrain features is 45 pages long. Our H1-B's are not filling entry level jobs, they're our top paid employees.

We pay top rates for top instructors, wherever they come from; we are not depending on 'cheap labor'. If we could get all of them from the U.S. we'd certainly do it. We run clinics for all 'wanna be' instructors, once an instructor is on staff there is regular and continuing training designed to create more skilled instructors. We still can't get an adequate number of top level instructors. Most folks from the U.S. who try ski teaching view it as something to do for a few years while they're figuring out what to do with their lives; just not good enough. We keep as many U.S. instructors as we can, but other countries maintain a tradition of professional ski teaching as a long term pursuit that we just don't have here.


This is a pretty unusual set of circumstances - I'm not trying to claim that it's the same set of conditions in technology or any other area in general. What I am saying is that not all H1-B workers are stealing a job from an out of work U.S. citizen. In some cases there actually is a shortage and H1-B's are a good solution.

You have no right to labor at a price you name; the entire theory is that the market is supposed to set wages, not the employer's unilateral dictate.

They're not producing qualified, skilled workers.

So, if some of those Tech schools are publicly financed, whose fault is that? Why aren't we firing the Deans of some of these colleges?

This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

There is no lack of skilled workers.

Study: There Is No Shortage of U.S. Engineers

A new study argues that the offshoring of U.S. jobs is caused by cost savings and not a shortage of U.S. engineers or better education in China. However, the study warns that the United States is losing its global edge.


A commonly heard defense in the arguments that surround U.S. companies that offshore high-tech and engineering jobs is that the U.S. math and science education system is not producing a sufficient number of engineers to fill a corporations needs.

However, a new study from Duke University calls this argument bunk, stating that there is no shortage of engineers in the United States, and that offshoring is all about cost savings.

This report, entitled "Issues in Science and Technology" and published in the latest National Academy of Sciences magazine further explores the topic of engineering graduation rates of India, China and the United States, the subject of a 2005 Duke study.

In the report, concerns are raised that China is racing ahead of both the United States and India in its ability to perform basic research. It also asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education. Meanwhile, it considers China well-positioned for the future.

Dukes 2005 study corrected a long-heard myth about India and China graduating 12 times as many engineers as the United States, finding instead that the United States graduates a comparable number.

More: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Study-There-Is-No-Shortage-of-US-Engineers/

As for the H-1B's coming to the U.S.....

Study Says H-1Bs Aren't the Best or Brightest

One of the main arguments touted by groups interested in seeing an increase in the cap on H-1B temporary worker visas is that those who wish to work here on these visas are some of the world's best recruits, and their addition to the work force would foster U.S. innovation and global competitiveness.

Opponents to the program argue that H-1B visas do none of the above, but are instead used by large, greedy tech companies to undercut the wages of U.S. workers, effectively pushing them out of jobs. Opponents cite fines levied against system abusers as evidence.

In an article published this month by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank favoring fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted, Norman Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who has been a longtime critic of the H-1B program, took a look at the median salaries of H-1B visa workers in the U.S. and found that although these workers weren't being underpaid, the median salary for a tech worker on an H-1B is simply the prevailing wage for their job and no more.

From there, Matloff drew the conclusion that if these workers were truly the best and brightest and would be able to foster U.S. innovation, they'd be able to command salaries higher than the prevailing wage.

"Most foreign tech workers, particularly those from Asia, are in fact of only average talent. Moreover, they are hired for low-level jobs of limited responsibility, not positions that generate innovation. This is true both overall and in the key tech occupations, and most importantly, in the firms most stridently demanding that Congress admit more foreign workers," Matloff writes.

More: http://blogs.eweek.com/careers/content001/h1b_foreign_workers/study_says_h1bs_arent_the_best_or_brightest.html


The Science Education Myth

Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support

Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China.

Yet a new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, tells a different story. The report disproves many confident pronouncements about the alleged weaknesses and failures of the U.S. education system. This data will certainly be examined by both sides in the debate over highly skilled workers and immigration (BusinessWeek.com, 10/10/07). The argument by Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), and others is that there are not enough tech workers in the U.S.

The authors of the report, the Urban Institute's Hal Salzman and Georgetown University professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science, and reading test scores at the primary and secondary level have increased over the past two decades, and U.S. students are now close to the top of international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising, the report finds that our education system actually produces more science and engineering graduates than the market demands.

More: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2007/sb20071025_827398.htm

More: http://www.jobdestruction.com/shameh1b/

http://www.eng-i.com/E-Newsletters.htm

http://www.programmersguild.org/

H-1Bs And the Triumph of Buypartisanship
To really see the sheer corruption of our political process, you have to look at the lies that simply refuse to go away in the face of overwhelming facts - the myths that are utterly and completely untrue, yet which are regarded as unchallenged truth in Washington because they serve to rationalize Big Money's agenda.

Regular readers of this my writing know that two of those lies are the Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie. The first says that if only Americans obtained more skills and education, they would be able to obtain high-paying jobs. The second says that America faces a shortage of workers, which requires companies to import workers from abroad. Both of these fables have been thoroughly debunked by economic data and economic analysis from across the political spectrum.

The Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie converge in the debate over H-1B visas - the visas that the American government gives to corporations allowing them to import high-skilled workers from abroad. Lobbyists and the Members of Congress they have bought push for more H-1B visas by claiming that because Americans are not properly educated, they don't have the skills needed for high-tech jobs, and thus, there is a shortage of domestic high-tech workers to fill such jobs.

Again, this rationale has been exposed as a fraud. Duke University researchers this year definitively proved that there is, in fact, no shortage of engineers in the United States. Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira has published a study proving that the H-1B program accelerates job outsourcing. His study was verified by data showing that the companies that most use the H-1B program are those whose whole business is outsourcing. Meanwhile, top corporate lawfirms - hired by the very companies lobbying for more H-1B visas under the guise of the Great Labor Shortage Lie - have been caught on tape running seminars on how to abuse the H-1B system as a tool to lower American workers' wages, which the data again shows is exactly what the program does.

Yet, despite all of the facts and despite the 2006 election that saw Democrats promise to defend the economic interests of America's middle class, we get this story from Roll Call today:

"A key bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for enacting a short-term boost in immigration visas by the end of the year...A letter from the New Democrats signed by 16 Members to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday urged a significant boost to the numbers of visas allowed for tech workers, nurses, agricultural workers and seasonal workers to alleviate a crush of demand from employers. The technology industry in particular has been vocal about its desire to expand the H-1B visa program for highly skilled immigrants...The push to add visas for high-tech workers has support even among some House Republicans...House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) was among the 30 Republicans who signed a letter to Pelosi earlier this month calling for cutting red tape so that high-tech companies can get the workers they need. The Republican letter...said lawmakers should 'find a way to ensure that America continues to attract the best and brightest minds from around the world' and allow companies to do so 'without unnecessary delays and waiting periods.'...The New Democrats, meanwhile, have already had meetings with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) in which they've made it clear that expanding visas is a top priority."

More: http://www.credoaction.com/sirota/2007/10/h1bs_and_the_triumph_of_buypar.html

Research finds US H1B visa holders paid less

A recent report suggests that US employers are using the H-1B visa program to pay lower wages than the national average for programming jobs.

According to "The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers — F.Y. 2004," a report by Programmers Guild board member John Miano, non-U.S. citizens working in the United States on an H-1B visa are paid "significantly less than their American counterparts."

How much less? "On average, applications for H-1B workers in computer occupations were for wages $13,000 less than Americans in the same occupation and state."

Miano based his report on OES (Occupational Employment Statistics) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which estimates wages for the entire country by state and metropolitan area. The report's H-1B wage data came from the U.S. Department of Labor's H-1B disclosure Web site.

Miano, in his report, whenever possible gave the benefit of the doubt to the employer. For example, he used OES data from 2003 because this is the wage information that would have been available to the employers when filing an LCA (labor condition application).

Miano had some difficulty matching OES job codes with LCA job titles, which employers typically create. Where both the OES and the LCA listed a job as "programmer/analyst," Miano took the conservative approach of assuming that the LCA was describing a programmer, a job title that typically earns a lower wage than a systems analyst.

More: http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_10_26/us/us_h1b_visa_holders_earn_less.htm

Are tech firms faking job ads to avoid hiring U.S. workers?

Companies like Hewlett Packard, Cisco, and others are being accused of skirting federal laws to hire foreign workers while laying off American geeks. Cringely labors to uncover the truth.

TAGS: Come Hell or HP


Ask the Programmers Guild that question, and their answer would be an emphatic "yes!" The New Jersey-based organization has accused Hewlett Packard of advertising for jobs it has no intention of filling -- at least with US citizens -- on the Idaho Department of Labor Web site.

Federal regulations require U.S. corporations that wish to request a green card for a foreign worker to demonstrate that no qualified U.S. workers are available to fill the job. So, the argument goes, HP is allegedly posting fake jobs online and in newspapers to fulfill the requirements of Uncle Sam's Program Electronic Review Management process. Resumes come in, Americans get winnowed out, and the PERM job goes to Enrique or Sanjay or Vladimir.

The key bit of evidence: Job applications are directed not to HP's normal human resources department but to one of its immigration specialists.

A Hewlett Packard spokesperson responded thusly:

The programmer's guild website and press release on HP is inaccurate and misleading. The job notices that were on the Idaho state job bank last week appeared in error. We are working with the Idaho Department of Labor to assure such errors do not occur in the future. HP has no plans to substitute American workers with foreign nationals for these roles.
HP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any workers, but always seeks to hire the best and the brightest and that includes a small percentage (2-3%) of foreign nationals.


Blogger (and recently downsized HP engineer) Clayton Cramer notes that HP said those Idaho job postings were a mistake and would be taken down. Curiously, he adds, very similar ads for job at HP appeared on the site a few days later.

Programmers Guild president Kim Berry says companies prefer H-1B workers because foreign workers' options are limited: They aren't allowed to change jobs for several years, they may be forced to work overtime without pay, and they're less likely to question management decisions. "It's a form of indentured servitude," he says.

The Guild isn't the only group squawking about this. Blogger James Fulford has accused HP of laying off older Americans and then posting ads for jobs that are pretty much identical to the ones they just "eliminated." The motive: to replace older, better paid employees with younger, cheaper PERM employees.

Meanwhile, HP recently announced it's slashing 24,600 employees as a result of its merger with EDS, half of them employed in the States. According to SiliconValley.com, "HP said it plans to replace about half those jobs with new positions performing other functions."

It will be interesting to see how they define "other functions."

Of course, HP is hardly the only company suspected of doing this. Cisco has been accused of running similarly bogus ads. Last year, the Guild posted a YouTube video showing Pittsburgh law firm Cohen & Grisgsby giving a tutorial on how to skirt the legal requirements to hire H-1B workers that created a small firestorm on the Net and even woke up two members of Congress. (They resumed their nap shortly thereafter.)

Is this illegal? Technically not, says Berry. "But the companies are supposed to make a good faith effort to hire Americans. It's not good faith if they're getting resumes from highly qualified candidates and looking for reasons not to hire them."

Finally, frequent Cringe contributor J. H. shares this viral video, titled "Developers Are in Pain." It doesn't have anything to do with immigration or H-1B visas, but it's pretty damned funny -- and very true.


More: http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2008/09/are_tech_firms.html

H-1B foes try to prove student-visa extension hurts U.S. tech workers

Lawsuit against DHS hinges on convincing judge that plaintiffs have legal standing in case


September 23, 2008 (Computerworld) A federal lawsuit pitting H-1B opponents against the Bush administration is hinging on one question: Do tech workers have a right to challenge the federal government in court over its visa policies?

Critics of the H-1B program have long argued that it has created unfair competition for jobs, depressed wages, fostered discrimination and provided a lubricant for offshore outsourcing. Proving that in court is the focus of a lawsuit filed in May by the Programmers Guild, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and other groups over the Bush administration's extension of the time that foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges with science or technology degrees can work on their student visas from one year to 29 months.

The lawsuit claims that the extension will exacerbate the harm caused by the H-1B program, and that the administration exceeded its legal authority by stretching the student-visa rules. But U.S. District Judge Faith Hochberg, who is hearing the case in New Jersey, is pushing back. In August, she rejected a request for a temporary injunction against the extension, citing arguments raised by the U.S. government that question whether the plaintiffs had legal standing to file the lawsuit in the first place.

Both sides recently filed court papers on that issue, in advance of an expected ruling by Hochberg later this year. The arguments over legal standing can be boiled down to the question of whether tech workers have been injured by the Bush administration's decision to extend the length of time that foreign graduates can stay in the U.S. without obtaining work visas.

The government contended in its latest filing that the injuries cited by the plaintiffs are "speculative" in nature. But in their legal brief, the plaintiffs said that prior case law is clear in showing that "economic competition is an injury-in-fact." They added that the student-visa extension "specifically targets the fields in which plaintiffs work." As a result, they claimed, "the injury is not speculative — it is intended."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=knowledge_center&articleId=9115383&taxonomyId=1&intsrc=kc_top

NJ company fined for violating H1-B visa program

September 18, 2008
TRENTON, N.J. - An Iselin computer consulting firm has been fined more than $80,000 for allegedly violating federal immigration rules that allow companies to hire foreign workers under a special visa program.

The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered the Iselin-based Data Group Inc. to pay the money to 11 foreign-born workers after an investigation found the company violated the program.

The Immigration and Nationality Act's H-1B visa program allows companies to temporarily hire foreign-born workers with special skills when they can't locally recruit to fill a position.

Federal labor officials say the company failed to pay required wages for one year to computer experts hired under the program.

More: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--visaprogram-fines0918sep18,0,4802679.story

HP lays off 25000 and runs phony job ads

IS HEWLETT-PACKARD VIOLATING IMMIGRATION LAW?
There is reason to suspect that Hewlett-Packard may be violating the immigration laws of the United States and putting Treasure Valley breadwinners out of work at the same time.

This is particularly disturbing in light of HP?s announced intention to lay off an additional 24,600 workers, half in the U.S., over the next three years. Given the soft housing market, the effect will be brutal on local HP employees who get the ax.

A number of software engineers who had worked for HP were recently given pink slips. Astonishingly, however, HP, as of yesterday, was still advertising for software engineers to work at the Boise facility and was doing so, it turns out, through the Idaho Department of Labor. The positions, however, are not listed on HP?s internal job list.

According to one recent victim of local HP engineering layoffs, one has to log in to the Department of Labor website and actually apply for a job before he finds out that the prospective employer is Hewlett-Packard.

Applicants are instructed to send their resumes to a Petra Ramirez at petra.remirez@hp.com, who works out of HP?s Cupertino, Calif. office. (Ms. Ramirez did not respond either to the IVA?s emails or phone messages asking for clarification.)

The signature block for Ms. Ramirez ? and remember, all resumes for Boise jobs flow through her rather than through normal channels ? identifies her as ?HP Americas Immigration Consultant.?

Thus it looks suspiciously like Hewlett-Packard is laying off American engineers in order to replace them with lower-priced talent from overseas, likely intending to bring them into the U.S. on H-1B visas.

But according to an August memo from the U.S. Department of Labor, this is flatly illegal, since H-1B visas are only to be granted when qualified American citizens and legal residents can?t be found. Says the memo:

?The Department of Labor has a statutory responsibility to ensure that no foreign worker (or ?alien?) is admitted for permanent residence based upon an offer of employment absent a finding that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available for the work to be undertaken and that the admission of such worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers similarly employed. 8 U.S.C. ? 1182(a)(5)(A)(i).?

According to the United States General Accounting Office, employers making application for H-1B visas must certify that ?the employment of H-1B workers will not adversely affect the working conditions of other workers similarly employed in the area.?

HP, I?ve always said, is one of the most effective anti-poverty organizations in Idaho, since the antidote to poverty is jobs. But certainly part of making Idaho the friendliest place in the world to raise a family involves ensuring that HP honors our nation?s immigration laws and protects local jobs in the process.

Perhaps there is a simple and honest explanation for all this. If there is, HP owes it to us all to provide that explanation immediately.

More: http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/news.asp?id=895

Johnston: U.S. has outsourced its self-respect (Good Read)

In his 2001 biography of Theodore Roosevelt, "Theodore Rex," Edmund Morris wrote, "Indeed (the United States) could consume only a fraction of what it produced. The rest went overseas at a price that other exporters found hard to match. As Andrew Carnegie said, "The nation that makes the cheapest steel has the other nations at its feet." "More than half the world's cotton, corn, copper, and oil flowed from the American Cornucopia, and at least one third of all steel, iron, silver, and gold."

This was the United States in 1901. Roosevelt had just become president because of William McKinley's assassination, and he recognized that America was a country of hard workers that needed a break and a share of the wealth that they were producing. Morris goes on to write, "Even if the United States was not blessed with raw materials, the excellence of her manufactured products guaranteed her dominance of world markets.

Advertisements in British magazines gave the impression that the typical Englishman woke to the ring of an Ingersoll alarm (clock), shaved with a Gillette razor, combed his hair with Vaseline tonic, buttoned his Arrow shirt, hurried downstairs for Quaker Oats, California Figs, and Maxwell House Coffee, commuted in a Westinghouse tram (body by Fisher), rose to his office in an Otis elevator, and worked all day with his Waterman pen under the efficient glare of Edison light bulbs.

"It only remains," One Fleet Street wag (in Standard American English, that's a reporter folks) suggested, "for us to take American coal to Newcastle."

Morris then goes on to write, "Behind the joke lay a real concern: The United States was already supplying beer to Germany, pottery to Bohemia, and oranges to Valencia."

Morris then proceeds to tell the reader that the United States was the richest nation on earth with an economy that was growing by leaps and bounds, and that London was about to be replaced as the financial capital of the world. It was a very rosy outlook for what would be called "The American Century." That was in 1901. In 2008, after the eight year reign of George Bush, things don't look as well for us as they did in 1901 or 2001 either. Just why is that?

Just ask anyone who has been on the point of termination in their job and asked to stay on for a few weeks to train their replacement in India what they think about the outsourcing of jobs. The man whose job was outsourced to India's sister was visiting me and telling me about his thoughts on the subject. They were a bit more colorful than I can relate here.

Don't think for a moment that a college degree or two will save you from having your job outsourced. It won't. These outsourcing horror stories are really close to home. Many people have been educated for what were supposed to be safe jobs, and would be yet, if the greedy corporations were not outsourcing their jobs or stealing their pension funds just to squeeze out a few more dollars of profit.

There should be huge fines, taxes, and other fiscal punishments imposed on companies who outsource Americans' jobs to other countries. Such fines should also be imposed on business and factories relocated to other countries. Each year we make less and less in terms of manufactured goods and lose hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of jobs that pay a living wage.

Last week I was making the argument at the home of a friend that Americans are too willing to buy cheaper foreign goods or cannot find American-made goods in the market. Just to really make the point, I took my friend and his bride on a tour of their home. Their bureau drawers revealed clothes made all over the Asian continent, South America, and Mexico (which is part of North America).

Their toaster, microwave, telephone, radios and other appliances were made in China. Their shoes were made in India, and much of the food in their kitchen came from foreign nations. One of their cars was made in Japan and the other was made in Germany. OK, I confess that I drive a BMW, but my van is a Ford which was not made in Mexico, and it's also older than half the people who live in the country.

So what does this state of affairs portend for the nation?

Morris wrote in his book about the year 1901, "As a result of this billowing surge in productivity, Wall Street was awash in foreign capital. Carnegie calculated that America could afford to buy the entire United Kingdom (That's England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) and settle Britain's national debt in the bargain.

"For the first time in history, translantic money currents were thrusting more powerfully westward than east (toward Europe). Even the Bank of England has begun to borrow money on Wall Street. New York City seemed destined to replace London as the world's financial center."

Today we are up to our eyebrows in debt to China. Thank you so much George Bush and your Republican Party too. Do you remember the nice big Clinton cash surplus we had seven and a half years ago?

So that is this week's look at then and now. It's not too pretty, is it? With this election year, I say it's time to give the other team a try. Never in our history have working people been so looked down on and shown less respect. Never has the working citizen been so stripped of a way to make a decent living. Never have workers had so many jobs taken away from them and sent to distant parts of the planet. Never in our history of the last 70 years have unions had such a low membership. Never before have working class Americans been so brutally treated in every area.

Too many people are forced by circumstances to become service workers and wage slaves. As Labor Day draws near, reflect on these things as we outsource our self respect along with the jobs of American laborers that we have betrayed as a nation. And it's really too bad that we don't make anything anymore to sell at home or abroad.

More: http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion_columnists/x594222851/Johnston-U-S-has-outsourced-its-self-respect

Government Study Finds 21% Of H-1B Applications Violate Rules

The government estimates that fraud, including below-market wages and filings by fake businesses, is present in 13,000 of the yearly H-1B petitions filed.


October 20, 2008 04:40 PM


The United States government estimates that 21% of H-1B visa petitions are in violation of H-1B program rules -- ranging from technical violations to fraud -- based on the investigation of a representative sample.

A newly available report on the study, drafted by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security, cites one of the most common violations as businesses that did not pay a "prevailing wage" to the H-1B beneficiary, meaning the going salary rate for a job in a specific market.

The report's estimates are based on a sample study of 246 cases, out of a total of 95,827 H-1B petitions, filed between October 2005 and March 2006. The sample cases included only those in which a business was looking to extend an existing H-1B visa for someone already in the United States, or hire someone under the H-1B program who came to the United States on a different visa. (The study excluded situations in which the visa beneficiary was still living abroad due to the complication of interviewing that person.)

Out of the 246 cases investigated, the government office determined that 51 cases, or 21%, were in violation of H-1B program rules. "When applying the overall violation rate of <21%> to the overall H-1B population, a total of approximately 20,000 petitions may have some type of fraud or technical violation," according to the report. Further extrapolation finds that 13,000 of those cases would represent acts of fraud, with the remaining 7,000 being less-severe technical violations, says the report.

More: http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/h1b/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211201998

Immigration racket run by Indian busted in US

Washington, June 16: With the arrest of seven Indians, US authorities have claimed to have busted an immigration racket run by an IT company owner who charged tens of thousands of dollars from expatriates by fraudulently sponsoring their H-1B work visas.

The alleged kingpin, Nilesh Dasondi, 41, was arrested last week on multiple counts of visa fraud involving his company Cygate Software and Consulting Inc. that runs offices in India and Canada.

A naturalised US citizen, Dasondi, who is also member of the Edison township board in New Jersey, was released after posting a USD800,000 bail but must remain under home confinement with electronic monitoring.

According to court papers cited in Newsday daily, Dasondi is accused of filing federal work visa and immigration documents for six people who did not work for his company between 2003 and 2007, authorities said. All the six have been arrested.

More: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Immigration-racket-run-by-Indian-busted-in-US/323459

AFL-CIO says student visa extension hurts tech wages

June 13, 2008 (Computerworld) WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's decision to allow foreign students to work in the U.S. for up to 29 months before getting an H-1B visa faces opposition from the AFL-CIO. The largest labor organization in the U.S. labeled the move a backdoor H-1B cap increase that could lower wages for U.S. tech workers, according to comments about the rule change made available this week by the government.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made the "emergency" rule change earlier this year to deal with the limits imposed by the 85,000 slot H-1B cap. The government received 163,000 applications this year for those visas. What the DHS did was extend the Optional Practical Training (OPT) provision that previously allowed students to work after graduation for one year on their student visa. Although the change is a done deal under the agency's "emergency" rule-making provisions, the federal government still had to seek comments.

Ana Avendano, director of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker program, wrote, in comments posted Thursday on Regulations.gov, that "by extending the OPT period and work authorization period, the interim final rule turns a student visa program into a labor market program, and essentially lifts the cap that Congress has placed on the H-1B program."

Moreover, Avendano said the rule change "allows employers to completely bypass" any of the protections in the H-1B program that prevent employers, for instance, from using foreign workers to break a strike. Moreover, students working on OPT won't have to be paid the prevailing wage as required under the H-1B program. An OPT employee could, theoretically, work for minimum wage, she wrote.

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9098018&intsrc=hm_list

DOJ settles H-1B job ad case for $45,000

Complaint filed by Programmers Guild over H-1B-only job ad

May 2, 2008 (Computerworld) A Pittsburgh-based computer consulting company that advertised for H-1B visa holders only is paying $45,000 in civil penalties to settle allegations that it discriminated against U.S. citizens, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Thursday.

The company, iGate Mastech Inc., placed 30 job announcements between May and June of 2006 "for computer programmers that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and other legal U.S. workers," the DOJ said in a statement.

A complaint against iGate Mastech was filed by the Programmers Guild in 2006. It was one of dozens of complaints lodged by the Summit, N.J.-based organization against various companies.

John Miano, who founded the guild, said in a statement that the DOJ's announcement was "is probably the most visible result" of the guild's campaign against companies that discriminate against U.S. workers "in favor of cheap H-1B workers."

One job advertisement by iGate Mastech for a Java developer on Dice Holdings Inc.'s job board said "Only H-1s apply, and should be willing to transfer H-1B."

"The problem of companies only looking for H-1B workers is a serious one," said Miano. "We are only scratching the surface right now with the companies that are brazen enough to put out ads like these."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9081898&intsrc=hm_list

US senators question 9 IT firms over H1-B visas

Despite an over 50 per cent drop in the number of H1-B visas issued to some Indian IT firms in 2007 against 2006, US Democrat senators Richard J Durbin and Charles E Grassley have written to nine Indian companies that figure among the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007 seeking detailed information on how they use the visa programme.

The letters, which come ahead of the US elections in November, are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B programme is being used for its intended purpose to fill a temporary worker shortage.

The senators had written a letter on similar lines last May too.

The Indian IT firms are Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Satyam Computer Services, Cognizant Tech Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Patni Computer Systems, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, i-Flex Solutions and Mphasis.

More: http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=319507

Tech companies get creative to hire foreign workers in the U.S.

On Tuesday, the federal government begins accepting visa applications for 65,000 skilled foreign workers. But much as it could use some extra help, Progress Software Corp. won't be applying for any of these coveted H-1B visas.

Instead, the Massachusetts company is embracing a different visa program, called L-1, that lets businesses import workers who've already been hired at their overseas offices.

...

Despite the slowing economy, companies say it's hard to find enough highly skilled workers. The H-1B program was designed to help businesses hire capable foreign workers, but demand for the 65,000 visas far exceeded supply in 2007, and the same is expected this year.

...

But critics of U.S. immigration policy say some companies are misusing the L-1 program. "We have found and heard lots of stories recently of companies that are really kind of abusing it," said Bob Meltzer, chief executive of Visanow.com, a Chicago company that processes visa applications online.

More: http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/03/31/0331visas.html

U.S. Sen. Grassley: Questions immigration agency about fraud

U.S. Sen. Grassley: Questions immigration agency about fraud
10/9/2008

Grassley Questions Immigration Agency About Fraud in H-1B Program

fraud takes opportunities away from American workers and law-abiding employers

WASHINGTON – Following release of an internal report by Citizenship and Immigration Services that outlines serious fraud in the H-1B visa program, Senator Chuck Grassley today sent a letter to the agency asking for additional details about how the government is enforcing the H-1B visa laws.

“The results of this report validate exactly what I’ve been fearful of-some employers are bringing H-1B visa holders into our country with complete disregard for the law. More needs to be done to ensure the American worker is our first priority,” Grassley said. “The system is obviously broken when an H-1B visa holder is working at a laundromat rather than in high-skilled industries. The fraud and abuse outlined in this report shows that it’s time to put some needed reform in place.”

Grassley has led the effort to reform the H-1B visa program. He introduced a comprehensive H-1B and L visa reform bill last year with Senator Dick Durbin that would give priority to American workers and crack down on unscrupulous employers who deprive qualified Americans of high-skill jobs. He has also asked questions of both American and foreign based companies about their use of the H-1B visa program.

Grassley said the report should serve as a wake-up call to the agency. He urged them to better detect serious violations by employers who abuse the system.

Here is a copy of the letter Grassley sent to Jonathan Scharfen, the Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A copy of the report can be found on Grassley’s website, http://grassley.senate.gov .

October 9, 2008

The Honorable Jonathan Scharfen
Acting Director
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Department of Homeland Security
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D. C. 20529

Dear Director Scharfen:

As a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees, I have taken a keen interest in the H-1B visa program over the years and how it benefits the United States. However, I have found serious problems with this program, including loopholes that are disadvantageous to American workers and U.S. businesses. My concerns are further intensified after reading your agency’s Benefit Fraud and Compliance Assessment that points to direct fraud and abuse by a number of employers and petitioners.

Before I begin to discuss the report, I want to express my immense frustration about the length of time it took for USCIS to provide the results to Congress. I first inquired about FDNS doing a benefit fraud assessment just after it finished the religious worker report in August 2005. Since then, I have asked for briefings and updates, only to be put off and told to wait. In response, I asked the appropriations committee to include language in the FY2008 Homeland Security spending bill to provide funding and require the agency to finish the assessment. In April 2008, you responded to me in writing by stating, “I anticipate that I will be able to share the report with you within the next few weeks.” The H-1B benefit fraud assessment was completed several months ago, yet the results were apparently hidden from Congress at a time when legislation could have been enacted. The constant delay has been unacceptable, and likely problematic for USCIS adjudicators who may have continued to rubber stamp fraudulent applications for H-1B visas.

The H-1B benefit fraud and compliance assessment highlights the rampant fraud and abuse that is taking place in the program. Experts have acknowledged that many employers disregard the spirit of the law, and find ways to circumvent worker protections to hire cheaper foreign labor. With a violation rate of more than 20%, this assessment should serve as a wake-up call to your agency that the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended.

It alarms me that USCIS had already approved 217 of the 246 cases in the sample. This means that 19% of the approved cases were associated with fraud or involved employers who broke the law. Only 2% of the sampled cases were denied, which suggest that not enough fraud prevention and detection efforts were incorporated in the adjudication process.

I also find it concerning that FDNS uses the phrase “technical violation” when it relates to employers or alien beneficiaries who failed to comply with the law. When an employer requires its workers to pay for the visa and application fees, or does not pay them the required prevailing wage, it is against the law. This blatant disregard for the law is not a “technical” violation.

While the H-1B benefit fraud and compliance assessment proves that wrongdoing truly does exist, it also brings up many unanswered questions that USCIS must address. Therefore, I would appreciate a response to the following questions:

1. What actions, if any, has USCIS taken since the assessment was completed earlier this Spring?

2. Since the assessment was finalized, has USCIS taken steps to review, evaluate and/or revoke petitions or applications approved, denied, or pending after March 31, 2006 (the date of the sample)?

3. More than 80% of the violations were detected because of site visits. It’s evident that false job locations, shell business scams and inconsistent job duties could easily be prevented if more site visits were conducted by USCIS. What efforts will your agency take to increase the number of site visits to increase fraud detection in the program?

4. Given that Congress allows USCIS to collect a $500 fraud prevention and detection fee, please describe how you will use these funds to more effectively root out fraud and abuse in the H-1B visa program.

5. The assessment states that FDNS refers cases of fraud to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for consideration of formal criminal investigation and prosecution. “ICE then has 60 days to accept the case for investigation or decline it and return it to FDNS. If ICE declines to open a criminal investigation, FDNS forwards the case with its administrative findings to a USCIS adjudications component for denial or revocation of the petition or application, as appropriate.”

* How many times has FDNS referred a case to ICE for investigation? * Of those cases referred to ICE, how many, to your agency’s knowledge, were investigated? How many were declined by ICE and returned to FDNS? * Of those cases referred and then investigated by ICE, how many petitions or applications were denied or revoked? How many cases were approved, despite FDNS’ findings that fraud was committed or a violation of law occurred?

6. Given that the assessment examined all levels of fraud, including the filing of the labor certification with the Department of Labor, did USCIS inform the Department of Labor as it worked to complete the assessment? What recommendations, if any, has USCIS relayed to the Department of Labor to improve the labor certification process? What response, as far as you know, did the Department of Labor have to the assessment and to your recommendations?

7. What steps does USCIS plan to take to improve communication and coordination with the Department of Labor with regard to the H-1B visa program?

8. Please describe in more detail the abuse by employers to put a beneficiary in a non-productive status (or “on the bench”). What steps has USCIS taken to ensure that visa holders are not imported only to be benched, unpaid, or inactive?

9. The assessment points out which occupational categories are more susceptible to fraud and abuse. Does USCIS plan to train adjudicators and institute detection strategies to more effectively determine when an employer misrepresents, underpays, or forges documents in order to obtain an H-1B visa holder in these (and all) categories?

10. What actions did USCIS take against companies that were found to violate the program? Will the employers (and their employees) be held accountable or referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution? Will the guilty employers be considered for debarment or suspension from being eligible for federal contracts, and will these employers be referred to the General Services Administration so that other agencies can be made aware of their misconduct? Will USCIS deny these employers further participation in the H-1B visa program?

I hope you share my frustration with the results of this benefit fraud and compliance assessment. I strongly urge you to do everything within your authority to make sure that the program is used as Congress intended, and that employers are held accountable for any wrongdoing. Fraud and abuse cannot be tolerated, especially as many legitimate businesses in the United States are willing to play by the rules to bring in needed temporary workers in high-skilled industries.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible so that we can move forward and enact legislation that will reform the H-1B visa program. Changes must be made to put integrity back into our visa programs, and your input will help us tackle that endeavor.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

United States Senator
(Dick Durbin is working on this with Charles Grassley)

http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=138527

Durbin and Grassley Zero in on H-1B Visa Data


Tuesday, April 1, 2008


– United States Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter today to the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B visa petitions in 2007, seeking detailed information on how each firm uses the visa program. These firms were responsible for nearly 20,000 of the available H-1B visas last year.

“By the end of the day today, all of the H-1B visas for the year will likely be spoken for,” Durbin said. “The H-1B program can’t be allowed to become a job-killer in America. We need to ensure that firms are not misusing these visas, causing American workers to be unfairly deprived of good high-skill jobs here at home.”

Durbin and Grassley have repeatedly raised concerns that the loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 visa programs are allowing for the outsourcing of American jobs. Last year, they introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which would require H-1B applicants to make a good faith effort to hire American workers first and would give the Department of Labor greater oversight authority in investigating possible fraud and abuse.

"I have no doubt that we'll hear arguments all day as to why the cap on H-1B visas should be raised, but nobody should be fooled. The bottom line is that there are highly skilled American workers being left behind, searching for jobs that are being filled by H-1B visa holders," Grassley said. "It's time to close the loopholes that have allowed this to happen and enact real reform."

The letters are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B program is being used for its intended purpose - to fill a worker shortage for a temporary time period. Durbin and Grassley said they expect the companies to cooperate and answer their questions to ensure that accurate information is being used to address future reforms of the program.

The H-1B visa program allows American companies to employ temporary foreign workers in “specialty occupations,” often in the high tech industry, while the L visa program is for intracompany transfers of managers, executives and specialists.

The letter was sent to the following companies: Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Limited, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Cognizant Tech Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems Inc., US Technology Resources LLC, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Intel Corporation, Accenture LLP, Cisco Systems Inc., Ernst & Young LLP, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Deloitte & Touche LLP, Google Inc., Mphasis Corporation, University of Illinois at Chicago, American Unit Inc., Jsmn International Inc., Objectwin Technology Inc., Deloitte Consulting, Prince Georges County Public Schools, JPMorgan Chase and Co., and Motorola Inc.

A copy of the letter appears below:


April 1, 2008

Dear Sir/Madam:

We write to inquire about your company’s use of H-1B and L-1 visas. Congress intended these visa programs to benefit the American economy by allowing U.S. employers to import high-skilled or highly-specialized workers when needed to complement the domestic workforce. However, we are concerned that these programs, as currently structured, are facilitating the outsourcing of American jobs.

As you know, today is the deadline for filing H-1B visa petitions. If past years are any guide, enough applications will be filed today to exhaust the annual allotment of H-1B visas. We understand that many employers would like Congress to make more H-1B visas available. However, we must be mindful of the impact importing more foreign workers will have on American workers, especially in light of the recent economic downturn.

We believe that before increasing the H-1B cap, Congress must close loopholes in the H-1B and L-1 programs that harm American workers. For example, under current law only employers that employ H-1B visa holders as a large percentage of their U.S. workforce are required to attempt to recruit American workers before hiring a H-1B visa holder. Most companies can explicitly discriminate against American workers by recruiting and hiring only H-1B visa holders. As the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has said: “H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of a foreign worker.”

Additionally, we are concerned that some companies may be circumventing the requirements of the H-1B visa program by using other visa programs, such as the L-1, to bring in cheaper foreign labor. While the L-1 visa program allows intercompany transfers to enter the United States, experts have concluded that some companies use the L-1 visa to bypass even the minimal protections for American workers that are in the H-1B program.

We have introduced S.1035, the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007. This bipartisan legislation would reform the H-1B and L-1 visa programs to prevent abuses and protect American companies and workers. For example, S.1035 would require all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder to first make a good-faith effort to hire an American worker.

According to statistics recently released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, your company was one of the top 25 recipients of approved H-1B petitions in 2007. Understanding your company’s use of high-skilled visas would help to inform further our views of the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. Accordingly, we would appreciate your responses to the following questions:

1.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years and fiscal year 2009, how many H-1B visa petitions have you submitted to USCIS and how many of these petitions have been approved?
b. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many people have you employed in the U.S. and outside the U.S.?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many U.S. citizens, H-1B visa holders, L-1A, and L-1B visa holders, and other foreign nationals have you employed in the U.S. and outside the U.S.? If you have employed other foreign nationals in the U.S., please specify the type of visas held by such nationals.

2.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, have you been a H-1B dependent employer?
b. Would you support legislation prohibiting a company from hiring additional H-1B visa holders if the company employs more than 50 people and more than 50% of the company’s employees are H-1B and L-1 visa holders? Please explain.

3.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many Labor Condition Applications (LCA) have you submitted to DOL and how many of these LCAs have been approved? How many H-1B visa holders were covered by these LCAs?
b. If DOL denied any LCAs you submitted, what reasons did DOL give for the denial?
c. If you are a H-1B dependent employer, for how many LCAs have you claimed an exemption from the requirements to make a good-faith effort to recruit American workers and not to displace American workers (i.e. Alternative C in section F-1 of the LCA)? How many H-1B visa holders were covered by these exempt LCAs?

4.
a. Please provide a detailed description of your recruitment process for open positions, including any relevant company policies and where you advertise.
b. Do you give priority to U.S. citizens when filling open positions? Do you make a good-faith effort to recruit U.S. citizens for open positions before recruiting foreign nationals? If yes, please provide a detailed description of these efforts.
c. Would you support legislation requiring all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder first to make a good-faith effort to hire an American worker? Please explain.
d. Would you support legislation requiring all employers seeking to hire an H-1B visa holder first to advertise the job opening for a reasonable period of time on a website operated by DOL? Please explain.

5.
a. Are there any positions for which you only recruit or give priority to foreign nationals?
b. Are there any positions for which you advertise that you will only hire foreign nationals and/or H-1B visa holders?
c. Would you support legislation requiring that employers may not advertise a job as available only for H-1B visa holders or recruit only H-1B visa holders for a job? Please explain.

6.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many foreign workers, H-1B visa holders, L-1A, and L-1B visa holders have you sponsored for employment-based legal permanent residency?
b. How many such applications are pending?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many of your H-1B, L-1A, and L-1B employees have received employment-based green cards?

7.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated outside the U.S.?
b. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated in the U.S.?
c. How many of these employees were U.S. citizens?
d. Did H-1B visa holders replace or take over the job responsibilities of any of these terminated employees?
e. Would you support legislation prohibiting all employers from displacing an American worker with a H-1B visa holder? Please explain.

8.
a. For each of the last five fiscal years, how many of your H-1B and L-1 employees have you contracted to other companies?
b. How many such employees have you contracted on a full-time basis?
c. For each of the last five fiscal years, please provide a list of the companies to whom you have contracted your H-1B or L-1 employees and how many H-1B and L-1 employees you have contracted to each of these companies.
d. Have any employees of companies to whom you have contracted your H-1B or L-1 employees been displaced by these employees?
e. How do you determine whether you are involved in secondary displacement, i.e. your H-1B or L-1 employees are displacing employees of a contractor company?
f. Would you support legislation prohibiting all employers from engaging in secondary displacement?

9.
a. What positions do your current H-1B employees fill?
b. How many of your current H-1B employees received higher education degrees in the U.S.?
c. How many of your current H-1B employees entered the U.S. for the purpose of working for your company?
d. What is the average age of your current H-1B employees?
e. What is the average level of experience of your current H-1B employees?
f. What is the average length of stay in the U.S. of your current H-1B employees?
g. How many of your current H-1B employees are skill level one, two, three, and four?
h. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your current H-1B employees?
i. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your company’s U.S. citizen employees who are situated similarly to your H-1B employees?

10.
a. What positions do your current L-1A and L-1B employees fill?
b. What is the average age of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
c. What is the average level of experience of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
d. What is the average length of stay in the U.S. of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
e. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your current L-1A and L-1B employees?
f. What are the mean, median, highest, and lowest salaries of your company’s U.S. citizen employees who are situated similarly to your L-1A and L-1B employees?

11.
a. Have you received any complaints from your H-1B and/or L-1 employees about unfair hiring practices, wages, or work conditions? If so, please provide details.
b. Have you received any complaints from your American employees about your company’s use of the H-1B or L-1 visa programs? If so, please provide details.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
U.S. Senator

Charles E. Grassley
U.S. Senator

More: http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=295338

Look Into Their Eyes
By: Fast Company
These people lost high-tech jobs to low-wage countries. Try telling them that offshoring is a good thing in the long run.

Kyle Bonds
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

Bonds, 44, was a contractor at IBM when he heard rumors of work moving abroad. Figuring his job could be next, he took a lower-paying but more secure post elsewhere.

"If I had stayed, you would be talking to a truck driver with a waitress wife."

Myra Bronstein
Mercer Island, Washington

Bronstein, a software engineer, says she had to train her offshore replacements herself or risk losing her severance package and unemployment eligibility.

"My industry just crashed and burned. I think it's shortsighted to try and get another job in this field."

Charles Buhrmann
Greenville, Texas

Before his position went to Canada, Buhrmann was a contractor for an insurance company's policy management system. Now he designs Web sites part-time for $8.50 an hour.

"If they're going to offer a job overseas for half the pay, why not offer it to the person here?"

Melissa Charters
Los Angeles, California

Charters had 15 years of experience in IT when her job as a system security administrator was outsourced, then offshored to India. She's becoming a home-economics teacher.

"How can our country's information stay secure when it's all being done over there?"

Lidia Estes
Bedford, Texas

Estes, 55, learned her job managing programmers with Computer Horizons was going to be offshored in late 2002. Now, the woman who has worked in IT since she was 19 sells Mary Kay Cosmetics.

"I don't know what to do. This has been my whole life."

Linda Evans
Matthews, North Carolina

In 2002, Evans's programmer husband was laid off and forced to train his Indian replacements. A new employer threatened to fire him after he was interviewed by a local paper.

"We never feel safe. When he gets called in for review, he thinks, 'This is it--it's all over today.' "

James Fusco
East Brunswick, New Jersey

Since IBM sent his work to Canada, Fusco has a new job as a systems analyst--at less pay. He has joined a lawsuit seeking retraining for software workers.

"The most important thing I've lost is an intangible. It's the loss of a secure feeling, because I really lost a career."

Michael Gist
Fort Worth, Texas

For Gist, 41, a software engineer who was replaced by a temporary worker who later went back to India, losing his job meant more than losing income. Although he now runs a home-furnishings store, he's lost his passion.

"I just love writing code. I'm a computer geek inside and out."

Corey Goode
Dallas, Texas

Goode, 34, had a contract job with Microsoft to support its call centers. It included secretly setting up user accounts for workers in Bangalore who'd replace domestic employees. Just before his first child was born, he says his own job moved to India.

"Globalization is here to stay, but we need to ease the growing pains."

Read over the pages and pages of people who have lost their jobs.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/81/offshore_profiles.html

if he were to read only a few of the articles, I'm sure his views on the issue would be more informed.

nice work!

Maybe I will. :)

That should be a topic in and of itself!

:blush: I put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money into my career.

Here's an eye-opener for you.

Nielsen layoffs, tax breaks anger Oldsmar officials (TATA)

Published Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:39 PM

OLDSMAR — City Council members expressed outrage Tuesday over the Nielsen Co.'s plans to eliminate 110 positions at their Oldsmar operation after accepting government money to create jobs.

"To think they have the gall to take taxpayers' money and then lay people off!" said council member Suzanne Vale. "I am so upset."

"It's just incomprehensible to me," agreed council member Janice Miller.

They were responding to news that Nielsen is outsourcing work to India-based Tata Consultancy Services after receiving at least $3.1-million in state and local subsidies mainly to create jobs in Oldsmar.

Tata, one of the world's largest providers of consulting and outsourcing services, has brought in its own workers from India.

And Nielsen, formerly known as Nielsen Media Research, says they have plans to restructure further.

The topic was raised by City Council members at the end of their regular Tuesday meeting.

Some members urged their colleagues to stay calm. Mayor Jim Ronecker reminded the council that outsourcing is a national trend.

"We can't tell them how to run their business," he said.

"No, but we can call a thief a thief when they take the taxpayers' money," said council member Greg Rublee.

More: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article458509.ece

President-Elect Obama. Thanks for sharing them.

Just a few I had lying around. :)

I likely will.

It's too good to not get a view from folks who gave up on the "most popular DU Forums i.e. GD/GDP and "The Lounge."

Serious folks read the "LBN and Editorials" Forums because they don't have time to deal with the nonsense and stuff on the "most popular."

I've bookmarked the many links and read some of them. It will take awhile to absorb it all and you deserve credit for all the WORK you put into your post.

Thank YOU! :yourock:

I read the article, and while the US may have comparable graduation rates for engineering, it wasn't (to me anyway) clear that it's specifically related to "US citizen" graduation rates. More than a decade ago, when I was in college, almost half of my graduating class for Computer Science (of about 50) were not US citizens. When they graduated, they eventually lost their student visa and had to apply for H1B's if they wanted to work in this country. At the time, and I'm not sure if it's still true, many American students were not going into these programs.

graduate counts for just about any college at the following link....

http://www.topuniversities.com/gradschool/schools/

I was looking for that. :thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

Where have you been? I haven't seen you around in ages. Hope all is well. :hi:

Been searching...

All is well; certainly getting better.

:hi:

:)

Good info!

I've seen many of yours...

:hide:

:)

especially for our "free marketeers".
:kick: & R

Just a very few tidbits I have......seriously, just the tip of the iceberg.

:hi:

the idea of organizing in our afternoon bull sessions, I and the idea were always dismissed. I'm sure you've had the same experience.

Now, 10 years later, almost everyone I know from then has had to move into some other business. IT companies are afraid of experience, preferring tool monkeys that just do as they're told with no understanding of what is being done. Sure the code is unmanageably bloated and inefficient, but hey, it's really cheap!

But you'll still keep buying your foreign junk instead of trying to buy American. You'll all be satisfied working at Burger King and never learning a trade or knowing what it is like to craft an item others will appreciate.


http://www.unionlabel.org/

Pfizer Accused of Using U.S. Workers to Train Foreign Replacements

Pfizer's outsourcing contract with Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services means job losses for IT workers in Connecticut. Many U.S.-based contractors are complaining that they are being asked to train H-1B workers who will soon replace them.

Pfizer is taking flak for what detractors charge is a plan to use U.S. workers to train the foreign contractors that will replace them during a years-long outsourcing project.

Contractors in the company's Groton and New London, Conn., R&D facilities—many of whom are either former full-time staffers or replaced Connecticut-based staff—are complaining that foreign workers on H-1B visas are coming in to be trained on the company's systems, according to local newspaper The Day.

Those temporary workers are scheduled to return to India, where they will run the same systems as part of an outsourcing deal Pfizer signed in 2005 with Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services.

The complaints about IT contractors are part of a larger swell of discontent focused on Procedure 117, a policy Pfizer instituted in January that requires the closure of even long-term contractor arrangements as those terms expire. It also institutes conditions—and some say harsh ones—on which contractors in IT and other specialties may or may not be able to continue to work with Pfizer.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, who represent the region, sent a letter to Pfizer asking the company to reconsider laying off U.S.-based workers in Connecticut.

The situation, as reported by The Day, is unpleasant for U.S.-based IT workers, but not terribly unusual for companies shifting IT operations overseas during major outsourcing deals.

Calls to Pfizer requesting confirmation or comment were not returned. In a public statement the company said it was continuing to evolve IT operations "to meet global business challenges and look for efficiencies to help better manage operations, which include the use of contract workers on an as-needed basis."

Pfizer circulated an internal memo in 2005 saying it would try to cut $4 billion from its annual operating costs by 2008, largely by moving IT and other operations from the United States and Europe to countries with lower costs of living.

The memo, entitled "Evaluating Options: Moving IT Services to Low-Cost Locations," outlined a plan to shift much of the company's IT operations to Indian IT services firms Infosys and Satyam.

It's not illegal for companies to bring in H-1B workers for training, even if they're there to learn how to replace U.S. workers, according to Ron Hira, assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of "Outsourcing America."

"It's not surprising to have a company bring in H-1B or L-1 visas to transition that work to companies like Infosys and Satya, which are classified as H-1B-dependent because more than 15 percent of their work forces here are on visas," Hira said. "Still, you shouldn't have to dig your own grave by bringing in someone on an H-1B and training them to do your job."

Pfizer has between 800 and 1,000 contractors working in Groton and New London on any given day, alongside about 4,500 full-time workers, according to The Day.

The IT outsourcing contract is only one part of Pfizer's overall outsourcing and reorganization plan, which includes offshoring much of its manufacturing and raw-material production and acquisition. Pfizer cut more than 11,000 jobs in 2007 and closed a number of factories in an attempt to save $2 billion in operating costs, according to Bloomberg News.

Much of the reconsolidation was sparked by the approaching end of the patent and exclusive-manufacturing rights to anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor and negative publicity about the effects of its anti-smoking drug Chantix. The two are among the company's most profitable products.

Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, announced in October that its third-quarter net income had risen to $2.28 billion compared with $761 million in 2007, when it took a $2.8 billion charge for the failed development of an inhalant version of insulin. The company said cost-cutting played a major role in improving its net income during the quarter.


http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Pfizer-Accused-of-Using-US-Workers-to-Train-Foreign-Replacements/

I used to work with the Instrument and power supply division in NJ. The firm I worked for did design work. They announced they were going to shift production to Taiwan, so they brought in all of the Taiwanese workers in to be trained by the engineers on the products before they were let go. Of course, HP (under Carly the C....... Farina) didn't tell them until after the training was done and they laid everyone off and closed the facility.

One reason I will NEVER buy their products.

The link to the Duke Study was interesting, because all we hear from media is that American Workers just aren't up to having the skills of those from India and elsewhere. The list of companies Durbin and Grassley sent letters to was an eyeopener. We have some of those companies here in my area of NC and it's been amazing the last five years to see how many Indians/Pakistani's and othes from Slavic countries are here that weren't before. It's not like NC has a lack of excellent universities that have trained folks from other countries, but there has been such an influx it would be hard to assume they are all just "grad students" when they have jobs and own or rent houses in large numbers. And, I'm not saying we shouldn't allow immigrants in if we have a demand that outpaces those with the technical skills needed for specific jobs...but that to have such a huge influx within five years seemed to show something was going on that hadn't been going on before. We have had a large IBM facility for decades here..but the workers were American all those decades and now they are not. Also the the large well-known financial service and banking companies seem have hired many HB-1's that are in accounting rather than I.T which takes away the demand for Colleges and State Governments to target these fields in the local colleges and universities, if they can get hires from other countries. If we can bring in people from other countries cheaply why would we invest in training our own, is the worry.

H-1B Visa Reform Takes Shape to Address Fraud, Procedural Nightmares

2008-11-07

H-1B Visa Reform Takes Shape to Address Fraud, Procedural Nightmares
( Page 1 of 2 )

In the wake of a report claiming up to 20 percent of H-1B applicants may be fraudulent, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services will look more closely at H-1B visa applications.

The agency responsible for granting H-1B visa applications plans to tighten up its procedures for vetting and approving the applications in the wake of a report indicating as many as 20 percent of the applications may be fraudulent or technically flawed.

The U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is responsible for approving and administering H-1B applications, will increase the level of detail in which H-1B visa applications are examined and do what it can to eliminate the types of problems identified in the report, according to department spokesman Bill Wright.

The report is an audit of 246 applications that found 13 percent of the applicants used forged documentation, false businesses or addresses, false job offers, or misrepresented their immigration status. Another 7 percent had technical violations such as requiring the applicant to pay the application fee or list a salary substantively above what the applicant would actually be paid.

The report, H-1B Benefit Fraud & Compliance Assessment (PDF), was done at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime critic of U.S. immigration policy in general and the H-1B program in particular.

Neither Grassley nor other representatives involved in H-1B legislation responded to calls, but the staff of Lamar Smith, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, called the frequency of the fake degrees, fake businesses and forged documents "troubling."

"We cannot allow individuals to abuse H-1B visas in order to enter the country fraudulently and take jobs from American workers. The Administration must do more to protect the American worker and restore integrity to the H-1B visa program," the statement continued.

More: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/H1B-Visa-Reform-Takes-Shape-to-Address-Fraud-Procedural-Nightmares/

Or does he actually believe in cheap labor for tech companies and fuck the American engineers who suffer? :mad:

we have a lot of capable tech workers who lost their jobs in this country..and it wasn't because they were in need of more training...it's all about the bottom line.

Only time will tell, and if done properly globalization is certainly not a bad thing. But especially over the last 12 months, it's just impossible to say we don't have qualified people. (And, granted, that article was from 2007 - a tad over a year ago...)

I recall reading a reader response to an article on techrepublic (or was it zdnet), a very well stated article that essentially repeated that no economy can last on the premise of lower wages and thinking labor and service workers are... I wish Firefox hadn't crashed; I tried looking for it -- will continue to do so as I'd rather let the user speak for himself and not via my paraphrasing, which may be incorrect.

at least to Obama.

He was a community organizer when manufacturing began pulling out of the Chicago-Gary area, but I have not seen any reference to him doing everything that could be done, including working with the Steelworkers and non-union shops, to keep jobs around. I have seen nothing about him trying to arrange jobs for people in the area to move with the jobs, if that was possible.

Instead, it seems as though he focused on getting better service for people who didn't have jobs or very low-paying jobs.

PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't show a jobs orientation.

Instead, we had reports of his economic adviser from the U of Chicago economics department (a notoriously laissez fair globalist place) telling Canada that Obama wouldn't do anything to NAFTA that would upset the Canadian jobs advantages.

One of those advantages is national health care, actually, and you see that Obama isn't going for anything like Canada's system.

The jobs issue is #1 for me and health care is #2. I saw Edwards and Kucinich as being the best on those issues by several lengths of Lake Michigan.

then there is a company like pfizer having their american workers train the h1 visa workers that will soon have their jobs..out sourcing and this in sourcing labor must stop.. too many engineers are managers at places like radio shack or doing some other non engineering work .

i believe that this is an industry produced shortage not a real one

I know of several very bright U.S. developers that lost their jobs (some trained their H-1B replacements) couldn't find other jobs and are now holding down 2 and 3 jobs. (Home Depot, etc.)

this is nothing more than a rush to the bottom of the pay scale . funny how they do not see this greed has resulted in the current financial situation

If we have free trade of products, it is only fair that we have free trade of services as well. :hi:

:hi:

It's the managers that do not.

the Ford Mustang, made by UAW workers in Flatrock, Michigan.

Another car that may fit the bill is the Pontiac Vibe, but it's not accurate to say that it is "mostly built by a Japanese company" since the NUMMI plant is a joint venture between Toyota and GM. Incidentally, the NUMMI plant is also UAW...

Fairness dictates that "free trade" should include service work, too.

So, should I get screwed? (U.S. IT worker)

Or in other words, you can't expect a laid-off autoworker to pay you top $$$ for your services--where is s/he going to get the money to pay you?

It's unfair and unrealistic to think that the service sector can exist in a bubble, and only manufacturing workers should have to compete with third-world wages and working conditions.

Should have to compete with 3rd world countries, either. It's the same argument.

Like Indian IT, the Tracker is poorly constructed, noisy, inefficient, underpowered, and requires constant repairs, but it was cheap to buy. (BTW, I didn't buy it, it came with Ms. Greyhound)

Unlike Indian IT however, it is ostensibly an American car and provided at least some employment to American workers.

If American companies want to hire programmers in India, that's fine. I just don't want them increasing the number of work visas available to bring more foreign engineers into this country when there are so many already here who are unemployed or underemployed. The idea that there is a shortage of engineers is a total lie. It's just a way to get cheaper workers here who will work under near- indentured servitude conditions.

You can't compare it to a US automaker building a factory overseas. It's more like if GM claimed that they couldn't find any qualified assembly line workers in the US so we need to let 100,000 new workers in from Mexico to fill the "labor shortage."

and just gets worse and worse.

Now companies are feeling some slight pressure as a result of their quest for more H-1(b) slaves over American workers is slowly exposed, so the new requirement is "graduated within the last 3 years". Bottom line is that the industry is determined to keep the OG geeks out of the industry and throw away a whole generation that built the technology that they are claiming as their own.

Meanwhile the SW gets worse and more intrusive, major companies are being allowed to monopolize their markets more and more, and their customers have fewer and fewer alternatives.

Obama & Co. must learn what is really happening before making decisions on this critical issue.
:kick: & R

would return good paying jobs to Americans with the skills and education who won't have to work for less than a living wage due to the competition from H1B holders. I used to make a decent living in IT, now I barely scrape by because of the cut-throat competition from H1B visa holders from Asia, India, Pakistan, and the former Soviet Union. Yet I could never be allowed to go and get a job in my field in their countries.

America, land of the square deal.

...or if American culture were such that many more people had access to higher education, the job market would be different, too. High-tech industry would be more widespread. Education and jobs go hand-in-hand, along with plenty of other factors.

I know of some in my field (IT) that lost their jobs, couldn't find another and are now working 2 and 3 jobs at Home Depot and the like.

...and aren't smart enough to keep an economy going anymore.

about what's going on in America...!

As an IT worker, the amount of work going overseas as well as the number of H-1B's that continue/want to come here is personal to me. (I don't blame the H-1B worker, but rather the corporations that continue to hire them, over qualified U.S. workers) This is what I put my life into and it seems to be vanishing at an alarming rate.

I do usually post articles such as those above in LBN and the Editorial forum daily.

:hi: