A New Push to Raise Cap on H-1B Visa

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/business/15visa.html?ex=1321246800&en=35c35a026efedf0d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

(free registration or try www.bugmenot.com)

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14 — A coalition of business and education groups is making a renewed push to persuade Congress to raise the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the United States this year.

The coalition, which calls itself Compete America and whose members are drawn heavily from the technology industry, sent a letter to every member of Congress on Monday calling for an increase in both the number of so-called H-1B visas, which are used by skilled immigrants and the number of employment-based green cards given to foreign workers.

“The first part is to ensure that U.S. companies have the ability to hire the best and the brightest,” said Jack Krumholtz, managing director for federal government affairs at Microsoft. “The second part is about making sure that we are able to retain them.”

Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates, is one of many technology executives who have advocated increased flexibility to hire educated foreign workers like engineers and scientists. He is expected to return to that theme at an industry conference on Wednesday at Stanford University.

...more...

[wakeme2008]

1. But Mr Krumholtz forgot one part "The CHEAPEST"

to what he wants :grr: :grr: :grr:

[trogdor]

4. I once sent a letter to Sherwood Boehlert...

...asking him, "for what reason do I spend thousands of dollars and years of my life studying computer science at the university if you're just going to let people bring in cheap foreign labor to do that for which I've been busting my ass?"

Got a generic form letter full of Republican talking points. What an assclown. I'm glad he's gone after the first of the year.

[OhioChick]

7. I did the same

(writing to) asshat DeWine and Voinovich and got the same generic letters. Hopefully, our newly elected Sen. Sherrod Brown will be a rising voice on this issue.

on edit: spelling

[trogdor]

79. Magna cum laude, 3.8 GPA

From a D-list university (SUNYIT at Utica/Rome). I'm good, but I didn't go to MIT, so according to Friedman, I have no reason to expect job security.

[Greyhound]

82. He is such as asshat, and you are so right.

In Mr Freidman's world anybody that can't afford to get into MIT or the ivy league is just a worthless commodity, to be used up and discarded.

BTW, :hi: from a fellow Magna cum Laude BS.

[Nabia2004]

88. That's not how it works. Wages are the same as their coworkers

The H-1B Visa stipulates that foreign workers in the US be paid the same competitive wages as the other employees. Also, US companies must have exhausted the local employee pool (documented) before an H-1B Visa is granted. Some companies may try and cheat the system, but large companies like Microsoft are checked by USCIS on a regular bases.

[mhatrw]

92. Only because their coworkers are paid too little which, by a strange

coincidence, is also the fastest way to "exhaust the local employee pool."

Pay people what they are worth instead, and US citizens would be happy to spend $100,000 to get get the best training and then crawl on their hands and knees from all over the country for these jobs.

[OhioChick]

2. Wonderful........

Outsource the majority of work and for what little is left.......lift the flood gates for the H1B's. Bring in that cheap-ass labor. :mad:

I'm sure that many will be watching to see if Congress is "persuaded."

[EnviroBat]

75. H1B's do pay the "prevailing' wage, but they also SET it!

The more of them flood in, the more control is gained over the mythical "prevailing wage". In that way the H1B becomes a tool for corporations to establish the prevailing wage, which has been in a steady decline in the IT industry for years. Wake up, your country and livelihoods are being sold out from under you.

[w4rma]

3. Very bad. (nt)

[Election]

101. Yes, because we need more whining by the kneejerks about the evil illegal furners!

Not that it really worked in this election cycle, but if you don't want illegal immigration you need more legal immigration.

[sam sarrha]

5. this is because fewer people can afford to go to college here,~$30K 4yr degree

[primavera]

24. Thank you! Excellent point!

I keep wishing people would look beyond the easy but oversimplified answer of scapegoating immigrants and ask themselves why it is that businesses are clamoring for foreign workers. Despite the popular mythology, it's not because foreign labor is cheaper: H-1B employers have to pay foreign workers at least as much as the prevailing wage or the actual wage they pay US workers in their own company for comparable work, whichever is greater. That frequently means employers have to pay foreign workers more, not less, because they can shaft their US workers and pay them salaries beneath the prevailing wage for the industry. Even if they don't pay their US workers decently, they're required by law to pay foreign workers at least the industry standard wage for the job. Add on top of that the many thousands they'll spend on legal costs, filing fees, staff time in assembling the necessary documentation and supporting letters to petition for H-1B status for someone, trust me, it's a far cry from being a bargain deal for the employer.

But they do it nevertheless, and a big part of that is because US universities have become so astronomically expensive (my alma mater George Washington University now charges undergraduates $50K/year), they're turning out fewer graduates and the graduates they do produce are so encumbered by debt, they're limited in terms of the positions they can afford to accept. Now, were this a civilized country like, well, pretty much anywhere else on the planet, universities would be public and we wouldn't have this problem. But we don't want to have to pay taxes and support public education; we'd far rather bitch about immigrants and how they're really the cause of all of our problems.

[Vincardog]

26. I can not get an IT job because they would rather hire these H1b's

I beg to differ with you on the price issue. The my wages went from as much as $50/hr to $25 when the H1B invasion started. That sounds like real money until you live on a credit card out of town waiting a month for your first check.
Now I can't get as gig for $20/hr. That is with a BS and 20 years experience.
Does anyone believe that a college degree and 20 years experience should NOT be worth 4 times Minimum wage?

[primavera]

29. Right problem, wrong culprit

There's been no H-1B invasion, we've had H-1B workers for ages, they're nothing new. The IT industry has fluctuated wildly from extreme highs to extreme lows, and wages and job opportunities have gone up and down accordingly. But that's not the fault of immigrants. Whether we had an H-1B program or not, there would still have been a huge surge in IT-related economic activity with the birth of the internet; there likewise would still have been a crash when the market topped out and corrected itself to meet more realistic consumer demand. The resultant fall off in wages and jobs was a mathematical inevitability, it's not anything you can blame on anyone.

I'm sorry you're among the many who have had difficulty finding work in the computer industry, but H-1B workers are not the cause of your problem. The wages they are paid, by law, cannot be one thin dime less than a US worker would be paid for the same job. The employer who wishes to hire an H-1B worker has to conclusively prove that they are not undercutting the wages of US workers through exhaustive documentation that is submitted to, and reviewed by, multiple, extremely skeptical government agencies. If any one raises so much as a hint of doubt on the point, the petition is denied and the foreign worker doesn't get his or her H-1B, period, end of story. If you're worried about wage depression, look to the way employers can and do treat US workers, whose employment, unlike that of immigrants, goes almost entirely unscrutinized.

[Vincardog]

40. I blame the LOW WAGE CONSERVATIVES and their political lap dogs

in BOTH parties for the situation. This goes for the DLC lap dogs and the "Moderate" democrats who dance for the same corporate masters.

[Thor_MN]

45. Nice theory, but in the real world, H-1B workers depress wages.

The may have to pay prevailing wages for the job description that was used to hire the immigrant, but they are often displacing a person with a job description that pays much better.

[Gin]

64. the H -1B memo gets posted by law where I work during the recruiting

phase and the wage range is listed. My guess is the H-1B person gets the low range.

[EnviroBat]

76. EXACTLY!

[mhatrw]

50. You are so full of it.

More supply + equivalent demand = lower wages.

That is exactly what the H-1B push and rampant IT outsourcing are all about. No US or multi-national mega-corp wants to pay a decent wage for anything -- and especially not to the IT people they depend on to do a bunch of geek stuff that executives know they need but can not understand.

[area51]

98. "...cannot be one thin dime less than a US worker"

:rofl:
And you are basing your trust on a nazi govt. to vigilantly watch over businesses that they actually do this? :rofl:

Of course the govt. is not going to protect the American worker; lower wages mean big profits for wealthy nazi CEOs.

[primavera]

100. It's not really a trust issue

This isn't a situation where we're relying upon the government to seek out employers and ascertain what they're doing. Rather, the employer wants the government to issue a visa for the worker they want to hire and, in order to get it, the burden of proof shifts to them to satisfy the government that everything's being done properly and above board. One of the main things the H-1B employer has to prove is that they're paying the legally required wages in order to get the government to approve the petition. So the employer has to submit to the Department of Labor evidence of their ability and willingness to pay that wage, with tax returns, paycheck stubs, annual reports, etc.. If the employer fails to provide adequate proof that they can and will pay the correct salary, the Department of Labor simply refuses to sign off on it and the application dies on the table. It happens every day of the week and employers have to go back and re-file with additional documentation. I suppose it's hypothetically possible that employers could forge documents to submit to the government, but I doubt that happens with any great frequency.

[mhatrw]

49. Give me a break. They want H-1B's because they depress all IT wages.

Period.

Bigger supply + same demand = lower wages

What part of this equation don't you understand? How many well-trained, US citizen IT experts do you think are out of work, semi-employed and/or "self-employed" subcontractors working less than full-time right now? The number is in the millions.

[EnviroBat]

72. EXACTLY!

I'm mired in this competitive incompetence every frikkin day! I've thought about leaving the IT industry, but that would be guaranteeing a handover of my job to someone less qualified, for less money. I've got quite a few American friends who are struggling with the competition for jobs from India in the IT sector. This sellout sucks, period.

[girl gone mad]

27. The same people who rail against socialism..

are more than happy to take advantage of its benefits. No, American workers cannot compete against a populace who is provided a free higher education and is accustomed a lower standard of living.

A few of the H1B's I've met lied about their qualifications in order to get hired. This went from the usual padding of the resume to extremes such as making up degrees and prestigious awards, etc. I've been told that firms simply do not check closely and that such fraud is commonplace.

[mhatrw]

48. The market is flooded with well-trained out of work US citizen IT experts.

The only problem is that we want more than $20 an hour with no benefits.

[Robb]

6. A very small piece of the pie

..but here in mountain towns, these H1-Bs are mostly used for ski instructors. The demand is very high for folks well-trained in the art of instructing folks on how to properly head downhill without killing themselves.

Anyhow, not nearly enough U.S. citizens who have gone through all the training the customers want. It's largely the "never summer" crowd, Australians and such who move across the globe and follow the snow.

Interesting subsegment, anyway. :shrug:

[bleedingheart]

9. H-1B's are what my company uses to bring in software developers

and they are paid US wages...

One of my coworkers is here on one...and he is now applying for a green card.

[mhatrw]

51. They are paid a lot less than US IT people made 10 years ago. n/t

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

8. I could be wrong on this, but...

If I recall correctly, H1B visas are severly limited in this country. H1Bs are the visas that had a prevailaing wage provision, at least I think they did several years ago. This meant an H1B visa holder hd to be paid a similar amount to what the American worker sitting next to them was making.

The L1 visa, or as I like to refer to it as the Loophole1 visa, is the one to get rid of. This allowed American multinationals or companies who had an office in the US to bring in foreigners from their offshore subsidiaries to do the work of the parent company in the US. The kicker is the visa holder was paid what they would make overseas. Thanks to some clever interpretations of the law, this allowed Tata Consulting (largest Indian IT shop) to set up a temp agency practice in the US and claim that temp is what the company does. They could then farm out Indians at Indian wages to American companies.

The L1 is the one to kill. The H1B is at least competitive.

DBDB

[acmejack]

10. I don't know how but they have legions of contract workers

here in Austin working for the likes of AMD, Dell & IBM. I know who has my job, actually mine went to Bangalore, excuse me, Bengaluru.

[shanti]

16. same here in sacramento

i see them EVERYWHERE here.

[LiberalEsto]

11. Fannie Mae is FULL of H1-B workers

A friend told me that Fannie's IT department in Washington DC is almost entirely composed of Indians living here on these visas. Even though they are supposed to be paid the equivalent of what American IT workers earn, Fannie and other companies use various loopholes -- such as hiring them as consultants instead of regular employees. They get paid less, of course.

Meanwhile American computer people are desperate for work, and young people no longer bother majoring in computer sciences because they see their unemployed parents taking low-wage jobs in other fields.

Any American company that outsources jobs overseas, or imports cheap labor to the U.S. that deprives Americans of decent-paying jobs, deserves to lose every single tax break and subsidy on all government levels.

For example, Fannie Mae pays NO property taxes in washington, DC. Why should they get away with that when they have been laying off American citizens and replacing them with cheap labor from overseas?

All these sneaky visa programs have got to be seriously reduced.

[Greyhound]

20. You're not wrong in that there is a prevailing wage provision in the H1-(b)

program, unfortunately it is a toothless regulation that is not enforced and is so easily circumvented that it is worse than useless.

The L-1 (less well known, but even looser) is part of the same package and they both must go if this country is to have any future in the technology sector.

Did you notice that the "education" corporations are one of the most fervent supporters of this monstrosity?

[athena]

63. American science will suffer if this program ends.

The U.S. owes its current dominance in the pure sciences to the fact that it's been buying the best brains in the world for the last few decades, using its F-1, J-1, and H-1 programs. There is little money to be made in academia and pure research (compared to working in industry), and as a result, few American students are interested. Many of the best scientists in the world come to the U.S., maintaining a diverse and competitive environment that encourages original and independent thinking.

You get rid of the H-1 visa program, and the number of post-doctoral researchers will halve overnight. The number of foreign professors and researchers will also decline. The overall level of excellence in science will go down.

Thanks to the Bush administration's isolationist visa rules, fewer scientists are coming to the U.S. That helps Europe and Canada. Here is a NYT article about it.

But I suppose the xenophobes here won't see that until it's too late.

[mhatrw]

89. So anybody who wants a decent wage is xenophobe, and all

the H1-B workers swarming every other IT and/or software development outfit, earning $40,000 to $50,000 for jobs that once paid $60,000 to $95,000 are here to "do pure research" and help the USA with their irreproachable scientific excellence?

"maintaining a diverse and competitive environment that encourages original and independent thinking" = depressing all US wages with low cost foreign labor

Ah, hypercapitalistic globalism! The universal panacea that cures every problem without ever having to pay a decent non-executive wage to do so.

[badgolfer]

12. IT workers

My son works in a Cingular wireless office and most of the IT workers are Indians. The only Americans seem to be the managing directors. Yep, we need more H1-B visas given to these companies. God, when does this crap ever end?

[PhuLoi]

13. What is Hillary's position on this I wonder?

Ms.C has been a supporter of outsourcing and importing workers. Her assocciation with Friends of India has exacerbated employment problems for American IT workers for years.

[Greyhound]

17. Hmm, I wonder...

Wait for it...

[OhioChick]

21. From 2005:

Hillary clears outsourcing air

Hillary Clinton made it apparent where she stood on outsourcing during her India visit, in an attempt perhaps to clear the Indian misgivings received during the Kerry campaign. "There is no way to legislate against reality. Outsourcing will continue," she told an audience of Indian big-wigs. She pointed out that there were 3 billion people who feel left behind and are trying to attack the modern world in the hope of turning the clock back on globalization. "It is not far-fetched to imagine ... if the Indian miracle would be the one of choice of those who feel left behind," said Hillary.

Hillary has been at the forefront in defending free trade and outsourcing. During the height of the anti-outsourcing backlash in the US last year, she faced considerable flak for defending Indian software giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for opening a center in Buffalo, New York. "We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of putting up fences," Hillary said firmly, despite inevitably invoking the ire of the anti-free trade brigade.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC01Df03.html

[OnionPatch]

25. Well that just disqualified her for my vote

I will not vote for her after hearing this.

[OhioChick]

31. Same here.........

I was hoping that she wouldn't make a surprise run in 2004. At least Kerry was against the outsourcing of American jobs. She seems to think that it's good for the US.

[EnviroBat]

77. just lost my vote too.

That's how strongly I feel about this issue.

[piedmont]

81. me too. nt

[Election]

102. You do realize that the salary for Indian IT jumped 2 to 3 fold from outsourcing

Call me a bleeding heart, but I believe that a country with a per-capita income of $2000 a year needs the jobs much more so than Americans do.

Sometimes, from our inclinations to go to war to our opposition to immigration (even to the point of some people calling for the unconstitutional removal of American Citizens whose parents are illegal immigrants), Americans think we're the only people in the world that really matter.

[OhioChick]

107. Do you.........

Feed the neighbors before you feed your own children?

[Election]

112. I don't really consider my country to be family

At least any more than I consider the world to be my family.

If we're discussing how to allocate government funds, I would agree that said government funds should benefit America. However, when it comes to the issue of trade, I believe all workers should be on the same playing ground. (This includes job opportunities, minimum wage, working conditions, right to benefits, etc.)

[OhioChick]

113. Hence.........

No reason for outsourcing.

[lovuian]

14. This is really Bad for America

its got to STOP

[shanti]

15. raise the cap????

we need to LOWER the cap! :grr:

[Greyhound]

How about a fee that is charged to the hiring company or the country of

origin that is equal to the cost of the degree being replaced, 100% of the proceeds from which are to be directed to re-education and hardship relief for the replaced workers?

It is hard enough to compete with people that will show up to work for 1/3 of the pay (and don't give me any of the prevailing wage bullshit, the methods used to get around this toothless regulation are documented in hundreds of places on the net), but they have had their education paid for them by their socialist governments.

The American worker gets sub-standard wages (if s/he can even get a job) and $20,000 - $100,000 of debt for a worthless degree.

[primavera]

30. We have that already

Employers of H-1B workers have to pay a $1,500 US worker education and re-training fee for every H-1B worker they want to hire. They also have to pay a $500 fraud detection fee. These are on top of the standard filing fees, legal fees, etc. And, of course, they have to pay H-1B workers at least the prevailing wage for the job, which is more than they typically pay US workers. Personally, I've always laughed about it, but never once in my life have I been paid a salary as high as what the government thought was the prevailing wage for my field. Now, if I were an H-1B worker, I'd have to be paid that much. So it's actually quite expensive to hire an H-1B worker.

[Greyhound]

33. Add another zero to the fee and then double it and it might help somewhat

$1500 won't cover the tuition of one class at most colleges today, let alone the actual amount that is extracted from students pursuing their degrees.

The prevailing wage myth has been nothing but a joke since the program began, just one example from thousands, look at what BofA paid in order to lay off their entire IT dept. in LA and then they required the laid-off workers to train their Indian H1-(b) replacements or they would withhold employment recommendations.

[primavera]

35. It's more than they pay to hire US workers

Which is nothing. As for the prevailing wage, I agree it's unrealistic - it's usually way more than any US worker I know is making. I and most of the people I know would kill to earn the official "prevailing wage." Unfortunately, I'm a US worker, which means no employer is under any obligation to offer me anything more than minimum wage.

See, this is where the logic of the hypothesis that H-1B workers drive down wages escapes me. If I'm an employer and want to hire an H-1B worker, I will have to pay the official prevailing wage, even if I don't normally pay that much. I will have to pay several thousand dollars in attorney fees and another several thousand dollars in filing fees. I will have to post notices all over my place of business telling every passing stranger that I want to hire a foreign worker and inviting them to report me to the Department of Labor for investigation and audit. I will have to create a public inspection file in which I will have to publish for the general public all of my personnel and compensation practices. I will have to spend months working to file the necessary petitions and applications and then wait more months for them to be processed and approved. I will have to invite multiple government agencies to examine my every business practice and, if I am caught making even the slightest misrepresentation, I can be prosecuted and sent to prison. And at the end of all of this, I may get to hire the foreign worker or the petition may be denied and all of that time, money, and effort will have been for nothing and I'll right back to square one with zip to show for it all.

In contrast, if I'm an employer wishing to hire a US worker, I can pay them $5.15/hour, with no breaks, no health insurance, no vacation or sick leave, no retirement benefits, no nothing. There will be absolutely no scrutiny or regulation of my hiring the US worker under these terms, nor would it matter even if there were as I wouldn't be doing anything illegal. I can totally screw over a US worker and have absolutely nothing to fear from my government. Or better yet, I can fire all of my US workers, move my operations offshore where I can pay Bangladeshi workers 18 cents an hour, force them to live and work in conditions approximating slavery, and George Bush will give me a $50 million tax credit for having done so.

So, explain to me please why, if I'm a greedy businessman looking to cut labor costs, living in Republican America with a million ways at my disposal to totally fuck over workers, why would I in a million years ever even want to consider subjecting myself to the expensive, time-consuming, maddeningly bureaucratic, ultra-scrutinized and regulated process of hiring an H-1B worker? It just doesn't make sense.

[acmejack]

39. Pretty impassioned defense coupled with quite a knowledge H-1B's

What is your involvement with this issue? Or are you just a hobbyist?

Apparently folks such as Spansion have figured out how to make it fairly lucrative, wouldn't you say? There is absolutely NO that H-1b workers were not the death of the American IT Industry. Period! It is somewhat strange that every IT worker here thinks was the case were but you don't, but I guess the guy in the trenches rarely sees the big picture, huh?

Irregardless, we're now college educated pizza delivery people, taxi drivers, and Starbuck's barristas. But, that $1500 for "retraining" really helped. Thanks...

[primavera]

41. I work in the field

For over a decade, I've worked in pretty much every part of US immigration law and policy, with asylees and refugees, family- and employment-based immigration, with nonprofits, law firms, thinktanks; I've done policy analysis, lobbying, published studies, done media appearances, it's what I did my graduate work in, so yeah, immigration is a little more than just a hobby for me.

Although I tend to get carried away "defending," as you put it, the H-1B program, I'm not actually all that great a fan of it. It's by no means a perfect program, there are certainly abuses in it, it doesn't always accomplish what it set out to do and, even when it does, what it set out to do is legitimately open to question. At the same time, no program is perfect and every area of human activity bar none entails some abuses, so why should we expect immigration to be any different? The mere existence of imperfections doesn't necesarily require the abolition of a program. What inspires in me the perceived need to defend it is people drawing overly simplistic conclusions about a fantastically complex issue, or, really, more like a dozen fantastically complex issues. Jobs and wages in this country fluctuate in response to, oh, about a billion different factors, so what makes you so sure that a handful of H-1B temporary workers are the thing we should be getting all up in arms about? We agree that college educated people working as pizza delivery guys indisputably sucks and is a condition warranting anger. But if what we're trying to accomplish is changing a bad situation, wouldn't it be helpful to direct that anger towards the condition(s) that genuinely are responsible for the situation you're trying to change? How is all of that energy and anger going to help matters if it goes after factors which have nothing to do with the problem you're trying to fix and lets off scott free the factors which are causal?

You say every IT worker believes that the H-1B program is responsible for the demise of the US IT industry. Well, I don't know that that's true, but, even if it were, every person on earth at one point believed the world was flat; that didn't make them any less wrong. Few, if any, of the scholarly studies on the subject, written by academics who have spent decades studying the subject and have virtually no connection to corporate America, bear out what you claim every IT worker somehow just knows instinctively. What if you guys are wrong and what's responsible for the sorry state of the US IT industry has nothing to do with H-1B workers but is really the consequence of massive outsourcing which our own beloved Congress is busily rewarding businesses with huge tax credits for doing? What if one of the main contributors is the skyrocketing cost of education? That too could go a long way towards explaining the symptoms being experienced by the computer industry, yet it too would have absolutely nothing to do with H-1B workers.

And I'm sorry, but the view from the trenches rarely is conducive to perceiving the multitude of factors which make up the big - read complete - picture. You wouldn't expect to hear an impartial analysis of rape from a rape victim, but you expect the survivors of America's ravaged IT community to be purely cool, calm, collected, rational, objective and impartial on the subject of what's happening to them?

Anyway, I sympathize with your plight and I don't mean to dismiss your points - again, there some legitimate problems with the H-1B program. But still, by singling out a few immigrants, you're picking too easy a target and risk losing sight of the bigger issues which I guarantee play a bigger role in the problems we all agree needs to be fixed.

[mhatrw]

54. Take an introductory economics course, and get back to us.

Who is driving this program and why? Who is clamoring for more H1-B workers and why? Please keep your answers simple and to the point. Thank you.

[Greyhound]

42. Because everything you state in your hypothetical is BS.

Your missive lays out the way it is supposed to be, but anyone that has been in business more than a week knows that the reality is far different. If what you wrote were reality, we probably wouldn't have the situation we have now and wouldn't be having this conversation, unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

You obviously didn't look at the BofA case, nor I suspect any other. One of the simplest, and therefore most common ways to circumvent the prevailing wage rule is to re-classify the job, this is what BofA did in the majority of its cases (again, just one of thousands of companies that are models of this exact behavior). They fire a senior programmer ($90,000 p/yr) and hire a developer II, a newly created position that pays $35,000. The fact that the H1-(b) developer II is doing the same job with some modified paperwork requirements, isn't even an issue because it is a different job. The attorneys are on staff so there is no additional pay other than some accounting smoke that will yield a tax deductible expense.

If the time it takes is really a factor, then the solution is to lay off your workers and hire in a consulting or temp firm that just happens to have no one other than foreign visa holders working for them (Tata, for example) to fill the "temporary" position until it is filled by a new hire, which of course never happens (case in point, M$ has had "temporary employees" working on campus that have been there for over 15 years). The Government agencies don't do the investigations unless there are numerous complaints accompanied by interest from a local politician.

As for the mythical minimum wage American worker, you know as well as I, and everybody else that has read this, that you will never find a qualified person to fill your position at minimum wage, nor should you. BTW, the no-break thing puts you in violation of about a hundred workplace laws. As for off-shoring your whole fantasy business, well why should you be any different from your fantasy competition, it's being done every day for completely different reasons than American wages.

[primavera]

44. Theory versus practice

Yep, that is the way it's supposed to work and that's precisely my point: the way it's supposed to work isn't that bad. Your contention is that it seldom if ever works the way it's supposed to. Well, I've not only been working with these kinds of issues for more than a week, I've been working with them for more than a decade; I've personally prepared more than 100 H-1B petitions and have worked closely wth colleagues who have prepared thousands more, and what I know from that experience is that most of the time the program works the way it's supposed to. Of course, there are exceptions, I don't pretend it works perfectly 100% of the time, nothing ever does and the H-1B program is no different. And I'll admit, my experience is somewhat selective in that I've worked exclusively with reputable places which generally don't engage in unethical practices, but of course, there are people who do. But for the most part, attorneys are a pretty conservative, risk-averse bunch of people who spend their entire lives worrying about all of the horrible things that could happen to them and/or their clients if they got caught doing something illegal, so you don't find many practitioners willing to go very far out on a limb. Which again is not to say that there aren't some abuses, but we're talking about a relatively small percentage of a group that wasn't even that big to begin with, and upon the shoulders of this small percentage of a small percentage, you're ready to dump responsibility for massive systemic problems with the US economy. And that's just not rational.

As for breaks, I was myself surprised to learn recently that US labor law does not guarantee workers any right to any breaks at all. Legally, an employer isn't required to give a worker meal breaks or even so much as a lousy bathroom break. Some states have laws extending such rights to employees, but you'd be surprised how few do, and federal law contains no requirement whatsoever with respect to breaks:

"Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks work-time that must be paid. Unauthorized extensions of authorized work breaks need not be counted as hours worked when the employer has expressly and unambiguously communicated to the employee that the authorized break may only last for a specific length of time, that any extension of the break is contrary to the employer's rules, and any extension of the break will be punished.

Bona fide meal periods (typically lasting at least 30 minutes), serve a different purpose than coffee or snack breaks and, thus, are not work time and are not compensable." (http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/breaks.htm)

[mhatrw]

55. Great. So you make your living helping corporations lower IT wages.

Many companies you work with pay pretty good wages, and you help deserving immigrants obtain these wages. Bully for you. It doesn't change the fundamental equation that drives the entire H1-B program: increased supply + unchanged demand = lower wages.

[mhatrw]

53. The "prevailing wage" + combined fees are far lower than what

the typical US IT professional was paid TEN YEARS AGO.

More supply + equivalent demand = lower wages.

[jkg4peace]

58. but hasn't everything in the IT world come way down in price?

my first piece of shit computer with DOS, WordStar and a stupid little golf game cost more than $2,000 almost 20 years ago. Today, I would have to pay someone to take it away. And my kid who is failing high school can do pretty amazing things on a computer...

[mhatrw]

61. Wages are down or stagnant for almost all professions other than CXOs.

What is your point?

[primavera]

74. Ten years ago...

...every investor on the planet was champing at the bits to cough up a 100 million dollars for any hair-brained, fly-by-night business plan having anything to do with computers. The same cannot be said today.

[Greyhound]

80. If you rely on the M$M for information you would think so...

Unfortunately, it simply is not true. The tech sector is awash with VC $ looking for someplace to go, but as a result of the decimation of the American IT sector, combined with the relatively low start-up costs and monopolistic business practices that the federal government has encouraged for the last 5 years in most IT related businesses, their biggest problem is trying to find American companies to invest in. The corporate/re:puke: sponsored Clinton administration policies effectively killed the golden egg laying goose here in the states and pushed it, along with millions of our jobs, off-shore.

Here are few articles;
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=146277
http://www.domain-b.com/organisation/datamonitor/20061026_vc_investments.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061116/clth514.html?.v=58
http://www.socaltech.com/story/0006250.html
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/business_today/325980.htm
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2006/11/06/daily2.html

This is not an immigration issue per se, it is really about manipulation of the IT industry by the monopolists, to stifle innovation and competition by disenfranchising the driving force behind the IT boom, the American tech worker.

[primavera]

85. Interesting

Thanks for the links, I'll be sure to check them out.

[mhatrw]

90. Exactly. The US tech "boom" was purposefully killed off because the

wrong type of person (you know, the hired techie help) was getting a little slice of pie, and our corporate masters simply can't abide any situation in which their corporate drones enjoy even a shred of bargaining power. Nor can they abide with paying any wage that they themselves haven't "prevailed". They purposefully damaged the fastest growing sector of the US economy because they simply refused to pay a decent wage.

The only difference between this and when the NFL players went on strike and the owners still fielded teams of scrubs is that the decimation of the US IT/software sector was a unilateral decision by ownership and the scrubs are insourced and outsourced foreigners.

[Greyhound]

106. Yep, and lets not forget how expensive it was for them to try to implement the

almost monthly breakthroughs we were making. Few, if any, non-geeks and even many of them don't realize how the whole digital revolution has been all but halted, and for no other reason than the monopolistic corporations want to keep squeezing $$$ from us for "new and improved" products that are nothing more than bug fixes with a shiny new interface.

Argh! :banghead:

[EnviroBat]

78. Because you, as an employer no longer have to go through all of that.

That's what the thousands of consulting firms are for. They are the ones who handle all of those "regulated process" you speak of. these consulting firms are popping up on every street corner of every major city in the US. And they DO make it easy for corporations to fill these positions without benefit one.

[mhatrw]

52. Why do corporations pay these extra fees if not to depress US wages?

increased supply + equivalent demand = lower wages

Everybody smiles and laughs while US workers get screwed. Again. Hooray!

[aggiesal]

18. So the best and the brightest are NOT in the US?

This only drives down US wages.
And to top it off, there are plenty of unemployed engineers,, because
their jobs have been outsourced.

If the Republican congress agrees to this, we should keep a running scorecard
and maybe their numbers can decrease more in '08.

[Greyhound]

19. Yes they are. Just not the cheapest, and that is all that counts in our

corporate oligarchy.

This is also one of the few issues that enjoys "bi-partisan" support, remember it was Clinton that brought us all of the laws, treaties, and regulations that caused this to happen.

[jkg4peace]

59. I'm confused...

I work at a large public university and the vast majority of computer, engineering and math students (who pay twice as much as in-state students)are foreigners, mostly from Eastern countries. The Science library is the only place I have ever been in my town where I was the only white American in the place (and they weren't Mexicans either!). The departments lament the fact that they cannot attract more skilled American students into their programs. Personally, I think we should open up the whole fucking world to workers and put the employers in their place, once and for all. We have to unite! NOT blame each other. Employers are the ones that make hiring decisions, not applicants! And we just give them more power when we allow them to push the blame off on the "other".

[mhatrw]

91. Sure. If only we give our corporate labor contractors an infinite source of

cheap labor, then and only then will we be in a real position to negotiate for decent wages and benefits!

[AnneD]

22. It's not just IT that is taking a hit...

Nursing is being crippled by this. Rather than expand Nursing schools to train more folks and rather than make conditions more tolerable to retain the workers you have....they go overseas. These workers are paids less than American workers. Jobs they cannot outsource overseas, they take them away from us by outsourcing on our own soil. This DOES take jobs away from workers.

[jkg4peace]

60. And takes nurses away from poor countries.../nt

[Greyhound]

83. Good point.

This is the other side that is rarely, if ever mentioned. Thank you for pointing it out.

[AnneD]

99. Also remember....

that some places, like the Philippines in particular, train nurses specifically for export. That is big business for them.

[jimbot]

23. The sentiments here show what happens when you don't manage foreign trade.

At first glance, it looks like a double edged sword...either bring more H1B holders in to potentially take U.S. jobs and have the benefits of income tax and spending or expatriate those revenues to other countries via outsourcing.
The actual problem is that we have left foreign trade to the free markets where other countries are still active in negotiating foreign trade contracts for the betterment of their own nations.
From the macro perspective we need to examine the totality of trade between the nations involved. From the micro perspective, yes, H1-B's are better than outsourcing but it really shouldn't be an either-or type argument. We can enforce the prevailing wage clause but we can also look at incorporating H1-B cap increases with corresponding market openings in other countries. We can also look at other types of visas to encourage foreign students to study in the U.S.
Simply raising a cap is similar taking a pain killer without addressing the source of the problem.

--JT

[primavera]

38. Great post

A lot of good food for thought in that post, thanks.

[mhatrw]

56. No, crap post. You folks pretend that this is a choice between

outsourcing and insourcing, with no other possible alternative.

How about simply regulating the labor market like almost all other countries do? Ya think?

[jkg4peace]

62. almost all countries? you're kidding, right?

Only the ones that we call "socialist" regulate their labor markets (as in Europe). The ones we engage in "free trade" deals with have their hands tied behind their backs when American Maquilas come in and pollute their environment, exploit their labor (try living on $1/hr in a border town in Mexico where the cost of living is essentially what it is here -- oh yeah, except you don't actually have a toilet or electricity or water), and pay virtually no taxes or tarrifs on anything. Those workers get no benefits, and the maquilas pack up and leave on a moment's notice leaving thousands unemployed. These trade deals have flooded the agricultural markets with cheap corn and decimated millions of small farmers. I feel so sorry for you that you can't make more than $20/hr with your stupid fucking BS degree. I have my Master's and am barely making $40K/yr. It's a tough world out there...

[mhatrw]

93. Sorry, I meant almost all first world countries.

I forgot that we don't qualify anymore because our country has been bought and sold by corporations so we can live the American dream of social Darwinism. Thanks for enlightening me about this.

[jimbot]

69. Huh?

I don't see how anyone could possibly have read my post and felt that I was stating it was a simple argument between outsourcing and insourcing.
I stated it was complex and then you come in and call my post a "crap post" and use something that I never stated to defend your position.
Yeesh!

[mhatrw]

94. Please add this to your "complex" analysis.

The federal regulation of the USA labor market to the benefit of any USA citizens working in the USA. You know, like they do it and have done it for decades in almost every other First World nation. OK?

[jimbot]

114. Labor market regulation may help

And I'd be supportive of employing a system similar to Canada's, however, it still doesn't resolve the issue. Also, there are several different models of labor market regulations...the U.K. model is substantially different from the German model and the Hartz and Agenda 2010 reforms outline a significant change in collective bargaining agreements and payroll taxes.
Since you have criticized my "crap post" and referred to a "complex analysis" that I never undertook, I ask you a simple set of questions...
Which regulated labor market do you consider model and why?
Do you think that employing that model will have any effect on offshoring practices?
What suggestions do you make for job displacement due to automation?

My point being that if you look at the totality of foreign trade, labor laws, and regulations and changes in technology, there are no simple solutions. Clearly a "free market" model may bring down costs to consumers but it is heartless and nonsupportive of a robust middle class focused economy that many of us desire.

You seem to just criticize my posts and I find myself asking why, given that I haven't said anything contrary to your posts? So I reiterate, how -- specifically, would you address this?

--JT

[Greyhound]

87. The actual problem is that we have stood by while our "representatives"

put a big FOR SALE sign on the government, and the corporations were coming in their shorts after seeing how cheap they were selling for.
There is no need for this program at all, there never was a shortage of workers (shortage being defined as more jobs than people to fill them), but we did approach our capacity for about 9 months, and this drove wages up very quickly. This, in turn made the employers squeal like the pigs they are (my apologies to my porcine friends for the unflattering comparison) and they went shopping for politiwhores.

I would also point out that a significant portion of the blame belongs to us (IT workers) for our short-sighted greed and adamant refusal to unionize, because they needed us right now and were forced to pay decent wages and why would we want to pay union dues when 70% of the time our phones rang it was a recruiter on the other end with a better offer with another company. Believe me, I tried for years to get the nerds to see past the soda machine, the free lunches, and daily massages. So the corporations created the ITAA who started creating the mythical IT worker shortage that was only going to get worse in the future, and with no countering voice, there was nothing to stop the politiwhores from granting all of their donors wishes.

[mhatrw]

95. Exactly. It's like were NFL players, but we never unionized.

Therefore, when the owners torn up our contracts and began replacing us with scrubs working for half our salaries en masse, there was nothing we could do except change jobs or renegotiate much lower contracts on an individual basis.

[NorthernSpy]

28. Oh, why not. Anything to screw over our own...

No doubt, they hope to rush this through the lame duck Congress before we take over. They know perfectly well that we campaigned against this sort of thing, and so they're hustling to get what they can, while they can.

[OhioChick]

32. Tech Industry to Congress: Give Us More H-1Bs Or We'll Outsource

Tech Industry to Congress: Give Us More H-1Bs Or We'll Outsource

The group sent a letter to members of Congress urging the lawmakers to raise limits on skilled worker visas before the adjournment of the current session.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek

Nov 15, 2006 03:00 PM

A refusal by Congress to raise the limit on the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the U.S. each year would increase the number of American tech jobs lost to low-cost countries like India and China, a spokesman for a technology industry lobby group backed by Intel, Microsoft, and other computer giants said Wednesday.

"Outsourcing is the perfect argument for increasing the numbers. If companies say they can't find the right people for the right jobs here in the U.S., they're going to send them overseas," said a spokesman for Compete America.

On Monday, the group sent a letter to members of Congress urging the lawmakers to raise limits on skilled worker visas before the adjournment of the current session. The number of such visas, or H-1Bs, issued annually is currently capped by law at 85,000, including 20,000 for foreign workers with an advanced degree from a U.S. university.

A bill introduced in the Senate would raise the H-1B level to 115,000, but no vote is currently scheduled on the issue. Control of Congress in 2007 will fall to the Democrats, who many believe will be more reluctant than Republics to raise skilled immigration levels due to opposition from labor groups.

http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194400292

[primavera]

37. Unfortunately, it's not just an empty threat

Care to guess how many workers you could hire in China for what it would cost to hire just one worker in the US? I don't know the number myself, but I'd wager real money it'd be a lot. And, being the indiscriminate bargain-hunters we are, Americans can be relied upon to buy the products produced by the slave labor of outsourced former US companies, no matter how many US jobs it costs.

[mhatrw]

57. Oh, Jesus!

Labor market regulations. Citizen preferences. Workers rights. Do any of these phrases ring a bell?

[hertopos]

65. Thank you for your input... I would like to share my experiences

It is interesting that most people reacted only the half of the groups which pushes H1B. I was a H1B worker myself. I got my PH.D. in math and my first two job was post doc at Universities. After that, I could not find a job in academia. All of my friends are no longer in Academia since there was a worst job crunch in academia then. ( early 90's ) BTW, I got married to an American citizen and I am now a financial adviser, which includes sales. Working in this country is never easy. But this is a decision I made. I am originally from Japan and I am a woman. U.S. gave me a second life and I really appreciate that.

I got the impression that the stronger force behind this time push must be education people since there is now a huge 'teacher shortage' at U.S. colleges. ( Demographic.) I honestly believe that the damage is done already with IT industry. The irony is that the place like India starts seeing 'the shortage of qualified people'.

Frankly speaking, it should be more important to change labor law than worry about H1B. I CANNOT BELIEVE that it is so easy to fire anyone any time in this country while CEO's are making crazy amount of money.

What bothered me most was xenophobic tone of some of post. I also don't like people jump conclusions over very complex problems. That what Repub's and Green's do.

BTW, now I am a green card holder and will became a citizen very soon. I know a few of my friends went through similar path. My best friend, ( she got PH.D. in math from UCLA ) also could not find a position at college after 2 short term positions and became an actuary. She has two beautiful daughters. Well, I also got one 3 years ago.

What I am describing is my life and my friend life. When you just label a group as 'those damn immigrants', you never know what they go through. So, please don't blame immigrants. Blame the awful lack of labor law in this country.

Just my input

[acmejack]

66. No one is laying on the holders of visas.

The people who had the H-1Bs were very competent and a pleasure to work with. I don't hold a thing against them, my complaint is with those who allow this to happen. I didn't detect any overt xenophobia here and certainly didn't mean to imply any. I repeat I have a problem with labor exploitation!

[hertopos]

67. I appreciate that however...

This is what I think.

Remember the one of an example. The employer fired 95k manager and hired 35k
H1B holder. The real problem her is not that they hired H1B holder. The employer can fire 95k manager like that. This won't happen in other advanced country such as Japan and Europe.

Hertopos

[primavera]

70. She's right

MalWart recently released yet another of their reports on personnel compensation in which they flatly stated that they needed to get rid of workers who had been with the company for more than a few years, as seniority pay raises resulted in some people being paid a higher wage by virtue of having been with the company longer, without necessarily achieving a proportionately higher productivity. This is the way US companies are thinking, it's this totally obsessive preoccupation with maximizing profit, regardless of who gets hurt in the process. Yet another of the many factors contributing to falling wages and job opportunities that has nothing to do with immigrants.

[Occulus]

84. Then we need to issue them threats that are just as full of promise

Something along the lines of, "Outsource these jobs and we'll seize your assets prior to your doing so, revoke your corporate charters, and shove you offshore where you obviously want to be in the first place. Just don't expect to do business in or with the United States or with persons living here, and oh, by the way, we're revoking your personhood as a corporation."

We have to start adopting some of these more 'radical' ideas, because those ideas are the only way we're going to get out of this pit we're in. Moderation, in this case, will only allow more and more loopholes to be written and more and more jobs to be lost to other countries. We need to grow the balls to simply tell these companies: THOU SHALT NOT.

Or else.

[primavera]

86. Wouldn't that be glorious?

God, I'd give anything to see it. Unfortunately, in this country, I wouldn't recommend holding my breath if I were you.

[mhatrw]

96. So we should all retrain ourselves to do the paper work for the inevitable

flood of incoming foreign workers. Right?

[Odin2005]

34. God damn anti-American corporatist fucks.

Those fuckers want to create a vicious cycle of less Americans going into IT, using that as an excuse to bring in cheap labor, causing less Americans to go into IT, and on the cycle goes.

[anotherdrew]

36. WAKE UP PEOPLE - THIS IS WAR. and we are loosing big time

this is such unimaginable bullshit I mad enough to spit nails.

These companies need to be taken firmly in hand and SQUEEZED until they stop jerking us around.

this is class warfare, the rich against EVERYONE else.

[Nevernose]

43. Good for school districts

I know we currently have a lot of Mexican H-1Bs working as ECSs (Educational Computing Specialists), and quite a few other Spanish, Phillipino, and Indian ECSs. It's hard to get people to come to the fastest growing school district in the nation, with a skyrocketing COLA, and work for a teacher's salary.

I'm told that especially in the IT field, it's also difficult to get Americans who want to move here and start making 30k a year and also have the qualifications, i.e. a four year degree from an accredited college.

Ten years ago you could be a high school dropout, but if you were good w/ computers, you could get an entry level job making 50k.

[mhatrw]

47. How about if we pay $35,000 to $40,000?

US citizens would be lining up.

This is such a silly concern. US citizens don't want to do high skilled jobs for really low wages. So we need a bunch of foreigners! How about not paying really low wages?

Just a thought.

:eyes:

[Nevernose]

109. Sounds good to me...

...since I'm a teacher and on the teacher's payscale. I'm not sure if even 35 to 40 is lucrative enough, though -- I have friends in Jersey who assure me that if I were to move there and teach at an identical inner city school, I could double my salary, with a lower cost of living to boot. The cot of living here has doubled in the last five years, and few single teachers can afford to even buy a condo.

CCSD (Las Vegas) doesn't just hire foreginers to be IT specialists -- they have to hire Philipinos, et cetera, to teach English. There are other reasons for this besides economic ones (the most poorly managed school district in the country, for starters), but money plays a big factor.

[anotherdrew]

97. why don't you just train some locals

ever hear of training? and btw, there is no need for a college degree, in reality.

[Nevernose]

110. True, to a certain point

But our ECSs work with children and sometimes even directly teach children. Scool districts, therefore, usually attampt to hold their employees to a higher standard than private business.

The idea is that there is some kind of minimum requirement to weed out those not capable enough or responsible enough to work with kids.

In a small district, that may be possible by checking references or ability, but in a district large enough to employ literally thousands of IT folks? It's just not feasible. So in a large enough district, it becomes a question of reality versus feasibility.

[mhatrw]

46. Insourcing up, outsourcing off the charts, wages stagnant.

Cheap labor conservatives.

[Triana]

68. They need to CUT it in half, not raise it (n/t)

[Marie26]

71. They should be doing the opposite

And actually allowing some visas for unskilled workers, so that they don't end up coming here illegally.

[AzDar]

73. Whether 'insourcing' through illegal immigration or H-1B visas,

or 'outsourcing' by sending jobs offshore, it's becoming clear that protecting the American Middle Class needs to be a legislative priority. U.S. Corporations CLEARLY cannot be trusted to do the right thing voluntarily.

[Election]

103. Let's take illegal immigration for instance.

1. Are you calling to tear apart families where one of the parents may be illegal or a visa-holder, but where the children are American citizens?

2. Why don't the poor from undeveloped countries have the same rights to move up the economic ladder as Americans do? Is it because we Murkans think we're superior?

[Yavin4]

104. From 1981 to 2000, The IT Industry Was The Backbone of Private Sector Middle Class Wages

The only other pillar of American middle class jobs is the government.

The H1B visa program, and all other related programs, are nothing more than an all out assault on the middle class in America. If you don't believe it, then you are fooling yourself.

If these corporations and educational institutions cannot find the talent, then raise the wages, and the labor will come. That's just simple economics.

[Sturmrabe]

105. As a Network Admin I agree...

completely...

[lcordero2]

108. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG

American Science? Big Pharma along with every other industry has been manipulating the data so that they can reach their FAVORED result.

Big Industry has already signalled that their intent is on destroying the middle class since they lobbied Congress to increase visas when no jobs SEEMED to be available.

Professor Matloff from UC Davis has some interesting papers online on outsourcing and H1-B visas. I'm not sure but I think that Professor Matloff charged that the "laws" for prevailing wages were on the books but the infrastructure to enforce these "laws" were not in place...and that's where the abuse comes in.

[entanglement]

111. The issue is more complex than it appears

Temporary visas, IMHO, consign the foreign IT worker to indentured status and hurt American workers by depressing wages in the IT industry. Considering the glut of unemployed IT workers, I'd say a moratorium on H1B visas for IT related jobs is long overdue.

On the other hand, H1Bs are also used for highly skilled (think PhDs) scientists, mathematicians, professors and innovators whose presence benefits America in innumerable ways. Many of them become permanent residents and US citizens. This also includes people with PhD degrees from top notch US grad schools. I'm all for offering such people an easy, direct path to citizenship rather than use the H1B visa or some such scheme.

Such a scheme would ease the woes of American IT workers and also ensure we get the world's best in non-IT fields.

[cap]

115. for an answer to the wage rate actually paid to H1bs

check out zazona.com which has done a FOIA to get the labor contract used by immigration to justify H1B. They list the skill level, salary and company for the job that needed the h1b visa.

You will see Microsoft cheerfully paying 40-50K for an experienced engineer -- a wage much lower than the comparable American salary.

L1s are worse. They are only paid the salary that they get at home.

We need H1Bs for either real expertise (not by defining the labor skill set overly narrowly) or times of shortage (during the boom time we just did not have enough engineers). H1bs must be paid American wages. We dont have skill shortage right now with many baby boomers kicked out of IT (most of them DID keep their skill set up. They just had the nerve to want a decent salary)

[ChromeFoundry]

116. Thanks for the link....

http://www.h1b.info/ gives you a DB search by company or area of H1B applications and approvals. Now I know why some of these companies never called me after I had applied for positions! Many companies I have worked for list positions filled by H1Bs at 1/2 the cost of hiring a citizen.