Why Is Deval Patrick party to this sham?
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Will H1-B immigration debacle be fixed?
By Thomas D. Elias
It’s an open question now whether the egregious abuse of H-1B immigration visas by large corporations will ever be fixed.
That’s because a small organization dedicated to helping American workers get jobs for which American companies are now importing foreign immigrants has uncovered a 2006 document demonstrating that letting foreigners take jobs Americans could fill is in fact the policy of the Bush Administration.
States the U.S. Department of Labor’s Strategic Plan for the fiscal years 2006 to 2011, “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 the foreign worker.” The Federal Register adds that “the statute does not require employers to demonstrate that there are no available U.S. workers or to test the labor market for U.S. workers as required under the permanent labor certification program.”
Here is what Deval thinks of your training and experience …
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http://www.competeam…
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And here is how you can thank him for his concern …
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http://www.unionvoic…
I cannot believe Deval signed that. What nobody seems to have told him is that this is a race to the bottom of the barrel. Cost is the major factor in hiring off shore and H-1B’s to the detriment of US workers, quality, stockholders and even for the H-1B workers themselves. I’m stunned and ashamed to see this.
Check this video out of a immigration lawyer explaining to companies how NOT to hire American tech workers. These traitors goal is to bring in more foreign H1-B tech workers by making it look like there are no qualified American workers for the job. Which is total BS!
http://www.post-gaze…
This is called “insourcing.”
Hilary Clinton and Bill Gates are big supporters of this as well(bringing in more H1-B workers). Let’s not forget her support of Amnesty for Illegal Aliens.
http://www.steinreport.com/archives/010416.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070901288.html
Classic Hillary playing both sides: invest in America and I’ll get you more H1-B visas. Riiight.
I just laugh whenever I hear the Democrats are for working Americans. As a Union member I hear/read it a lot. People seem to forget that Bill Clinton signed NAFTA which cost America over 3 Million jobs, Union and Non-Union. Not that Republicans are any better.
Already sent a fax thanks to Numbersusa.com to Deval Patrick about this.
Not sure why you are so surprised. He is a supporter of Amnesty/Benefits for Illegal Aliens which tells you Deval Patrick has zero regard for the America Citizen/Worker.
I'm not going to defend Patrick for his signature on that letter. Expanding H1-B tech workers is disasterous for stateside workers in those fields. He is wrong on that issue, and I think it stems from his corporatist background, and the pressure he must feel to run a “business friendly” state that is competitive enough to attract businesses to come / stay here. See lolorb's “race to the bottom” comment. 100% correct. We are stuck in a position where states in our Union are pitted against one another to improve their relative economies, and the big corporations are in the cat-bird seat. It sucks. Who's government is this anyway?
That said, expanding the signature of our governor to the democratic party as a whole is laughable. I notice you did not mention the other party. You know, the ones to whom “business friendly” is more of a religion than a tactic.
Most notable this issue has NOTHING AT ALL to do with “Amnesty” or “Benefits” for “Illegal Aliens”. These are simplified, emotionally charged terms that are morphed into any number of definitions and are inevitably used to bash democratic candidates. Red Herring.
The bottom line is the corrosive effect of corporate money on our political process.
If you like things simple, you can't get much simpler than that. Sure there is a faction of democrats who swoon to the siren song of corporate money, but the entirety of the republican party is in service to the will of multinational corporations. So rather than cursing the democratic party for this ill, I would expect a more constructive response, such as efforts to make all political campaigns publicly funded.
This is an example of what is so very wrong with the current Republican administration’s agenda AND with Democrats advocating for the further erosion of not just US workers rights, but the rights of all. I support Deval Patrick, and I believe he is an intelligent and thoughtful human being. I don’t think he would have signed that statement if he understood the impact and ramifications this will have. He needs to do some serious research on the subject.
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I can’t compress all of the experiences I’ve had with this problem into a single response. It requires a diary with many links to make a case for this being a slap in the face to current high tech workers and a horrible disincentive for those who Deval Patrick hopes to encourage to enter these fields.
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I’m so upset by this, I have to compose my thoughts to write coherently about it.
Apparently you missed this from my comment:
You wrote:
Wrong again. The more Illegal Aliens in this country the worst it is for the American Worker. Economics 101 – supply and demand. The Illegal Aliens that do work undercut American workers(just ask the tradesman), keep our wages stagnate, and raise our health care premiums since most of their healthcare is tax payer funded(you been to an emergency room lately?). So American workers are left with no raise or a smaller one to offset healthcare costs. Just happened to myself last contract.
Would you change your tune if some of these Illegal Aliens were tech workers? For all we know some of them could be.
Let me simplify something for you. Picture 20 million less Illegal Aliens in America, do you think that would help or hurt the American worker?
It’s the same as Hillary, Deval, Arnold, and the Bush Administration importing all these foreign H1-B workers, the more of them that are here the more its brings down the American Tech worker wages, benefits etc. Right?
The scary thing with this is that these foreign workers would be here legally with the help of elected officials whose sworn allegiance is to America and its Citizens. Traitors IMO.
with a slightly wider perspective.
http://www.youtube.c…
I'd embed the clip if I knew how, but click that link. Those are smart cats.
Your comment on labor is only true to the degree that government / law enforcement is complicit in the pursuit of business to engage in illegal employment. As far as healthcare, your comment is only true to the degree that we are willing to tolerate the managed care industry that nickels and dimes the consumer to death. Literally.
You could sneak into canada and noone would hire you. Period. There's our problem.
You could sneak into canada and get medical care and it would raise noone else's costs. There, again, is our problem.
The H1-B program is a work visa program. Nothing “illegal” about it.
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There is a big difference between H1B visa workers, illegal immigrants, and “workers” in general. The key is in power and leverage.
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By your reasoning, colleges in the US are bad for the American Worker because they continue to churn out “competition”. Which is, of course, ridiculous. We can all agree that increasing the supply of educated workers in this country is a good thing, can’t we?
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The big problem stems from how the H1B visa process works. There are a pool of hungry people in other countries, people with skills, people who are looking to come to this country to work. The wages here are much higher than the wages in their country.
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H1B matches one of those workers with a corporation. The corporation hires that person at whatever the corporation wants to pay. It might be double what that person can earn in their country, but half of what a US citizen would be paid.
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That person has zero leverage. They can’t ask for more money, because the visa is tied to the employer. That single fact distorts the market, because in a free market, that worker would say “hey, I’m making half of what I should be making, I’m going to ask for a raise or quit and find another job”. And the corporation gets a double bonus, because they tell their existing workers “don’t ask for too much, because I’ll just replace you with a H1B worker who makes half of what you do”.
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There may or may not be a tech worker shortage. I know that in my company, we tried to hire a tech job that paid nearly $100k in salary. The resumes we got were pathetic. No one was even close, and we didn’t seed the requirements with things that were difficult to achieve. We didn’t take the H1B visa route — but the person we hired was an internal candidate who is on a visa (but is working to become a citizen).
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If there is a shortage of tech workers, then I suspect we could solve this problem by divorcing the H1B visa process from the employer, allowing employees to “shop around”. Their wages would exert only minimal pressure on existing wages — about the same as new college graduates.
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But if there is no shortage of tech workers, then open up spots for people who are only looking to permanently immigrate to the USA. Stop the racist bullshit — if we can get 100,000 very skilled citizens in an instant, who cares if their skin is dark and they’re not Christian? Educated, productive workers are a boon to our economy, and if we can get them without our economy paying for their education costs, that’s a good thing.
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The same concepts describe illegal immigrants. If they want to move to this country, and want to work, let them. Give them the legal protection that all other workers have. The only reason they drive down wages is that their employers know that their workers have zero power.
There is some relationship between the H1B issue and the illegal imigration issue but my thinking is that the connections are loose at best. It is no coincidence that support for “immigration reform” comes from one side of the political spectrum and is vocal and very visible while support for H1B visa reform is bipartisan and heavily muted.
With the overall immigration issue we are looking at the effects of INDIVIDUAL ACTION while with the H1B issue we are looking at the concerted efforts of GOVERNMENTS. The entire flare up of H1B exploitation may fuel short term corporate profits but in the longer run it fuels the concept of TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER which appears to be the fundemental goal and the driving force behind government “cooperation”.
Education is pointless in a vacumn where its fruits have no application.
I loved this line.
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“Sure there is a faction of democrats who swoon to the siren song of corporate money, but the entirety of the republican party is in service to the will of multinational corporations. “
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Agreed. Regretably that “faction” is in control of every committee on every level and works very well at spreading its wealth of influence to get others of its particular persuasion elected to join it …
Shall I link Hillary’s blabbering of how she is so proud to be the head of the India Caucus … I’m sure you have seen this, its been there for a while. All of this crap we American citizens endure began in the 90s. Ralph Nader is correct again with his assertion that the democrats are not a proper opposition party. They arent realy an opposion party in any measurable way.
Personaly, I enjoyed training my foreign replacement. Its an experience someone will never forget.
And Deval … you contend he is just swell but somehow he doesnt understand?
He understand very well. Casinos for all and a side helping of sin tax.
or Bernie Sanders. Well, maybe they could, if people voted in their best interests and choices like these were available to everyone.
This is where the “personal responsibility” crowd falls strangely silent. I would expect more pronounced and concerted efforts for techies to form a bloc of organized labor, however there are precious few that have the courage, knowhow, will, or passion to get involved in that manner. I guess it's just easier to point the finger at someone else.
It is happening, albeit slowly. It’s not an easy route you know. Organized labor did not form overnight and to those of us who chose fields outside of its scope, who have always had to rely on the mantra of “stand up for yourself because noone else will”, regardless of our personal affinity to the “concept” of organization in an exempt field, it is a difficult transition. The network wasnt provided FOR us by generations past.
I would like to get in touch with you to talk about this. The BMG owners know who I am and how to reach me. Ask Bob for my email.
I have updated my profile to include an active email address. Please use BMG in the subject of any correspondance so that it doesnt get zapped đŸ™‚
Organized Techies
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One, my father was an engineering manager at GE in Evendale OH in the 1960s (also in the 1950s and 1970s, but the 1960s is the relevant time period). Over the dinner table, he would oftentimes remark that he was surprised that engineers hadn’t unionized, since they were so abused by the company. (Since he was a manager, he would not have been permitted to join a union. Or, better put, he would not have been protected by federal labor laws if he did.) I expressed surprise at his statements, and he expressed the opinion that it was probably because engineers felt to “proud” to lower themselves to unionization in part because it would liken their “knowledge work” to that of mere “handworkers.”
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Two, fast forward 30-40 years. I’m not sure about hardware engineers, but more than a few of the software engineers I’ve dealt with have tended to the really nutty end of nutty liberatarianism. The possibility of them being organized is between slim and none.
Engineering is a varied group. Personaly, I have always RESENTED being lumped into the “management” group and I would say at least a good percentage of my associates over the years have felt the same way. Personal experiences shape ones outlook, so I think as the picture has become clearer the number that would be amiable to such an idea is increasing.
For example I would not at any point have considered crossing a picket line even though I am aware that it would be demanded that I do just that.
Engineering is a no mans land, scorned by both sides of the equation. As such, we were easily targeted for exploitation.