AFL-CIO Proposed Reforms for the H1B Program 1046
Alien54 writes "[I first saw this link over on RFN]. The AFL-CIO has announced a series of proposed reforms for the H1B Program. The proposal is very thorough, and covers eight different problem areas of the H1B laws."
Good Start. We need to throttle H1-B program back (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's open up H1-B to lawyers, doctors, teachers,
firemen and policemen. Don't we need good cheap compliant workers in those fields too.
The sooner the better (Score:4, Interesting)
I currently work for a VERY large, VERY well known, almost universally hated telecommunications company, which for obvious reason I cannot name.
The sooner H1B gets put under control the better, not only is it preventing upward movement within the company, increasing domestic unemployment, and brain drain from developing countries... It hurts development efforts within the company.
In a project ended several months ago, only 2 of the 30 plus people involved spoke english as a native language, the non english speakers, spoke 7 different languages, with only english in common.
The two who spoke english were the process manager, and an end user.
My estimation is that a project that should have taken 3 months instead took 3 years (and produced a product that should have been retiring at the time it was introduced).
The bottom line should not be in dollars, it should be in results.
Re:I might be ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Canadian Dollar=Cheap
Out of work Canadian Technicians=Plentiful
It's good business
Re:Prevailing Wage? (Score:3, Interesting)
What it means is that, in a very narrow range of professions, you get to compete with hundreds of thousands of people who'd be THRILLED to be making $20,000 a year in their homeland.
There was never any meaningful shortage of labor if the employer was willing to pay enough. Its called "supply and demand". And guess what, if tech jobs paid more, more graduates would go into tech jobs! What a concept. The entire point of H1-B visas is cheaper labor. Funny how CEO positions are never filled with H1-B folk though...
I have to say its disgusting that the AFL/CIO is the one doing the whistleblowing rather than, oh, say, the current executive branch! Strange bedfellows indeed...
Reply to this if.... (Score:3, Interesting)
We need to increase immigration (Score:5, Interesting)
We need more people. Not less. Immigrants add to the economy. They add workers, and consumers. What they bring to the economy more than outweighs what they take out via usage of social services.
Same with programmers (Score:5, Interesting)
I was even willing to work for 7/hr like the Indians because I became so desperate and was ready to work at a McDonalds or retail store. I guess I was still viewed as too expensive or not dispensable enough. I ened up moving back in with my parents, selling all of most of my stuff in my apartment, lossing my girlfriend because she wanted a man with money, and working at a staples for 7/hr.
Infact go read this [com.com]article here on how sun is under investigation for firing half of its staff and replacing them with Indians. Its disgusting and this really pisses me off! What the f*ck did we do to deserve to be treated like this? I advise most workers to work for a small bussiness who actually care about there workers. Big companies just want to rape us. I am back in tech working for a small consulting company outside of the big cities. I advise those who are looking for work in New York, Silcon Valley, or San Fransico to leave and move to a place like Phoenix, Las Vegas or Ohama where small bussinesses are rampant and rents are low.
We need more H1B's (Score:4, Interesting)
And the really good guy who's a foreign national goes back to his home country and can't get a job in the space industry because his country doesn't have a space program or he's european and ESA has stupid nationality-based hiring quotas.
As a nation we benefit greatly from being able to brain-drain other countries and get as many of their talented engineers working here as we can.
I do agree with one of these proposed reforms though... foreign nationals should get paid the same as us-citizens. We should be importing people because their really good... we shouldn't be importing some foreign box-of-rocks because he's cheaper than some american box-of-rocks.
Re:I might be ... (Score:2, Interesting)
When all this tech stuff was new and in development, it was natural for it to remain in the states. Leading edge development and the first round of sales is a high margin education intensive thing. However, as the product difuses throughout society and more and more individuals obtain the necesary background to produce a given product, then the margins fall. At this point the U.S. has historically exported the production to other nations, as our high standard of living and the nature of our economy depends (a) On high margins and (b) on the exploitation of education versus the exploitation of masses of people.
Summary:
Complex research, manufacturing, and development remains at home. Simplistic labor intensive manufacturing gets moved overseas.
I would be more concerned if we werent relocating these help desk jobs to India. That would be a sign of our economy abdicating the forefront.
The H1B program is fundamentally flawed (Score:4, Interesting)
This is great news (Score:2, Interesting)
This is just brilliant! I'd like to give a big thank you to the US government for putting the welfare of us foreigners over that of your own nation.
Sweet (Score:3, Interesting)
Its too bad there isn't the level of unionization in the IT industry as there is in other trades and professions. Only in a booming economy do you(individually) have any real bargaining power with big corporations. In today's market, a widespread union would be a big help. The practice of hiring cheap foreign labor and shipping jobs overseas is quite damaging to our social fabric, and I would think would dissuade those who are considering entering the field. A union could make sure corporations are hiring qualified individuals within the community before looking outside for help.
Re:I might be ... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's significantly cheaper to code overseas (and it is), then market forces pretty much dictate that the capital is going to flow that way regardless of what we want. Sure, you might be able to stop Missouri from farming out their services overseas (at the expense of the taxpayer, who's paying for the increased cost), but you can't stop privately owned firms without some sort of draconian lockdown on software production.
It's not entirely a bad thing, though. A US company may spend capital overseas to produce a package, but the revenue on the sale of the product is taxed in the good ol' US of A, and taxed again when those US employees receive their paychecks, and again when they spend it.
Trying to lockdown the export of projects in the US will have two effects. The first will be to force companies that are able to to move overseas, where the US won't be able to tax them. The other is that, for those companies that aren't able to go overseas but have to stay in the US, they will have to pay much higher rates than the rest of the world for software engineering, forcing them to be less competitive, and the long term effect is that the US would fall far, far behind in technology.
Re:My proposed reform (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, the H1B program does apply to these fields. It applies to all professional fields, with special consideration due to some e.g. nursing.
Re:I might be ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Once big businesses break this loop by establishing foreign units and getting the job done elsewhere for much cheaper, whos left to pay taxes. Whoz left to buy those new shiny, techy gadgets ?
No Jobs..No Taxes.. No money for Complex research( by government to edu insti)..No economy.
Letting the H1Bs flow in is better(they pay taxes, and live in US according to US laws and standards) than Letting businesses get away to other countries.
There *ISN'T* native talent out there right now! (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit.
I'm a Canadian on an H1-B visa and I've conducted recent interviews for software developer-style positions. The US talent is embarrassingly bad. I saw no less than five candidates who could not write a simple C routine to traverse a linked list. And this was one of the simpler questions.
This is why they can't find work, not because of foreign competition.
I'm tired of poorly-qualified or schooled native IT people complain that they ought to get the job because they're citizens or permanent residents. It doesn't work like that! If you don't know how to code, or explain the difference between an abstract base class and a regular class, then you don't deserve the job.
Stop blaming H1-B candidates and start brushing up on your skills, because it's your lack thereof holding you back.
Re:Same with programmers (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe high wages, lots o benefits and other costly things?
Re:I might be ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Economic Darwinism in action. It's what happens whenever a company abandons the merit principle in hiring.
If we had easier permanent immigration ("green card"), employers wouldn't need the H-1B as a stepping-stone to being able to bring a talented worker in on a permanent basis.
Also, if we didn't have the H-1B stepping-stone mentality, employers wouldn't put up with the hassles. They'd hire the best person - American or otherwise.
Likewise, wage devaluation wouldn't be a factor, as foreigners would be able to demand wages comparable to Americans, because any employer that failed to pay real market wages would soon find itself unable to hire.
Americans win. Foreigners win. Companies win. Pity that free labor markets will never happen, but hey, it's nice to dream.
Re:H1B's are bad for Americans (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:BINGO! (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely agreed. And what the greedy companies who follow this practice don't seem to realize is that they are effectively taking money out of the hands of the very people who would be buying their products. Look at the current trade deficit for the United States. The vast majority of consumers of US products live in ... the US. If you stop handing them the money they need to buy your products, you'll eventually start losing money. I'm not sure how long that process takes, but it's virtually guaranteed happen.
Re:Give the H1-B Workers More Freedom (Score:2, Interesting)
This makes a lot of sense. The conditions that possibly make companies hire H1-Bs over normal workers are artifical conditions created by the current laws that are *too* restrictive. Reduce the restrictions and allow the H1-B workers to move more easily between jobs and to compete on wages, companies will then have to hire based on ability only.
Re:Same with programmers (Score:1, Interesting)
As little as two years ago I saw ordinary Slashdotters - without any protest they were being rediculous - arguing that the reason employers couldn't recruit was that they weren't willing to pay six digit salaries. "I will not work for less than $150,000" was a common response.
$150,000? Are they mad? Do these idiots really think that the projects they work on will make enough money to pay them and the rest of the people involved?
Nuts. Completely nuts. And people wonder why the fastest growing part of the tech industry has tanked, and why jobs are being farmed to India.
Re:What if engineers unionized? (Score:2, Interesting)
Unions exist for a reason: To negotiate.
"Waaaa but I'm the UBERMENSCH!!!! I can negotiate my OWN condiditions I RULE THE COMPANY MUST DO WHAT I SAY IF THEY DON'T DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU'RE WEAK AND UNPRODUCTIVE AND DESERVE WHAT YOU GET QUIT DRAGGING ME DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *whacks you over the forehead with a copy of Atlas Shrugged*"
Ok. Let's get real here.
The basic concept of a union is one of collective bargaining. WE can negotiate as a group much more effectively than any one of us can individually. Unionization puts us on the same level as the employer when it comes to negotiating. When you negotiate with your boss, for a raise, different conditions, whatever... you aren't negotiating one on one with your boss, or anyone else. You're negotiating with your boss, his boss, HR, legal, and a whole host of other management areas. All a union does is balance this fact out and give YOU some of the same resources that your employer already has. Do you have your own legal team? Hell do you even keep ONE lawyer on retainer? Do you have a source of capital? In the 6-7 figures range? Didn't think so. A fleet of cars and people to run errands for you? Nope. Not that either.
Organization evens out the playing field.
Re:We need more H1B's (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure if somebody is good, then import them, however; companies just use stupid H1B labor to make more money for themselves and to screw the American labor force. Do they care if you don't have a job? No. All they care about is how much money they'll have in their pockets. Six Indian workers can be employed for the same price as one American worker. All John Q. CEO cares about is how he'll be able to afford that new yacht next year.
Re:Xenophobia disguised as economics. (Score:3, Interesting)
For most immigrants, the hardest part about getting to the United States is just simply getting to the United States. The lottery is packed -- it takes DECADES for people to get over here on a regular immigrant visa. The H1B is a fast way to get your feet on American soil, and once here, hopefully get established enough to be able to stay through other means.
H1B's do not WANT to go back, see. If they did, they wouldn't come here in the first place.
So you're right about the theory of H1B visas, but the reality is different. The reality is that the H1B is a "gateway visa" to finding permanent resident -- or better, citizenship -- status.
Re:I might be ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Biotechnology. Genetic engineering. A few bored kids in a garage with a chemistry set discovers the cure for cancer. Thousands rush out to buy their own home chemistry sets. Begin next boom.
Then Pfizer or Hoffman-laRoche or insert-megacorp-here says, "we patented that five years ago. Hand it over. Now." Doctors imported from India on the pretext of a "labor shortage" do the research to get the FDA approval. FDA grants approval, production outsourced to Canada or somewhere. Drug company charges obscene prices for new product. Drug company rakes in the dough, CEO buys new Jag.
Meanwhile, bored (because he's intelligent) kid goes back to his McJob. Nobody will hire said bored kid for anything more because he's "not a team player" or "an HR issue" (read: is smart, creative, and knows what is really going on.) The end.
Welcome to life in America today. As a proud American, it pains me to say this, but America is very nearly played out. It took a war to get us out of the Great Depression. It took a war to get us out of the last recession. A war likely won't get us out of this one because so many good-paying jobs have been "outsourced." Ours is very quickly becoming a service economy. Trouble is, people need rent, heat, and food. The service McJobs that are now the norm rather than the exception allow you to choose one.
from the H1-b's mouth (Score:2, Interesting)
* All H1-b workers are not paid just 30K a year. I for one, am paid more than twice that amount. And remember, even we pay taxes and falling in the 20+ % tax bracket, we do contribute significant amounts of revenue to the state.
* Sure there are cases where some under-qualified workers sneak in but most are well qualified, many with advanced degrees (sometimes from US universities). And then nothing prevents a company from firing an incompetent (or under qualified) worker. So it should be the prerogative of the company to decide what is the right qualification and not that of the INS.
* Speaking for the typical Indian H1-b, our english skills are good enough to communicate well with co-workers and with the society in general. Believe me, many of these engineers would have read more english literature than the average American.
* And all this comes at a huge cost to the native country in terms of brain drain and tax revenue. The Economist in a recent survey on Migration
( http://www.economist.com/surveys/showsurvey.cfm?i
* Movement of labour is one of the effects of a globalising world. Whether it is through "body shopping" or "Out-sourcing", work will move to people who can provide it for a lesser cost. We better get used to the idea.
Re:Racist gibberish moderated as insightful (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Free educations vs. Americans with loans to pay (Score:1, Interesting)
You have a choice
You can send your kids to the same colleges that I was referring to. They have foreign national programs which are much cheaper than US universities. Will you really send them is another thing...
Here is one which will give you rough idea of fees Fee for Self-Financing Foreign National Students [ernet.in]
Just keep in mind that the course structure is so tough in these colleges that barring the level of students at colleges like MIT, Georgia Tech etc, many local university level students might drop out in a year or two...
But if you have any kids, you can send them to these universities for low fees (compared to your local university) and I guarantee that once they get their college degree, they won't have to fear anything from H1B's or any others for that matter.
Re:Xenophobia disguised as economics. (Score:2, Interesting)
You are absolutely right that it's unfair, IF THE PROGRAM BENEFITS FOREIGNERS AT THE EXPENSE OF AMERICANS.
This sentence is wrong in a couple of ways. First, it does benefit foreigners at the expense of Americans. That's what happens when you replace some US labor with some foreign labor. But that doesn't mean that it is inherently fair or unfair on that basis alone.
The main reason I consider the program unfair is that H1B workers don't have the same job mobility that a US resident (citizen or green card) has. Hence, the employer has much more power over the employee. Another way to look at it is that an H1B applicant would have an enormous advantage over a US resident even if all costs were the same since the employer knows the H1B worker can't leave.
The facts are that these foreigners typically use H1B's as a way to get to the USA permanently, and do not go back home. Their expertise and hard work helps the overall economy, making more jobs here for everyone. Which means that this program benefits Americans more than it hurts us.
Now I've glossed over a lot of the supporting evidence for these facts because I'm busy, but if you do some research and keep an open mind, you'll discover that the evidence supports this conclusion overwhelmingly.
I simply don't believe this. While H1B may improve the efficiency of labor markets (which would be a dubious claim), it brings its own inefficiencies - namely employers that are dependent on the pool of immobile H1B labor. Further, as others have pointed out, this reduces the number of US citizens who stay in high tech employment which IMHO outweighs any market efficiencies gained by the current version of H1B.
For example, I went to Silicon Valley back in 1999 and was introduced to a crowd of about 10 or so contractors in a variety of programming and administrative jobs. At the time, all but one was directly in a high tech job. Now, three currently are. These aren't the same three who remain in the Silicon Valley area.
Another example. I worked for a while as a trainer for certain immediate US government needs (not going to be more specific, sorry). The company that hired me also hired a number of surprisingly competent people from telecoms, military, police, etc. Some were high level managers or very competent high tech employees in their past life. The job involved considerable travel and other unpleasant demands though pay was decent (around $25 an hour and you could live practically anywhere in the country).
The point is why are we pulling in so many H1B's when there's such a large pool of native labor to chose from? It's because the H1B worker can't leave when the company gets sicker or the economy improves.
What's happening is that a large number of people really ARE xenophobic or racist (although not you obviously) and because of this they're unwilling to accept the evidence, or outside of facts, they will always choose to believe that immigration poses a threat rather than a benefit.
Let me be blunt here. In a number of xenophobic societies, immigration is purely a threat. Ie, the benefits as you perceive them are irrelevant. Instead, the costs imposed on the society are willingly embraced. In the distant past, there must have been some advantage to xenophobia otherwise so many societies wouldn't have evolved with it present. I personally don't see what your problem is since you don't have to live in one these days. Further, I wouldn't change my views because you happen to accuse me of being xenophobic or racist. I'm a pretty rational being with a decent understanding of how my self-deception manifests and trust myself on this matter.
The AFL-CIO represents this point of view: The goal of the proposed "reforms" is not to reform, but rather to impose tighter restrictions on immigration. The problems with H1B visas are just an excuse to pursue the AFL-CIO's continued xenophobic agenda.
Perhaps the members of the AFL-CIO are xenophobic. However, the current large amount of H1B visas was implemented with the labor union's tacit approval in the past. It is just another organization with ulterior motives. In this case, they've decided that the new stance (which is more anti-immigration) is more beneficial to the organization (and perhaps to its members). Characterizing their agenda as "xenophobic" doesn't capture the purpose of this agenda.
AFL-CIO proposal (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead the program floods the marketplace with the potential of 200,000 or more professional guest workers each year...
Interesting. They don't quote the actual number of H1-B visas issued in recent years. I remember reading that the number of H1-Bs issued has declined sharply since the economy went south.
Anyway, call me a nitpicker, but how do you "flood" the marketplace with a "potential"? Maybe it's a language issue...
[Proposal]: Limit number of guest workers in any one firm, to a set percentage of the firm's workforce.
Hmm. That seems reasonable. However, consider the following true story.
I worked for a large European software company, with branches in many countries. My company managed to land a big software contract with a large U.S. company, mainly because of my company's specialized skills. The contract was large enough to justify founding a daughter company in the U.S. Obviously, in the beginning, no U.S. workers with the required skills could be found. So, the U.S. daughter company was started with almost exclusively European workers. Support staff (secretaries, bookkeepers, etc.) were recruited locally. Also, a general manager was recruited locally, because my company had the philosophy that an American daughter company should be led by an American manager. As the company grew, more and more American (technical) workers were hired, because it's just easier to hire (qualified) local people than moving them over from Europe with all the H1-B costs and hassle (and trust me, it's a big hassle).
So, by the time I joined the U.S. daughter company (two years after the founding), all management and support people were American workers. About half of the technical staff was American, the other half was European. And yes, I got my H1-B based on skills that were close to impossible to find in the U.S.: it involved a lot of experience with my company's (in-house) developed tools that were crucial to the project.
Anyway, my point is that founding this company provided a lot of jobs to Americans and non-Americans alike. However, since the workforce was close to 100% H1-Bs in the beginning, it could never have happened had there been a limit on the percentage og H1-B workers.
. A program of six years duration does not qualify as "temporary."
Of course it does. Look up the definition of "temporary". If they had said that six years does not qualify as "short-term" than I would have agreed with it.
Possible Reforms:
Restrict this "temporary" guest worker program to one, two or three year (non-renewable) term.
That's a good idea, or a bad idea, depending on what your motives are. If you want to limit the number of H1-Bs, then it's an excellent idea. For many people, two or three years is too short to justify moving to another country. Also, it's too short for many companies to justify the cost and trouble of hiring foreign workers.
If you want to attract talented foreign workers to fill a hole in the marketplace (which is the intention of the H1-B program), then it's a bad idea, for the same reasons.
Laid-off H-1B workers must return to their country of origin within 60 days of their unemployment;
Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the current time limit was 10 days! As far as I know, the only way to get out from under this (unreasonable) rule, is to apply for a status change to "visitor". This would give you 90 days. But you can't be employed while in "visitor" status, all it does is give you some time to get your stuff packed to move overseas.
Current Problem:
H-1Bs are supposed to be highly skilled professionals with the requisite academic degree. But even this standard is undercut by language that allows a vague degree equivalency, such as work experience, to suffice. In addition there is no system in place to verify that those with degrees have valid credentials or that they are equivalent to a U.S. degree.
Well, maybe things have changed, but in my case:
I had to submit notarized copies of my high school diploma, and my university diploma. The copies had to be translated, and the translations had to be certified. I had to describe in detail all the projects that I worked on in a professional capacity. I had to give addresses and phone numbers of my high school, university, and current employer. Then, all this paperwork was evaluated by a (sworn) evaluator from some evaluation bureau in the U.S. Conclusion: the equivalent of a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and a B.Sc. in Computer Science. There was lots and lots more: birth certificates, passport copies, a list of countries I had visited in the last 10 years, and the reasons why, etc., etc. I have copies of all the paper that was submitted to the INS and DOL with my petition, and it's about an inch thick.
Don't give me any nonsense that there is no system in place to verify credentials.
"The OIG has averaged 14 indictments and 11 convictions per year for labor certification fraud over the prior [1996] five-year period."
Err, is it just me, or does that not sound too impressive? Either there's not all that much fraud going on, or the authorities are doing a really poor job in finding it. Or both...
Re:Prevailing Wage? (Score:2, Interesting)
A) B.S. in Mathematics and B.S. in Optical Physics
B) Previous employer has nothing but good things to say about me
C) True, you'll find most people in the world, or even in the U.S., do not live in New York City
The 2002 Federal Poverty Guidelines put the poverty line at $8,860 for the lower 48 states. $20k is far from poverty (unless you've got half a dozen kids). Hell, last year (my first full year out of college) I made just a little over $11k, and I got along.
This really centers us properly on the true issue here, that the IT industry has been overpaid for so long that many of you guys have lost any inkling of how the "other half" lives. $20k isn't exactly the lap of luxery, but I know people around here who manage to raise a family on less than that. What they really need to lose is this view that somehow anyone willing to work for less than 6-figures is somehow ruining the market and playing into the hands of the rich, or the capitalists, or whatever.