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Despite the firings not being a significant percentage, as many have said, 200 is a significant number. The US Dept of Labor considers 50 or more people fired during a 30 day period a mass firing, they even have separate policies such as the WARN act for such cases:
https://www.doleta.gov/program...

Morally, they're bound to work for improvement, ethically they are required to do so by law and expectations.

If UCSF is training people to do IT jobs that cheap overseas labor in third world countries can do, they are failing in their mission and should be shut down entirely.

First, all workers are temporary. H1-Bs with potential 7 year ability to work are more permanent than many IT workers.

The term "temporary worker" has a specific meaning; look it up.

Federal Law, as stated elsewhere, only requires a minimum salary of 60K.

Incorrect:

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed. To comply with the statute, the Department's regulations require that the wages offered to a foreign worker must be the prevailing wage rate for the occupational classification in the area of employment.

the large number of TAs that cannot speak English? [...] H1-B parking ticket writer

Those aren't examples of "outsourcing", they are examples of jobs going to people you don't like.

RTW doesn't matter in regards to the WARN Act. Once the firings reach a certain point, specifically "Mass Layoff: A covered employer must give notice if there is to be a mass layoff which does not result from a plant closing, but which will result in an employment loss at the employment site during any 30-day period for 500 or more employees, or for 50-499 employees if they make up at least 33% of the employer's active workforce." That's why he's claiming the firings are not actually performance based but are being labeled as such in a blatant attempt to circumvent federal labor law.

Hopefully they will split these into multiple lawsuits; one for discrimination and another for violations of the WARN Act. Discrimination can take a long time to prove but the WARN Act part should be a slam-dunk.

What should be done instead is to create legislation mandating that the unemployment rate for the industry being hired for is below a set level before they can import workers on the H1-B program, *and* they have to pay the prevailing wage.

That is effectively the law. The need and prevailing wage certifications are made by the US Department of Labor:

http://www.foreignlaborcert.do...

What we're talking about, is that the jobs us Americans are working, for $75,000 would pay over $100,000. Except rather than pay what the market demands, the companies import workers on H1B visas.

The market doesn't care whether the people willing to do the job for $75000 are Americans or Indians. If Indians can't come to the US to do these jobs, the usual result isn't that Americans get the jobs for $100000, it's that the jobs go overseas one way or another: via foreign subsidiaries, inversions, or foreign competition. And even if the jobs stayed in the US and salaries were raised, it would simply mean that prices would adjust accordingly in the US.

Attempts to keep salaries high through government mandates and restrictions like this are the cause of US job losses, loss of US competitiveness, increasing inequality, and middle class income stagnation.

All laws passed should be inflation adjusted, if so, then it would already be $110K

H1-B salary requirements are actually based on "prevailing wage", as determined every year by the Office of Foreign Labor Certification. http://www.foreignlaborcert.do... That means that they are not just keeping up with inflation, they are actually keeping up with above average salary increases in each area of employment.

While there may not be a law against hiring felons, the Feds encourage the practice via the WOTC http://www.doleta.gov/business/incentives/opptax/wotcEmployers.cfm.

What disturbs me most is they place 'Ex-Felons' and Veterans on equal footing under the program

PHqing Feds.

-- kjh

The site says the data comes from the US Dept of Labor. However, H1B fraud often follows a pattern of submitting multiple Labor Condtion Applications (LCAs) with different salaries for the same job and then when the H1B is approved for one particular LCA the employer uses the LCA with the lowest salary.

I do not have the expertise to say if the DoL stats reflect salary info from the actual LCA the employer ends up using or just the salary info from the LCA that the H1B was issued for. My innate cyncism says it is the later rather than the former, but I honestly don't know. Perhaps there is someone here with the expertise to say (and show) the definitive answer?

Actually, depending on the terms of the dismissal (particularly how much notice is given), severance pay is not a benefit in the US, but required by law - http://www.doleta.gov/programs... In many of these cases, however, they're basically offering you that 3months+ of pay to be quiet (among other things). Even "I worked for a tech company that I'll not name, and was laid off when they hired foreign workers" may be in violation of the terms, especially when you start to ponder the strength of their legal team vs. yours.

I agree with others that industry lobbyists, unhappy with some research that uses H-1B records, may be behind the deletion of records. For example, last June I posted a subset of the Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) online at http://econdataus.com/lcainfo.... . The first large table there shows some of the most questionable data in applications from 2001 to 2013. The green values are values from applications that were certified that appear to be incorrect. As you can see, this data occurred from 2006 through 2008 and included records with company names like "Large Company" and addresses like "address123". But as stated at http://www.foreignlaborcert.do... , "The OFLC will no longer respond to inquiries to confirm priority dates, search for records in response to FOIA requests, or provide information for requests for duplicate certifications for permanent labor certification applications with a final determination issued in 2008 or earlier, in keeping with the OFLC records schedule". Hence, the source record for these years are no longer available, even via FOIA requests. Coincidence?

In any case, it seems that most of the processing of LCAs is automated and that some of the applicants take advantage of this. As you can see from the link above, all requests for over 1000 positions were denied but there were many requests for just under 1000 positions that were certified. That suggests that there is a known cutoff at 1000. Then, there were a number of certified applications that did not appear to contain enough information to determine the workplace location, a critical piece of information for evaluating the requests. Then, I noticed that nearly every application that proposed to pay a salary significantly below the prevailing wage was denied. However, many that proposed to pay a salary many multiples the prevailing wage, suggesting bad salary data, were certified. For example, a request to pay a product consultant $11.4 million a year and a staff dentist $15.5 million a year were certified! That's despite the fact that they listed the prevailing wages as $84,344 and $136,864, respectively. It appears that someone is just applying a set of filters to the data and "rubber-stamping" everything else.

You can see more on this at http://www.reddit.com/r/news/c... .

He's right Electronic Filing of Labor Condition Applications For The H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Program

For the record, proto-socialist ideas started popping up in France distinctly after the revolution.

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or death" was the slogan of the French revolution. Fraternity was a concept that people had a legal responsibility to ensure that everyone gets their fair share. That sounds like the beginning of socialism to me.

Here is a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1754, way before the French revolution.
"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naÃve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

So I guess it's safe to say that bounding ideas or concepts by the date is pretty foolish. Did gravity not exists before Newton defined it?

Did you read below that I will repeat it since you missed it, if you are saying they had it equally as good you need to find something that made up for a serf's lack of technology, like cell phones, clean drinking water, indoor plumbing, living quarters without livestock, cars, laundry facilities,... What area did the serfs have it better then migrant workers to make up for all those things I listed.

First, I'll reiterate my objection that those aren't things that migrant workers have, generally speaking. Second, I'll reiterate the response I offered earlier: leisure time and living space

80% of migrant workers have cell phones
42% drive a car to work, 8% walk, 35% ride with others, 8% take a bus, 7% use Raitero (shuttle).
95% had water for washing, 80% drinking water and cups, 93% had a toilet

Living space? serfs had live stock living in their "houses". I don't know if you know this but goats and sheep crap all the time. I don't know about you but I would rather live in a house cramped with people then with animals, feces, and urine.

Now for your claim of leisure time. From the study I cited the average hours worked per week was 43 hours. It's safe to say that is the average for a year round worker, serfs worked more then that. Now to the seasonal migrant. Seasonal migrant workers are not working 3/4 of the year, they would have to work 23 hours a day every day to work the same hours as someone who works 40 hours a week year round.

The disclaimer I've added to the end of my last three posts (as well as this one) has been rather prophetic, don't you think? Perhaps you're interested in breaking the 76-post-long-thread record I set with bingoUV? That would be even more impressive with this disclaimer in place the whole time. I totally think you should go for it.

You can stop responding any time you like, yet you still continue to respond.

For the record, proto-socialist ideas started popping up in France distinctly after the revolution.

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or death" was the slogan of the French revolution. Fraternity was a concept that people had a legal responsibility to ensure that everyone gets their fair share. That sounds like the beginning of socialism to me.

Here is a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1754, way before the French revolution.
"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naÃve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

So I guess it's safe to say that bounding ideas or concepts by the date is pretty foolish. Did gravity not exists before Newton defined it?

Did you read below that I will repeat it since you missed it, if you are saying they had it equally as good you need to find something that made up for a serf's lack of technology, like cell phones, clean drinking water, indoor plumbing, living quarters without livestock, cars, laundry facilities,... What area did the serfs have it better then migrant workers to make up for all those things I listed.

First, I'll reiterate my objection that those aren't things that migrant workers have, generally speaking. Second, I'll reiterate the response I offered earlier: leisure time and living space

80% of migrant workers have cell phones
42% drive a car to work, 8% walk, 35% ride with others, 8% take a bus, 7% use Raitero (shuttle).
95% had water for washing, 80% drinking water and cups, 93% had a toilet

Living space? serfs had live stock living in their "houses". I don't know if you know this but goats and sheep crap all the time. I don't know about you but I would rather live in a house cramped with people then with animals, feces, and urine.

Now for your claim of leisure time. From the study I cited the average hours worked per week was 43 hours. It's safe to say that is the average for a year round worker, serfs worked more then that. Now to the seasonal migrant. Seasonal migrant workers are not working 3/4 of the year, they would have to work 23 hours a day every day to work the same hours as someone who works 40 hours a week year round.

The disclaimer I've added to the end of my last three posts (as well as this one) has been rather prophetic, don't you think? Perhaps you're interested in breaking the 76-post-long-thread record I set with bingoUV? That would be even more impressive with this disclaimer in place the whole time. I totally think you should go for it.

You can stop responding any time you like, yet you still continue to respond.

Did serfs live in houses with 30+ others? Migrant workers do. Did serfs' diets consist of beans, rice, and water? Migrant workers' do. Regarding the hours-per-week claims, they seem totally disconnected from the realities I've seen. I've never seen a migrant worker that worked nice short days or took weekends off, but without reliable statistics, we'll just have to agree to disagree here.

You might want to get your facts straight. This was from 2002-2003 so the number may not be a perfect illustration of today but it's fairly obvious that migrant workers don't have it as bad as serfs by a large margine
Hours and pay
"In 2001-2002, the average was 42 hours, compared to 38 in 1993-1994. In 2001-2002, approximately one quarter each worked less than 35 hours, between 35 and 40, 41 and 49, and 50 hours or more."
Housing
Only 5% were in a dormitory, barracks, or multi-family structure.
80% live off farm.

That they are doing the farming for a larger population does not follow from the fact that there are fewer people farming than there were 600 years ago. Non sequitur.

So are you disagreeing that there are fewer farmers or that the population has not grown in 600 years. The were 40 million farmers in Europe in the middle ages with a population of 50 million. Today there are 13 million farmers and a population of 740 million.

I specifically stated that if these jobs had an equal requirement for labor as the jobs they replaced, the logical conclusion would be that there was no net gain in productivity. Since there was in fact dramatic gains in productivity, the claim that these new jobs simply replaced the old jobs is demonstrated false. This is what's called a proof by contradiction.

People no longer have to farm for a living they do one of a million other things because of technology. If technology was not there they would have to farm. I'd like to see your proof that those other jobs did not replace farming jobs, you are missing a few rungs in your logic chain.

Specifically, do you have any evidence that they would have to work less hard to fix broken technology if they do more than "just enough to get by"?

They would have to work harder to fix broken technology. They would need to continue their current effort PLUS fix the technology. I don't know where you are getting this. If you use technology to do the bare minimum you will run into an issue when it breaks. You won't have any money to get replacement parts and fix it yourself or pay someone to fix it. You will need to do more then just meet your current needs.

To avoid death at the hands of an angry mob. I can't believe you've never heard of the French revolution. Amazing.

This I do agree with, that the French Revolution was just a 20 year riot. Your point pretty well illustrates that migrant workers have it better, they are not rioting and killing innocent people so they must be receiving better treatment then farmers 200 years ago. Over half of the migrant workers in the US are committing a crime just to work there.

Did serfs live in houses with 30+ others? Migrant workers do. Did serfs' diets consist of beans, rice, and water? Migrant workers' do. Regarding the hours-per-week claims, they seem totally disconnected from the realities I've seen. I've never seen a migrant worker that worked nice short days or took weekends off, but without reliable statistics, we'll just have to agree to disagree here.

You might want to get your facts straight. This was from 2002-2003 so the number may not be a perfect illustration of today but it's fairly obvious that migrant workers don't have it as bad as serfs by a large margine
Hours and pay
"In 2001-2002, the average was 42 hours, compared to 38 in 1993-1994. In 2001-2002, approximately one quarter each worked less than 35 hours, between 35 and 40, 41 and 49, and 50 hours or more."
Housing
Only 5% were in a dormitory, barracks, or multi-family structure.
80% live off farm.

That they are doing the farming for a larger population does not follow from the fact that there are fewer people farming than there were 600 years ago. Non sequitur.

So are you disagreeing that there are fewer farmers or that the population has not grown in 600 years. The were 40 million farmers in Europe in the middle ages with a population of 50 million. Today there are 13 million farmers and a population of 740 million.

I specifically stated that if these jobs had an equal requirement for labor as the jobs they replaced, the logical conclusion would be that there was no net gain in productivity. Since there was in fact dramatic gains in productivity, the claim that these new jobs simply replaced the old jobs is demonstrated false. This is what's called a proof by contradiction.

People no longer have to farm for a living they do one of a million other things because of technology. If technology was not there they would have to farm. I'd like to see your proof that those other jobs did not replace farming jobs, you are missing a few rungs in your logic chain.

Specifically, do you have any evidence that they would have to work less hard to fix broken technology if they do more than "just enough to get by"?

They would have to work harder to fix broken technology. They would need to continue their current effort PLUS fix the technology. I don't know where you are getting this. If you use technology to do the bare minimum you will run into an issue when it breaks. You won't have any money to get replacement parts and fix it yourself or pay someone to fix it. You will need to do more then just meet your current needs.

To avoid death at the hands of an angry mob. I can't believe you've never heard of the French revolution. Amazing.

This I do agree with, that the French Revolution was just a 20 year riot. Your point pretty well illustrates that migrant workers have it better, they are not rioting and killing innocent people so they must be receiving better treatment then farmers 200 years ago. Over half of the migrant workers in the US are committing a crime just to work there.

I always wondered that with the recidivism rate so high and the cost of housing inmates so high, solving the post-release job/hiring issues by offering employers who employ ex-convicts an annual/monthly tax break for employing them.

We already do that. It's called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). Unfortunately, it's suspended right now and Congress is not taking up renewal until the Republicans concede to including a raise to the minimum wage in the same bill. It's sad that actual useful ideas that both sides can agree on always end up with poison pills added from one side or the other.

"Yes. That person is imaginary."

So you're accusing Apple of fraud? You can also get the raw data direct from the US Department of Labor if you prefer?

http://www.foreignlaborcert.do...

"Apple is paying a 50% premium in wages? On what planet does that make sense when they can recruit worldwide?"

Sometimes it's worth paying for the best. That same site will show you many others paid the same as or not far off of that.

Instead of jumping to the conclusion that it must be some conspiracy theory involving fraudulent record keeping have you stopped to think that maybe it's simply just that you're wrong and weren't aware of the salaries being paid to some H1-B hires? Just a thought.

I'm pretty sure it has to be at a reasonable salary determined by a 'prevailing wage'.

  "The prevailing wage rate is defined as the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in the area of intended employment." : http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/wages.cfm

  I.e. They would have to offer her the job, at the average market value wage and if she declined they could then seek H1B1 employees. That's my understanding at least.

Mod up!

That is what I am trying to say. Since no American will agree to that wage with that experience then it makes since to bring in an H1b1 visa. Not pay more money which is what every slashdotter has been saying. Business does not work that way when you have a set budget by accounting.

So the fact she is expensive means no job. That is business 101

I'm pretty sure it has to be at a reasonable salary determined by a 'prevailing wage'.

"The prevailing wage rate is defined as the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in the area of intended employment." : http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/wages.cfm

I.e. They would have to offer her the job, at the average market value wage and if she declined they could then seek H1B1 employees. That's my understanding at least.

The USA on the other hand has pretty much no welfare system, if you lose your job you are lucky to get a few weeks of unemployment benefits before you are tossed to the wolves.

26 weeks is more than a few weeks. And there's a temporary extension currently in place which stretched that out to about 9-14 weeks of additional payments.

It is illegal to pay a H1B worker less than the prevailing rate.

Of course it is, but for corporations > a certain size, the risk * cost of punishment is insignificant compared to the benefits of ignoring corporate law. Back in the early 90s, a company was blocked from $2 Billion in contracts because of a bribery scandal, they still came out ahead. BP probably came out ahead after the oil spill, AIG, Bernie Madoff, horse meat scandal... Sorry, but we don't live in a world where the "fictional person" of a US corporation has a non-fictional conscience.

It is illegal to pay a H1B worker less than the prevailing rate.

IANAL, but another kick in the pants is the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides benefits when you lose your job to a foreign worker, does not apply since your replacement is another employee (albeit in another country). Having been a former IBMer, you are expected to train your replacement, and are then shown the door.

Department of Labor Trade Act Program

If you don't want to be a unpaid intern... DON'T BE. Very simple solution.

It's not really that simple. There's a law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) that dictates specific requirements for unpaid internships. The majority of employers offering internships do not meet those requirements.

From the DoL's document on the subject:

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has developed the six factors below to evaluate whether a worker is a trainee or an employee for purposes of the FLSA:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Most employers and interns believe, as you seem to, that #6 is the only one that matters. But by ignoring the other 5, employers are breaking the law. You can argue that the law should be changed, but until that time, the rampant abuse of unpaid interns is a big deal and more than someone just bitching about their situation.

No, but it can supply America with seasonal workers.

...throw in some business management courses

Agreed. I'm 55 and I've been writing software since 1972. I only have an AAS -- I don't think CS degrees even existed when I was in school. Life was good until Jan, but then I was RIFed (first time for me). Now I'm bobbing along in a sea of baccalaureal hammerheads. Ever see the movie "Open Water"? Feels like that. I'm also going to try to get some relevant education and a degree or certification, since I have access to govt Trade Adjustment Allowance (TAA) funding ($13k). That should cover .... um .... about 2 hours of first year art history at Carnegie-Mellon SEI. Yee-ha. And meanwhile the COBRA will be eating $1100/mo.

Some unrelated observations/opinions:

• Older IT workers are generally better compensated, either because they've been loyal to the company, or they've amassed a substantial base of industry-relevant knowledge.
• Expensive workers float to the head of the RIF list.
• The cost of hiring a full-time worker is considerable. Virtues like flexibility, the willingness to learn and adapt, and the ability to "fit" into the culture and infrastructure of a company can be far more important than a canned education. These traits can be the hallmarks of older workers; at least I hope they are for me. Granted, I have worked with some crotchety, stubborn, command-line, two-finger-hunt-and-peck old coots.
• Younger, agile brains can more easily think outside the box.
• Older, more experienced brains know there's more than one box.
• A previous post mentioned the "ten thousand hours" threshold to achieve competency on a subject (probably referring to the book "Outliers"). On how many chips, operating systems, languages, and applications can you claim that kind of proficiency? Multiply that by 6 the next time you see one of us old farts. I don't wish to be judgmental, pedantic or dismissive. To provide some balancing perspective, I'll acknowledge that 60% of my accumulated proficiency would only be demonstrable in a museum.
• I know the lyrics of every "Beach Boys" song, but I'll be damned if I remember where I parked the truck.
• Twitter? No thanks. You really don't want to get me started on my prostate....

Um, not the INS, why would they have the information?

Try the Department of Labor: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/wageinfo.cfm

I am pretty sure that H1-B workers need to be paid the "prevailing wage". It is all there in black and white. The issue is, and always has been, that individuals need to file complaints for enforcement to occur, and even then the response is to look at an "Authoritative source" for what an appropriate wage is. As stated, the law is it isn't that bad. It only allows 65,000 workers anyway, with an intent for skills that truly aren't available in this country. In practice the consulting shops that recruit H-1B workers, shack them into temporary housing, and get 40% margins on them is a gaming of the system, not an indictment of the system itself. Bob

Anecdotal evidence, however, isn't sufficient. Cracking down on the entirety of people pulling unemployment because there are some people who abuse it isn't reasonable. It's not efficient and there is no service to society; those people will still abuse whatever system they come across.

Honestly, it sucks to have to support people in our society that don't pull their weight. But I suspect two things. First, the people we most point to as not pulling their weight are not the ones costing us the most money. Only 37% of jobless workers are covered by unemployment, regardless. Secondly, is that really the big money sink we should be worried about? A mere $33.55B? The Iraq war utilizes $12B a month, by comparison. The Defense Dept as a whole uses $650B a year.

What would be the cost of restricting what you can use that money for? What would you really be getting out of it? In fact, I'd argue that such restrictions would simply create a situation in which lobbyist groups simply have one more pork barrel to bargain over. I don't see how that helps society. If Unemployment Insurance does 80% of what it's supposed to do, then the rest is probably not worth dickering over.

As others have corrected you in the actualities of whose doing what, the one thing I would like to point out is that Motorola is already paying the unemployment for these people.

When employing someone in the US, you (the employer) are required to pay a certain amount into what is called unemployement insurance (each state runs their own, but it's almost all employer funded). When an employee leaves their job (voluntarily or involuntarily) they are able to apply for unemployment benefits off this account. The account you pull from is suppose to be the account of the company you last had 'substantial' employment from.

If the reasons for the ending of your employment warrant it, your previous company can dispute your claim. If they can prove certain things, then they 'keep' the money in their account to be used by the next person who applies.

Where I live, when you fire someone, you have to do it for cause, but you don't have to give notice or pay in lieu of notice; When you lay someone off, you can do it for any reason (or no reason), but you have to give notice or pay in lieu of notice.

Many places you do not have to fire someone for cause - you can fire them for no reason at all (but you can't fire them for a discriminatory reason - ex. age, sex, marital status, etc.)

A "lay off" usually means they are firing enough people that they have to worry about keeping themselves legal under the WARN act.
http://www.doleta.gov/layoff/warn.cfm

Most companies that are possibly going to be hitting the conditions of the WARN act (closing a plant or laying off significant number of people at a given site) are going to give employees enough to stay legal under it. (60 days notice or 60 days pay/benefits)
A lot of companies will even give more than that, as the managers recognize that they want to not alienate people - they want people to be willing to come back if/when things pick up again. And sometimes the severance package has additional money in it but with the condition that you do not sue. (Which gives the company a definitive cost vs. the potential of an unknown cost of a court case.)

Totally agree with you, this is a PR stunt by ProgrammersGuild. Read the following: "A handful of groups do oppose more green cards for the highly educated. Kim Berry, president of the 1,500-member Programmers' Guild, argues that giving green cards to the hundreds of thousands of people in the backlog will displace Americans and drag down wage levels. He points out that employment in the tech sector has been largely stagnant since 2000, adding only a net 262,700 jobs since then to bring the total to 3.7 million. Adding in another 315,000 people from the green-card queue would flood the market with labor, he says, with many of the newcomers willing to work for less. "For a young programmer coming from India, a $40,000 salary might be fine," says Berry. "But it's not going to be enough for an American trying to raise a family in San Jose." from http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/conten t/jun2007/db20070620_915353.htm?campaign_id=rss_da ily The Programmers' Guild's job is to try to keep as many Americans employed in these obsolete positions even though, these jobs are being outsourced already. Yeah this is definitely a way to keep efficiency high. Which is why Capitalism works. Notice how they say the Law firm does not talk about salary, well to meet PERM requirements, the employee's salary needs to meet 100% of the prevailing wage. http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/wages.cfm So go take your propaganda elsewhere ProgrammersGuild.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Sept. 16 were in Puerto Rico (3.7 percent), Alaska (2.5), Michigan (2.5), New Jersey (2.5), Pennsylvania (2.4), Arkansas (2.2), Connecticut (2.0), Massachusetts (2.0), Oregon (2.0), and Rhode Island (2.0).

Information on this amendment (scroll down about 2/3's of the way)

Anyhow - it seems that the parent poster is right, to a degree. It isn't "illegal" per-se, but rather it is cheaper for a company to outsource than to hire a contractor in a "technical" profession...

Basically, Section 1706 amends Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978. Section 530 allowed employers to treat contractors as non-employees without incurring a tax liability. Section 1706 amends this by saying that this section "shall not apply to firms engaging the services of such person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work". So now, according to IRS code, if a company hires you as a contracted programmer, the employer incurs a tax liability. Thus, it becomes cheaper to outsource (no tax liabilities under this section), than to hire a contractor.

Note that this doesn't make contracting illegal, it just makes it more financially difficult for the employer. If the employer thinks he will get a better deal from the contractor than from outsourcing (or another method), and is willing to pay the taxes, he can still hire you as a contractor. Even so, I find this code amendment to be a funny thing, and I tend to wonder what/who got it to pass - ie, WHO SCREWED US?

(1) Wages: Pay nonimmigrants at least the local prevailing wage or the employer's actual wage, whichever is HIGHER, and pay for non-productive time. Offer nonimmigrants benefits on the same basis as U.S. workers.

(2) Working Conditions: Provide working conditions for nonimmigrants which will not adversly effect the working conditions of workers similarly employed

Hmmmm. I'm not quite sure I understand your point. Firstly, the US government is not in the business of auctioning off permission to work, nor should it be. And we're talking about permissions here, not rights; and we're talking about temporary foreign workers, not immigrants.

Secondly, there are no subsidies involved. Hiring an H1B is a lot more complicated and expensive than you might think. There's a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump through, and there's not really any savings from lower wages.

According to the Labor Department, a company hiring an H1B is required to 1) determine the prevailing wage for the position, based on collective bargaining agreeements, government statistics, independent audit, etc; 2) determine the actual wage for the position, based on what the company pays people in the same or similar capacities with similar qualifications and experience; and 3) pay the H1B the higher of the two rates.

Thirdly, you seem to suggest that H1B visas are easy to come by, and that the program is not managed. Actually Federal law sets a limit on H1Bs at 65,000, plus another 6,800 H1B1s, which are, curiously enough, for "foreign workers in the U.S. in a specialty occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability from Chile and Singapore."

As in any other government program, there is an absurd amount of management, paperwork, forms, rules, requirements, and so on involved. See for yourself: here.

These foreign workers are already putting more tax money into the system than they're taking out. If you make companies pay for this, they will stop hiring temporary foreign workers, which means no fees to the government, no surplus from people paying taxes and Social Security without really drawing benefits, and therefore a higher tax burden for everyone else.

As for your last point, H1Bs are not immigrants -- they are temporary workers. Once here they can pursue immigration, but that is not a given. Even if they do immigrate, we are talking about people who are highly educated, highly skilled, gainfully employed, productive and law-abiding members of our society -- exactly what every country in the world would like its citizens to be. I don't think that "dilutes the value" of anyone's citizenship. Quite the contrary, I think it enriches our culture and makes all of us a little better off.

The "indentured servants" are usually those applying for a green card. If you switch jobs, you have to start over the green card process. This is scary for two reasons: the process takes a long time (about two years), and you only have so much time to do it (six years, I think).

Unless you apply in f#$%king NY state. I am on year 4 now and I am still in the first stage of the application. Check out this site

Try Hayest01@odjfs.state.oh.us (from here)

Hayest01@odjfs.state.oh.us is Tom Hayes e-mail address. God Bless Google. site: http://wdr.doleta.gov/contacts/dirs_list_new.cfm?s earchstate=OH&searchcategory=WIA+State+Contact

People are paid according to how hard they work, how smart they are, and perhaps most of all, how well they play the game/system.

No, no, and no. The correct answer is "how rich your parents are".

I do not feel that it is "just" that an hourly manual laborer should earn more than a fraction of what I earn.

If you want to keep earning those big bucks then you should be concerned how much the majority of Americans are making. Those of us who are worried about this aren't comparing salaries relatively, we are looking at whether the low and middle salaries, received by a vast majority of Americans are enough to sustain our economy, to allow you to continue earning 300% of their earnings or whatever it is. If to big of a portion of our population is not making enough money to have some discretionary money to spend to drive the economy, then we're in for a long, slow decline (or a short, fast one depending on who you ask). Our economy can't survive on just the folks buying the necessities, and it can't survive just on the spending of the richest 3% of the population, our economy depends on a middle class with a reasonable amount of discretionary income, and that is EXACTLY what has been steadily eroding, at an accelerating pace, since the early seventies: the middle class, and their discretionary income. Unless we reverse the trend of the poor getting dramatically poorer, the middle class getting a little poorer, with only the top 2% or 3% of the population getting richer, it is inevitable at some point that this train WILL derail.

The United States is not Canada, or Europe, or whatever other nation you proudly call home (though if you are "European," proudly claiming a nation as a home is a dangerous thing, eh?)

Ahh, the obligatory snub by the Right towards the rest of the world, because just once they didn't agree with Washington's interpretation of reality. Where is the "compassionate conservatism" here? And where in Heaven's name did you get this astounding idea that only Americans can be proud of their country? This is an example of the ignorant and arrogant Right the scares me to death so much. It scares me because I am a patriot too. Honestly, right-wingers write garbage like this and then wonder why 1/2 the world is so ticked off with us now. It boogles the mind.

We are not the home of national (rationed) health care

Yes, we are, the Right just doesn't want to admit it. Our hospitals' emergency rooms have become our nation's health care system. They help the sick whether they can pay or not, and if they can't pay, the hospital passes the cost to the other customers who have insurance companies that can pay. If the hospital can't pass the cost to someone else, they shut their ERs down, which means *everyone* in the region loses, whether they pay for their health care or not. You *are* paying for other people's health care whether you believe it or not. The difference is, we are currently running our "national health care system" in *the* most inefficient way possible, which is a large part of the reason why even *basic* health care here is so expensive that the majority of Americans need insurance to pay for it, and why 1/4+ of Americans can't even afford the insurance.

national pensions (bankrupting the future),

Two words: Social Security (yes, its still ticking, and no one has figured out how to defuse it yet)

national doles for the unemployed

What rock have you been living under?

free college educations

You have been living under a rock, haven't you. Where to begin.... a) Some states *are* offering free college tuition, b) what do you think scholarships are?, c) a lot o

Actually I used to work @USDOL-HQ in DC for Office of Workforce Security. Very critical thing you left out that applies to many computer programmers/developers is that many times we are self-employed and work as independent contractors, therefore we are not counted as unemployed when we can not find work. Even if you were considered employed, after 6 months you are automaticaly no longer assumed to be looking for work so you are no longer counted.

What this chart shows is that gas prices are very high, even taking inflation into account! Not the highest they've ever been, but higher than in the "gas crisis" late 70s, higher in fact than every other period except the early 80s.

What's really stupid is saying, "don't worry, inflation-adjusted gas prices have been higher - just look at the early 80s" when you consider the miserable unemployment and staggering inflation of the US economy in the early 80s! Is that what we have to look forward to?

suta dumping for example:
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/dmstree/uipl/u ipl2k2/uipl_3402.htm

i'm all for privacy just as much as anyone, but there's something to realize, generally speaking the only people who really cheat on their taxes are rich people who can afford to get accountants to squeak them through. i say, screw them! they're the ones who need to pay up.

m.

No, YOU check YOUR facts. I'll actually do it for you: U.S Department of Labor good enough for you?

as found on this [doleta.gov] site. Foreign labor certification programs are generally designed to assure that the admission of foreign workers to work in the United States on a permanent or temporary basis will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages and working conditions of American workers.

bloody hell, not again.

IANAL (yet), but according to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act, companies with more than 100 employees that do mass layoffs are required to give sixty days of notice before people are laid off -- presumably so things like this don't happen. How large was this company? Is there anything to prevent employees of smaller companies (or companies experiencing smaller layoffs) from getting screwed?