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AFL-CIO Proposed Reforms for the H1B Program
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."
h1b info
Michael Loves Me!
Totally off base here, if so, offtopic mod the hell out of me.
But instead of being so concerned about the number of jobs being grabbed in this country by foreign nationals...
I think more concern should be paid to the number of tech jobs being farmed out to foreign countries. Did you know the helpdesk for the State of Missouri is served from India?
Doesn't it seem like letting the employer and employee work out how much money the job will pay is a much better system than having some bureaucracy decide what the prevailing wage is and binding everyone to that? Or is there something about being born outside the borders of the United States that makes wage negotiations inherently evil?
But let's not just restrict H1-Bs to techies.
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.
All kidding aside, this worries me a lot.
-- ac at work
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.
The most basic understanding of economics suggests that the "need" for lawyers and managers is clearly much greater than the "need for technical workers" that drives the H1-B program that singles out engineers and scientists for increased worker supply. When are we going to see an H1-B program for lawyers and MBAs?
Of course it will never happen because those professions have enough sense not to cut their own throats. H1-B targets the people who may have high IQ scores but are too freaking stupid to organize, lobby or even realize what 100,000 people competing for their job does to their lives.
Actually, my position is this: immigration numbers should apply across the board. If I have to face competition from an infinite number of Chinese scientists, I should at least reap the cost savings from having that competition across the economy.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The AFL-CIO has done a very nice job with these proposals.. I hope they are implimented, why should I believe they ever will be?
No todo lo que es oro brilla
If you were a company and had a lot of lower-paid foreign workers, and then the government stopped letting you hire such workers, what would you do? Hire more highly paid American workers? Or just farm the entire project/department out to a foreign country?
The latter would save the company money and result in fewer American jobs and less income tax revenue for the US. It would create more jobs for foreign companies and more income tax revenue for those countries. Probably not what the AFL-CIO wants to happen.
I think the whole H1-B program is flawed. The fact that the visa is tied to a specific company sponsor means that the employer has the implied threat of deportation to use in any wage negotiation. This has to be a big factor in the lower wages paid to H1-B workers. I would rather see increased numbers of immigrants on a permanent resident/citizenship track than a reformed guest worker program.
My problem is not that other people work cheaper than me, eventhough this threatens my job. My problem is that the savings is absorbed by the CEOs and shareholders, it never finds its way to the laborers.
Therefore, its typically fueled by greed and not economic needs.
H1-B restriction is a matter of prudent policy,
not blind hatred. You do a diservice to a
sound, moderate solution to a very real problem.
It seems to actively discourage immigration. Nothing more, nothing less. Three year terms (with no renewal) is not much of an incentive for anyone to come to US to work. It is a thinly veiled attempt to say "no H1's", without the courage to say so.
If such proposals go on, with no foreign workers to work in US, and US people complain about outsourcing of jobs to other countries, US is heading towards becoming a protectionist and reclusive country.
S
Hi, I am on H1b and all the points in their proposed reforms are either in the current laws already in even stricter form or (the change of limit from 195 000 to 65 000) bound to happen as some extensions expire soon. From reading the article they have absolutely no clue about both the current environment and the current laws. The limits of H1b visa are not even reached and in the current market is almost impossible for a company to obtain a DOL certification for their recruitment on the position anyway. This is just someone trying to solve problem that does not exist.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
http://www.workingusa.org/2002sp/fulltext/osunioni sm.htm
-glenn
3 years ago, companies were starved for specific talent and they filled those gaps with H1B visa workers that they brought to the US.
Today, there is no US talent shortage, and H1B is not nearly the issue it used to be... US Companies are hiring skilled foreign nationals in their country of origin as opposed to bringing them to the US.
It works out to be good for the companies, but bad for US workers (many of whom are still caught up in H1B visa issues and haven't realized that our beloved corporations are shipping the "US jobs" overseas at a rate that makes the H1B visa hires look miniscule.)
As a shareholder for some large tech companies, I fully support the reduction of costs by moving jobs outside one of the most expensive places to do business in the world (the bay area).
I do have to wonder wonder what jobs will be left in the bay area for the next generation of workers, though
Of course unions, etc have not been a traditional alliance for geeks. I can just imagine the flamewars over this.
The proposed reforms validate many if most of the concerns of IT workers, but I am not sure if these are the best solutions. I have seen suggestions that advocate the all out abolition of the H1B program. This might be the way to go, if the the thing H1B fixed did not in fact fix anything in the first place.
The last thing we need is the US to become the equivalent of Detroit with urban burnout across the whole country.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
So.. they all speak different languages natively.. SO WHAT? You said.. they all speak english in common. Isn't that the point?
I'm not saying it's great to have lots of foreign work.. but bringing up the fact that they don't natively speak english is kind of, well, bigotry.
2. "Temporary" Program.
Once they get over here they are here for good>
5. Employer attestations
Current Problem:
We ran 1 ad, and threw away all the resumes we got, because we were going to hire the boss's sister-in-law's brother6. Degree Requirements
I interviewed the guy over the phone. What he said he could do, and what he could really could do were vastly different. A big dissapointment. But he was related to the boss!You know, I used to think Unions were addressing problems of the past, but after reading about and seeing first hand H1B abuses and jobs being shipped overseas, I think a Union might not be so bad an idea.
Flame away
-- ac at work
Lest we want to happen to us what is now happening to Japan and Europe. Due to lowered levels of immigration those regions are experiencing an aging of the population. This busts the social security systems. With less people paying in, less money can be sent out.
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.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Maybe they should insist that these so called H1(B)'s weararm bands while they're at it, in order to shun them better?
We really should make it more difficult for these filthy potential terrorists to get into the land of the free!
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 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.
http://saveie6.com/
...and don't forget that most of these "highly skilled" foreigners not only consider getting into the US to be a benefit, and hence will consider that as part of their compensation, but that they are also NOT burdened by high levels of student loans either. Many of the countries from which these "highly skilled" H-1B candidates from are highly socialistic with little or no education cost to the student. Hell, Indians even rip off our text books. I knew a guy who would go home to India, get his entire collection of technical textbooks for the coming year for about what it cost me to buy one mid-ranged priced book in the U.S. (Of course the quality sucked, tissue paper like pages, etc. but it was still a ripoff of a copyrighted work. (Actually the weight was kind of nice with the lighter weight paper though...))
thank you very much. the flip side of this is that we also have at least a half million unemployed geeks who cannot get work, and who wind up working out of their field just to put food on the table.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
their "standards" are unrealistic and inherently *based* on taking advantage of other nations?
KFG
I work near Silicon Valley and have many friends working in and around SIlicon Valley in high tech jobs. Many have H1B visas. They all seem smart, often much smarter than the Americans around them, and this is reflected in the fact that they often become promoted fast within their companies. In fact many high tech companies (employing Americans) seem to be built on technology developed by immigrants. They all seem to be paid damn well to me. I frequently have to recruit workers on H1B visas because many US schools seem more interesting in boosting people's self esteem than teaching students anything useful. I wouldn't entertain, even for a second, the idea of paying them less than Americans.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I think the whole idea of the H1B should be rethought seriously. I guess some people would say we need them to cover a shortage of workers, but especially considering our economic times right now we don't need 200 thousand of these people taking jobs from Americans. The H1B program should be scrapped to almost nothing. Make a provision allowing for a temporary allowance of a limited number of H1B's when unemployment is at a certain low level, but other than that cut them all off. You want to come to America? That's fine, do it like all the other people who immigrate, get green cards, etc. Don't do it by coming over, taking an American's job for a few years, then taking that money back to your homeland when your 3 or 6 years are up.
Of course, for software developers, this whole arguement is moot: It's probably too late to save the jobs of most US software developers, anyhow. Their jobs are going to get shipped to a dozen different countries where the cost is a mere fraction of developing in the US, and I don't see how you can stop that short of having Congress pass some kinds of taxes on it (which they certainly won't do in the current pro-business climate).
Were I a mid-level developer in the US, I'd think that it's time to either (a) go back to school and get a specialized advanced degree or (b) figure out what other field I'd like to be in. The party's over.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Judge me by my merits, not by my nationality. If someone from India has more experience or skill than I do, then they should get the job.
Yes, the market is tight. But people with H1-B visas are people to. Reading the article made me envision "Attack of the Clones". Everyone is struggling for jobs, not just people here. Have a heart, have a brain, judge yourself and others by your merits, not nationality.
As a non-American, this is really great news. If the American companies aren't allowed to bring foreigners to America to do the job for less than pampered American workers, they'll export the job to cheaper nations, which means more jobs for us and less taxes for the US government.
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.
their grasp of the english language is shit
This is one area where I would have to agree. There are a lot of from other countries (India, China) who seem to be working phone support, and they really suck.
Before you flame me, listen to my reasoning. These people can be hard workers, and smart, etc, however their grasp of the english language is oftimes poor and their speaking skills or accent atrocious.
Awhile back I was bored and decided to participate in a phone survey. For several questions, I had to have the question restated several times because the accent of the questioner made it very difficult to hear/understand. In addition, she sometimes had difficulty understanding my responses until I reworded them into less complex english.
I have the same problem with tech-support lines for many companies. They tend to hire these out-of-country workers because they're desperate for a job and will work for cheap pay, and completely disregard the lack of speaking skills (which are a necessity for such a position).
Americans should get to keep American jobs, period
I differ slightly in this opinion, and move towards less foreigner-bashing. Competent people should get to keep jobs, not just cheap workers (of which foreigners are often in more abundance in the upper-age groups). I remember that when talking to some techs for the local calling card company, I talked to various few Indian (from India) gentlemen who spoke english very well and with little accent. These gentlemen also were very polite and the phone, and extremely helpful. It also seems to me that accent-wise, Indian males are easier to understand than female, and Chinese females easier to understand than males (due to pitch of voice combined with accent).
So, in other words, don't hire foreigners for jobs because they're cheap and (generally somewhat) smart - unless they can actually speak the language. I'd also say the same for hiring a white guy who couldn't pass an 10th grade grammer course.
Oh, and I'm Canadian, but a lot of the companies I've been in contact with are American - and there's no real big difference anyhow.
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.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The reason many employers like H1-B workers is that they can treat them like shit, and there's nothing the worker can do about it. If they quit they stand to lose their H1-B status (or so I'm told) so they take it.
If the employers had to treat the H1-B workers with respect, they would hire fewer of them, and the problem would take care of itself. The H1-B workers would shop themselves around, salaries would equalize, the language barrier would be a significant downside, yet the good ones would still succeed.
Giving people more freedom is usually the right answer.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
A tendancy to have better english speaking skills than other countries where english is not the primary language.
Welcome to tech support, eh! - phorm
I'll ignore your username and address some of your points in as much of a non-biased way as possible. This of course isn't totally possible as I'm a tech worker and have seen the effects of companies moving their workforces overseas.
"What gets to me is the stinking Indians and Chinese that come here and undercut American workers".
I don't believe that people coming here to work are the real threat in that they have to make the same basic living as you and I ( e.g. our economic cost of living etc ) however, I will note that in some extreme cases there has been people who will work for less in that they'll share living quarters or other expenses with larger groups of people and in so doing decrease their costs.
"time to curb immigration, it has served its purpose"
Is the only reason for immigration to "fill" our country with people that have certain skills as to stabilize our workforce? Is there no inherent advantage to an influx of "culture" as well? Do we not gain anything from people of different nationalities that come here? And if so does a family whose ancestors came to the US 150 years ago have the same "cultural" strength of one that came 5 years ago?
"Besides, the majority of immigrants now are much lower quality than they were 100 years ago (Irish vs. Pakistani)"
And how would somebody rate the "quality" of an immigrant? Skin color? Work ethic? I don't really see any relevance to this statement to your point besides to perhaps start a flamewar.
American engineers aren't the best in the world. American computer scientists expect a $100k salary for creating web pages in Dreamweaver. American students are incredibly lazy - wake up, playing deathmatch shooters isn't homework!
Anyone could do these jobs and businesses have a right to employ the most able for whatever price current market conditions allow. If you don't like it, go work in a communist country like north Korea, where everybody is guaranteed a job with a set government wage. The bottom line is that protectionism doesn't work - like US cars, steel and beef, the rest of the world has found they can get cheaper and higher quality from alternative suppliers. The employment market is no different.
I would love to have cheap overseas lawyers. I think that it should be possible to interact with a lawyer overseas and the lawyer could represent you by teleconference.
I think it would be best to have a lawyer from some country with a good strong tradition of haggling like Egypt or Turkey.
In my view, any type of organization of IT workers to fight against this stuff is good. And the AFL-CIO technical unions have been fighting for it from the beginning, and have actually been doing the type of stuff that gets results, including lobbying in Washington DC and so forth. I know people who want IT workers to organize to work on issues like this or certification but are anti-union, and not much have come out of their efforts thus far. At least they're better than people who don't want to organize at all and be "independent". The employers are of course much smarter than those people, Microsoft, IBM, Intel etc. have been well-organized and well-financed for a long time, funding organizations like the ITAA to do away with overtime for IT workers (the FLSA revokation), bringing in tons of H1-B workers which even government reports admit depress wages - which is why IT wages fell for the first time in a decade recently, changing section 1706 tax laws so that IT workers have mroe difficulty contracting independently. The people running the show are more organized than anybody, funding the ITAA to the tune of millions a year, which then goes and lobbies in Washington, puts out bogus reports that even get reported on Slashdot as verity, and blitzing the rest of the press that there is a shortage of IT workers, and nowadays forever releasing papers saying there is going to be an upturn in IT right around the corner so no laws changing the H1-B visa need to be done. These socially retarded programming "geniuses" are seeing industry wages depressed in the midst of employer organization, but they are way too brilliant to become organized themselves, and thus industry wages have fallen as a result. Be smart - hook up with one of the technical unions. And if you don't want to organzie in a union, at least join a professional association funded by members (not by the employers like the IEEE is funded - which shows in how they do things).
There's a good chance that anti-H1B ideas will get a lot of momentum nowadays (with our heightened xenophobia). This may be to our benefit.
If someone who's skilled wants to come and work here I'm fine with that. What gets to me is that people with false credentials often come here under the guise of the H1-B program and undercut American workers. People here have often invested a great deal of time and effort in building their credentials, only to have an immigrant from a foreign country with a lower wage scale severely undercut them on salary.
Instead of letting people in we should be encouraging our own people to become well educated and fill the vacancies.
150 years ago, we needed an influx of people. But now our population is large and relatively stable. It's time to re-address immigration, to discuss it and determine what we can gain from it. Then, if necessary, we can change the laws and their enforcement so that immigration serves those purposes.
....considering that they appear to be major league corporate bootlickers. More than likely, this posting of anti-h1b sentiment (soon to be a Thought Crime, no doubt, as soon as Dubya gets his 2nd term), by a renegade ./ editor will get hiim fired.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Unions already have enough power in the United States. We don't want to see our economy crippled with high unemployment and low GDP growth due to a company's inability to fire people when necessary like what happens in Europe and Japan.
Lets continue to value US Job Availability over Euro/Nippon Job Security.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Yes, enough with this poor excuse for slave labor; who needs workers whose whole life is completely controlled and in the hands of their employers?
You idiots...
A genuine labor shortage?
The sponsor should have to pay at least $50,000/year for every H-1B visa.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
The thing most often passed over in this sort of arguement is the real-world fact that some people (Americans like myself) live in a first-world environment, and it's certainly in our own self-interest to perpetuate that.
It might sound unfair to say, "I want to continue living in better circumstances than 98% of the rest of the world, and I will therefore have my government pass laws which favor me and my country to do so", but to expect me to say otherwise is both self-centered and naive.
So, yeah. The US ought to discourage sending jobs overseas and tax companies that use foreign workers. The US ought to heavily discourage companies from hiring foreign workers who'll go back to their countries after X number of years (if they want to make money and stay in the US to spend it, that's something else, but that's not what H1B's are). The US should try to raid the best and brightest from other countries to improve the average IQ level in our own country.
But that's not what we're doing. Instead, we're acting in the next-quarter interests of specific companies, and that's a Bad Thing(tm) for everyone concerned.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Dear DPE,
I read with enthusiasm your proposals for H1-B reform. However I think many of the suggestions will be difficult to implement, and they only attack the problem indirectly.
The problem with the H1-B program is that foreign workers should be sponsored by American WORKERS, not American companies.
Each H1-B Visa should bear the signature of an American worker who was offered the job at his or her current pay level, and refused it.
Please see that the authors of your excellent proposal on H1-B reform are aware of this enforcement option.
Sincerely,
"Sir, if the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep his PC on the QT? If it leaks to the VC, he could become an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP."
(Sorry. I've been up all night coding again.)
Why should some hard working CEO hire a lazy, undereducated American for $50k a year anyway? So what if the lack of jobs weaken the country?
Corporations don't owe their loyalty to the US, they owe their loyalty to their stockholders, and a lot of them are rich people from other countries.
If Americans want their jobs back, they should stop acting like IT'S SOVIET RUSSIA and get used to the global economy - get used to working for $10 an hour - IF you're lucky.
People who complain about jobs going overseas sound like communists to me. God Bless America and our Capitalist System.
So you would be happy with a person from Texas and a person from India?
... that it's tied to a specific job.
Put simply, if the government perceives a labor shortage and imports workers from countries that have a surplus in that area, then the government should be the one importing and placing them in jobs. An H1-B visa should be for a specific term, with possible renewal, with no possibility of deportation during that term (unless the visa holder violates US laws).
Furthermore, the government should be telling the companies how much that job pays (the "prevailing wage" that we hear so much about) for that location... basically setting the price. If the company doesn't want to pay it, they're welcome to try to find US workers more cheaply. If it happens to be lower than they've been paying, well, more power to them.
If H1-B is intended to fill a gap, then let's take out the advantages for employers in hiring guest workers. If anything, let's make it a disadvantage; if their visa expires and the DoL doesn't feel it should be renewed, boom, they're gone. They may not speak English as a native language, they may not have the same educational background. Right now, these are small prices to pay for having workers that you have a great deal of leverage with. Just take away that leverage, and this will all solve itself, I bet.
Me, I have a friend who got married a couple years ago. He was engaged, but they hadn't planned to get married so soon... then he found out he was getting laid off, so it was get married or get deported. Why does anyone think it's a good idea to create these situations?
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
You're saying your company can't manage a project for crap, so the H1B program needs reform?
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Regardless of wheteher people see my point as 'flamebait', it's happening -- and the Internet Boom and failed startups in the bay area worked dilligently to develop technologies that enable companies to not need workers to be close to a company headquarters.
Facts take their toll, no matter how hard we try to ignore them.
Just go to the job sites of the companies in the Nasdaq 100 and look at how many job posting are not in the US.
Whoa, wait a second. You can get a job? How?
That used to be a problem, but 1-2 years ago they changed it so you can start working for a new company 2 weeks after you quit the old one. The visa still takes 3-6 months to process, but you can work while they process it.
In theory they could deny the visa and you get deported after those months, but since you already have one H1B, it would take a lot for them to deny you a new one, since you are the same person with the same credentials.
I'm an H1B since 5 years, and I have never seen those lower wages everyone's going on about. I'm sure they exist somewhere, but in the companies I and my friends have been at H1Bs are treated just like everyone else.
is failing to do in the realm of cheap and efficient labor. That would be the *reason* that restrictions on work visas exist in the first place.
Otherwise the work, and the workers, would be flowing out, not in.
It's a simple capitalistic concept.
KFG
How do I mod the story as flamebait - these arguements have been dredged up over and over again. Reality check guys - the numbers of H1B visas issued this year are drastically down because market conditions mean there are enough US workers to go around.
As for some of the goofy proposals requiring limits of 2 years on viasa how frustrating would that be for an employer to have to replace people every 2 years.
I get tired of hearing about how foreigners are taking all are jobs, women, sponging off the state etc.... Although sponging off the state and stealing are jobs seems to be mutually exlusive.
The evidence of fraud that seems to be prevalent in this area leads one to believe that H1-B is being misused. From what I see so often, I believe this to be the case. It's popular to "save money" and too easy to cut jobs in order to do that.
Bean counters have no interest in respecting the quality of product or labor until a disaster strikes and they are unable to deny that buying the more expensive brand is better for the company. It's perfectly logical and understandable that they would feel that way. What's wrong is that these people are running the companies of the US instead of the people who actually RUN the companies. For example, a skilled shoemaker makes a damned good shoe. His business grows because of quality and reputation. He hires more people... he incorporates. A bean counter wins a position as leader of the corporation and suddenly, the neighborhood business is shipped overseas to have the work done cheaper... cheaper supplies are used and the cost of the shoes goes higher. Now we have the same name but and entirely different product and success goal.
This is the story of thousands of successful companies in the U.S. And to this day, I am still amazed that people prefer to buy "names" over quality and ignore the way various companies conduct business.
It would be nice if we could spin the current "xenophobia" to embrace each other as Americans and quit selling each other out. "Look for the Union Label" was a pretty important campaign... what ever happened to that? Oh yeah, anything that promotes "Americans" gets slapped down with politics by labelling them as "hate groups" and racists or nationalists. We're profiling against the world's population...
What's so WRONG with wanting to feed your children before you feed your neighbor's? And what's wrong with wanting to feed your neighbor's before you feed those who aren't?
There are lies and flawed perspectives afloat today but no one can deny that the U.S. is in serious trouble and we should be looking to correct the problems. People won't stop buying from Nike if they were once again made in the U.S.A. instead of by slave labor. But they might have to accept 'less profit' if they did. Undoing the damage will definitely hurt, but consider it as "withdrawls" experienced after getting off drugs. It HURTS to get healthy sometimes.
I find it amusing when an organization that is really only about 0.01 degrees of separation away from the Mafia publishes anything of this magnitude. The arguments often used against immigration include "Sitting on the gov't [taxpayer] tit" yet then go on to talk about jobs being stolen... ummm, as one others here have put it, that is mutually exclusive.
Unlike service sector jobs, or even manufacturing jobs, software and biotech jobs are highly mobile because they don't require a lot of equipment, all they require is skilled people. You might ask: if these jobs are so mobile, why do they all come to the US? That's probably mostly due to the preferences of the foreign workers themselves: people with a good education and skills tend to live well here. A US job is a perk for foreign workers. But if they can't get that perk because of visa restrictions, they are going to do the same job from overseas.
And think of it this way: do you really think that Europe, China, India, or Japan like it that their nationals come to the US to work here? Far from it. They call it the "brain drain" and are complaining bitterly about it. Some would dearly love to charge the US for the educational expenses of those who leave. The deal that the US has been getting out of the H-1B program is particularly sweet for the US because those are skilled workers, educated and raised at the expense of taxpayers of other nations. Europe, China, and Japan would love to see nothing more than to see the US H-1B programs restricted.
People complaining about the H1-B quota being so high mention that in today's badly bruised IT economy, so many American IT professionals are out of jobs, so the H1-B program should be scaled back to give these people jobs.
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.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
It seems that as soon as there is a decline in the US Economy, some organization or another will immediately call for a reduction in immigrant workers. Sure, in the past there have been myriad abuses of the system. I'm certain that there are cases where domestic workers have been laid off in favor of "guest" workers.
However, the proposed solution here almost universally put the burden of this abuse on the workers, when in fact it belongs entirely on the employer who's unethical practices led to the "need" for such reforms.
In addition, I have to object to the idea that strengthening academic requirements would in anyway improve the efficiency of the programs.
I work for a mid sized software company. Like most companies in our sector, from time to time we've had H1B workers. We've also traditionally had a worker base made of of those who might best be described as "hackers" in the old sense of the word. Very talented, very effective engineering staff, who are none - the - less almost ENTIRELY self educated.
In what was does improving the educational standards ensure that the individuals have the "special skills" needed?
my $0.02
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
For those who don't know, it's an organization of labour unions.
I believe the practice of software development is being commoditized. E.g. it doesn't take a lot more training for a person to do simple tasks of software testing as it would be needed for training someone in testing cars. The 100k salaries for people sitting in meetings sipping coffee and coke while browsing and checking email/stock portfolios or IM'ing friends over their wireless laptops is difficult to sustain.
The complexities of software development (for many tasks) is approaching the complexity of repairing cars and such things. Likewise, the salaries/jobs, etc.
The added effect is that the jobs can be outsourced to anywhere -- some guy on a boat in Hawaii could fix your "e-car" as easily as a guy in a cubicle farm down the street. That is not the case with Chefs, repairmen, barbers, etc.
The new tools and toolsmiths can work from afar. And anyone can become a toolsmith with some basic math/logic education (sadly that is a problem in US education).
S
One of the measures listed is
I'd guess that a great many people wouldn't bother. Visa processing can take 3-6 months (and maybe more under these new suggestions), then I get to pack up my life at home, leave friends and family, potentially put my existing career on hold, all to spend a year in another country. Sure it's nice, but I'm not sure the incentive is there.
In my situation I knew I could spend a few years here (maybe even get citizenship if I liked it that much), which made it well worth the upheaval. And of course I'm helping my company prosper, and paying lots of taxes without access to the corresponding benefits.
I'm here in the U.S. on the H1B. What follows is just my personal situation, i.e. probably different to a large degree to most everyone else on the visa.
I'm not in IT, I'm in physics, in a very un-glamourous branch of materials science. I went to grad school for this, and off the top of my head I can think of about 2 other graduate-level programs worldwide for my particular brand of voodoo. There's plenty of technician level people in the business, but not very many in R&D.
My job is basically involved with improving public safety, for which I get paid the same as my American coworkers with similar degrees and seniority, and I get the exact same benefits.
Anyway, I guess I said all that to say this: H1B has flaws, granted, and it might very well need reformation, but the program does reach into other industries and it's worth considering the impact on them as well.
For example - they suggest that work experience is inadequate and that a degree in the field of work is required. Well... I spent 10 years getting various degrees in Astronomy and Physics before getting bored and writing internet radio software (icecast, mp3serv, mp3mixer). When a company in the US recruited me to architect their mp3 streaming system I could demonstrate that I'd been working in mp3 streaming for longer than anyone else.
Even then there was some worry that my degrees never really said much about computer science despite the fact that I'd been hacking code for 20 years as an 'amateur'. But my Masters did have the phrase 'computational physics' in it, so that was enough to get me in back in 2000. Probably not any more.
Really, what the visa program should be about is determining whether a potential applicant will make the US a better place. Skilled workers benefit the economy regardless of their nationality. With H1 visas there is this notion of taking jobs away from 'qualified' US workers, well everyone I've seen that was as qualified as myself is either in a job or choosing to take time off.
Of course... if you cut down the number of tech workers US companies can import then you might start to find that more work gets outsourced overseas - moving money out of the country and weakening the economy.....
In fact many high tech companies (employing Americans) seem to be built on technology developed by immigrants.
America itself is built by immigrants, both through the technology they developed, and the physical work they did. In all aspects.
In fact, it continues to be so.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Please, please, please no one ever join a tech union. Let's keep some sanity and let us be judged by our merits, and not by our seniority. High Tech is the last bastion of hope when it comes to working hard and getting recognition.
I've worked in union environments before (during college), and the only reason why unions are set up is so that the union leaders can make a shitload of money.
Think "economies of scale". If a union gets union dues from everyone as a company, even if it's a small amount of money, they will reap shitloads. This is why they go around trying to enlist as many companies as possible... because they get the union dues of thousands of workers with little additional capital because they have already set up the infrastructure. It's exactly like the business model of Amazon.com for crying out loud!
So, by loading these guys up with money, us peons get stuck in stagnating jobs where the paperwork and red tape to go up just stops us from doing anything.
If you're good at what you do, you have no reason to join a union. Please, just say "No".
And what's wrong with that? Sometimes life calls for a career change. It's not easy but you do what you have to do to survive. When you start asking for handouts, you start infringing on MY rights to earn a living.
I'm not saying the H1B program couldn't do with some reform but you seem to ignore the fact that when a company is faced with increasing restrictions, they eventually jump ship and move operations to another country all together. Then where are we left? Higher unemployment.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I'm sick of people complaining too - why don't you go back to school and get more educated if you want a better job? The free market economy is what makes America great.
A corporation's only responsibility is to make money for their owners/shareholders.
This idea needs to be crushed. Its a stupid, stupid idea in the first place, and then when you consider whats actually going on in companies, it gets even stupider.
Corporations aren't "things", they're people (thus, incorporation, from latin parts meaning roughly "into a body"). Since they are given many of the rights of people (with respect to property), they need to bear the same responsibilities.
Corporations have gotten it into their heads that they have no responsibilities other than the almighty dollar, and that if they're not paying up those dollars, society can go to Hell.
See Enron for the perfect example of a company screwing over all of society for the almighty dollar. Aside from just the employees who lost their jobs and pensions, a lot of local companies that served Enron (like office supplies, food, cleaning, etc.) went under too. The local governments no longer have the employment draw or tax income from it, and so on.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That they don't have GOOD english in common, they have CRAPPY english in common.
There are foreigners I've worked with who have outstanding english, and there are foreigners I've worked with who know english, but not nearly well enough to communicate effectively with the team, and that hurts a project. This has been true ever since freshman year in college.
Workers who speak english very well are more qualified that workers who do not, period.
paintball
Send me an email on what your signature means. I think I understand it, but send me what it means.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Unfortunately, there may be a lot of US IT professionals out of work right now, but that does not mean they are good candidates for the jobs that are available right now. The home-grown talent is not enough to fill all the open jobs. We will continue to need to import workers from elsewhere.
the answer is not to cut off immigraiton. the answer is to make corporations start treating IT workers like human beings instead of raw materials they can exploit. that has nothing to do with immigration. one might think proponents of immigration restrictions were in fact against it not to protect american jobs, but to protect corporations from an excited and strong international labor movement in the IT industry.
Companies hire H1-B people because they are cheap, not because they are good.
Why do you think companies lobby the government for H1-B quota increases while millions of highly qualified Americans are unemployed and would love those jobs?
An American employee needs an American wage commesurate the cost of living here. Someone coming from a country like India where salaries are so low in comparison isn't viewing their H1-B employment in the same way - to them it's an investment in the future when they'll attain a green card and then be able to get a normal salary.
American companies realize they have H1-B employees by the balls, which is why they can get away with paying them 50% of the going rate, and why they want them even when unemployment is bad, as it is now.
Well my experience in high tech is there are't enough american born and trained engineers. Period. To deny foreign engineers a job in the US it to ensure that the work that the do will be done elsewhere. I have held jobs open for almost a year and not gotten a single qualified US born engineer to apply. And I cant spend 5 or 6 years to train a beginner. Thats what college is for. Big multinational companies can arange to do the work where ever is handy. Outsourcing is simple and a fact of life. H1B visas are just a way to allow the high tech industry a way to grow faster than the educational system can provide grads. Companies can move the jobs overseas, and will if the alternative is dropping services. The state help desk in India is a good example, you choose which you would prefer: 1) move the help desk back to the US 2) cut medical benefits in the state or something or the cost of education 3) raise taxes? In another sense H1B visas are the only way that we remain shielded from the poor quality of many our schools and the limited output of the better ones. At one point durring the high tech boom, in the bay area there were more unfilled high tech jobs than the entire number of people that would graduate, the next year, with approprate degrees (or so it was reported in the local news rags). I beleve it, i could not heir qualified people. It allows us to import the best and brightest from overseas. there are surely abuses and problems with the H1 program and they should be fixed, but theis seems like a way to guarentee that more and more high tech work moves overseas.
Am I the first to see this: the "Career" link at the bottom of the page takes you to never-never land (404 not found).
How appropriate....
See my blog at tomwhartung.com for my resu
That means if someone can do a minimally acceptable job for less money than you, you're out. I'm not offering this as knee-jerk cynicism, simply observations from years in business. Costs matter, and the corporation left standing is typically the one that has ruthlessly slashed costs everywhere possible. This is why United Airlines is bankrupt and SouthWest is not. This is why most manufacturing is now done outside of the US. This is why outsourcing exists at all.
The main problem of H1B laws is that the laws does not treate H1B worker as equal human beings. It treates them as salary paid robots. The human life is not only about salary. Among other thing the concern of long term planning should not be ignored.
If the US agrees that the worker is valueable for US economy it should appreciate his wish to stay in the country. Otherwise - don't even bring him here. Look, you bring him, you exploit him, and when economic situation is changed - you throw him away as a used garbage. You can do it with your vacuum cleaner. But you should not do it with a human person.
If you disagree with me then go and tell all this story to your samll children. You cannot? You want to protect their souls? That's right - you know yourself that what you are doing is a human crime. The test was simple.
I don't think that the new laws will protect the US economy. All proposed changes are made with one thought in mind: to protect US citizens from being infested by new coming immigrants. The irony is that many US citizens are first or second generation immigrants. Many of others are grand-grand-children of european immigrants, who came to this land and litterally killed many originally living nationalities here.
It's sad to see how many americans forgot their history and think about the rest of people as about coacroaches and rats.
Another irony is that the new changes won't be so bad for foreign workers, who won't come to US and thus avoid of being the slave of the richest economy. The hanges won't be so bad for them as they will be bad for US people, specifically for their souls. But I don't see americans care about it. Too sad.
Less is more !
Throw them all out of the country....start over!
Employeer's must absolutely prove that they need an alien worker to do a job...Employee's of a company must be allowed to anonymously file a grivence if they believe that an Alien was hired when an american worker was available. Employeers should be forced to publish in public records an H1B hires and justify why there was no american worker to fill that postion. This justification should include records of all American workers interviewed for the Postion and why they were unsuitable. These Interviewees shoul again be allowed to file grivences. Heavy fines should be imposed for violations. Corporations should get incentives for hiring American workers who might be under qualified at the interview point and training them up.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
If the AFL-CIO proposed it, then its only purpose is to advance the power of the AFL-CIO.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Time to burn off some karma.
I hate the whole issue of H1B reform, because rather than being framed in terms of fair treatment for H1B workers, it is framed in terms of "protecting American jobs." And any time that phrase comes up, it is a red flag for me.
Why does Patrick Buchanan want to build a wall around the USA? "Protecting American jobs." Yeah, I'm sure there are tons of Americans trying to get those high-paying home construction, hotel maid, and grape-picking jobs.
So when I see the AFL-CIO making noise about revising the H1B visa program in the name of "Protecting American jobs," I'm already suspicious.
This list is playing with people's emotions in a down economy to put forth a "keep all those brown-skinned people out!" agenda.
The real problem with the H1B visa program is that it essentially makes indentured servitude legitimate. It provides no way for laid-off immigrants holding H1B's to stay in the country. People here on H1B's (the list DOES mention this, but it's buried among all of the hate-mongering) are paid less than most workers.
What it does do, on the other hand, is ensures that the best and brightest people of the world become Americans, which makes America stronger. People on H1B's don't come here for brief periods -- they come here to stay. And that's a GOOD THING. Everyone in the USA benefits when immigrants come to this country, although they may not benefit in the short term or see the benefits immediately. Yes, that person with an H1B visa may have denied you that job, but that person is now producing for the USA and not for some other country, that person is keeping our culture lively by bringing hers in to mix with ours, and will start her family here, raising her children as Americans. She will work hard because it will be the first time she will be in a place where she will be valued for her hard work, and not for what caste she was born into.
And that hard work directly translates into a healthy economy, which means more jobs for people like you and me.
So ironically, immigration -creates- jobs.
If you're going to fix H1B, fix it properly. Make sure H1B visa holders have wages that are as high as those for citizens. But don't use the H1B problem as a front for racism and xenophobia the way the AFL-CIO does here.
The whole H1-B premise is wrong. The H1-B supporter claim that there is a shortage of skilled works in areas like programming. It is nonsense. There are lots of unemployed or underemployed American programmers. Whenever the local newspaper advertises a job that pays a little more than the going rate, the company gets swamped with excellent resumes.
Alright, if you're an American, with a 4-year degree from an American college, and some guy from India, overcoming all of the inherent obstacles in India, can do your job better than you do, he deserves your job. You started with all the advantages.
The intent of the H1B program is good, and I think the AFL-CIO is addressing what's wrong with it: They're not saying the program's goals are bad, they're just saying that if the workers coming over here are being paid less than the workers who are here, then by definition they are not doing a job H1B was designed to fill.
Thier position, and I agree, is that if a company is willing to pay the same wage to bring over a foreigner instead of hiring a US worker, then they probably need to hire a foreigner (otherwise they wouldn't bother.) If they're paying a sub-standard wage to bring over a foreigner, then they're just abusing the H1B system for a purpose it wasn't intended for, and THAT's what needs to stop.
H1B's good, abuse of H1B's bad, and wages paid is a good indication of whether H1B is being abused in a particular situation.
As for whether H1B is right or not - Open immigration. If immigrants can do your job for less, tough crap for you. If companies hire a bunch of immigrants to work for less and it turns out they can't do the jobs, tough crap for the company when it has a crap product and goes out of business.
Americans need to secure their employment by being the most qualified people to do the jobs, not by setting up a legislative barrier to simply block out people who are qualified.
paintball
If the initial reason for the H1B was that there was not enough talented people in the US. Then wouldn't it make sense to examine why that may be the case? One problem I am seeing with a lack of professionals in the tech field is that education is becoming more and more expensive. Wouldn't the resolution to this be more funding for students so they can afford to be educated? Over the past couple years, financial aid has been covering less and less amounts for all students. Every semester I get a notice saying that financial aid is cut by x amount of money due to budget cuts, etc. This just doesn't make sense to me...
Every company that sponsors an H1B because they can find "qualified Amercians" should be required to sponsor the college education for one American for every H1B they hire. The H1Bs last for 6 years. In 6 years you can get a Bachelors & a Master. You'd have an Amercian with a Masters Degree that you could employ at the end of the 6 year H1B.
Well as a electrical engineer wannabe myself, I feel like the clones (the foreigner) and the majority human races (American) are against us ;).
;). Well guys you're going to lose another round on globalization, sending the best and the brightest trained from the most adavanced and technological nation, back home. I'm sure many Chinese and Indians are great entrepreneurs, and by then you'll hear US companies outsourcing MORE to these ex-H1B folks. Not a good strategy either.
First, let's put it this way, remember that most Americans (unless you're Indian American) are also immigrants decendent that their ancestors stepped off the boats earlier than the foreigner.
And frankly I am not worrying a whole lot about these H1B visa issues. If you're good, you'll be okay anywhere. Take the inspiration from the earlier Slashdot thread What Should I Do With My Life?.
I guess many slashdot readers might still have the perception the mad Chineses or Indians or Russians (and many other countries) are the 'engineers' or the 'programmers' that are underpaid and stuff, and therefore steals poor American jobs. My opinions are the H1B visas are the scapegoats because so many laid-offs.... economy downturns and we're still waiting for the next-big-thing, so foreigners should be kicked out and give jobs to Americans. The real story I can tell you is, it is damn hard to get a part-time programming job in university, let alone H1B visa if you're foreign students (at least at my university). It is damn more expensive sometimes to hire a foreigner... think about the paperwork and stuff. If a foreigner can get a job in America, he is surely the best-of-the-best. Get real, cheap != efficient okay.
Actually I am more than happy if AFL-CIO manages to scrap H1B. You're just kicking them back to their countries, helping them to solve their brain-drain problems
Remeber, the truth is in you. Whoever innovate wins go fuck the prom queen. Losers go under the food chain. That's exactly how the economy should work, right ?
My job is not in any way threatened by any H1B holder but this is america and I spent 10 years in our navy and earned my right to call this place mine. The thought of imported workers taking american jobs disgusts me. Send them all back ...
Got Code?
The H1-B programmers are no better than American programmers, in my experience. They are hired because they can be hired more cheaply, and they are less likely to jump to another company for better pay.
"Of course it will never happen because those professions have enough sense not to cut their own throats. H1-B targets the people who may have high IQ scores but are too freaking stupid to organize, lobby or even realize what 100,000 people competing for their job does to their lives."
No, I don't think you tech guys are really stupid. I just think you are out of your league when it comes to Microsoft controlling your profession. Lawyers and accountants have open standards that no company controls. This keeps their profession pure and free of manipulation.
Microsoft basically OWNS the techie profession. Their goal is to sell more software, so when I hear the word "techie" I can picture either a Linux God or a clueless MSCE. Your profession has been polluted by MsDonald workers, which brings down the credibility of the entire profession.
If I were you, I would become an accountant (I am me, and I am doing that). However, if you care about your profession and are willing to stick with it, here are the steps you need:
1. Start backing open source and its non-corporate maintainers. It is not so much that you can read the source code but that no one company can CONTROL the source code. Standardizing on this is comparable to standardizing on Common Law (Lawyers) or GAAP (accountants). These standards are free from some company willing to extort standards in order to sell more software (with a cheaper TCO, because you work harder for less).
2. Unify the certifications of Open Source. I have read about the history of Accounting certification, and I must say that it is very similar to, say, Linux certification. There use to be many different accounting organizations in America. They all swallowed each other up because it made sense. It makes sense with open source, and you should get to the point that you are only certifying "administrators" and "programmers" and nothing more specific that that. The more general the credentials, the more powerful the certification. However, you won't get anywhere if you base your certification on closed standards, controlled by some software selling company.
3. You lobby for government to require your professionals in certain regularly occurring situations. Whether it is auditing the computer systems of government agencies or being deployed by accountants to hand count the number of systems, it doesn't really matter. Only Lawyers can represent others in trial and only CPA's can audit financial statements of public companies. Most Lawyers and CPA's never exercize these priviledges, but it is this priviledge that justifies all of their big, fat salaries. The easiest way I could see this occuring for tech professionals is to require the government to use open source software in certain circumstances and require only "certified" engineers, certified through your own professional organization (i.e., not MS), to audit the integrity of the system and code. If you had this, I bet all CPSE's (certified public software engineer), even the one's not working for the government, would make just as much as lawyers, if not more!
In conclusion, no, I do not think you techies are stupid. This industry is still new, and it took centuries and centuries for accountants to standardize their profession. However, much more technology is available, and Open Source software has completed the majority of the task for you already. So I think it is high time to get your cr@p together and make yourselves a legitimate profession. If you do, I will waste no time to getting CPSE (or its equavalent) added to the end of my name.
Furthermore, you will no longer care if foreigners are getting jobs in your profession because, there will be enough jobs to go around! H1-B visas apply to accountants and lawyers too, you know. The reason you never hear them complaining is a true profession is able to protect its members GLOBALLY.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I've got nothing against Canadians, I've worked with a lot of them and they were generally pretty good. But, I'm sure there are lots of dumb canucks out there too.
Did you think that maybe the quality of candidate that you saw has something to do with you and/or your company? Maybe you're in a bad location. Maybe your company has a bad reputation. Maybe you advertised the position poorly. Maybe you are really bad at reviewing resumes. Maybe you were trying to be cheap, and only interviewed inexperienced or pooly educated candidates (based on their resumes).
Saying that "all unemployed American workers are incompetent" is worse than saying that "all niggers smell like shit" (because the first statement is false, and the second one is true).
First you have to have an H1B visa ....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The environment in the late 90s that created the increase quota's is gone.
i beleive the parent said this was about to expire soon anyway.
The new reality is that qualified American workers are having trouble finding jobs. I personally know a dozen or so highly qualified people who can not find work.
according to the parent new visas are not being granted:
The limits of H1b visa are not even reached and in the current market is almost impossible for a company to obtain a DOL certification for their recruitment on the position anyway.
-- john
I'm agreeing with you, but I'm not an h1b holder, I'm an American citizen.
The USA has tons of talent. But none of it is developed, and you have too many people in the tech industry (still) who are there not because they like tech, or work hard, but because they think it's easy money. On the radio, you hear the ads: "Come to the Crapola Institute, and graduate with a degree that will get you a high-paying job in the exciting tech industry!"
I'm glad to see that most of the posters here on Slashdot seem to be agreeing with the point of view that this proposal fails to identify real solutions and real problems, and is really just xenophobia disguised as economic reform. At least Americans appear not to be culturally ignorant... maybe all that "multiculturalism" stuff they forced down our throats in the early 90's actually had some value?
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 how the system was supposed to work. Qualified US people are scarce, so find someone from another country who is fully qualified.
I have to wonder if your case is the average case though. I happen to know that one of the jobs I applied for in the months after I graduated, I had a considerable amount of experience (worked two jobs to pay my college bills) and I was told by the HR staff person that I had the fastest *correct* time on their programming test. Two weeks later I got the no-thank-you letter.
A friend of mine recently let me know that the person working "my" job there is getting paid $10k less than the job posting value in the help-wanted ad. I didn't ask what nationality that person was, I didn't want to know. In the end it wasn't about finding someone "qualified" for the job, unless by "qualified" you mean "willing to work cheap".
The fact is, experience nowadays is bullshit. Ability is bullshit. I have friends who leave chunks out of their resume so people won't automatically assume they won't work "cheap" and pass them over for someone with less experience (have you heard "You are overqualified"?). It's all about how cheap you can go. And thats where the H1B problem comes in. You may not be abused, but there are plenty of H1B people paid *far* too little for their abilities, but those people can't do anything about it. If they rock the boat, they get fired and have to go back home.
Next time I'm looking for a job, I think I'm going to scrap my resume and just hand out a card: "Programmer. Will work for $20k". Maybe if I let the companies abuse me, I'll get a shot at a job too.
I bet I'll get more job offers than anyone with a resume boasting a master's degree and a decade of experience.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Bottom line: don't expect ever again to see a demand-creation scheme on the scale of Ford's famous $5 a day plan.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
As far as I know, the US population has been declining for the last 15 months and is expected to decline dramatically for the next 3 years. Anyone who wants a job is moving to Asia. H1B reform feels good but economics have already taken care of most of the issue.
The missing part of the evaluation is consideration of what people are willing to work for. Given two (or more) programmers with equal aptitude, the one willing to work for less money is the "best" choice from the perspective of management. If management has the option of picking staff from all over the world, the chances are that programmers from poor countries will be willing to work for lower wages (even if emigrating to the US) than programmers from rich countries.
In theory, such a market will eventually balance out at some sort of equilibrium. In practice, such a market may take decades (or even centuries) to balance out and the final state of equilibrium would likely be much lower than the current protected market.
In the very long term, such economic darwinism is likely to be good for shareholders. In the immediate and near future, such economic darwaiism is disasterous for workers in countries with highly paid IT workers such as the US.
What most people tend to miss is that the situation isn't binary (importing workers and exporting jobs both have good and bad points). Rather there is a broad spectrum of effects, both good and bad. What may be good for the economy fifty years from now might be bad in the short term. (And vice versa.)
This isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not these people are good candidates for the jobs currently held by H1B's. The answer to that one isn't so clear, but consider that there are a number of companies holding onto H1B's and laying off U.S. workers from the same job.
You couldn't make a compelling argument that this is based on ability over the relatively meager salary the employer gets to pay the H1B. The corporations are beholden to their shareholders, after all, so it's their job to reduce expenses. This makes it much more likely that such layoffs are a decision of economics rather than performance.
For those of you with a nationalistic bent who think that H1Bs are weakening the country, chew on this: historically throughout the world and in the US specifically, national success has always been linked to a country's ability to attract the best and brightest people from all over the world. The "brain drain" deplored by all developing countries is tremendously in the US national interest. These highly motivated, skilled people come to the US, contribute, and usually put down roots here. It's one of the reasons the US remains ahead of the technological curve. Holland became a superpower of the 18th century, an idea that sounds laughable now. Why? In large part because in 1685 the French expelled all the Protestants with the revocation of their the toleration act, the Edict of Nantes, most of whom went to Holland. These folks happened to be the most industrious and entrepreneurial merchants and yuppies of their day, and they and their children built the Dutch into one of the greatest naval empires in history. Moral: do anything you can to attract smart people to come to the US. Expand the H1B program, don't shrink it. They'll be enormous contributors to the country in all the years that follow.
I find it interesting that so many ppl wish to stop others from coming here (the states), rather than expanding business. So the real question should be "how do you expand?".
Personally, I suggest that that it is during times of seeking new ideas that we expand, not when businesses are simply trying to hold on to dieing markets or expand into somebody elses markets.
What inovation that we have is being re-directed towards the military. While that is good to have some there, we also need a lot in the civilian sector.
BTW, some ideas.
Low power devices geared for the home. Linux would make it cheap as well as secure
High speed maglev that carries cargo/passenger @150-300MPH across the country. If we start a real program, new ideas will come about to lessen the cost.
Back to the moon or on to mars. The US may have no real choice on this.
Automated manufacturing is missing here. We need to look at our top manufactuered import and consider manufacturing those here using automated lines.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
--we HAD a huge common market. No visas required to travel, a common currency, the members traded with each other, and the money "made" inside this common market remained mostly inside, thereby getting spent and respent and respent and respenty. It created the worlds largest and most successful middle class. That was called the united States. A single blue collar job could pay for a family with several kids, a home, a car or two, and that worker had a good chance of having full benefits and a retirement pension. Ain't that way no mo. It was a success. 50 soverign states that traded with each other, a slew of differing languages spoken but one language as the default business/governmental language. It was large enough to do this. Neighbor helped make neighbor prosperous. We still had foreign trade but the sheer greed and stupidity hadn't taken over as bad as it is now. It was a system that "just worked" pretty much.
But no, couldn't keep doing that, had to have that one percent of the population that was already "rich" want to be "richer".
Here's just a basic law of economics, when you move a job away from your border, and the person who loses his job loses his spendable income, that money is lost to the tune of 7 to 1 roughly. If the replacement job-if it even exists-pays less, with less bennies, then it pays less with less bennies, that person and the economy is worse off, not better..
The US corporate "model" now is just destroying the already existing middle class to create a slightly larger and extremely wealthier upper class, and a much larger bottom tier class, like the model in most second and third world countries. As long as someone still has their own personal good paying job they won't hardly care, as they are enjoying the extremely temporary cheaper prices on their goods and services. The "other guy's" predicament is just a news blurb. As soon as they become a statistic instead of a spectator to the phenomena, they "won't get it". And I am not talking about "buggywhips" being phased out, I am talking about "jobs" that are still "being done and needed and useful".
This current globalization is a complete and total scam. IF it worked as advertuised and promulgated by the governmental and 'stock market expert" shills, we wouldn't have a 500 billion a year balance of trade deficit.
The US in two and half decades has gone from the world's largest creditor nation economically to the world's largest debtor nation, the exact same time span that massive globalization has been pushed at all high governmental/corporate levels. We wouldn't have personal bankruptcies at an almost 30 year high, we wouldn't have the percentages of unemployment we have, we wouldn't have home mortgage defaults at a 30 year high.
Now anyone might call this a mere "coincidence", or series of coincidences, but I call it a long range loose plan by certain international loyal to no one uber connected rich ones/cartels/groups with both a political and economic agenda that is going to be proven to be *not nice* in the near and medium future, let alone from a long range historical view..
This is IMO and I also see nothing to dissuade me from this opinion. I look at actual tangible and verifiable results, not rhetoric and large scale hucksterism.
Globalization for the united States middle classes, the true productive people in our society and the true "wealth creators", as opposed to the "wealth re-arrangers", is pure economic vaporware, it is only a "success" for the ones controlling the agenda.
I am frankly amazed by the astounding ignorance of those who claim decreasing H1-B's is anti-free market, communist, or xenophobic.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a subsidy is "assistance granted by a government to a person or group in support of an enterprise regarded as being in the public interest." In this case supposed public interest is benefiting businesses by manipulating the supply of a scarce commodity in a given market, in this case, labor.
In a free-market scenario, scarcity has the effect of increasing price. Increasing price has the effect of attracting more supply to address demand, which lowers price, until equilibrium of some sort is reached.
The US government is interfering with the natural free-market process that, theoretically, would have the long-term effect of increasing the native supply.
In return for that, wages are artificially low for native workers. Non-native individuals and companies who are given special rights not normally available in the free-market receive training and create business networks that enable them to compete with native supply by ultimately providing competitive services in their own countries at much lower prices.
The last time I checked, successful competitors do not and are not obligated to assist the competition in any way. I have no problem with people born in other countries once they become citizens of my country, but until they do, they play for another team.
They also want to cut the academic exemption, which I think would be a huge mistake. If the effort is to have a strong tech field in America, reducing the number of H1-Bs could well do it, but if we drop a bunch of foreign professors in the process, our training will go down the tubes.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Scam by business owners and managers to circumvent the requirement to pay $US level wages (and retraining costs) in order to "squeeze out" more earnings for shareholder value.
H-1B visas should be used for the good of our economy FIRST AND FOREMOST - keeping US citizens competitive and current with prevailing industry skills; and should be SELECTIVELY SCALED BACK when certain sectors of our economy is in recession.
While the visas should have been used primarily for knowledge tranfer purposes to benefit the good 'ol US of A, they're being abused to stage the transfer of operations overseas.
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF TECH WORKERS, NOR ARE WE "LOSING" OUR COMPETITIVE EDGE IN THE GLOBAL IT ECONOMY. IF IT WERE SO, WHY DO SO MANY FOREIGNERS WANT TO WORK HERE? ARE OUR "COMPETITOR NATIONS" HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM?
Face it. We've all being had by the globalists - first with NAFTA; and now with this.
Vote with your feet and your wallets, everyone!
As far as admitting people into our country, it's time to stop that. There are plenty of people here, bringing more in serves no purpose. We don't need to "import culture", because, as he said, we have our own national culture now. Why should I want to trade my culture for that of some scumbag immigrant?
Have you seen how these H-1Bs live? They live in absolute squalor and filth (so it feels just like home to them). Spics are notorious for piling a few dozen people into a 1 bedroom apartment, but spics are too lazy to get H-1Bs. Indians, who I think make up the majority of H-1Bs, are absolutely disgusting. They have little/no concept of hygeine. Even the "clean" ones stink, it's just the way they are. They're soooo fucking happy to be here, living in shitty conditions doesn't bother them at all (they'd be doing that back in India anyway).
Anyway, he's got a point, the quality of immigrant nowadays is really low. Our country is filling up with niggers, spics, camel jockeys, gooks, and dotheads. This is really unacceptable. They lower the quality of our nation. They are disgusting, stupid, and lazy.
If they were comparable to whites, how did they end up ruining all of their countries?
Just because you "want" all people to be equal doesn't mean they are.
I am a software developer, I work on a contract basis, with projects lasting approximately 1 year, then moving to another client.
During my last 5 contracts, I have had the opportunity to work with several H1-B visa holders (approximately 40 total, there was a project in which the development team was approximately 90% H1-B's).
For the most part, these foreigners technical skill is below average, in many cases, they are plain incompetent. Maybe one or two have been average, and only 2 I might consider "brilliant"
My grief with H1-B visas is that it is not being used the way it is intended.
It is used as a way to bring cheap labor, not as a way to bring *skilled* labor.
I wouldn't have a problem with the program if the H1-B visa holders actually were competent.
Expert Java EE Consulting
There was never a shortage of workers, it was about corporations wanting cheap labor. I remember when the program first started, there was a lot of unemployment in tech industry. When program was renewed same thing. Maybe now that the tech industry is in a major slump with higher than average unemployment they might get rid of the unnecessary program.
Corporate America thinks employees are like Kleenix to use when necessary and toss away. Quality and loyality mean nothing only paying the lowest salaries they can. All this has done is make employees the same way. Its a vicous cycle.
Well said. Had I mod points I'd help ya out. :)
They would have addressed the issue of illegals in the country getting american jobs. But no, that would have been politically incorrect, as well offend people of certain countries. Chinese and Indians that bring in useful skills are an easy target.
And where were they when american factory jobs were being farmed off to third world countries, and why are they quiet about american tech and support jobs being farmed out?
Unsurprisingly, the AFL-CIO/CWA has taken a special interest in direct opposition to the general interest of the American citizenry. And, even less surprisingly, the hordes of economically uneducated Slashdot readers have responded with support for this essentially protectionist position.
Within the constraints of legitimate national security concerns, the freer the labor market, the more wealth an economy produces. The fundamental mechanism is that you can produce more stuff for less money. (All the complaints about not wanting some stuff to be produced are answered by more - not less - property rights, but that is another discussion.) This wealth then spreads throughout the economy making everyone better off. You can certainly protect the jobs of some American IT workers by reducing the inflow of competition from abroad. But, you will pay the price in less economic efficiency. This is another example of the way that free-market interests align with international cooperation, despite the fashionable ideas to the contrary.
An excellent explanation of the "what is seen and what is not seen" phenomenon - with examples in many other areas of economics can be found in the book "Economics is One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt. Type it into Amazon.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
but just because they 'speak' English doesn't mean you understand what they are saying. My mom is a Dutch immigrant and nobody can understand what she's saying (except for me.) Same with people from India, their English is very very very hard to understand, it's very fast, compared to the typical slowness of Americans.
Of course, English is a pretty hard language in general, I don't blame the immigrants, I blame the corporations that want to exploit them and American workers at the same time. The whole H1-B program is not about "not enough supply," they used the argument during the boom times, but it's no longer valid since there's plenty of talent in IT that are not currently employed. It's really about inflating stock prices as it cuts labor costs.
If this is the nature of Capitalism, then I'm proud to say that I'm neither a Capitalist nor do I support Capitalism.
>Alright, if you're an American, with a 4-year degree from an
>American college, and some guy from India, overcoming all of the
>inherent obstacles in India, can do your job better than you do,
>he deserves your job. You started with all the advantages.
India has a government-paid technology training program, and I've just paid for 4 years of college. Who's *really* got the obstacles?
There's plenty of it here, Asswipe. Plenty to make your reason to work here irrelevant.
1)If you're located miles from any decent sized city, you will obviously have some problems. If you work for a govt contractor (and you're interviewing ex. govt employees or others who serviced govt agencies - you're going to have problems.
2)You obviously haven't taken the time to READ YOUR CANDIDATE'S RESUMES before interviewing them. If you don't like what your HR's sending you, I suggest you handle the postings yourself.
Yes folks, I have realized, as an american citizen I stand NO chance of getting a tech job right now. So I put my plan into action.
/end satire
I'll renounce my american citizenship, fly to india, marry a native woman (to gain indian citizenship) and change my last name to Ha-beeb. Then, and only then will I apply for an american job under H1B visa laws. AND I'LL GET THE JOB WOOHOO!!! Oh and let's not forget, I'll need to bring 8k with me for that phony CS degree.
Boy will my bosses be surprised when they see toqer Ha-Beeb is really a white dude that speaks perfect english! They might even sponsor me to become an american citizen again!
I couldn't agree more. I came to the US 2 years ago on H1B status. In charge of a group of 20 EE's, I have interviewed tons of people.
In the beginning, I asked the same technical questions to candidates. Questions that requires thinking, not knowing. I learned very quickly that if I were to apply the same criteria as a the ones I used to use 'back home', most of the candidates failed miserably. Almost without exception, foreign candidates do better than the US candidates.
This is not a coincidence: most foreigners who take the step to go to the US are very highly motivated and were usually at the top of their game in their home country. Average US candidates, who already have the disadvantages of having 'enjoyed' a low standard mathematical education, simply don't have a chance...
And about pay: our company pays for performance. I have yet to hear anybody here complain about salary differences between H1B workers and those with a permanent status...
May advise: fix your junior and high school education system first. Some of your universities may be at the top of the world (MIT,
Discalimer : I'm a green card holder who came to the USA on an H1-B sponsorship, and have recently been made laid-off. If you think this is "sour grapes" then so be it ; I think I'm being objective.
On the whole, the law as it stands makes sense, but it does need to be improved. I agree with most of the comments on this story that state that the H1B program is a good thing, the general theme being that the H1B program is beneficial to the USA and that the vast majority of folks on the program have got there by merit.
However, I did learn (the hard way) that there is at least one major loophole in the program. Having worked for several years for a major IT company (you've heard of them but I won't name them) I was recently laid off. This was a legitimate business decision in so much that business was slacking off and cuts needed to be made. The problem I have is that the company was making "reduction in force" announcements while busily bringing in new blood through a third party outsourcing company. Needless to say, the third party company was bringing in folks from India, good folks, but nontheless folks who had exactly the same skills as the citizens and green card holders they were firing, but could be paid much less. My former employer could not have hired these people directly, but can do it perfectly legitimately through a third party.
The bottom line : any company can fire perfectly good employees and bring in foreign labor at lower rates, so long as they do it through a third party.
IMHO, this is a major loophole.
IRONY= saying one thing and meaning the opposite
PARADOX=something which involves apparent contradictions
HYPOCRISY=pretending to believe in something regarded as good while actually believing or doing something which is not.
Off-topic maybe but where else do we stand up for English?
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.
The problem is we're too busy laughing when you ask "Tell me a boat an abstract class and tell me a boat a regular class.
This actually happened to me during an interview. I was being interviewed by an Indian and he asked me about "ice uh" and a "hass uh" classes. I looked at him like he was from the moon. I asked him what he was talking about. He spelled it out. I-S-A and H-A-S-A. He had me stumped. I went back to the office and asked a few people what an ISA and HASA were. Finally one guy smacked himself in the forehead and said "oh, do you think he was asking about 'is a' and 'has a' relationships? I got a damn good chuckle from that and still do.
'Same speed C but faster'
...but the fees the sponsor pays are supposed to be put into training programs for American nationals. This is supposed to offset the skills shortage and make it so the H1B's are no longer necessary. Is this what's happening? No.
I'm not concerned with other types of visas. I have no problem with foreign workers in this country, as long as they're productive contributing members of society. The H1B program is different. It's not serving the purpose it was intended to serve, and that is why I support reforming it.
The best way to help the US Engineer/IT worker would be for the AFL-CIO to go unionize India.
Those Indian programmers deserve more pay, more benefits, more time off! Programmers of India unite!
We should have never let those German scientists in during WWII. They stole our jobs. What did those refugees do for us ? In fact, we should do with H1-Bs what we did with the Japanese. Round them up and isolate them in some God forsaken desert settlement. After all, the bad economy is their fault, not ours. They created the dot com bubble. Americans would have never been that dumb. Also, the bad job market has nothing to do with the economy but with H-1Bs. Never mind all those job postings that say US citizens only. Hell, the H-1Bs are lucky that slavery has been abolished ( has it ? Nobody seems to have a clue nowadays). They should thank us for treating them better than we treated those African slaves or that cheap Chinese labour during the 1800s. After all, nobody here is an immigrant or has descended from an immigrant. No sir, we're all Native Americans. So we can all sleep well tonite folks, for we have done the good deed for the day. Tommorrow, we are going to kill us some Iraqi or North Korean villagers. Proud to be American!!!
mod RACIST parent down please...
The scenario (which I think is mostly bogus, but that's an other issue) only lowers the overall standard of living if you don't include the foreigner, who gets a highly increased standard, in your calculations.
Or in other words it is based on the idea that non americans aren't people.
The US talent is embarrassingly bad.
I'm not buying your argument. The IT field is somewhat of a unique animal because there are so many quantifyable skills -- dozens of programming languages, operating systems, databases, and industries.
When jobs get posted, the ad usually runs like this:
Wanted: programmer. Must know Java using JDBC interface to Oracle 8.1.2 running on Solaris v2.1.2, in conjunction with Bea TP system, 10+ years in the insurance sector doing fixed asset reinsurance in the UK. XML a plus.
You don't usually see that type of ad for other professions. Sure, there's specialization, but not to the degree possible in IT. I think that IT job requirements are insanely narrow. Yes, it helps to hire someone who has done the exact job you're looking for in a previous life, but with a solid foundation 75% of the IT force can perform jobs outside of their direct experience. Yet no manager is going to take the risk, because if they hire someone who fits the description and that person fails, they don't look bad, but if they hire someone nontraditional and that person fails, it can be their head. The reward isn't worth the risk to them.
Addressing your original point, unless someone is going to be doing some very hardcode C programming, and the job is for dedicated C coding projects, why would they need to write a routine to traverse a linked list? Sure, it would be helpful for them to understand the theory behind the question, but why do they need to reinvent the wheel?
I'm looking at a job posting for my own company, for a senior DBA. Look at it:
"This position requires 3 to 7 years of experience in the areas of general database administration, DBA experience in Oracle 8, 8i and 9i releases, and experience with Oracle Parallel Server or Real Application Clusters and Oracle Advanced Replication. The ideal candidate will have 2 to 5 years of programming experience in C, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Developer or similar, and familiarity with Oracle 8, 8I, 9I and GUI development tools. Strong written and verbal communication skills are required. A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics (with Computer Science focus) is required."
We don't use C in this company -- at all!. We don't use GUI development tools either. This job description was likely taken from some HR magazine or something.
If IT hiring was a bit more creative, and the IT profession was a bit less "throw the employee away when the technology changes", we probably wouldn't need H1B employees.
Once, in this country, companies were expected to train their employees to keep their investements up to date. Now, employees are expected to work 60+ hours a week and are supposed to train themselves in their free time. The fruits of this method are just becoming evident; tens of thousands of "obsolete" IT people, and tens of thousands of H1B imports. That's a shitty national policy, something that will derail this country's economy.
The issue of H1-Bs is becoming moot.
Why import them here where the cost of living is ridiculously high when you can have one or two middle managers here coordinating the development and maintenance of systems over there where the cost of living is ridiculously low.
You can pay them peanuts and they're still happy because peanuts over there makes for a good standard of living.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As most of us are native-born workers, we tend to view things in terms of rights. We have a right to social security, unemployment checks, social welfare etc. Therefore, in times of distress (if you can ever call living in the United States "distressed") we scrutinize what is variable, visible and easily quantifiable. -Salary and wage. It can be argued (perhaps by nativist union groups such as the AFL-CIO) that foreign-born H1B visas take up certain jobs that native-born workers could have access to. But let's also consider that H1B's are not given access to social funds that native-born workers have. In other words, we import highly intelligent workers and don't provide them with many public benefits (besides things such as public schooling for their children, maintained highways, public toilets etc.). If anything, America has the long-end of the straw. also: poor conditions in "third world" countries (as many of you have described them) are largely the effect of colonialism. The colonial power often treats the colony as a resource (perhaps for labor, as well?), with development a secondary, tertiary, or even non-priority. And although we'd all hate to believe it, the United States has been a colonial power. (Puerto Rico, Philippines, Cuba, Hawaii, and that doesn't include military bases world-wide) We've used that position to harvest cane for export, import cheap farm labor, and leverage as a military base. To say that these countries would not be as well off without western influence is highly speculative and has a hint of Kipling's "White man's burden." In summary, the United States has contributed to the lower standard of living elsewhere in the world, has taken advantage of labor in the past, and currently employs a system that brings in the world's best talent at discounted cost.
Ya, I have to agree w/this poster. It seems like a waste of time to be competent, since there is no way to cash in. Why spend time and money to keep up w/new tools if companies just hire the cheapest commodity, no matter the quality?
I don't feel "the US talent is embarassingly bad" so much as I feel the US management is embarassingly bad. Unable to articulate goals and requirements, unable to hold a steady course and unable to finish a project. And of course, they are unable to distinguish an engineer from the janitor.
I have to question the original poster: how the hell did you select the resumes of five morons? I might get one or two who have padded their resumes, but usually I can weed these out on the phone. By the time we get to the "in person" candidates, they are plausible candidates. What is wrong w/your process?
You're right in a way. Shortages only occur in planned economies. On a free market there are no surpluses or shortages, there are only price changes.
So there is of course no shortage of any kind of employee in the US, at least to the extent that the labor market is free.
OTOH, the labor market can't be said to be really free unless it is open to everyone regardless of nationality.
T R O L L from trollsville..
> Alright, if you're an American, with a 4-year degree from an American college, and some guy from India, overcoming all of the inherent obstacles in India, can do your job better than you do, he deserves your job. You started with all the advantages.
The popular belief that indians are somehow better programmers is incorrect. I know several people who work with some H1-Bs and they're no more competent than we are.
The reality is your tech skills are basically irrelevant in the grand scheme of human civilization. The pride you derive from posting on /. is nothing but a fantasy, a fiction. A generation from now, let alone a millenium, and your feeble existence will be forgotten except by a few scarabs feasting on your putrid remains.
You serve a purpose NOW at this moment, but with the speed of technological advancement even modern wrench monkeys such as yourself will be have little to offer society. People ARE a dime a dozen. Do you really think we need 300 million people in the United States? Even if they are not contributing anything of value, what CAN they contribute?
Better yet, you should be looking at what YOU contribute. Trust me, it is YOU who not only need a lifestyle change but are going to experience one unwillingly very soon. When the civilized society you enjoy collapses you will not be able to function in meaningful way. Perhaps you will be a prostitute, some will pay a pittance for a little ass raping here and there. "Squeal like a pig!"
You may think you are a valuable member of your company but you are hardly a valuable member of the society that protects your worthless way of life. When the protection you are afforded disappears, everything you hold dear will be wiped out.
So I suggest you get that fat ass into shape, stop leeching off your parents, and get used to physical pain. When the revolution comes you will either fight and survive, with some scars to keep your mind clear or you will be buying massive quantites of K-Y.
Your arrogance reeks of ignorant hubris. If you want a place in the new world, I suggest you get over it.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
I think the AFl/CIO need to actually take some things a step further.
Today it isn't about how much you know, it is about how low your salary will go!
Think about this. Corporations want to pay lower salaries to "improve their bottom line". But as salries go down the cost for things does not. Corporations that bring in more H1B's and farming out work to other countries, yes puts American workers out of jobs.
Yes many American programmers need to improve their skills. But, even the ones that are GOOD at what they do are losing out to foreign labor. Why, because they won't work for $20,000/yr.
It is expensive to live in the U.S. anymore. Look at the cost of housing, the price of just about anything you buy. Heck look at a typical Dmonoes or Pizza Hut Pizza! A large is now the size of a medium for the price of a large! It used to be you could live on $30,000/year in the U.S. not today, unless you have a spouse that makes at least $30,000/year as well.
In a day when Corporate CEO's and the like are funneling away the company profits to some off shore bank account, and raiding american workers pension funds. Of course they want to pay less, so they can keep more!
Many H1B's from overseas are just rying to hold on long enough to get there green card. Once they have that they are in like flint.
Corporations have zero, nada, none, NO loyalty to employees anymore, most companies treats employees like dirt, not just H1B's. Then they whine when the employees leave. Or if you complain about how you are being treated they just get rid of you!
The way I see it my friends, the corporations ARE the problem!
Two things should be done:
1) Revamp the H1B' laws and the practices of "farming out".
2) Come down on corrupt corporations (most of them are and we know it!).
Just my feelings on the matter!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
I am on H1 visa. I was recently laid off in Florida. I have a friend, Chuck, an american citizen, who was laid off same day I was. I know from other people they were actively looking for many months to find similar position in Florida. So off I went to California and found a job within a week or so since the layoffs in a company which was looking for skills like mine or Chuck's. My new employer has few more jobs for people skilled like me and Chuck. My first day on the job I sent Chuck's resume to my manager and got positive response and invitation for Chuck to come over for interview. I have called Chuck immediately and asked him to come over for interviews as soon as he can. Imagine my shock when he refused saying he'll wait for something to come over in Florida whenever it will be. My point is my H1 visa requirement forces me to go places to find a job quickly while those who are citizens sitting home and waiting for an opportunity to come over.
Just some points on H1: First of all, being German, having a degree in CS from a German University and more than 7 years of experience on top of that does not seem to fit the profile that many of the posters here shoot for, but maybe it is still relevant. I came to the US on top of the Technology boom and, guess what, the start-up I joined was later sold, people were laid off, etc. etc. Well known story. I then, within one week, joined another, this time very large, software company. The practice in this company is that the interviewers do not know and are not allowed to ask about an applicant's visa status. Evaluation is based only on the applicant's experience and ability to do the job. H1's are not paid any different than US citizens and are not preferred etc. etc.
I personally think that the US benefits from the H1 (at least most of them) candidates. I was educated in another country, after school I went through my "learning years" at different companies in Europe, and then I decided to come to the US. So what you got is a guy in his 30s, educated without the US paying a dime for it, specializing in a field that is in high demand (Security and Cryptography). You forget that people like me help US companies to stay ahead and therefore create jobs for Americans.
Another example: Recently we had 3 positions open in my group (same skills needed) and it took us more than 4 months(!!) to fill these positions. And this is not because we would pay badly. We had way too many candidates with skills like "car sales man turned HTML Front Page author and wants to do Security now". So where are all the high skilled Americans?
We should abolish all H1Bs! But, before you jump all over this, let me explain. Instead of H1B visas (which are given to the companies and NOT the foreign workers, FYI), INS should either accept people as permanent residents or outright reject them.
The current system is very inefficient and stressful, not just for the workers but also the companies. Everyone knows that H1 workers are people of indentured servitude - I don't want to use the word slave because it has other contexts in USA. But, people don't seem to realize how painful it is for companies to hire a H1 worker.
Most project cycle in software are very short (a few months). So, if you interview someone for the project, you would like him/her to start ASAP. Unfortunately, INS can take months to approve the H1 visa (in spite of the recent improvements)! Plus, there are legal fees and INS fees and so on.
After all this, if companies still hire H1 workers, it is only because there is a shortage of skilled technical workers in USA. If my recommendation are followed, immigration workers will be more secure and will demand as much pay as US citizens. That will fix most of the problems. Companies will not hire H1 workers just for the (perceived) lower costs!
All your favorite sites in one place!
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.
Probably because all the good C programmers aren't out looking for jobs. But I do kind of agree. I too have interviewed many horrible Americans (I'm also an american), and find 9 time out of 10 a "programmer" turns out to be someone that put a CGI script on their personal web site once.
_______
2B1ASK1
What if the management must retain its most valuable employees (regardless of whether they are on H1B visas or not)? Is it not possible that some of the best workers from the management viewpoint might not be US workers?
In other words, just because US workers are being laid off from the same jobs that employees on H1B visas are not, that does not mean the US workers are equally or more qualified (in the AFL-CIO's terms).
Management at any company that hopes to succeed in today's economy damn well better make the best decisions about which employees to retain if layoffs are ordered. Wages may or may not be an issue.
Truly, we do not know whether it is about economics rather than performance, as you say. Where is the definitive research showing that to be true?
The world is, after all, full of qualified individuals, and America clearly has a shortage - I mean just look at the last six or seven people who ended up getting the President job. The current one can't even speak English. Meanwhile people who'd do an excellent job from Nelson Mandela to Mikael Gorbachev are sitting on foreign dole queues, their talents wasted. And that's assuming you don't want to do some serious head hunting (and I'm not talking Idi Amin!) - you can probably get Blair or Putin for a song. Britain has a parliament full of potential rowdy loudmouthed pseudo-serious senators, if only you'd look, and faceless nonentities can be picked up to fill Congress from Canada.
Plus, with a six year limit on H1Bs, you will have no problems with career politicians defying term limits.
It's got to be worth considering, surely?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As one of those Silicon Valley H1Bs, that is precisely what I have seen over 5 years.
I guess there has to be some reality behind all the stories that there is an other H1B market out there that runs Indian programmer sweatshops of some kind, but I haven't seen any of it.
Also, I'm sure there are many angry unemployed US engineers who think they are the smartest thing since Einstein, but are really just one of those intolerably arrogant and combative nerds (of any nationality) that we have all had the misfortune to work with. Blaming H1Bs must be very natural to them when they fume their days away on Slashdot, since there can obviously not be anything wrong with themselves.
I have hands-on experience leading remote development work. I have to say that it is definitely not a walk in the park. 30%-%40 of my time was dedicated to communication .... back and forth between all the offices involved. Its tough work and is only successful when you have the buy in and effort from everyone. i was wokring 16 hour days just to make sure things ran smoothly .... can't do that kind of effort for too long. THings worked out ok in the end.
I have also seen the flip side, where the product/system developed outside the US completely sucked. I don't lay the blame entirely on the company that did the work. Anyone with half a brain could have identified and corrected the issues before the project came to a standstill, but the folks back here in America didn't have the inclination to do it. You snooze, you lose.
I couldn't say it better myself.
I was arguing pro union and the guy in the next cube was anti-union. His argument went like this:
Him: My wife has to pay something like $50/month to the union out of her own pay, and in return she gets nothing!
Me: What job does she do?
Him: She teaches in Upper Darby. (He then went on to rant about how it's worse in Philadelphia)
Me cutting him off: Why doesn't she work for one of the private schools. She would have a better working environment and would not have to deal with unions.
Him: But she has to work for the public schools. The private schools don't pay squat.
At this point, I figured he made my point. But he did not get it. The union, not the public school got her more pay.
Also the union, not the employer has bosses that the members vote on. If you don't like the way the union is going, then run to become a leader.
It should also be noted that in many companies where union workers are. The best of the workers quickly become management. Their pay is not tied to the union wage.
Even if you don't become management there are very few unions that dictate a maximum pay. So if you can argue that you are worth more, argue it and get it.
... how US citizens would like nothing more than to kick all foreigners out, while at the same time they are all descendents of foreigners (with the exception of native Americans, but look where they are today).
It's even funnier when you consider that the BAD guy in "Gangs of New York" is the anti-immigrant thug.
Hypocrisy lifted to new heights...
Other than that, the article does a good job of listing some of the problems that have occured, and then greatly exagerating them.
He's one of those wordly people that think all Indians live in abject poverty.
The Programmer's Guild
has been lobbying against the H-1B for years now. Without much effect. I'm glad that the AFL-CIO has brought this to the attention of the main-stream media. Speaking as an American programmer, who's really tired of watching my peers get replaced by cheap, over-seas labor, it's about time!
No matter where you go... there you are.
Note that for item 4, they give no government studies to support their claim, like they do for the others. Probably they couldn't find any reliable source to support their claim, but wanted to include a blurb about this to appease their members.
Face it, boys and girls... Programming sucks anyway. The reason why we allowed globalization to be shoved down our throats was that all the crappy jobs (like sifting through dead PC parts in bare feet) would be sent overseas and we'd get better jobs.
Go outside. Get a job as a gardener for a CEO. Displace a mexican or two.
While I wouldn't normally feed a troll, I figure it might be fun for once.
My tech skills ARE basically irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. I'm simply a cog in a machine. I can be replaced at anytime. I'm fully aware of that. The best I can do is prolong that replacement.
I will, however, disagree that I make no difference whatsoever to someone else in the world. I make a difference to my family and the family of the girlfriend I have and will marry. I will make a difference to my children. They will make a difference to the people they love and interact with in life. The cycle will continue as long as my family line does. Did my grandfather make a big difference in the world? Nope. He did however marry my grandmother which spawned my parents. I also have an uncle from that same family line who fought in the Gulf War and was a high ranker in the USMC.
I'm also a valuable member of my local society as someone who not only spends money in his local economy but also does his part in helping the environment by recycling. Again, it's small potatoes but every little bit helps.
And it seems I've made a contribution in your life as well. I made enough of a point that you felt compelled to respond to it!
Considering my parent's leech off me (which I don't mind considering I leeched off them for the first 18 years of my life), I don't really see what the last part of your post has to do with anything.
By the way, I don't post on slashdot often enough to derive any pride. I'm actually not a prideful person at all considering everything I've done in my life. I could probably be even more arrogant but I think I'll just sit here (on my "fat ass" as you call it) and enjoy the fact that I'm happy!
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Replace it with free labor markets in North and South America!
If an Irishman can work in 14 other EU countries (perhaps 25 when it is enlarged), why can't we get our crap together and do the same?
All this BS with government restrictions is wasteful. It creates employment alright: lots and lots of government workers to stamp stamps and push paper and allow politicians to pretend that their citizens are somehow safer. It also keeps families apart, pushes people underground, and enriches the pockets of immigration lawyers.
The notion that a border makes you safe is preposterous. The notion that a border makes a society rich is silly. Anyone can work & live in any country now with sufficient cash. It is time to free every citizen from his or her borders.
-b
Name you organization after something in a fantasy novel. Great idea.
Qualifications for a particular job are determined by the employer who is paying the wages for that position. Only the employer can decide if anyone is really qualified for a position.
I too hear those radio ads and laugh--especially the ones that feature some woman who talks about tripling her salary after taking those classes. That furthers the easy money idea in many people's minds. Those are the kinds of people who lower the quality of the IT labour pool.
It is entirely my opinion (and u may disagree), that the recommendations are not entirely wrong..... or right, for that matter of fact.
Jobs are to be based and placed on qualifications. period. If you are Indian,Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian - but do not have the right qualifications, then no job..no VISA.
If Americans want to discriminate ONLY on the basis of nationality, then maybe they should all STOP GOING TO THE MALL, or any store ---- because if you take the time to LOOK, then you will see that the MAJORITY of goods are made in some asian country or other....(China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia )... ALL these industries (textile and garments, chips and processors, artifacts and pharmaceuticals), have their manufacturing units in some such country where labor is cheap. It has ALWAYS been that way... why should you expect that Software is any different.
Now, THINK...
If ALL the recommendations are adopted, do you think Americans will be much better off than the current date? I do not think so. Maybe marginally better off. Why not more? Because, the strategy of the investor and the CEO is guided by only one thing - MONEY. He will simply outsource. Just like he did to the manufacturing industry. Or the Textile industry. If you ask him not to do it, he will say : " This is Business, not personal", and will smile, and you are not better off... in fact, the situation has become even worse, because now there are not so many people coming into the US, who will be paying 40-50% tax and consume the goods here and pay Social Services without using them and add into the economy here....hence, THINK.
Maybe someday Americans may have to go to other countries looking for work.....or maybe not.
Mexican Lawyers. Ever been to Tijuana? They know how to bargain there.
It's true, most of the H1B's I know have **mad skillz** with the ladies. I don't know if they take classes for that shit over there but man, those guys get laid 5,6, hell 100 times more often than I do.
And by better looking chicks!
It seems they're willing to put more effort into getting nookie. And that ain't right.
There I am putting down some smooth lyrics on a honey, chilling on campus, you know the deal. When out of nowhere this arabian guy drives by with a sup'ed up navigator with oversized chromes.
oversized fuckin' chromes! How the hell am I suppose to compete with oversized fuckin' chromes!!!
I'd say to hell with the job market, sharing with a roommate aint bad. As long as he pays the rent and stays out of my room at night ( I still don't buy that sleep walkin' story ). Just keep those guys away from our freakin' women.
PS.: TechsUnite and the rest of you guys sound as ridiculus as I do.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Amen brother.
It irks me to hear that "We can't find talented programmers" B.S.. Most typically, upon further inspection, it's revealed that the combination of improper and overdone narrowcasting of the postition requirements, "lowest bid" for the spot mentality and other contract arrangements (i.e., very short term, preferred vendor only, etc.) is what truly hampering the candidate search.
For example, at a recent assignment, a cube neighbor lamented that he was having great difficulty in filling a slot for a GIS programmer. After talking to him for a little bit, it struck me that it wasn't the supply that was in question, but the filtering mechanism employed -- it had to be from vendor X or vendor Y, it was a short 3 month term AND the billing rate offered was below the present market level. Hello, McFly! Another example: I obtained a recent contract term assignment solely on the merit of a networked contact. But my resume did not fit the HR/contract procurement office stipulated qualifications whatsoever. However, my skill set was precisely what the group needed.
I'm experienced enough to remember the days when most all US IT workers were native and when there was a "shortage", slots were opened up to arduous opportunity seekers from other business areas. They would be tested, weeded out and required to complete a rigirous training course on their own time. The lucky few that passed would be granted an opportunity in Data Processing and get a chance to hone their newly developed coding skills.
My, how times have changed. First, companies dumped the trainee programs and resorted to importing H1Bs. And now, corporate IT management is ruthlessly dumping existing employees, cutting native contractors and proceeding full force on the H1B importing and offshore relocation of systems support and development. Moreover, I read some glitzy trade journal PR that advises computing professionals to focus on systems architecture or business analysis functions to ensure the blossoming career. What a load of claptap - how the hell does an aspiring programmer become a skilled architect without getting his hands in the nuts and bolts of software construction? I'd say the "building" metaphor has outlived its usefulness.
AZspot
Which government? I was there for 25 years...paid my way through college, which had 2 computers in the entire computer science department.
By not wanting to fix our busted-ass educational system, by prefering instead to spend our collective tax dollars on $400 toilet seats and corporate bailouts and corporate welfare - the US has given nearly all of it's brainpower lead to competing nations - where students have a real drive to succeed, because they see what life is like around them in their native countries, and they'd rather live like Americans. They work hard, and those native countries invested dearly into an educational system. US Students, by comparison seem much more concerned about how they're going to save up for Spring Break (TM) in Daytona Beach.
It's really no suprise. Has nothing to do with racial superiority or inferiority, and every thing to do with cultural decadence.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What really happened in late 90s ?
Company hired consultant and payed regular contract amount to consultant's company. And that company payed minimum (engineers minimum) wage to consultant. After some time consultant might get hired directly and get regular pay (depending on abilities). And his bodyshop get a new fresh engineer from abroad.
As you can see people who came to US might get lower wages initially, but after settling a bit they usually drop lower-wages company. For normal company there is no sense to hire somebody who will go in a year (or earlier). Only consultant company could allow this..
There is no equilibrium. Experienced workers have tendency to work for money they could earn.
Well, a lot of things changed. It is easy to hire H1-B worker who's already in US, but you have to wait for visa transfer anyway and there are a lot of local people who could start to work right away. If one wants to hire talent from abroad - there are additional hurdles - more time to process and possibility of American Consulate rejecting a visa..
I came to USA on an H1B visa. All Indians and I am sure other immigrant communities are obsessed with the question - "What makes America Great". Most say - "oh they had vast resources to begin with". I contended myself with that for a month until I familiarised myself with the geography and realised that south of Texas everything was in similar shape as India. So that didn't make any sense.
While in engineering college in India, I read about Steve Jobs, Woznaik, Atkinson, Hewlett, Allen, and yes Gates. (Bill Gates is soon going to get a temple and a denomination amongst Hindu gods). I was amazed by their contempt of authority and yet having the guts to go out on a limb and create great things. These stories of Edison all the way to Carmack were sometimes the only threads from which a true techie could hang his belief.
I did see the westerns, atleast the popular ones - the spaghetti trio, few John Waynes, Tombstone and even in the age of cable TV, I could not help but be mesmerised by Wyatt Earp and Doc Halliday.
The Wild West. It all made sense. That is the cornerstone of this Great Country. In the Wild West even a thug could be deputized as long as he had the skills. The undercurrent being a safe place for business, growth, raising family driven by the Protestant Ethic.
If you read Peter Drucker's book on innovation, the British treated innovators as tradesmen, inline with blacksmiths, cobblers etc. The innovators could never become gentlemen component of the society. And America never cared for that kind of classism. With the Industrial Age fueled by war demands the innovators and scientists (including, Oppenheimer, Rutherford, Einstein) found home in USA. Why? They were the fastest guns in their business and they were deputized to take care of the situation.
America wants, America gets, not because it snatches from others, but because it guarantees respect and freedom. I'd actually call it - willing to cut a fair deal. Are H1Bs the fastest guns? Are Mexican immigrants the best gardners, mechanics, Taco Bell cashiers? I don't know. But to kill a deer you don't need an assault rifle.
I think it is wrong of H1Bs to expect getting a green card or any other residency, employment guarantees. Certainly the H1B program is rife with abuse. People get their relatives in by forging their credentials, people are harassed to work in bad conditions (low pay, no benefits, ethnic abuse - caste etc bullshit). This program needs a hard look and reform. There is a need to get the brilliant people to USA and address labor shortage. If the problem goes away, so should any non-contributing components. No point keeping the 'gcc-build' directory around after a successful 'make install'. Fair deal.
We've overlooked an entire class of corporate workers who are obviously in short supply. That there way too few of them available in the job market is clearly evidenced by their grossly inflated salaries. Accordingly, companies should be actively soliciting Congress to allow the importation of CEOs and other executives.
Highly trained, competent, experienced CEOs of European companies are routinely paid only a fraction of what their American counterparts receive. Saving millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars per year by hiring H-1B executives instead of over-paid Americans will make investors happy by adding significantly to the corporate bottom line.
So, how come we don't see more H1-B CEOs?
The ironic thing... these "employers" who pay for the el-cheapo people pay half but wait twice as long to get things done because these people are less talented, thus it doesn't save them a cent!! HAHAHA!
Why does it seem that /.'ers have no understanding of rudimentary international economics?
Cheaper labor is not bad for the American economy, it's obviously good. You can argue that techies are getting screwed by H1B's or jobs being exported, and that is probably true. But the American economy overall benefits - and if you argue otherwise, you have zero understanding of how a market economy works.
The lawyers/doctors etc who are protecting their jobs and preventing immigrants from taking on their work for less pay are actually damaging the overall economy in order to line their personal pockets.
...if you're on an H1B and you want to switch jobs, you basically have to get another H1B.
That kind of visa cannot be transferred from one company to another. Go to a different company, and you loose your current H1B, so you must apply for another one.
If approved, this proposal will increase enormously the pressure on the H1B holders. In a nutshell, it's going to make them slaves to their current employer.
The cap, if any, should be put on H1B visas offered to people who are not already H1B owners.
"Once, in this country, companies were expected to train their employees to keep their investements up to date. Now, employees are expected to work 60+ hours a week and are supposed to train themselves in their free time. The fruits of this method are just becoming evident; tens of thousands of "obsolete" IT people, and tens of thousands of H1B imports. That's a shitty national policy, something that will derail this country's economy." It's not just the US, it's at least Australia too. This is pretty standard and I think it's just the end result of the free market. It's a cheaper thing. Why pay an employee and train them when you could get someone cheaper who will train themselves. I've got 10 years (or thereabouts) IT experience but no degree (currently studying), I don't feel like I have much chance getting work in the US after just having moved here from Australia. I have a greencard but still it seems like I'll be pushing it to get a job. Daniel
Something intruiging...
And this despite the fact there is constant union bashing going in these
Do you like vacations?
Sick time?
Overtime?
Family Medical Leave?
Pension funds?
Health coverage?
All this and other good work benefits are all thanks to working people who stood up, spoke out, and demanded better compensation for their hard work. Sadly, as the strength of unions decline, we see a correpsonding decline in all of these benefits.
And geeks, don't be foolish enough to believe it can't happen to you because you're smart or your job is somehow different that "blue collar" jobs. That's just elitist bullshit. There's no doubt your own self-interest is best served by joining with others who share your concerns. Get political and get engaged!
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
she would be asking that of you!
Living up to the moniker, I see?
" The problem is, from the foreigner's point of view, just getting to be in America (and out of their own hellhole), is a huge benefit. Therefore, they are willing to accept a low standard of living (by American standards)."
There was a story in Wired a couple of years ago about Africa and the Internet. The correspondent was quickly disabused of plenty of his notions. One of them was that these people were suffering because it was a third-world country that didn't have many first-world benifits. The people did have food, and water, and shelter, as well as clothing. Some even did have some of the first-world technology. Televisions, phones, and even internet access. And yes quite a few had upbeat attitudes and outlooks. So once again "Living up to the moniker, I see?". Just because a country doesn't have all what the first-world has, don't assume they're all living in despair and just "knocking-down" the doors, trying to escape.
it's not just the little guy that wants a little government protection. the big guys (OIL COMPANIES) use a lot of government protection (eg war). the difference is that the big guys have an easier time of getting it and don't fall for this free market propaganda you're espousing.
when the big guy hurts: WE ALL HAVE TO PULL TOGETHER!
when the little guy hurts: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!
Ok, I'll leave then. I'll take my education and my skills back to Canada. I'll stop giving your government my tax dollars and donating money to local charities. I'll stop spending all my money in local stores and on crappy american beer. I'll leave my company holding the bag, spending money and effort to get someone to do my job. Maybe there's even a qualified person out there who needs a job - maybe they can even train up in 5 minutes for what i've been doing for four years. Who knows.
I'm outta here. Fuck you.
The proposal is way too much biased towards "academic credentials = talented people".
There are many people who are extremely skilled, and yet they sometimes don't even have a BS.
At most, if any, the requirement should say "must have a college degree", but don't limit it to "if you work in IT, you must have a degree in computer science".
Looks like things are progressing more quickly than I thought.
Interesting that they are against software patents, and they attribute Microsoft behind the push for more H1B visas:
"The 2000 election results contained some big victories for the programming profession. The "Senator from Microsoft" Slade Gorton and Rep. James Rogan, both big supporters of replacing American programmers with foreign guest workers, were defeated."
I am seriously considering becoming a member . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
It is possible to do...
That way you build up your own staff trained in the manner that you wish them to be trained.
However, they are irrelevent. Tackhead's post that I was replying to was stating that an absolutely free labor market was the solution to the problem. Hence, my previous post was an analysis of what would happen in such a market. As such your comments are not really applicable to this thread.
If you read my post as analysis of what is currently happening or what has happened, you misread it. I apologize for any ambiguity on my part that may have aided this misunderstanding.
You guys who complain about Microsoft should get a load of government security clearances. 80% of that crap should be stuck away in a county library somewhere and 5% should be read into the Congressional Record.
Smoke a joint and you'll never become a glorified civil servant, that's fair enough. How many guys who've been busted for espionage over the last thirty years had fully-topped-up clearances, though? 100%, isn't it?
What about a guy who has an affair halfway through a genuinely Burn Before Reading project and has his clearance yanked? You think they take him into Toshi Station to have his memory wiped? You think, after having NEVERMORE branded on his forehead and getting chased across a burning bridge, he has anything to lose?
"Secret" my ass. Government waste is what it is.
You ask what have you done to deserve such treatment? Guess what, you're getting the same you are yourself inflicting upon people from poorer countries. Get a li'l taste of your own medicine.
What if lawyers were only expected to be trained in logic, debate, and reading skills. How about accountants only trained in math, problem solving, and reading skills? Without training of VERY specific and technical skills, the profession does not exist and can easily be replaced with a general degree, in which case you lose the benefits of the profession. Certification MUST be specific to a certain skill set so that the profession remains pure and companies will know what they are paying for. That is why a standard set of tools must exist (Common Law, GAAP, and, perhaps, LAMP, for CPSE).
The only reason this hasn't happened yet is due to MS's control over the computer industry. The most "useful" technical skill you cant test for is built on a standard controlled by MS. MS is 100% for infinite H1b visas because it means lower TCO for their software.
With out Open Standards (Open Source), CPSE will never exist. Closed (asymetrically controllable) standards is the only difference between techies and well payed/employed lawyers and accountants.
This doesn't mean that all tools of CPSE's should only be Open Source, but you would only be able to certify the Open Source ones.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
That statement is utterly meaningless. What are your criteria? "Must recall basic details of functional programming" is one thing, but "was able to answer the question in my country's native tongue" is entirely different. By what criteria are we Americans so poorly qualified?
Go ahead and explain this. If you're willing to generalize us as "having 'enjoyed' a low standard mathematical education", then be prepared to back up your assertion.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This proposal does not address the problem. Instead it takes the typical union approach of trying to fix wages, combined with a populist "bash the foreigners because they're to blame". For example:
Laid-off H-1B workers must return to their country of origin within 60 days of their unemployment
Typical screw-the-foreigners mentality: what about the H1B worker who's bought a house? You can't usually sell a house in 60 days.
The real problem is simple. It's that companies are allowed to bring in H1Bs when there are already more workers than jobs - as now. With the tech job market the way it is today, the H1B quota should be zero.
A country has the right to limit the number of immigrants. But it does not have a natural right to let people in, then treat them like shit. Of course the INS already does that, but the AFL-CIO proposal seeks to make it even worse.
I am a former H1B employee, now greencard holder.
So I kinda feel qualified to comment on some of this:
"Current Problem:
The H-1B program is completely disconnected from the realities of the U.S. labor market. While spot shortages in certain professional occupations may exist from time to time, H-1B fails to address these specific needs. Instead the program floods the marketplace with the potential of 200,000 or more professional guest workers each year. It is estimated that there may be as many as a half million H-1Bs in the U.S. today."
Yeah well, the current number of 'available' H1Bs is 195'000, so it cannot be 200'000 or more. Simple math I suppose.
"Current Problem:
H-1B guest workers can stay in the U.S. for at least six years (two, three year renewable visa terms); longer if their paperwork to transition them to green card status is in the DOL pipeline. A program of six years duration does not qualify as "temporary.""
DUH! Of course! The H1B is a step on the way to permanent residency. It allows companies to check the employee out before they go into sponsoring a green card. Virtually no H1B employee comes here to go back home after three or six years (Ok, there maybe exceptions....) DUH! again.
"Current Problem:
Employer attestations regarding their so-called "good faith" efforts to recruit U.S. workers are laughable. Employers establish qualifications and skills sets that are most often tailored to a specific guest worker. Attestations regarding the payment of the prevailing wage are equally insufficient."
And maybe there just is no U.S. citizen AVAILABLE at the time for this job. Ever considered this?
When applying for 'my' Labor Certification' the Dept. of Labor made it very clear that they will deny it if we make the specs too specific.
""The special requirements identified on the application appear to be customized to fit the alien's qualifications rather than represent actual job requirements. This appears to be restrictive criteria to eliminate qualified U.S. workers." "
Hmm, could it be that the job requirements and the skills of the new hire just match? Maybe for a reason?
"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."
Hmm, and I paid all this money to have my credencials translated and verified and matched to US equivalents exactly why?
Because the INS required it!
Now, last but not least under one of those possible reform sections:
"Laid-off H-1B workers must return to their country of origin within 60 days of their unemployment; prevent the misuse of the "portability" of H-1B visas so that they are not used by the guest worker to look for other employment"
Sure, how would you feel if you get thrown out of your home if you cannot find another job within 60 days? Wait, you get thrown out of the country. Regardless that you paid taxes, social security etc. We'll just take that too, thank you very much. How about we throw every looser out of the country that can't hold a job. Wouldn't that be so much better?
Really, I think that topic requires some thought.
The other issue is, of course, should there be any H1B (and employment-based green card) program and how much people should get in. I am not sure. It should affect the salaries on average - it is still supply/demand thing. On one hand, the other engineers in my group people are almost exclusively Americans and they are good! (My case is somewhat special in the Bay Area, though). On the other hand, the education my kids are getting here in the Bay Area sometimes makes me wish I've never come to the US (from Moscow). If you want to eliminate H1B, make sure you fix the US education first, or the US will be importing, not exporting software pretty soon, as it will have to compete with all these people who did not come here as H1Bs! (Maybe that will make them to limit copyright back to 14 years, though ;-). At least one specific problem the US education seems to have is insufficient focus on the brightest kids. I can see why one have to spend more money on the bottom 25% - just to get them to some minimal level. But it is crazy not to spend more on top 25% (that seemingly do not have any problems) - because that is where educational investment gives best returns in the future. Well, I'd better stop before getting too much OT.
Imagine if you will, a street corner, with 4 businesses, one on each corner. Business A, B, C, and D all are in the business of selling widgets. Business A hires a management team to ensure maximum profit for the owners of business A. The owners of business A, like all owners of all businesses, want to make as much money as possible, with the least amount of work. That is the way businesses work. If you get X dollars from your business for Y hours one year, but the next year, you get X dollars for 2Y hours of work, well, you might think about hiring another management team.
The owners of business A have an agreement among themselves: they agree that they will be honest with each other, and share equally in any work to be done, anf in any profits to be had. However, they may compete against each other. For example, the business A may consist of an office building, where each owner has an office and performs services for customers who come into the building. Owner 1 may sell widget X, and owner 2 may also sell widget X.
However, business A has many great business advantages over businesses B, C and D. It has a better location, for example, than businesses B, C, and D. Also, the infrastructure is better and attracts more customers.
Now imagine what the owners of business A would think if the management team discovered that an owner of business B wanted to move into the building that is business A. The business B owner wanted that great location in order to sell more widgets of type X. But the owners of business A said, No Way, you will cause more competition for the two business owners of business A who already sell widgets of type X.
So, the management of business A gets together with one of the business owners of business A who sells widgets of type A, and who needs widgets of type X to produce widgets of type Z. He wants the cost of X widgets to be as low as possible, so his profit is as high as possible. If he could only get that business B guy who makes X widgets into the business A building, he makes more money.
But those smart business A owners know that their contract that binds them together protects their individual incomes. So they ORDER the management team to keep out that business B competitor.
But the management team is clever: they and the widget Z business A owners mount a long propaganda campaign demonzing those business A owners who are against letting the business A widget X owner into the business A building. They call the protestors "racists" and "xenophobes."
After a while, they are able to fragment the business A owners, and bring in the business B widget X owner. Now the business A widget Z owner is making lots of money. He pays off the business A management team. But the two business A widget X owners have lost income.
Then the management team colludes with other owners of the business A to bring in other widget makers from other businesses, etc.
I hope you see the moral in this story: stick together and win, or be divided and lose.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
The real problem is that American Software Developers have no political say. The inventors of the H1-B program the ITAA make tremendous campaign contrubutions to the sponsors of their program. Faced with this threat it is clear that American IT workers need to have political power ,as other occupations do, but how to get there. Unions represent blue collar workers well but there are problems with wage standards, corruption. Doctors are represented by the AMA, Lawyers by the American Trial Laywer association, etc.
Currently there is the Programmers Guild, ( www.programmersguild.org ) a potential political source of representation in the future. Today however the AFL-CIO has tremendous political power. Upon pulication of this memo many represenatives are finally given a truthful explanation of the H1-B program as opposed to the propaganda industry has painted for years.
The H1-B program is destructive to the American economy. It is well known that more qualified Americans are being bypassed because of cost not skills. 750,000 American IT workers have been displaced by this program. At an average wage of $60,000/yr the American economy has taken a hit of 45 billion dollars taken out of the consumers hands. The head economist at Morgan Stanley Steven Roach has commented that cheap labor from China and India is the number one threat to the U.S. economy today.
Another point is H1-B's and outsourcing are not mutually exclusive. A large number of H1-B's are facilitators for outsourcing. They work a few months in the U.S. learning the sytem in question then return to their home countries to continue the work. In sheer numbers of American IT workers displaced the H1-B program is on a factor of several to one over outsourcing.
Alright, if you're an American, with a 4-year degree from an American college, and some guy from India, overcoming all of the inherent obstacles in India, can do your job better than you do, he deserves your job. You started with all the advantages.
Doesn't India deserve to reap the benefits of having trained such a great mind? Think of India, expending its resources to train its most intelligent minds, only to have them all leave. They invest, and get no return.
On the other side of the coin is the US trained tech worker. He now has to compete against a pool drawn from a billion people. In other industries in the US he has to compete against 20% of that. How good do you have to be? Is it good enough to be in the top 5% of American IT workers? Or do you have to be in the top 5% of American and Indian and Chinese IT workers combined? Why doesn't this mixed standard apply to areas other than IT work? Why wouldn't a bright 18 yr old look at the work field and decide IT work was 10 times more competitive than other work, and just go to law or business school instead?
Funny. The company that just hired me asked me that question in an interview (and, obviously, I was able to do it easily).
But during the 4 preceding months, I applied to over 50 jobs, and only got one phone interview (which didn't ask any technical questions). Being a C/C++ programmer with > 12 years experience, and also being a highly active open-source developer, I was more than a little frustrated.
The US has always benefited from globalization (Coca Cola, MacDonalds etc) but Americans don't want to pay the price: more immigrants. Free market means free movement of labour, baby. GET USED TO IT. The world is becoming one country, with one economy and one language (English). International borders are slowly coming down (WTO, UN, European Union). The global government (WIPO, World Bank, IMF) has already arrived. That poor Indian in Bangladesh is a world citizen. He deserves the best job on earth. Even if it is in America. America is part of the world and belongs to everybody on earth. Like any other piece of land. Don't discriminate against people because of where they were born. It's disgusting.
Of course the vast majority of them were not right for the job. Many of them were "developers" who I'm sure had no idea what a linked list was. These were workers who migrated to IT during the boom but who lack real related education, skill, or aptitude.
But out of 500 resumes, I ended up with 20 that were good matches. I chose 5 to interview...and they all knew their stuff, from the basics you mentioned all the way up to abstract theoretical concepts.
So, US talent--the real talent--isn't "embarrassingly bad," not in my neighborhood. You're either in a place where you don't have the same large workforce, or you didn't look hard enough.
...and if a worker doesn't natively speak English, that usually implies an accent. And some people, myself included, have a very hard time understanding someone through a thick Indian/Chinese/Korean accent.
Any lapse in communication is going to introduce delays. I doubt it'd stretch a project from 3 months to 3 years, but I'm sure it helped.
Any government sunctioned restriction on competition has been proven detremental in the long run.
Instead of getting all those jobs nasty foreigners got, work will be farmed out of the country altogether, growth will stagnate, and american professionals will end up with less jobs.
If you want improvement - kick out all that Mexican freeloaders on welfare. But we can not - because of the latino vote.
Stupid.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Laid off and replaced by an H-1B worker? Have no fear, there is a job for you. The military will soon be drafting the employment challenged 20 somethings for our wars in Iraq and North Korea. What's that you say? They won't draft you because your skills are too important to the domestic economy? No problem, there are plenty of H-1Bs to fill your position while you are off defending your country and the world from these rouge states. You will be a hero to all of the H-1B workers, not only for providing them jobs but also for fighting to make them safer no matter if they are in the USA doing your job or back in their homeland.
Three cheers for the draft and the valiant H1B workers who will keep things going while you are dodging lead bullets and breathing in chemicals.
It is illegal to fire a worker for discussing unionizing activities. It's called "union-busting" and has been keeping companies hostage to inferior unionized labor for 70 years. This state of affairs is administered under the National Labor Relations Board, which has been in place since the woefully bad "New Deal".
Secondly, consumer pricing can only remain low so long as there is sufficient demand fueled by a healthy supply of disposable income, which itself is derived from higher, as opposed to falling, wages among the *local* consumer population.
Thirdly, one could make a strong argument that less taxation, regulation, and open immigration (i.e., an imported labor pool which would amount to more than a lighter form of indentured servitude) would be better and more effective ways to grow the local economy and local properity than growing foreign markets. Along this point, our laws are far more conducive to the growth of widespread prosperity then these foreign markets have been, and the development of these markets is the basis for any argument that the "pie will grow", so what guarantee will there be that these countries will actually develop such a market for all the American workers that gave up their old jobs for this new economy? [Want to keep your people fully employed? Keep them desperate enough to work for scraps.] Why are we so quick to reward labor markets made possible by disasterous economic policies at the expense of our markets which is now supposedly less lucrative due to years of far better policies? These overseas consumer markets will eventually arise anyways, so why is it so important now to help them along when we have other untapped avenues of prosperity to explore?
Your slap at tariffs is also too quick. A strong argument can be made that the relatively recent ability to effectively relocate work, if not the workforce, is *the* truly new and unprecedented capability, and that tariffs might actually help our economy by staunching the outsourcing of skilled labor and projects to third world countries. Free trade could be seen as not so much preparing us for competition as artifically breeding it in every backwards corner in the world. Yes, prices might be artificially higher in the meantime, and outsourcing everything will *eventually* bring new markets into being, but I can't wait fifty years for better than third world wage employment, can you? I suppose I could go the Ayn Rand route and start my own factory in Bangladesh, but can everyone due that? Wouldn't I have to be able to move to Bangladesh first, or do their border guards automatically waive such considerations for us Ayn Rand types?
I am a strong believer in capitalism, but I also believe in reason, and no proposition, such as the purported benefits of globalization, should be accepted as an article of faith without further examination and proofs. I think globalization is good in the long run, but I'm not blind to the possibility that it brings a new set of problems with its blessings.
I work for an staff augmentation firm (Headhunters) and we see problems with H1Bs all the time. Mostly that once a worker is here on an H1B the company that sponsors that visa ownz-his-ass. If you lose your job for any reason, you're sent home. People here on H1Bs are well paid but indentured. Most of the H1B workers I know work hard and save money for thier families back home. Whereas most native tech workers buy X-boxen and expensive toys and complain about the job market.
Not saying that the system couldnt use a little reform. In these same cases H1Bs are issued to applicants simply because they speak thier native tongue (I have seen the job requirements that are basiclly written rule out everyone except Indian nationals) Trouble there is, the requesting companies upper management want cheap H1B workers and the hiring managers want someone who also speaks good english.
If you are qualified, hard working and dont live on the west coast you have nothing to fear from H1Bs.
Do you how a CEO pictures his company's health insurance plan in his mind?
It's a way to increase worker productivity.
It has nothing to do caring for the workers needs. You might not like unions, but someone has to keep the life-sucking monsters at bay.
Oh yeah, rent isn't that low in vegas anymore...
Today on ZDNet:
Indian animation market is suddenly waking up to a host of global opportunities that promise a lot of action for the country's leading design specialists
Read the entire article here
Alright, if you're an American, with a 4-year degree from an American college, and some guy from India, overcoming all of the inherent obstacles in India, can do your job better than you do, he deserves your job. You started with all the advantages. What advantages? The advantage to pay 8 times as much for my education? Maybe the advantage to need $60,000/year just to buy the hardware and software to be able to do my job at home rather than go to some pirate shop in India?
However, having said that, I agree- if we had world standard for just wages and just prices in our industry, immigration taking jobs would be reduced to qualifications alone. May I suggest that the outsourced staff in India deserves $25/hr, minimum, instead of the $2.50/hr that they are getting?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I am a skilled and trained soldier as well as a former H1B worker. I'll gladly protect this country with my hide as long as I don't have to rely on folks like you to cover my six.
A number of postings here make reference to unions basing compensation solely on seniority, no reward for merit, etc. So why would any techie worth his or her salt want to get roped into that BS, and get paid the same as some lame non-performer with half the talent?
Good question. Answer: When you bargain collectively as part of a union, you negotiate over the issues that you care about. If you don't want seniority-based wage ladders, you don't propose them! Simple as that. Union contracts can, and often do, include provisions for merit pay. In those cases, they establish base minimums for various categories. In many white collar unions, such as the Newspaper Guild, many union members earn merit pay well above the negotiated base for their job title.
It's also not true that union contracts prevent non-performing employees from getting fired. If you are not, or cannot, do the job you were hired to do, you can get fired from a union job like any other. The difference is, the firing will not be random or capricious, or based on the fact that some manager does not like you. Your contract will, or should, outline a negotiated process for discpline or terminations. Any firing will therefore come as the result of a process that documents your non-peformance, and in which you can appeal or contest any unsubstantiated allegations about your performance -- not out of the blue.
Same with layoffs -- and layoff notice.
Okay so some guy in India can underbid me
writing COBOL programs for Citibank. Okay.
Fine. But now, Citibank wants to bring that
guy here ???? What the fuck? Let the guy
compete in Bombay and work over the internet.
Don't replace my job with the guy here for
christsakes, though.
(Neo-Nazi brain-fart flushed)
*Sigh.* Well, this is what one gets for trying to talk reason to a bigot.
Look around major tech companies and you will see people from all over the world holding various positions. Some are smart. Some aren't. By the same token, presuming that all American programmers are intelligent is equally inane. The fact that this gibberish was moderated up just shows you how ignorant and reflexive the users here are .
Money knows no borders. Deal! If you think the wealthy feel a special affinity for you because you were born in the same country as them, forget it! You are simply naive. These people control the government so you can forget about Uncle Sam bailing you out. Why do you think free trade is at the top of every Federal agenda for the last two decades regardless of the plight of American workers????
...I was beginning to worry.
"If they're paying a sub-standard wage to bring over a foreigner, then they're just abusing the H1B system for a purpose it wasn't intended for"
This, on one hand, can be true. However, if given the choice between hiring an American citizen for X dollars/year and bringing over some foreigner for the same wage, what will the vast majority of American companies do? They'll hire Americans. By allowing them to offer a lower wage to have a transitory employee, it helps to keep the system working for the benefit of the foreigner.
I applied to Transmeta and did not get a job there. Linus is a H-1B working for Transmeta. Therefore, he has stolen my job. He should be kicked out of the country. I am going to picket Transmeta's offices tommorrow. Who is willing to join me?
as expensive and difficult as possible for employers to hire IT workers. This will push them to move all their IT operations to China, India, Southeast Asia....and we can all go back to whatever it was we're doing before we got into IT.
The AFL-CIO is going to bat for non-members for two reasons:
1) Now that techies have seen that the "our employees mean everything to us, they are our number one asset" promises were all lies, they are more apt to be receptive to the union's message and membership. If the AFL-CIO actually makes a difference and improves life for the techies, perhaps they will see the wisdom of joining. Before the dot com bust, unions seemed irrelivent because employeers appeared to really care about their employees. Now that techies can see they were just a means to an end, it is the right time for the unions to move in.
2) If programs like the H-1B are left unchecked, they will expand into other parts of the economy, eventually threatening unions jobs. H-1B took on the tech industry first, it is next going for the nursing profession, and who knows where from there. So even if the techies never see the wisdom in joining a union, the union sees the wisdom in going to bat for non-union workers because in the long run, it prevents the H-1B program from expanding into union areas.
If Republicans propose it, it's purpose
must be to advance the power of the rich.
Now, in my experience, most high-tech (which is what most H-1B visa are issued for) workers do not belong to a union, meaning that the (members of) above two unions aren't even impacted significantly by the presence of H-1B workers. .5 million H-1B workers work there, taking jobs away from Americans.
In this worst-case scenario, we have 5 million total jobs, with 4.5 million of those occupied by Americans, and .5 million occupied by H-1B workers.
Since unemployment rate is 7.9% we can calculate that there is a total of 4,886,000 American workers available, 386,000 of them (7.9%) being unemployed in this sector.
You could theoretically achieve 100% employment by sending home 386,000 H-1B employees, and replacing them with Americans. You would still need 114,000 H-1B employees to fill all jobs.
Let's therefore forget about those unions. There are currently about 5 million high tech jobs. The majority of H-1B visas are issued for high tech jobs. If every H-1B worker took a job away from an American, half a million American high tech workers would be out of a job, representing 10% of the total.
Let's play with those numbers a bit more, and consider Silicon Valley. Let's pretend that Santa Clara county's record 7.9% unemployment rate applies to the entire SF Bay Area, that all 5 million hightech jobs are available there, and all
However, if we consider that even an extremely healthy economy will have an unemployment rate of 1-2%, we don't need to go that far. In order to bring unemployment among American high tech workers down to 1%, you would send 337,000 H-1B workers away. You would then have 4,837,000 American workers, 163,000 H-1B employees, and 49000 high tech unemployed Americans.
Of course, the US economy is not healty at all. If we restate our goal to reducing unemployment in the high tech sector to the same level as the rest of the economy, the numbers change again. In order to bring unemployment in our high tech example down to 5% (nationwide average is 5.8), we only need to send home 142,000 H-1B workers, leaving 358,000 H-1B workers, 4,642,000 Americans working, and 244,000 high tech unemployed Americans.
Great post Zogger. Global economy is nothing more than a buzz word for "corporate greed". We'll have a global economy when people in India, China, Korea, or a few dozen other countries are making more than $3/day or when people here can afford to live on $3/day. Wanna bet on which happens first? I had to essentially shut down a business due in large part to the fact that my customers started sending tooling overseas in order to "compete on a global playing field". And I'm not the only one. Coincidentally, I found out over the Holidays that my Mom is losing her job in 3-9 months along with 100 others in her department because the company she works for has just built a factory in China. Now then...to all you "global economists" that seem to prefer to look at it from the standpoint of a job being created (in China) rather than a job being lost (in the U.S.), got any job openings for about 100 people in the Milwaukee area? But you know what....it's OUR own fault. If more people were willing to spend more of that oh-so-precious money to BUY AMERICAN the corporate millionaire's wouldn't have the "global competition" excuse. You wanna make more money?...then spend a little more to help guarantee your neighbor's job. Sorry but this thread just pisses me off. Doesn't anyone find it ironic that the countries that are taking all of our work are the very same countries we don't get along with very well politically? Hmmmm....economic WAR maybe? What a concept.... Take care
I am from Czech Republic working remotely for small SW company in LA area (and happy with that - no wish to move over there).
Their few able developers are H1B. All US 'programmers' hired by them were not able to write working code.
That's the situation - number of people able to work on complex projects is limited and the projects will move where they are. US should feel lucky to be so attractive for many.
"violence solves nothing". Typical neuron-shorted slogan think. This sort of one-world, you owe us for your success rubbish is what made these countries bastions of cheap and desperate labor sources in the first place. It is why so many of them are still third world countries fifty years after they achieved independence.
America belongs to Americans, and Bangladesh belongs to the people of Bangladesh. If it was worth anything, we'd be applying for visas, not handouts. We aren't because it isn't... yet. Maybe in twenty years it will be. Until then, don't tell me that what is mine by birth and hard work is yours by some imaginary "right" or collective identity.
Its not the best-qualified for the job, but best-qualified for the job AT THE LOWEST PRICE that companies are looking for.
Companies that seek to hire H1B's on the basis that they are significantly lower-cost than local labor are acting in their best intrest... but that interest runs counter to ours as the local labor.
An influx of cheaper labor can only drive down the cost of that labor ( supply / demand and all that ).
q: If there are the skills a company requires in the available (local) labor pool, why would they want to import labor via H1B?
a: To get that labor at a lower cost.
It's a race to the bottom for those of us who live here. It's not bigotry, it's economics.
We should, at the least, ensure that H1B's are paid the same prevailing wage as local labor. The idea of limiting H1B's to a 3 year stay also has merit, provided that there is a method easily available for the H1B holder to become a US citizen if they choose to.
A Human Right
From the AFL-CIO proposal:
Eliminate exemption for educational institutions.
There's a great idea. Let's stop admitting the future Einsteins, Slizards and Fermi's that helped this country win WWII so we can protect the jobs of the bubbas from the AFL-CIO who make such stupid proposals.
I know there are other countries out there who would kill to get the qualified scientific immigrants that the America seems to attract since the early days of the World War II.
I don't see the benefit in having folks come and visit for a few years, undercut the locals in the job market (slighlty or moderately), and then split, taking their expertise back to whever they came from. It's wrong in every possible way.
I figure we want these guys to stay here just as much as they want it. The alternative is that they return home to populate the 3rd world economy they came from with competition that doesn't get paid in dollars.
If Ford makes a car overseas, (in the theoretical, alternate universe where big business still pays taxes, that has little relationship with reality anymore) they have to pay a "tariff" to bring it back into the country in order to drive it or sell it here.
The problem with software is that there's no there there. There's nothing to tax - it's a bunch of bits of indeterminate value. Poof. And even if you tried to tax it, electronic "smuggling" is so easy we wouldn't even dignify it with that term.
Add to that the fact that the communication and quality problems with foreign work that everybody whines about are about 50% veiled racism, 45% exaggeration of special-cases, and 5% truth. What will you get? The domestic software industry of the first world has no future. Period. It's just too easy and too cheap not to go to India. And everyone already is. Perhaps many American programmers will as well - if you don't mind the weather, at least you can live more comfortably there on what the work is worth.
The only thing forestalling that is actually the reverse of what everyone is claiming - a shortage of skilled workers outside the United States. It won't last, of course... and especially not with the H1-B program exporting so many talented folks back to their homes.
I think the interest of the American technology worker lies with the mythical "brain drain" of America - sucking in the best and the brightest from elsewhere in the world, and actually keeping them here.
Or let me put it another way: would you rather compete with new immigrant workers who will undercut you by 10-20%? Or foreign firms who will undercut you by 75%?
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
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.
You are obviously not really competent at writing want-ads to get the right responses, nor are you good enough at culling through resumes to find those who are right for the position. The fact that you interviewed people so clearly not even close to right for the position is a sad reflection on your poor skills.
You're obviously yet another case of an H1B visa holder who got the job because he was cheaper than a competent American.
Or in other words it is based on the idea that non-Americans aren't people.
Actually, it's based on the idea that a nation's first duty ought to be the enrichment of its citizenry first, before dispensing its benefice upon the citizens of other nations[1]. I don't see a Bangladeshi, a Nigerian, or a Swede as a non-human. However, that said, I would choose to improve an American's quality of life before I'd improve theirs. I'd also hope that the Bangladeshi, the Nigerian, and the Swede would look to their fellow countrymen first were they in the same hypothetical position in which I just put myself. It's one of the responsibilities of being a citizen of a nation-state that you work to raise your fellow citizens to a higher quality of life.
It seems to be en vogue of late to trounce every American for being racist, isolationist (if we don't get involved in a Third World pissing contest), or imperialist (if we do). Fact is, though, we're just a powerhouse nation[2] -- vid. all the H1B and other immigrants who are looking to come here -- and we try to do the best we can. We screw up sometimes, but people seem to be more willing to attribute the screw-ups to malice than incompetence (to steal the oft-repeated quote).
I don't have anything against H1B workers; I do have something against a hiring system that gives them preferential treatment over equally-qualified Americans. To be sure, if Americans were to enter another country's labor pool en masse, I get the feeling that many of the readers on this website would say, "This is nothing less than an invasion! You bad old Americans should just go home -- Paraguayan jobs are for Paraguayan workers!"
--||--
[1]. Please note that I'm not saying that government should be handing out livelihoods to the people. I'm speaking in the ever-popular vague generalization mode.
[2]. I said a powerhouse, not the powerhouse. Take a deep breath and relax -- you're a powerhouse too, Upper Revolta.
They that would sacrifice their
As a "guest" H1-b employee, I feel there is a need to dispel a few misperceptions.
s sue=20021102 ) says -- "Not only does emigration deplete a country's intellectual capital and energy, it undermines the tax base too. A recent study of the fiscal impact of India's brain drain to America, by Mihir Desai of Harvard University and two colleagues, found that the very best people were most likely to leave. There were 1m Indians living in the United States in 2001, and more than three-quarters of those of working age had a bachelor's degree or better. The earnings in the United States of a group that adds up to 0.1% of India's population are equivalent to an astonishing 10% of India's national income. The net fiscal cost to India of losing these prime taxpayers, say the authors, was 0.24-0.58% of GDP in 2002. "
* 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.
I'm going to ask you a straight question, I hope you refresh your slashdot page soon enough to hit me back with a reply.
Do you want to become an american citizen? Because America the meltin pot is what USED to make us great.
True, we have a lot of terrible talent in our country, but since the days of "green card" labor we have allowed ourselves to say "It's cool to devaluate humans"
Basically, a green card, or H1B visa is wrong on so many different levels if you are an american with a biased opinion. I doubt you would speak with a harsh tone in your voice if you had citizenship.
It doesn't work like that! you don't deserve the job.
So you don't deserve a right to become United states citizen, yet you welcome us to pay you a measly severance, with no benifits simply because you see an oppertunity to make money? Bub, you got no Social Security checks coming to you, you can't vote on policies or new laws. You can't help elect officials by vote, or participate in our judicial systems of jury trials.
Yeah, we did this 200 years ago, Americans used to crate large sailing ships full of Africans. When they got here they had no rights either. They couldn't participate because they were property, 0wn3d if you will. Eventually we figured out that it was bad to attatch a peice of paper that announced 0w3rship over another human and those bad things we used to do stopped.
But now, instead of having slaves with no human rights and no citizen rights, we have slaves with no citizen rights. Still think H1-B is great?
Again, you cannot vote, you can be deported in a blink of an eye (good luck finding a job if you get canned) You are living a lie by telling yourself this is a good thing. Quit deluding yourself into thinking it's anything but that.
Basically you are a foriegn letch on our system. You take up space yet you don't contribute to the american way of life. If everyone in america was H1-B basically all occupants (since they are not citizens) would lose all rights to the very democratic system that grants us our freedoms to vote and such as americans. Pretty fucked deal if you ask me.
On top of that, you still recieve benifits from your country of origin. Last time I checked canada has a pretty rocking health care system.
I don't believe what you said about underqualified american canidates. I live in silicon valley. Stanford, San Jose State, USF, and despite rumors of being dead Berkley has the highest concentration of computer geeks in the world. Despite what you say about there not being enough canidates, I can point you to at least 5 guys that could explain the difference between an abstract base class and a regular class that can't even get a fucking job at Albertsons bagging groceries. Any drive up the 101 will show you all the empty office space.
Yeah, I've worked with a few Canadians. Definetly some of the smartest people I ever knew. But don't go fooling yourself into thinking H1-B is good for america because it's not. Personally i'd rather have you naturlized as an American than being corporate equivelent of a disposable slave.
No country values education more than America. Here in California, we have high taxes and about 60% of state taxes goto education. Foreigners come to the USA for education because their home countries do not value education as highly as the USA.
All of which is beside the point that there are plenty of extremely talented American programmers that are available. The H1-B program is just designed to bring in cheap labor.
> outsourcing all of the programming jobs to India and Indonesia for 7/hr! > I guess the CEO's do not have enough money.
You're absolutely correct. Domestic CEOs are making way too much money. Wouldn't it be cheaper if we replaced them with H1B visa workers? We could farm out the Board of Directors to an off-shore consulting firm while we're at it.
Let's see how *they* like it!
Something about out-sourcing jobs to foreign labor has been bugging me for quite a while now, and it seems obvious enough to me that I'm wondering why nobody else is thinking along these lines.
Mattel in recent years closed down a number of US factories and moved most of its manufacturing to Asia. In laying off the US laborers, they have effectively eliminated several thousand (potential) customers. Their employees no longer have a job and can't afford to purchase Barbie's Malibu Beach House. Even if they do get new jobs elsewhere, they'll probably avoid Mattel products out of spite.
So then we go look at the new Asian labor. They're paid a small fraction of Mattel's former employees, and the price of Barbie's Malibu Beach House resembles what each one makes in a month. Suffice to say that these new laborers are a long way off from being potential Mattel customers.
So while Mattel's labor costs have gone down, they've also trimmed their potential customer base. They could try to compensate for the loss of sales by passing on their savings labor costs on to the customers, but then they'll end up with no net gain in profit. And this doesn't even begin to figure in loss of sales due to bad press from laying off so many US workers to begin with.
How does this help Mattel? Even Henry Ford knew enough to pay his laborers enough to afford their own Model Ts.
Prolly 3 years ago...today ground realities already are looking different atleast to India
m l
http://news.indiainfo.com/2003/01/03/03topsy.ht
Unemployed ? READ ON....
These two articles say it all -
"...The total export of Indian software and hardware was in the tune of over $7 billion in the year 2000-01..."
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/national/stories/7
In contrast, CNN's website says, the cost of war with Iraq could be $50 billion to $60 billion (or as much as $100 billion to $200 billion depending on the duration)
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/31/sprojec
*** Guess now you know what to call your senators for, if you want jobs.. ***
--coupla things about official and corporate statistics the past few years.
First one is, the "official" unemployment stats do NOT include people who are long term unemployed and have dropped off the unemployment insurance rolls. Just this week, on january first, 780,000-3/4 of a MILLION people, bill paying, mortgage note paying, credit card holding and paying people, people who shopped locally, spent money in stores around their neighborhoods, maybe trying to put their kids through school, etc, GONE off the stats, US workers off their last incomes, those unemployment checks which were already much smaller than their "normal" pay. But officially now, those numbers aren't totalled into the 6%. They are now the economic "dissapeareds". They are gone, not counted. And the numbers also don't include people still working but in a severely reduced pay scale job and/or at much less hours a week, the term used is the "chronically underemployed".
My best guess is, and I've seen some pundits mirror this, is that *true* unemployment in the US right now is actually almost double the official stats, call it 10% to be conservative. The US lost roughly 2 million jobs last year, that's after factoring replacement (and mostly lowerpaying) jobs, and there's a lot more coming, see the other post on the thread the lost jobs in milwaukee. And this isn't just dotcom boom years jobs, a lot of these are jobs in manufacturing that existed for generations in areas, reguylar oldsolid blue collar jobs for 'stuff" everyone still needsand wants, not buggywhips.
If you follow the news the past year, almost daily you can find layoffs or firings or whole factories relocating offshore, it's running dozens to one on "new" factory announcements. It is literally an economic hemorrahge, to revisit the balance of trade deficit point I made earlier.
One "quality of life" measurement-the basic consumer price index- had energy costs and food costs removed from the tally to make the numbers "look" better a few years ago. If one was to re-calculate this, it wouldn't look as rosy generally speaking.
Your neighbor losing his job is a recession, anyone "you" losing their job is a depression, with all the ramifications of that.
Actually, what makes the USA special is that immigrants DO want to come, regardless of whether or not someone will hire them, simply because of the American Dream. An attack on America is an attack on the rest of the world, because we -are- the rest of the world -- there are no "native Americans" except for the true native Americans, who themselves just happened to be the first immigrants.
The USA represents people of every nation in the world. And as the face of the world changes, the demographics of the USA change.
We citizens of the USA are responsible, in my opinion, for jealously guarding that dream as much as possible, to ensure that it is available to others. When I discuss politics with anyone about anything, this is my goal: To defend the liberties and freedoms that give people opportunities here at home, and to support actions abroad that will encourage the same to occur elsewhere. These liberties are those that we put in the Bill of Rights, keeping markets competitive so that there are new opportunities, and most importantly, allowing as many people who want to immigrate to this country to immigrate as is possible.
Right now, we're too quick to give up freedoms for illusory security, too quick to restructure regulation in ways that preserve the status quo, and dishonest with ourselves about our purely racist intentions when we restrict immigration even further.
In other words, we the citizens on the whole are far too interested in jealously defending our short-term gains at the expense of long-term benefits. Yeah, supporting that dictator might help us now, but what happens when he starts using the weapons we gave him to attack us? Yeah, you might save your job today, but you're going to hurt the economy in the long run, and then when you get laid off five years later, and your kids graduating college can't get jobs, and everything gets more expensive while wages go down, you realize you'd only delayed the inevitable, and in fact made the future worse.
yup
buy now pay later does not work folks
Yeah, I understand the idea, I just don't share it. I hope people do well wherever they are and whatever nation they're citizens of. I give my friends preferiential, but beyond that, I don't know why I should favor some fellow national I've never met over a foreigner I've never met. Were I to choose whose quality of life to improve, I would chose whoever I thought needed or deserved it most, regardless.
And in this instance when some of the highest paid groups in the richest nation in history are crying over losing some fraction of their wealth to the much much poorer, I just find it appaingly greedy.
Not that my fellow Swedes are any better at these things even though they talk more about it. It's the same mentality there and here. And I oppose it on both sides.
If you think H1Bs are given a preferential treatment over Americans you are very mistaken. Being on H1B is a fairly big handicap when job hunting. I know, I've done it several times. Half the companies won't even talk to you.
And yeah, people will complain over America, justly and unjustly. You're the ruler of the planet, the richest and most powerful nation in history. Complaints from the less fortunate comes with the territory. Just try to not whine about it, it really doesn't look good from the outside.
What do I do?
I'm a year+ out of college, American citizen, working in IT. I believe the company I've been with for a couple months now is abusing it's H1B visas. Over lunch, one of my coworkers calmly told me that during the last 5 weeks of the last big development project, they had to work 14 hour days 7 days a week to get it done on time. The developers have just been told they will have to start working 12 hour days (5/week) for the duration of the current project (due in March). All the developers are H1B's except for one, who just got his green card. Their treatment by management disgusts me.
I've heard of working long hours to meet a deadline, but this project has only been underway for about a month. I never saw anyone in any of my previous 4 IT employers being asked to work hours like these on a prolonged basis. In fact the only other place I've seen people routinely working hours like this (with no extra pay) was at another company I interviewed with who also employed large numbers of H1Bs.
The last thing I want to do is create additional problems for my coworkers. They're nice people. At the same time, before this, I was out of work for a while, so I'm not really excited about the prospect of losing my job by raising a fuss. So, what can I do about it?
So why don't we make just bomb the hell out of the countries that jobs are outsourced to, close our borders, and purify our nation once again.
You are all sounding a little too much like some other not so popular websites. If you suck at your job or someone can do it cheaper or better, then you're not going to keep your job. Blame whoever you want to, ever think maybe it was YOU who was YOUR problem?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
--yes and no. We never had a full equal free and fair trade in the auto industry with japan. go back and revisit what the hoops where to import US cars into japan, and also check the tariff levels. also, check the laws as pertaining to ownership of real property in japan, and then the US. US people don't "own" property in japan, it's illegal. There's never been a quid pro quo.
As to whether or not this is a good thing, here's a test, actually find some US workers who havelost their non-buggywhip jobs to having them shipped overseas or replaced by 'guest workers". Stare them in the eyes, tell them you don'tcare, tell them they didn'twork hard enough or smart enough and it'sall their fault. Tell them you don'tcare if they lose their equity, or if they lose their cars, because 'oh well, it'll all sort itself out eventuallylike in the olden days". Honest, just try it, take it beyond academic posting on a forum.
I'm a blue collar guy, it's-this scam globalization deal- "hit" me several times in a row now. I will assure you once it leaves the realm of interesting academic discourse, it changes your viewpoint tremendously.And I'll agree with you, I see just as much hypocrisy in the middle classes as in any other "class'. clueless, no idea how their buying habits will effect them down the road. most people I know can tell you almost every player on their favorite "sports" team, but cannot tell you the name of their representative. Everyone is waiting for this "they" guy to "fix things", deal is, there is no "they" guy, they is us.
One person can make a difference, when they try. One of the ways I personally try is by posting on the internet, where perhaps some important information may be discussed. Not a lot but it helps. Along with all my other activism, I see it as at least an attempt, best I can do now. It's reality, I don't want to see the US reduced to second world technofeudalism, it's really that simple. The current people here can't wait 50 years for 'things to sort themselves out", if they even do then, which I doubt. My personal belief at this time is this is a controlled implosion of the US economy for a long range political agenda, but that really is another topic and is quite complex.
p.s. just an anecdotal, means absolutely nothing really, but for grins, I own a 75 chevy van, got over 300 thou miles, it don't smoke, original engine and tranny. I change my oil a lot, that's it. It's reliable enough. I also have a chevy car and a dodge framed RV, all still work just fine. girlfriend owns the jeep, that works fine too. So I guess we at least "try". I'd love to buy an all USA made computer, wouldn't bother me a bit my money went to US workers even if it cost more, deal is, can't buy one, they don't exist. Only thing I can do is every opportunity to try and not be a hypocrite, I do this to the best of my ability.
The US has no problem extending its rules outside of its borders. By force if need be.
Sorry, but that's the way of the world.
If you made hay while the sun shone, all well and good, but you're going to get screwed by the Indians (and the Chinese, Koreans, et al) for the forseeable future.
Until you can find a way to make your lardy arses and expensive lifestyles make a real competitive difference (e.g. by voting for protectionists), you are all screwed.
Do I give a shit?
No - because I can do the hands-on work that will always be needed - designing and building networks, fixing problems, etc. that will always need local labour.
Take a break, guys - reskill in problem solving and network skills - who's going to come from India to sort that stubborn switch port that won't behave, or put the protocol analyser on the network and actually think about the problem?
If you're a shit hot programmer, you'll be OK, but for the rest of you guys that know as little (or less) than me - sayonara, chaps - see you down the dole queues.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Another Indian - Do you have BOSE Speakers ??
For the Gadget Universe, a Common Tongue
For the Gadget Universe, a Common Tongue
By BARNABY J. FEDER
IT is too soon to describe the Bose (Indian) family as an audio-world version of the Bush and Kennedy clans in politics, but they are off to a good start.
In 1964, Amar Bose (his dad moved from Calcutta, India), a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and inventor, created the renowned high-fidelity sound systems company that bears the family name. Now, his only son, Vanu, is gaining recognition for radio-design technology every bit as novel as the sound systems that his father pioneered.
The younger Bose's four-year old company, Vanu Inc., is a prominent innovator in the effort to use software rather than hardware to control how radios, cellphones and all other wireless communications devices recognize and manage signals. Early versions of the technology, known as software-defined radio, are beginning to be deployed in military communications equipment and cellular base stations.
The goal is to develop software and related components that recognize various wave forms at any frequency in the radio spectrum and choose the appropriate applications to process them. A single device could provide cellphone service no matter what the format or frequency, exchange wireless messages with laptop or hand-held computers, and communicate with walkie-talkies or emergency services.
There is another potential benefit: being able to incorporate improved data speeds and features simply by downloading software, rather than replacing the customer's hardware or the company's network equipment.
"Why build a system to do one thing when you can build it with software to do many things and be upgradable to boot?" Mr. Bose said.
It is easier said than done. Software radio needs better antennas, advances in the chips that convert radio waves into digital streams of data and methods for using less power, among other things. But software radio's potential is so staggering that many experts say its spread over the next decade is inevitable.
Software-defined devices are too power hungry to make them practical for hand-held applications now, but eventually consumers will be offered cellphones that jump among the world's competing signal standards depending on which gives them the best performance or price wherever they happen to be. Unlike today's dual-mode cellphones, which are essentially two separate phones inside a single case accompanied by software that recognizes which one to turn on, true software phones would use the same hardware to interact with the incompatible networks.
Not only would a software phone have fewer components and, presumably, cost less to build, but it would also be easily reprogrammed to take advantage of improvements in the network. Consumers would not face decisions as they do today about whether to buy new phones to take advantage of advanced networks. Instead of facing vast, high-risk technology transitions once a decade, the cellphone industry could advance at a steadier pace, like the personal computer industry.
But there are more compelling uses for software radio technology that have drawn innovators like Mr. Bose and giant companies like Motorola and Boeing into the field.
The Defense Department in particular is counting on the technology to end the dangerous confusion that arises when different branches of the armed forces try to talk to each other, get data from satellites or control robotic weaponry with incompatible communications systems. Despite more than two decades of research and development, experts say, soldiers in combat often carry separate radio systems - one to talk to one another and another to communicate with air support.
Similar barriers plague police, fire and rescue agencies, many of which intentionally bought incompatible radio systems to minimize interference with one another. But after Sept. 11, many are looking to software radio technology to give them the flexibility to bridge incompatible systems when coordination becomes critical.
More recently, the Federal Communications Commission has singled out software radio as a possible means for expanding use of the radio spectrum while reducing interference in the most crowded portions. Such devices could, in theory, start a phone call in the portion of the spectrum currently assigned to cellphones and jump temporarily into unused parts of the television or public safety spectrum if more space was available there.
Mr. Bose's background and his enthusiasm as he shows off his prototypes make it hard to believe he ever considered
For all the talk about hardship and obstacles in countries like India and China, these workers have one big advantage over Americans -- no bills! These people may come from the poorest backgrounds, but if they do manage to do well in school, they usually get free educations.
Americans, with very few exceptions, have to mortgage their souls for 10-20 years to get an education. They graduate college with a mountain of debt. They simply can't afford to compete with foreign graduates who are debt free, and maybe don't have to worry about saving for retirement, either. It's like poor kids from Harlem trying to compete with trust fund brats for Wall St. jobs -- even if they have the ability and education, they're screwed because they can't afford to tread water in NY, with so many bills to pay. H1-B workers have to pay the same Silicon Valley rents that native workers do. But there's much more that's keeping their boats afloat...
Just like the Moonies and other predatory groups swooped in to take advantage of the nation's wayward youth in the 60s, the AFL-CIO has had its sights on disillusioned tech workers for years. They made a grab for displaced aerospace workers in the 80s, and they're moving in on IT workers now. They'd love to have a piece of every IT worker's (substantial) paycheck. Please, don't drink their Kool-Aid.
Remeber, the truth is in you. Whoever innovate wins go fuck the prom queen. Losers go under the food chain. That's exactly how the economy should work, right ?
That's the best Asian English I've heard all week! And a point well taken!
Well, all other points aside...
so you think that anyone who was born and raised in a language other than english should not be permitted to work in the united states? Because that's what we're talking about here. The guy didnt'say "They don't speak english well enough to communicate with me".. he said "they don't natively speak english."
Inidian compaines are starting to outsource upper managment as well. CEO's time will come in about 20 years. Just like putting cars together in the 1980's, programming has gotten to the point where "anyone can do it" so its shipped overseas.
You have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter if you don't have "computer science" anywhere on your resume. The shakers and movers in most tech organizations don't, more often than not. This has been true since the beginning of the tech boom, and it's still true today.
A friend of mine works for a big government contractor, programming sattelites. Neither he, nor anyone else his dept. has hired in the last 5 years, has a CS degree or credential of any kind. Most of them have backgrounds like yours.
What's most important is a demonstrated ability in the area of concern, and demonstrated ability to think creatively in technical/science work in general. Having *some* kind of science/technical degree in this area is part of that, but it needn't be CS. Good technical minds can be made into good programmers very easily.
I know I heard this somewhere....
> but you have to wait for visa transfer anyway
:-)
it is not necessary... people who were with H1 status before are able to start working as soon as their I-129 petitions (from new visa sponsor) will reach mailroom of INS service center... I am working for a major H1 bodyshop and believe me - it is the situation
Don't forget who approved the H1B and the next time there are elections you can voice your oppion in the most meaningful way -- vote.
Too many Americans know who owns Microsoft and how much he makes but can't name their own State's representatives. It is time to stand up for our rights.
People used to get more upset over a 3 cent tax. Now they would rather watch American Idol.
It seems to me that something like the H1-B visa program is putting technological education and eventually competitiveness in the US into a situation where severe long term damage to the economy is very likely.
If US companies are successful in using the H1-B program to alleviate wage pressure and shortages in technical jobs, there will be little or no financial incentive for US students to study engineering - short careers and pay not much different from mechanical trades is not going to attract top candidates to a difficult field of study.
The result will be fewer graduates - and with fewer students, the institutions capabable of graduating people with these skills will decay as well. This will exacerbate the skill shortage, and trigger additional demands for more such H1-B workers. The infrastructure to support the education of these candidates in their countries of origin will correspondingly flourish. These educational institutions will be fertile grounds for great new advances in technology while the decaying US institutions will not be able to respond in kind.
There is a great flaw in letting short term band-aids like the H1-B program drive a nation's policies - short term fixes are merely treating the symptoms.
Your job could technically be done anywhere. Even the ten miles away from your home, thanks to the magic of the Internet. However, no, they won't let you work from home, even though you technically could....
HOWEVER
Given that your job could be done anywhere, they have no problem with sending it 3,000 miles away thanks to the magic of the Internet.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There are plenty of unqualified people for every qualified person here. I'm sure there are in Canada, too. Post a job opening and see what you get. Run interviews and see how many people are qualified. Most aren't, for sure.
But ... there are plenty who are qualified, yet they can't find work, either. The big reason is they have families, car loans, mortgages, and soon kids going off the college (with a higher probability than average of going into a tech field). That means they need a decent salary. But the corporations are trying to cut costs, and the easiest target to cut is people.
In some specialized fields there are genuine shortages of people that simply doubling salaries won't fix. Bringing them in from another country where they can be found is one solution. Someone from Canada is probably not going to be here cheap, but someone from India probably is ... just look at the costs back home they will be looking at when they return in 3-6 years.
My question to you is, are you here for the short term (3-6 years on H-1B) or are you here to hopefully stay here if you can get the paperwork put through? If you're here to stay, they I say a big welcome. That's why I think we should scrap the H-1B program altogether and replace it with a special expedited green card for special cases, where the INS has to process them ahead of everything else (but why they have a 2 years backlog seems totally insane to me ... if they don't want to let them have a green card, just deny it within 3 months and move on).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm sure he won't really want it. But still, the offer should be there. People that good should be let in permanently as citizens. Those that decide to take it will be welcome. And they can shop around for the best jobs, too ... once the economy rebounds, whenever that might be.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
> My question to you is, are you here for the short term (3-6 years on H-1B) or are you here to hopefully stay here if you can get the paperwork put through?
:-)... and if you are lucky - you will find a company with old approved Labor Certification and they can use it for substitution to file your I-140 and I-485 right away...
90% are applying for green cards...
> replace it with a special expedited green card for special cases
you can get EAD while waiting for your I-485 to be adjudicated, nowadays after 6 month - you can change your GC sponsor... also I-140 and I-485 petitions can be filed together.... GC process isn't so difficult now as it used to be
As an America born/bred/schooled worker in the tech industry, I have seen both sides of the coin. There are alot of American workers who are very good at what they do, and there are alot that suck. Same thing goes for the H1B holders, alot of them are great, alot of them suck.
As one of the co-lead developers in our department I had to attempt to train my replacements. Yes, that right, replacements, they could hire 3 H1B holders for what I was making, and I was already making below market value for the area and technology. The only problem is, they couldn't do the job. Between all three of them they couldn't even turn on the computer, and they were college-level graduates in ComSci. This, of course, came after we let go one of the best developers, also working under H1B, who got it done, and did it right the first time around with no fuss.
Personally, I have nothing against most of the people here under H1B Visas. The problem I have is with the idiots who are doing the hiring. Most of them are not hiring the competent workers, they are firing them and trying to get a bunch of cheap ass labor to take the place. Its hard enough for me to even get an interview since I am an American worker because they automatically assume I want way to much money. Yes, I have been told this to my face by interviewers.
As for the problem with the rest of the H1B holders, are the ones that work in a 'system'. Nothing more than indentured servitude if you asked me. They get fired from one place, they get put into another, no questions asked.
Oh yeah, for the commenters crying xenophobia, I have only one retort. Patriotism, where is yours?
Alright, thats enough incoherent rambling from yet another chump for now.
Next time you apply for a job say that you require H1B sponsorship. Then, hold your breath until the offer letter comes.
Really, try it. If you are immediately offered the job you can say "wow, see they do want to hire h1b's".
My bet, they'll hang up before you finish saying all the syllables of the word "sponsorship".
Companies do not want to go through the 3 to 6 month nightmare INS H1B process. It costs money, and is very time consuming. And contrary to popular xenophobic propaganda, H1B's do not get $7 an hour.
If you restrict H1B's, US productivity will decline as manufacturing costs increase. Corporate profits will decline and the economy will get screwed. Then people will ask to block imports. Ok imports will be banned/tariffed. Because there arent enough people here to have the necessary industrial output, costs of t-shirts, radios, tvs, lamps, and other stuff americans dont want to or cant manufacture will skyrocket. Quality of life will decline. And then we're all headed for Great Depression II (which was caused by a similar thing btw).
All countries that impose a system of high tariffs on imports have a really shitty quality of life (the US has always had the lowest tariff on imports which is why we're #1).
Sweet Jesus! Do you people really know NOTHING about history and economics? That's a rhetorical question. You don't. If you did, nobody would post anything this stupid.
Amen to "don't hold your breath". The Labor Certification step (supposedly) ensures H-1's don't get paid peanuts. And still, one experiences some extreme bigotry and a seasoned IT professional holding an H-1 can only hope to earn around what a new US college grad gets - cause the employer sees all those horrific costs and complex web of applications for X, Y and Z with the INS. The US needs skills, HERE. That helps keep jobs here instead of them farming off to India. Also, people WANT to come to the US, as its perceived to be so far advanced, prosperous, etc. But better screening is needed and a faster system that is friendly those who add value to the society is needed. It is very discouraging and traumatic to move 15,000 miles with your kids, leave your extended family, church, friends and familiar surroundings... battle to find a decent employer, and then get screwed around by an INS that has the IQ of a brick and which gives priority to the 6 million illegal Mexes whom Clinton pardoned as his parting move.
do you want to elaborate?
+1, funny
I will admit to a bit of "buchananisms" in my thinking. I would be a tad more comfortable with what we originally had as our model nation, if I was allowed to pick and choose. Not much in the way of foreign entanglements. A constitutional RESTRICTED central government that "knows it'splace". Inflation proof currency, ie, no fiat poof created debt notes from a central private bank, rather a commodities and tangibles based currency with PMs being part of it and it's front end. Sane and controlled immigration based on current reality of available land and jobs, not a wide open southern border with almost zero controls like we have now. That's a pure insult to the people doing it the legal way, and it's a huge national security menace. Rule of "law" that is based on the english language and common sense and not obscurity and how much money you have. A lot more "independents" rather than fractionalization based on political for-profit "parties". Very small organized standing army, and a much larger militia/guard like switzerland has currently and like we used to have. No "wars" except as a last resort and any of them to be thoroughly lawful based on formal declarations. Eliminate professional "politician" class-as-career, and a return to citizen representation. Governmental "service" to be just that, a patriotic service, with a time limit (say ten years maybe) then back to the private sector and no governmental pensions, so we don't "breed" entrenched untouchable anonymous bureaucracy. Having some way so those who "make the rules" cannot "profit from the rules they made".
And etc.
We can trade with the world, I have no probs with that, I have BIG probs in trading with the world when the long range results are giving people the illusion of wealth when it's temporary and based on accumulated trinkets that are based on credit that can't even be paid off until well into the next generation-IF the creidt issuing was stopped this second. That's just plain lame. We can have tourists-but then they need to go home. We've hit the pacific ocean in our western expansion, we no longer have "free land", that phase of the US expansion is over, we can't sustain that. Also and this is pretty important, most of the nation west of the mississippi is maxed out on fresh water, there just isn't any more than what's there now and is replensihsed by the sparse rain. It's almost beyond maxed. It's a point that's overlooked quite a bit when discussing tech and macro economics, but there silently generation after generation is this 'water" deal, just one of those things you need to keep "expanding" until you can't.. Oil/gas/electric we seem to be able to keep ahead of, water is a totally different story.
So ya, probably a lot of similarities, namely some sane amount of protectionism, not wanting to arm and enrich people who are most likely our "enemies", keeping control of the borders a lot better, making sure we ALWAYS have a fully diverse economy including agricultue and vertical manufacturing at least in the critical areas, and a government that is truly representative of the "people" and not international corporations that hold no loyalty except profits. Some things just can't be quantified exactly with a dollar sign.
I'm not a xenophobe, but that doesn't mean I am supposed to care so little for my US neighbor that I don't care what happens to them just to make me a few more bucks. Just not built that way, not my mindset to be so..mercenary I guess you could term it, about money, you could put it. We take care of our own US "family" FIRST, then maybe help out the rest of the world. That's my default. To say again, not to perpetuate buggwhip jobs, but to keep and save still useful and necessary jobs and industries, and to way more insure domestic security. Security is hard to put a price on until lack of same bites you, then you realise you didn't spend enough attention to it or were too preoccupied with other things. Better safe than sorry. The US-or any other nation-has nothing to be ashamed of looking out for it's own interests. We should and they should. I'm not a proponent of a "one world government", I am content with nations and national soverignty, flawed as that can be, the proposed alternative is too dang scary and too probable to turn into a disaster. IMO of course.
Sorry I jumped around so much, you can probably make some sense of it though.
So...any geeks out there want to become union thugs? Darn foreigners takin our jobs away from us...Grrr! Better yet, forget your career in programming. You can move to California and get a protected job at the docks. No need to use computers, conveyor belts, and barcode scanners there, as union workers tend to be afraid of them. Darn computers takin our jobs away from us...Grrr!
Give up some comfort. Oddly enough, I've found it quite comfortable.
KFG
IT people who think they deserve a job ought to move up to Canada. Nice government run healthcare system , welfare system, probably good union representation at all levels of government--and lots of vacancies due to a constant stream of Canadians moving down south to find a better life.
Scrap the H1-B visa. The whole premise of "temporary workers" is essentially broken. What is needed instead is a system that permits immigration of qualified and experienced people, and gives them reason to stay without the "cheap labor" issues many people report (although I haven't seen them myself) arising from the nature of the visa being tied to a specific job.
Instead, allocate a number of green cards to be allocated in much the same way as H1-B visas currently are. There is no real reason to have the current multi-step, multi-year immigration process that I am aware of.
Anybody agree/disagree?
Preferential treatment to your friends is the same thing as preferential treatment to a fellow national, just on a different scale. You do it because they are of your "tribe," something all humans inherently identify with, even though our individual definitions of "tribe" vary.
Frinstance, I can look at you and see you as part of my tribe, because about half my ancestors came from Sweden. And, to some degree I do, just because I saw you identify yourself as a Swede. If you were from the Pacific Nortwest of the US, I would identify with you slightly from that, and we'd have a conversation about what part you were from and where I'm from, and different places and people we might know in common. The tribe are people who are "us," as opposed to "them."
When we take that process to a national level, and create policy, that comes out as a preference for "us," and we will not treat "them" as well as we do "us."
The trick, I think, is going to be helping people see that expanding their personal (and national) definition of tribe works to their benefit and not their detriment. Put that in a bottle and sell it, and we might be on our way to world peace.
You mention correctly that competition for scarce resources can lead to war. Up until the rise of imperial Rome this was almost always the case.
With the prosperity enjoyed by humanity in the last 3000 years, a new problem has begun to appear: There are now lots of people who really have no reason to exist and nothing to offer society. They are a liability, rather than an asset.
Bread and circuses were not the only means of keeping an unruly population in check, but so was military conquest. Many would argue that the primary reason Octavian was able to become the first Roman emperor was so many in the military became rich through conquest and booty. You can either have a riotous group who make your daily life unbearable, or you can appease them through whatever means you can.
The United States was settled primarily by people who had no future in Europe. This country was for the most part immune to the social upheaval which came with increasing numbers of people because many could, and did migrate to unsettled regions. It wasn't until the turn of the twentieth century this was no longer the case, but it was recognized to be a future problem in the east. In many ways, the discovery of the New World provided something of an outlet for a densely populated Europe. Too bad Machiavelli didn't grasp the importance of exporting your nations undesirables.
Flashback to 1806 with the defeat of the Prussians by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena. This was a huge deal, one frequently not appreciated today. The Prussian state was perhaps the first truly militaristic society since Rome, or even Sparta. Not only was militarism a staple of their culture, but it was a foundation of their economy. Perhaps you recall the British using Hessians in the early days of the American Revolution. They supplied mercenaries all over the world, and perfected the art of diplomatic extortion under threat of their soldiery.
Napoleon's army were rabble, the masses brought together in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This revolution was caused by hundreds of thousands of educated, by relatively poor formlerly middle class with nothing to do, and nothing to lose. The defeat of the world's greatest and most professional army by what amounted to amateurs was a serious problem for the future of the Prussian economy. Waterloo came and went, and the Germans went back to working on their reich. Needless to say, they were absolutely intent on preventing any future defeat. One of the first steps to furthering this goal was establishing compulsory schooling as a means of conditioning the populace to best serve the state to make themselves free.
The Prussian philosopher Fichte wrote much of how this was to be accomplished, and Edward Bernays and Ivy Leed spread his word through the United States. It is no coincidence that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published the same year Prussia's compuslory schooling was set in motion. (1819).
The end goal of this Prussian experiment in social control was to create obedient soldiers for the army, and obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms, and to create a constant uniformity in thought, word, and deed amongst the citizenry. Since you seem to be the military type, a great book on the subject how this precisely created the German military machine of the 20th century check out Fighting Power by Martin van Creveld.
By 1864, the disparate German state, disunited for a thousand years since the days of Charlamagne, became one nation under Bismark. The unity and strength of Germany in the late 19th century inspired every upper class intellectual in the United States. Seeing the masses of immigrants with their different languages, mannerisms, and beliefs, the same system of centralized control was instituted in the US. The wealthy, particularly the great industrialists of the late 19th century were absolutely terrifed of this mass of people. The University system we have today in the United States was founded to find ways to manipulate the masses. By 1932, the Rockefeller foundation stated they now had the total means to condition the people to be peaceful and obedient. The first eugenic government policies were instituted in Indinia, directed by Indiana University. When Hitler began sterilizing undesireables in the name of eugenics, it was always called the "Indiana Plan"
The military-industrial complex as we know it today, goes far beyond Eisenhower's speech in 1961. It goes back to the days our free nation was perverted to resemble Prussian Germany. It goes back to the implimentation of the income tax and the federal reserve. Our nation, once free, was molded into a fascistic centralized economy where people ceased being individual citizens and were molded to not only serve the state, but do so willingly.
I will be among the first to argue that every war of the twentieth century was neither about scarce resources or revolution, they were simply attempts at acquiring wealth and power either directly or indirectly. The only reason World War II happened so easily is after decades of conditioning the people to be obedient to authority could they so willingly become a part of the military economy created during the war.
This is a large topic, I hope I have at least made you question the timeline of the infamous "military-industrial complex". Today, between the military, related industry, government bureauocracy, and the nearly 25% of our people employed in the educational system, a free country based on free market principles no longer exists and sadly has not for a long time.
Back to my original point of the military being dispersed around the world to prevent revolution, this entire system we have has been created to prevent revolution. Schools were created to make people stupid so they would be content taking orders and pulling levers in factories. Schooling was extended well into the mid twenties to prevent adolescent rebelliousness from becoming outright civil war. By the time your average youngster is through being processed into a productive human, his youthful vigor is gone and nearly half his productive years are behind him. This sytem was created because ever since the French Revolution, it has been realized that you cannot allow your middle class to become purposeless in your society otherwise they revolt. The military-educational-industrial complex exists PRIMARILY to give the masses something to do. Other things have resulted surely, but life, HUMAN life as it once used to be, free, limitless, dangerous, were lost as a result. This system started to get out of control after world war II, so artificial conflicts were created to station troops all over the world in large numbers. Maintaing the peace is but a nice precept. The reality is peaceful trade would occur anyway, even with a navy preventing piracy only.
The reason revolution is around the corner is there are simply too many people. The game is up. Talk to anyone on the street and they realize their jobs are irrelevant, THEY are irrelevant. We have lost our society in an endless maze of rules and regulations intended to keep the masses busy. The financial markets were a game created to continue the misery of structure and those too are failing. Usury went from a way for the rich to get richer to an entire industry, with millions employed simply to administer it.
The system is breaking down, organized revolution which would involve nuclear weapons is not what I am talking about. The United States is one of the few countries with unemployment less than 10%. When that increases to say 20% which it certainly will, you will see what I mean. Street gangs are only the beginning. The 200 year old attempt as maintaining order through fictions is over. The sad part is order will be easier to maintain in cities, but distant suburbs will be ransacked.
Also, the military and paramilitary personnel probably don't want to fight, but ultimately they will have no choice. the government will attempt to maintain something of a civil society, and that will be the way. Historically, that kind of activity leads to conflict as different factions result. If revolution becomes civil war, that will be the way it happens.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Don't hate the work visa holders.
According to Holy Bible, they are your brothers and sisters just like you are brother or son of your wife and your wife is your sister.
Everyone is the result of incest by children of Adam and Eve !!
Sorry but everyone I asked couldn't give me a satisfactory answer over the question of incest by Adam and Eve's children. So I had to put it here....
AFL/CIO is the one doing the whistleblowing rather than, oh, say, the current executive branch
Yeah, when I saw "AFL-CIO Proposed Reforms..." I thought "Well, finally they're going to have to stop running a massive propaganda-spewing organization that is federally backed and, incredibly enough, can negotiate to *require* that companies hire only union workers." Then I realized that instead of reforms *for* the AFL-CIO, it was a series of reforms proposed *by* the AFL-CIO.
May we never see th
Want your childen to compete with H1B's ??
Send them to Indian Universities where the H1B visa holders graduate from.
You will save tons of money paying for college education and your kids will have the same opportunities as H1B holders when they return back.
Most Indian engineering colleges have seats available for self sponsored foreign nationals and the fees are much lower than American universities.
On the same site, look at the just-out-of-school salaries for undergrads in computer science. How's *that* for a pay range.
May we never see th
Don't knock it...I code for the military.
No...I am not kidding.
The very thought of a "tech union" is disgusting.
There's a reason the AFL-CIO wants tech unions. It's not because they give a damn about tech workers. It's because they represent lots more potential money to the AFL-CIO.
The AFL-CIO is *frantic* to get more and more workers to form unions. Every worker pays union dues. And, you know, the top people in the AFL-CIO have a hell of a lot of money coming in -- they aren't your "average workers". They're just like the overpaid CEOs of corporations.
The AFL-CIO, just like large corporations, is another self-interested large organization out to grab money from people however it can. I'd say that the AFL-CIO is somewhat worse, however -- they engage in more propoganda than typical companies, they do things that a corporation could not do because of antitrust laws, and they have special protection under federal law.
So before people become so eager to become fodder for the AFL-CIO, it's a good idea to think things over.
May we never see th
There are now lots of people who really have no reason to exist and nothing to offer society. They are a liability, rather than an asset.
Why is it that people that say things like this never place themselves in this group?
May we never see th
I didn't say it was definitely more about economics than performance. What I said follows from the state of the economy right now, and fact that corporations are hurting and are more likely to make decisions based on economics than performance. Their #1 priority is driving shareholder value.
Not very many posters seem to comment on the article, so I'll give a few comments. Mind you, I was one of those H1-B workers...
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...
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Guns, tanks, death, amphetamine, heroin, Wagner, Sousa. Violent revolution, real drugs, and real music. [...] We will return to more complex music, especially militaristic music
Rammstein! NIN! YEAH! YeeeeeaaaaahhHHHHH!There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
These proposals and most of the comments I see here are pretty much moot. The evil specters of Globalization and Outsourcing that Institutionalized Labor are bringing up here have been in existence on the macro level since the dawn of time. International companies have been using global labor markets to produce their products for centuries. That is what trade is. Finding goods that are more valuable in another region and moving them to there, is what capitalism does. If your competitor, weather domestic or foreign can produce the same product for less, they will run you out of business.
The thing is, that all of these companies that are moving production overseas are finding out is that you get what you pay for. With the exception of labor markets that are artificially inflated by collective bargaining, overseas labor cannot produce the same product for less. The regions that these companies can move to already compete globally with their labor in the market. There is the added cost of transporting the raw materials and goods produced to and from the "cheaper labor". The locations in which the "cheaper labor" resides do not have some key infrastructure to produce the same goods at a lower price. The added cost of training these workers to learn specialized skills is prohibitive. Finally, the added costs of communicating requirements and deficiencies are often underreported. Often there is local governmet corruption costs. The simple fact is that if it were cheaper to produce a product at a given location, a local entrepreneur would already be doing so. It does not matter weather the goods produced are intellectual products or real physical goods.
As far as the H1-B's, once they relocate to the US for any length of time, they get to see some of the hidden costs of working here. The employer takes taxes, unlike some countries where the skilled labor is cheap, out of one's paycheck. No decent public transpiration, so you have to buy/lease a car. Housing is outrageously more expensive than in most countries of origin and food costs a hell of a lot more. The kicker is that Americans are some of the hardest working people and the most productive in the world, and H1-B's will be expected to compete. I work with a LOT of H1-B's doing the same job as I, and quite a few don't make it. Some are really good at what they do and they are well compensated for it. Others, however, fail to have the necessary communication skills, talent, or work ethic to be competitive and are SENT HOME or find another job. Something I firmly believe is that if an H1-B has the skills to succeed in the United States, they could make far more money, have a higher standard of living and gain more recognition in their country of origin.
I do not fear any foreign labor. Nor should any American with, the ability learn, a traditional work ethic, good communication skills and a talent to get along well with others. However, if you don't have any of these traits, you have a lot more to worry about than an H1-B. If foreign labor is of better value, and we don't take advantage of it, then foreign companies will, and they will run domestic companies into the ground on price alone. So, either way you WILL compete with the H1-B's
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
Maybe you should have spent more time learning the geography of the country who is providing you with a job instead. South of Texas is not part of the USA, that's called Mexico.
mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
Why do pro-H1-Bers always play the race card?
I think they know they are losing the argument
but want to feel good about themselves, to
rationalize their hatred of "lesser human beings".
"Why, he's a racist so I must be right" seems to
be their thought pattern.
--totally agree with you on the energy side being a major factor in successful industrialization. One of the reasons I am convinced the 21st century will be the era of the "resource wars" primarily over oil, fresh water, and arable land that doesn't require massive irrigation to be productive. I am quite pessimistic over this. I think that some smaller wars coming up have a very good chance of getting to a "major" level because of population pressures and demand for just *more* of everything and oil still being so necessary.
Link to a website with a plethora of energy related articles/editorials
Note, this website definetly has a "doomer" type bent, but there's a lot of data here.
The Microsoft funded pro H1-B group,
the ITAA, which is run by the scoundrel
Harris Miller itaa.org used
to say, "well we're reaching the cap on H1-B,
so we need to expande it". No defenders are
saying "don't worry about it, we're not reaching it". Make up your mind, defenders of rigged trade
that helps the wealthiest members of our society.
From reading your post, *you* have no clue. The
AFL-CIO proposals are sound and reasonable.
Your statements about DOL certification are
plain flat wrong. It is easy for a company
to import non-immigrant guest workers in the H1
program. That's why there are too many of them.
--the bls stats are quite complex and can be interpreted several ways. They have a lot of different breakdowns as to seasonal and non seasonal and race and age and you want it you got it. My basic gestalt in my post was that it's still a guess in large part. I think the numbers are lowballed tremendously. People not actively seeking work can mean a lot, sometimes seeking work is not an offical way to seek work so it's not counted. An example, someone who has tried to use their personal contacts in various ways, querying friends who might be working at some plant, they get told "don't bother, they aren't hiring and laid off some more folks" won't bother applying, so because they didn't officially go there and fill out a form they are counted as "not seeking work". things of that nature skew the stats. It really doesn't matter to people so long term unemployed they have lost almost all hope of getting anything.
We also have the phenomena of people who perhaps just a few years ago had income level A from a single job now having to work multiple jobs and many more hours to approach what they had gotten to before.
This is really a complex subject that is hard to cover in casual posts on the internet. And obviously some geographical areas are better than others,some industries are better than others, but I would feel confident stating that the "job" outlook in the US now has gone downhill extremely fast the past few years, VERY broadly speaking. And it compounds, that one lost job and income gets spread around in the local area immediately as that person has dropped normal consumerism, they are buying "less" and perhaps not even being able to cover their bills, thereby reducing others income, which leads them to spend less, and etc. It's almost exponential in nature.
On the tech side, I've seen several topics/threads here where you can readily see a lot of problems even with people with a decade or more good IT experience and work history having extremely difficult times finding more work. On the blue collar side it's "worse than that" most places.
Anecdotals are just that, but I've seen this on several forums, this topic comes up a lot, quite a bit more than it did in the 90's for instance, and it goes beyond "dotcom bubble". One large forum I visited-a broad cross section across the US and across various white and blue collar industries-had an informal poll that showed as high as 1/3 of the respondents out of work or severely underemployed compared to a few years ago. I know that isn't scientific at all, but still... I've also seen this personally, just locally here, an example, I know of a few guys locally been in construction trades for decades,older guys with families, etc, regular old solid folks, worked steady all their lives, lately they are having to travel over 200 miles roundtrip a day to find any sort of work, even a one week minor job. They are just plain scared that even that is going to poof. Technically they show up as "employed" but it is quite tenuous.
I look at other sorts of informal "indicators", the one that really shows me the labor market is going downhill is the used car lots. Couple of years ago there was a variety of cars, older barely running things to sorta new. A regular normal mix especially in price range. Now the lots (around here at least) are full of practically new vehicles, and all the banks have repos for sale parked out front. The new vehicle dealers are practically dragging people off the street to get them to buy. The pawn shops are full to bursting. Yard sales on the weekends have increased several hundred percent in the past couple of years. Homes for sale have gone up tremendously, the ad level in the paper has just exploded, and I am in what is considered to be a pretty decent area as far as my state is concerned. And the help wanted section has dropped to literally print editions of spam-work from home on puter and make millions, sell avon, etc, with very few "real" jobs being advertised.
"Bottom line" is that the economy is suffering on several fronts now, rising un and under employment being just one of them. And it's really not hyperbole or exaggeration to those 780,000 people who just got their very last source of income, it's stark reality in their face.
Why is it that people that say things like this never place themselves in this group?
Because that was not a post discussing me as a person, but the historical reasons for how our modern economy has evolved to its current state.
Read the thread. At the very least read about the French Revolution. Look at the title of the post 1806. Why did I choose that year?
Perhaps I sound as if I advocate the wholesale system of indoctrination used to maintain our modern caste system. That is not so. The fact is that it exists, and outside of India prior to their societies collapse and assimilation into the British Empire, this kind of caste system never works and always leads to civil war. This happens either quickly as with the Glorious Revolution in England or the French Revolution, or it happens slowly as in Rome. These revolutions begin because people who realize they are an irrelevant part of society have nothing to gain in maintaining that society and everything to gain by destroying it.
Simply by my interest in the subject it should be quite clear I hold the latter view. Those who believe our system "works" do everything in their power to suggest that this is a meritocracy, not an oligarchy.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
"A corporation's only responsibility is to make money for their owners/shareholders"
I disagree. A corporation must first add value to society as a whole. After that, there is profit.
Your phrase seems to absolve a corpoation of any responsibility. They can do whatever they want and wave their hands and say "..my only responsibility is to the shareholders...". Don't you wish you had the ability to deflect blame and criticism the same way? Why do corpoations get such an easy ride from folks like yourself?
Excuse me but I cant understand why you persevere in making a fool out of yourself ...
Don't even bother with a mod point. He's just a 16 year old with underdeveloped frontal lobes.
When an employer hires an H1-B worker they are getting to have it both ways. They get all the benefits of doing business in America without having to pay American wages. That amounts to a massive subsidy. The H1-B program needs to go, but we should not stop there. H1-B is symptomatic of a wider problem with our immigration system.
For years immigration has been driving down wages for working class Americans. We are now seeing the condition of the "working poor", where a person can hold down a full-time job and still be earning less that the poverty level. How often have you heard the argument that immigrants do jobs that Americans will not do? That argument is applied today to the meat packing industry, yet 30 years ago Americans used to line up to work the formerly high wage unionized meatpacking jobs. Over the intervening years the meat packing industry has used mostly illegal immigrants to break unions and drive wages down to the minimum wage. You do not have to take my word for it. In Eric Schlosser's excellent book Fast Food Nation he documents in detail the conditions in today's meatpacking industry.
Now this wage depression is reaching the middle class. How long before we here the same cries that formerly high wage IT jobs are "jobs that Americans are not willing to do"? A lot of news reports have talked about the widening gap between rich and poor and the shrinking middle class. I would argue that the current immigration system constitutes a massive wealth transfer from the middle and working classes to corporations and the wealthy few. This is not class warfare. I a capitalist myself, but I think in the long term. A Brazil-ification of our economic system into a small number of wealthy, a small middle class, and a large under class is not healthy for our economy or our democracy.
I want to stress that this is not immigrant bashing. I support the kind of reform to our immigration system that will return immigration to a benefit for our nation and the immigrants themselves. I support going over to a points style immigration system like that used by Australia and Canada. We should emphasize skilled immigration. If we as a nation decide that we really do need skilled immigrants we should give them green cards so that the immigrant technical workers can be paid American level wages. The H1-B program creates a condition of indentured servitude where the H1-B worker is afraid of asking for more money lest they should be fired and expelled from the country.
Second, immigration numbers need to be brought down. Currently America is accepting over one million legal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. All illegal immigration needs to be stopped and legal immigration should be reduced to around 250,000 per year. This combined with a points style immigration system will protect middle class wages and increase wages for working class Americans.
Dear presumptuous dimwit, the earlier poster wasn't me.
By the way, I am a 35 year old Indian man. I suppose I would be knowing more about the place than you, haha. ROFL. Have you even set foot in this country, that you feel yourself qualified enough to write satire about it??
How would you feel if I made idiotic sophomoric jokes based on the assumption that the typical american man is a fat-assed hillbilly who drinks beer all afternoon and goes to NASCAR rallies?
Wtf is that about the Kali cult and the British? Are you still living in the 19th century? That's like me saying, "Oh yeah, I know America, ok? You guys have the murderous KKK hanging black people from the trees and burning them, right? Pretty interesting bit of history." Get it?
I don't know whom to pity more.. you or the ignoramuses who moderated your ill-informed piece of dung that tried to pass for a joke.
Satire, my left foot. An intelligent satire is based on truth. I suppose you pea-brain cannot comprehend that in a million years. Believe me, you haven't the faintest clue what wit and satire is.
I dont't really know what to make of this. Are you a nihilist or a bitter misanthrope? Who are you to say they have no reason to exist? And to whom are they a liability? A better explanation is that with rising populations, concentrated populations, and concentrated wealth, your 'new problem' is simply another manifestion of the competition of resources i'm talking about.
This is a large topic, I hope I have at least made you question the timeline of the infamous "military-industrial complex"
Yes, it is a big topic and history is a continuum, and there are antecedents to everything, which is why when referring to the 'military-industrial complex' i confine the topic to the modern american model, which started with roosevelt and the second world war.
Today, between the military, related industry, government bureauocracy, and the nearly 25% of our people employed in the educational system, a free country based on free market principles no longer exists and sadly has not for a long time.
Exactly my point in raising Keynes.
Other things have resulted surely, but life, HUMAN life as it once used to be, free, limitless, dangerous, were lost as a result.
I think youre wearing rose colored glasses. The past wasn't as free or limitless or romantic as you'd like to believe. Dangerous perhaps.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
"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."
Do you really interview that way?
You have *embarassingly bad* interviewing skills.
You belong in a 3rd world country. What's ironic is that you accuse everyone else of being clueless, and you're leading the clueless parade.
"who already have the disadvantages of having 'enjoyed' a low standard mathematical education, "
What planet are you from?
Mathematical education in India is poor. I have candidates with Master Degrees in Math from some indian university who has what I consider sophomore math skills. This is across the board, not just a candidate here and there.
Or have American Universities gone downhill in the last 20 years? (when I graduated)?
If you want an empire to stand, you have to do the right thing for the empire.
The roman empire stood because they were ruthless and efficient.
If we wish to stand the test of time, we must do the same.
Oh, and fuck anyone who gets in our way.
> A friend of mine recently let me know that the person working "my" job there is getting paid $10k less than the job posting value in the help-wanted ad. I didn't ask what nationality that person was, I didn't want to know. In the end it wasn't about finding someone "qualified" for the job, unless by "qualified" you mean "willing to work cheap".
If this is true, then you should report the company since *THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW*; *THEY ARE CRIMINALS*. Why punish the vast majority of law abiding H1-B workers (and sponsoring companies), because company X broke the law. Go after those who are abusing the H1-B system agressively. Tough enforcement of the current laws is all that is required, they are more than adequate; lack of enforcement (for instance you as a citizen who has a responsibility to report a crime when they are aware of it, and not doing so - this is the problem).
How is any new law going to help if when people break the law, nodbody does anything about it (except perhaps demand that yet another law - that won't be obeyed either - gets created).
I have lived in the United States for 5 years now, and I still can't get over how willing U.S. society is to just let white collar criminals get away without any punishment (I have lived in 4 different countries, and the U.S. is unique in this respect).
If thats true, then why does the H1-B program bother you. Surely, if the H1-B program actually costs employers more, then in the long term those who attempt to use the program this way will go out of business, leaving only those companies who will hire you at your required salary level.
The truth is the H1-B program does not save employers money on salary, but it does allow them to compete better globally, since they can now hire the talent they need, without paying exhorbitant costs based on supply/demand imbalances).
In my case the job I took on an H1-B was vacant for over a year, and my employer had gotten 0 credible applications in that time. My salary is (slightly) above the median for someone of my qualifications in this area (according to salary.com personal edition).
Given the extra costs of employing me on an H1-B, the employer clearly knew ahead of time, that they would be paying significantly more than median salary for my job description. Could an American have been found who would do the job for a lot more money... of course. Would this be good for the American economy ? of course not. More importantly, is that American who could do my job, out of work ? Not on your life, there are plenty of jobs out there for someone of that skill level, and he is probably out there making more than I am (probably in the defense business where I can't work - only drool over the salaries).
What would happen, is that our companies costs would have risen to the point that we wouldn't be able to compete globally (more than 50% of our business is done internationally). That is exactly what the H1-B program is for.
As much as you might like taking advantage of a labour shortage to boost your personal bottom line; this is not what is good for the American economy in general. Paying employees more than they're worth due to an imbalance of supply and demand is an improper allocation of resources, that, with all things being equal, would resolve itself due to increased training in the positions demanding the higher salary. The problem is that all things are not equal. The U.S. has many more high technology companies per capita than any other country on earth. Now Americans are human beings just like any other group of people, and only so many of them are "cut-out" to be software engineers, therefore using classical supply/demand economics (within the U.S.) will not work, since the population base in the U.S. simply cannot support the tech industry it has produced, hence an immigration policy to lure workers from other countries to the U.S. (of course, as others have pointed out, other countries are not crazy about this).
The U.S. governments job is to create policies that are good for the U.S. economy in general (not those that are only good for your personal economy). The H1-B (while not perfect) is certainly a functional system; unlike the green card system.
Where did you hear that Missouri had any offshore help desks. The state of Missouri statewide IT services contract prohibits offshore. Please let me know where you heard this and what contract or services this help desk is supporting.
"We don't need to "import culture", because, as he said, we have our own national culture now."
When your "culture" involves Britney Spears, I'd say that's a problem, not a solution.
"They live in absolute squalor and filth (so it feels just like home to them). Spics are notorious for piling a few dozen people into a 1 bedroom apartment, but spics are too lazy to get H-1Bs. Indians, who I think make up the majority of H-1Bs, are absolutely disgusting. They have little/no concept of hygeine. Even the "clean" ones stink, it's just the way they are. They're soooo fucking happy to be here, living in shitty conditions doesn't bother them at all (they'd be doing that back in India anyway)."
Welcome to Slashdot, where racism is insightful!
You wouldn't happen to be the "I've been to China/India/Korea/etc." troll, would you?
"If they were comparable to whites, how did they end up ruining all of their countries?"
They didn't. The "whites" you hold in such high reguard did. Something to do with the Age of Imperialism or something.
"Just because you "want" all people to be equal doesn't mean they are."
We hold these truths to be self-evident...
Where the heck are you, Austria?
The guy who lives in a poor country and therefore gets less government services and decent job opportunities in general, and besides has to (A) both learn English as a second language and (B) either (1) do all the immigration process or (2) get a job either at (a) one of the few US companies which hire overseas or (b) at one of the few in India which get work contracts from the US.
Besides, Indians will get lower pays than you, but cost of living is so low there that even if only a fraction of what he gets reach India its multiplicative effect will end up benefitting more people there than your full pay would in the US.
At the same time you getting a lower pay will help keep inflation from corroding the acquisitive power of other, especially poor people, in the US. And it will force you to study better, what will end up benefitting your employers and (or) customers.
That is how globalisation is supposed to reduce world poverty. It is indirect, slow, and requires some basic Macroeconomics knowledge to understand, but it is real. Just ask Third World farmers that are trying to get a living against First World subsidies.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
How about the guy who has to pay for his own education, and then spend the next 10 years saddled with the student loans? This requires a salary difference of that student loan payment per month.
On the other side, we have a bunch of Indian imported programmers who were trained by their government as part of a program to improve the technical skills in India. The big employer where I live hires tons of these Indian programmers, such that nowadays you can't hardly turn around without bumping into an Indian family.
As far as the effects of me getting lower pay, you're underestimating the macroeconomic effects of that. If I get paid less, I have to spend less. If I spend less, producers will have to produce less. If they produce less, they will employ less people, resulting in many more impoverished families who would have need of the deflated prices.
Additionally, with what money am I to pay for training and certification if I have to take a pay cut? I'm all for studying...I've taught myself a bunch of languages and technologies, but in the end, it's the certifications that carry the day, and they're not cheap.
It is unfortunate that thesed loans have to be paid precisely when one is starting a family and has a lower salary. But other than that, it is completely fair.
If they do not have to pay loans nor anything to their government, it would probably be unfair to the people of India. But OTOH India is so poor that any spillover that reaches India is a great boon to them.
Not so fast, cowboy... when you say impoverished, you show you have no idea about what is poverty. Just pay a visit to India, or even to Guatemala which is so much nearer to you. Anyway, the net effect is always towards the common good, because the money that does not get paid you goes to poorer, not reacher, people than you. Even the money companies save ultimately enable them to hire two people instead of one, diminishing global (not local) unemployment.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
When I say impoverished, I'm not talking about degrees of poverty. Just because someone is grossly more impoverished than someone else does not diminish the fact that someone else is living in poverty. I don't need to pay a visit to Guatemala or Ethiopia or India to know that their poverty goes much deeper (although I'd have to say that in India's case, finding a way to control population growth is just as important as bringing money into their economy).
As for the mathematics behind your economics, I'd argue that it's not a good thing for any company to displace workers to move the jobs overseas, unless it is the result of two few workers in the job pool. If there are plenty of workers in the job pool, then it doesn't help the local economy out of a recession to have those people drawing unemployment and not spending their money on product. In the end, it becomes a zero sum game, where instead of growing the economy, you've relocated part of it. That's not to the common good. To the common good would mandate that the global economy grows.
But degrees are important, because the very definition of poverty is subjective to each culture and period.
All in all it is better to have 10 less poor big Indian families even if that means 5 less rich (by non-First World standards) US small families.
The best one could do for population growth is propaganda and giving pills and the such for free. And even so, Indians may yet want to have children. Moreover, the world needs them. All First World has now dwindling native population, that is hurting both economy and social relations. The real issue here is freedom of movement, not birth control. We must get back the liberties taken from us during the Great War (WWI).
You miss the bigger culture. There is certainly an employment fear, but more often than not it is just that employers cease to compete for scarce local labor and fill their new positions elsewhere.
More important than that, companies prosper instead of failing face to competitors, are able to offer other kind of jobs, the products get cheaper, and above all more jobs are created in the Third World with higher multiplicative effect than are lost or nor created in the First World. And the Third World need them much more.
Think globally.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I don't miss the big picture here. The reality is not that employers are choosing not to compete for supposedly "scarce" labor (the employment picture during the recession does not bear this out), but that they are taking highly-paid jobs and moving them overseas, displacing workers (not forcing them to work for less wages). These people will wind up having to take jobs that are beneath their skill level. That is not a social or economic benefit, because that means those people are going to be contributing to society in a capacity that is less than what they're capable of contributing.
It also means that those on the low-end of the skillset will have a harder time finding jobs, because the more highly-skilled people will be forced to crowd the low-end.
Once the recession is over, however, it'd be a very good thing for jobs to be created overseas...this will increase global wealth, and as long as the foreign markets are open to U.S. exports, will create more demand for local labor. It just does not follow that *moving* jobs is a great benefit.
It is a economic benefit, because the current stagnation is a result of a former superproduction crisis. And it is a global benefit because it diminishes the global poverty by shifting resources from rich to poor countries. Incidentally this also helps minorating the immigration tensions.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin