Complaints Filed Over Firms Seeking H1-B Holders

Vicissidude writes "Since May, the Programmers Guild has filed 100 complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice, accusing several companies of advertising that they specifically want H-1B workers, a violation of U.S. law. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act requires that U.S. jobs must be available to U.S. workers. The complaints stem from ads containing wording such as "We require candidates for H1B from India," and "We sponsor GC [green card] and we do prefer H1B holders," the Programmers Guild said. The Programmers Guild, looking for ads on major online job boards, has so far targeted only ads seeking computer programmers, the guild said. It plans to file 280 more complaints over the next six months."

Comments

Some more info

[PCM2]

InfoWorld has been running articles on this H-1B situation for a while. There's a special report on H-1B visas set up on the site.

Personally, one point that makes me skeptical is that I hear about this from the Programmer's Guild again and again. I'm not sure what the Programmer's Guild does, other than make a big stink about H-1B visas. Not that this is, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing -- but if the H-1B situation was really as cut and dried, criminal and downright treasonous as the Programmer's Guild says, wouldn't there be some other parties chiming in on the issue?

Re:Some more info

[pla]

I'm not sure what the Programmer's Guild does, other than make a big stink about H-1B visas.

Might I suggest going to, say, their web site and reading the plain-English ByLaws page? In particular, "ARTICLE 3 - PURPOSE", which contains a bulleted list of, well, what they do.


but if the H-1B situation was really as cut and dried, criminal and downright treasonous as the Programmer's Guild says, wouldn't there be some other parties chiming in on the issue?

Follow the money... Who benefits by driving down the cost of competant IT work? Hint - not "everybody but IT workers", because when we have money, we spend it as though the apocalypse will happen tomorrow.


As for whether or not companies really engage in such reprehensible hiring practices, you need look no further than the employment section of your local paper. See the tiny, unappealing buzzword-laden ads for experienced coders, paying a third the going rate in your area? Those companies will not get responses from anyone but interns. They can then claim they couldn't find anyone to take the job despite "honestly" trying, and can then hire H1Bs.

Regardless of your opinion of outsourced labor, I don't think anyone would consider such transparent tactics as anything but a legal farce.



wouldn't there be some other parties chiming in on the issue?

While IT people may have extremely well-organized personal lives (social and desktop notwithstanding), we don't tend to organize into larger bodies. The "I" in "INTP/INTJ" doesn't stand for "I likes large crowds".

Re:Some more info

[Tablizer]

but if the H-1B situation was really as cut and dried...

Often it is not. There are many wiggly loopholes. Examples from my old blog:

# Resume Templating - Add every skill that a given H-1B candidate has on his/her resume into the "needed skills" line of the application form. That way the "needs" profile will never match a citizen above the probability of winning the Instant Millionaire lottery. Government inspectors are usually too overworked and/or not knowledgeable enough to check and follow-up on actual skills used on the job, especially if there are more than a few. (This approach was also covered in another message.)

# Undocumented Experience - Claim a highly experienced H-1B applicant is really only a beginner, and thus a company gets experience at beginner rates. Inspectors cannot realistically check somebody's skill background as obtained inside a foreign country. If they do find out, claim you didn't know. Just make sure the experience is not on your "official" copy of the visa worker's resume. It is an easy lie to get away with.

# Take Advantage of Situation - Work the H-1B overtime or weekends without extra pay. Complaining risks getting the H-1B sent home, so they usually keep quiet. Plus, they may not understand how our legal system works or be intimidated by a process foreign to them. (US money is worth more to them due to exchange rates when they eventually go back home, and thus they often just live with labor abuses without complaint in order reduce risk while obtaining their financial nest-egg.)

# Tinker with Titles - Information technology (IT) titles are often vague, inconsistent, and overlapping. It is hard to penalize a company for using the wrong IT title on an application form because there practically is no such thing as an objectively "wrong title" in IT. Plus, most IT work involves a mixture of a lot of different skills, such as programming, analysis, debugging, customer support, documentation, etc. There are no consensus metrics for categorizing these based on ratios or percentage of usage.

# Outsource the Buck - A big company can contract the H-1B from a small, fly-by-night company that keeps a portion of an H-1B's pay, delays paychecks, does not pay overtime, etc. The big company that contracts out is then not exposed to the risk of dubious activity. They can claim that they did not know the contractor was abusing the visa workers (and may not know). Such small contracting companies are often staffed by people from the H-1B's originating country such that if they are caught or risk being caught, the company folds up and goes back to their home country where they can do other business. The risk of real penalties is very small. (Cross-country white-collar crime investigation tends to be poorly coordinated between countries involved.)

# Shred Citizen Resumes - Companies applying for visas are required to place an ad in a typical job listings source and review received resumes or applications for qualified citizens. Government inspectors may ask to see such resumes. However, if somebody takes citizens resume and shreds them, nobody besides the shredder will ever know they existed.

# Lopsided Interviews - Government inspectors don't sit through most live interviews. Thus, a company trying to weed out citizens can simply ask tough questions when interviewing the citizen, but be easy on the visa candidate.

Re:Some more info

[NormalVisual]

And then there's the method preferred by a previous employer of mine - have a Sri Lankan CEO that has good buddies in the Sri Lankan IT services industry, and mysteriously have people shipped in without even having posted the openings. When I started there, our department had four Americans, one Pakistani, and one Bulgarian. The Pakistani and Bulgarian both were U.S. citizens. Five years later when I left, we had four Americans (3 good people, 1 basket case), two Pakistanis (one H1-B) who were a little above average, one Indian who was largely useless (H1-B), and IIRC, 7 Sri Lankans (all H1-B, all pretty decent). I personally handed in no less than five resumes of qualified locals that I knew for two of positions that *were* advertised, and not a single one was contacted. "Qualified" meaning they had the required skills (and I could personally vouch for their competence), most of the "good to have" skills, were available, and were willing to work for industry standard wages. The "industry standard wages" part was the kicker - I found out later at least two of the Sri Lankans were working for a little more than half of what I was, when their experience and abilities warranted pay on par with mine. They had also told me that they were bound to the company by restrictive contracts that would end up costing them thousands of dollars if they left, but felt that they had to do it if they wanted to eventually get a green card.

The H1-B program is a joke. It's often not fair to the Americans that get displaced, and it's often not fair to the visa holders, who in my experience can end up in situations resembling indentured servitude. The only parties that consistently benefit from it are those unscrupulous companies who aren't willing to follow the law, since the government does next to nothing to enforce the requirements placed on employers.

Loving it

[teutonic_leech]

Yes, this has completely gone out of hand. Call it 'domestic outsourcing' if you will - the end result is the same: hardworking and highly skilled American engineers have a tougher time finding a job. The H2B visa was never meant as a carde blanche for companies to replace native qualified workers with cheaper immigrant workers. It's time to nip this in the butt once and for all - surely the companies greatly enjoy this situation and it won't change or even get worse if we let 'the free market decide'.

Re:Loving it

[theshowmecanuck]

It would be OK if this created a level playing field, but it does not (at least not when hiring foreign IT workers to work in the U.S.). Workers who are laid off on who were on a work visa need to find another job within one month or clear out of the U.S. If they find another job, the new company they work for will need to spend the money to get the sponsorship moved to them. Put together the fact that finding a job in under a month and that many companies don't want to spend the money on the lawyers fees for the sponsorship, getting laid off usually means having to leave the country. So what's it all mean? Knowing this, many times companies hire the foreign IT workers for often times less than they would pay U.S. workers, knowing that they can treat the foreign workers like indentured servants. Work hard, lots of overtime, and for less money, or we will lay you off, and you'll have to leave the country. This can be quite a hardship... and ergo no level playing field. An American employee will no longer have an income (usually) if laid off, but they don't have to immediately uproot everything and move their home overseas.

When the government gives out the H1-B they should recognize that they are really saying 'we have a shortage of IT workers'. That should mean that it shouldn't matter what company the foreign IT worker works for. I.e. if they are given a visa it should be a 6 year work visa and the worker should be free to move from company to company and stay in the U.S. for 6 years regardless of whether they are employed or not (but they should not be eligible for welfare or unemployment). That way if company A treats them like shit, they can get another job (without sponsorship hassles) at company B who will treat them better. This would provide incentive for company A to pay more and treat the employee better. This would benefit the American workers in that there would be less incentive for company A to hire the foreign worker since they will have to provide the same or similar pay and benefits as if they had just hired an American worker. Otherwise the foreign work, like an American worker, can leave for company B. Then the only business justification the American company would have to bring someone in from overseas would be if they really were more qualified in some respect than an American worker. Of course the company is then free to possibly outsource directly to China or India, but that is another matter.

My 22 cents worth... slag away at it if you want.

Re:Loving it

[bluekanoodle]

OK, here's a serious question. When a company hires an H1-b visa holder, are they required to pay unemployment insurance on this worker? I don't know the answer, but the logical one would be no since the State would not (in my mind) end up having to pay any claims as the worker has already a) left the country or b) found another job. What about the other voluntary costs companies incur as part of retaining workers, such as Health insurance, retirement etc. It would seem to e even if a company honestly was paying an H1B the same as citizens, they could still create great cost saving in not proivding the supplemntal costs that go along with attracting and retaining workers.

Re:Loving it

[Anonymous Coward]

The employer will have to withhold Social Security, Medicare, SDI, etc. from the paychecks of foreign workers even though the foreign workers are not eligible for any of the benefits. That is, foreign workers pay the same amount of taxes (federal, state, and the various "other" taxes like social secrity, medicae, etc) without the same amount of benefits. It's one of those "penalties for being foreign" deal, part and parcel with the opportunity to work in the U.S.

Re:Loving it

[theshowmecanuck]

I worked for about 5 years total on TN visas in the 'States. That is a NAFTA free trade treaty and applies to Canadian and American professionals allowing them to work in America and Canada respectively. I paid unemployment insurance, social security tax and the company covered health care benefits. I had better healthcare coverage in the U.S. than I do in Canada by the way... as long as I was employed... ).

I am pretty sure the U.K. has a rule for some types of emegrants that says if you keep employed, keep your nose clean, and pay your own way, you can stay for up to five years (which may be extended... and you can apply for citizenship after around five years).

Here is one of the paragraphs from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate:

...(v) will be able to maintain and accommodate himself and any dependants adequately without recourse to public funds; and...

Re:Loving it

[arivanov]

In the UK all such taxes and Social Security contributions are payed out of a work permit holder salary regardless of the fact that the work permit holder is not entitled to any of them.

Effectively in the UK all foreign workers subsidise the native's social security budget with their contributions for 4+ years. Situation in other EU countries is not much different. The difference is only the time you are obliged to subsidise the local xenophobic skinheads who are too lazy and/or ignorant to get a permanent job so they live off state benefits instead. It is 10+ years in France, 7? (not sure) in Germany and 5+ in most other European countries.

I am not aware of all the complexities of the US tax quagmire, but I would not be surprised if it is any different. If the companies rip the off the H1B people, the state which allows it is quite likely to try to have a go at that as well. After all they are effectively a form of slaves. If they open their mouth they are chucked out of the country right away.

While for an European getting kicked out will not really matter, for most H1Bs from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc it is actually a matter of family pride. "My son has been accepted to work in theUS is a lot of kudos points for a small village or a slumland family. Being force-sent back is major strike to the family pride in some places. As a result some of these people will go to all means to stay and the fact that they are staying silent about being ripped off is not surprising.

Bottom line: We don't need H1-B workers today

[Anonymous Coward]

In the dot-com rush of the late 1990s, yes, we needed H1-B workers because there plain simply was not enough workers. Not today. Today, any job posting made public gets hundreds of resumes. Jobs are getting filled quickly; people who have jobs in the tech field are working long hours for a fraction of what they would have made in the hight of the dot-com bubble. More and more companies are laying off workers; Sun just recently laid off 5000 workers. The US job market is weak and the H1-B workers just make it harder.

Re:Bottom line: We don't need H1-B workers today

[ClosedSource]

"In the dot-com rush of the late 1990s, yes, we needed H1-B workers because there plain simply was not enough workers. "

That was never true. H1-B workers were needed simply because salarys were beginning to rise and industry didn't want that trend to continue.

Re:Bottom line: We don't need H1-B workers today

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Well, by your definition, no intervention in a marketplace is ever "needed" since supply and demand will always take care of things.

Now you're getting it - when salaries rise, companies are forced to be more efficient - they could pay me twice what they do (and it is a decent number to start with) and still come out ahead if there was strong leadership in the industry. Most projects that fail could have succeeded or been killed early if only people would learn the lessons from something as old as the mythical man month.

You needed to raise huge sums of VC to pay ridiculously prissy workers who wanted 150k a year and perks out the ass to do no work.

This was never true. The fact is, VCs would demand you spend a certain amount of money every month and get mad if you fell behind. Go ask Jeff Bezos if he paid prissy workers out the ass when he was starting amazon.

This was a short term labor supply shortage and labor demand spike, all wrapped up in one.

Since when? Good people are always hard to find, but refusing to hire older people doesn't help.

There are some local areas where tech wages have started a rapid runup again - apparently this is happening in Seattle now.

Ooh, I hope so. It'd be nice to work somewhere for 2 years and pay my house off.

What this really is... Job tailoring?

[rsborg]

As someone who knows quite a few non-Americans on H1B, this might simply be a case of people creating jobs, so they can justify an H1B for specific people. ie, someone is already here in the US, would like a job, and the hiring manager at some company (or a friend running some body-shop consultancy) lazily writes up a job description "requiring H1B Visa"... therefore targetting the job at the friend/acquaintance that they want to hire.

I know that this "job-tailoring" is done frequently in the industry as a way of getting the exact person you know. Just that if it fits this shoe, it's quite certainly illegal... kind of like saying you want someone who is/not specific race/disabled/etc.

I, for one, hope that the hiring managers who put up such job descriptions get fired, as it's part and parcel of the corruption. Just wish we could fire them for other similar "job-tailoring" activities.

Wants the impossible

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Programmer's Guild actually expects to force Congress and the Courts to obey the laws they've enacted? In what Perfect World is this?

Don't have to discriminate to be cheapassed...

[posterlogo]

Not sure why these companies feel they have to actively seek out foreign visa workers like that, so blatantly discriminating. There are far more legal ways to achieve the goal of a free-market style cheap labor economy. For example, the obvious, an American worker is not intrinsically "worth" more than a foreign worker, so why not just offer the same starting salary to any entry-level candidate? Chances are the foreign visa worker will still see that as a decent offering and take the job, whereas the American worker may not. It really seems like the goal was to get qualified workers without having to offer the inflated salaries that domestic workers expect. Couldn't this sort of be established de facto by offering every candidate a salary comparable to what a visa worker would get, rather then de jure by hiring only visa workers?

Re:Don't have to discriminate to be cheapassed...

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't just want to pay less, they want a carte blanche to treat their employees like crap. An H1-B visa worker will put up with a lot more abuse from an employer since they depend on the employer to keep them in the country. This is the evolution of the idea of preferring people with families to single workers. The theory is, if they have a family, they also have a mortgage, car payments, college tuition, etc... to provide for their family, making it much less likely they will up and quit if the employer treats them unfairly.

Re:USian Terminology

[Marxist Hacker 42]

In America, we have different classes of Visas available for different reasons. H-1b is INTENDED to allow American companies to hire people with Master's degrees or better who have skillsets not available in America. In practice, it's used to bring in as many Bachelor's Degree holders as possible every year to drive wages down in highly skilled jobs. It's so popular that businesses actually run out of these visas within a few minutes of them becoming available every year. Current cap is 65,000 per Federal Fiscal Year- they're usually gone by 20 minutes after midnight on the first of October.

The big part is that these visas were originally sold as having *no* effect on US employment- after all, the skillsets are supposed to be completely unavailable in the United States, and no way to train anybody in that skillset. In practice though- well, you see some of the quotes from advertising for these jobs.

Next up: Labor-based GC 7 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are going to go after the H-1B program, maybe next they should set their sights on improving the GC process from what took, in some jurisdictions, up to 7 years, to something a lot more reasonable like 7 months, or why not 7 weeks? After all, the ridiculously lengthy GC process is just another point of abuse for foreign and hence American workers. To be fair, the process has already been "streamlined", where it now takes on average something around 3-4 years total. But, that's still far too long, and leaves people vulnerable. Perhaps the programmers guild would like to see this shortened so they they decrease the abuses and increases their membership?

It never ceases to amaze me how, globally, we have virtually free movement of capital, a moderately free movement of goods, but a heavily restricted movement of people. The three major components of the economy have dramatically different levels of restrictions depending on how the given component cuts between the wealthy and the working "classes".

Who wants a lightening fast immigration system? Not the employers...that's for sure. And yet, overall, that would arguably be best for the overall economy.

"It turns out the so-called free market isn't quite so free, if you're a worker bee".

They took err jeerbs!

[smclean]

They took err jeeerbs!! But seriously, the perception about H1-B holders being needed to supplement the supposed lack of American training is, to me, rather insulting. Maybe I have too high an estimation of myself and my peers, but it seems to me that the US is pretty rich with technical talent. Trying to dilute the marketplace with indentured servants certainly is not going to help us get paid our due, or motivate us to earn it.

Re:USian Terminology

[fimbulvetr]

Although I shouldn't extend you the courtesy after you've used "USian", there is a fine link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B

It's essentially a visa permitting medium term residency in the United States. Corporate managers love them because they can hire 2:1 or even better over local candidates.

IEEE-USA, Unions, Milton Friedman speak up

[Anonymous Coward]

The IEEE , Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO and researhers such as Norm Matloff speak up against the H-1B abuse.

Lots of folks speak up against it.

The hired gun lobbyist Harris Miller loses to Jim Webb. Miller ran an unaplogetic pro H-1B and pro-outsourcing campaign. Seems the voters in Virginia don't like Harris Miller's record.

Heck, even Milton Friedman calls it a subsidy.

War on drugs strategy

[Baldrson]

The war on drugs didn't get serious until it starte confiscating the assets of drug lords.

Confiscate the assets of the businesses illegally lowering wages via violation of the law.

Re:Who cares?

[Aadain2001]

"The people I do see this hurting is entry level candidates but even so if you can prove you are worth your salt you will find a nice job."

Ah-ha! There is the real damage being done to not only our economy, but our society as a whole! The idea that it's ok to fill entry level positions with cheap foreign labor/workers it a cancer on our society. Those entry level positions may not be that important, but you learn a lot in those jobs, especially right out of college. If you can't get real world experience, how will you ever get that "nice job"? Get a friend to tailor a job for you in a position you have zero experience with? Fake it on your resume and hope they don't find out? If you do not have entry level positions for those graduating from college, they will never mature into experience programmers/engineers and we'll have to pull from the H-1B visa holders again for the experienced positions. After all, they were the ones in the entry level positions, they got the experience, so they should get the jobs at the next level too. Soon even the most experienced positions will be available for foreign replacement. And where will you be then? In the unemployment line or busing tables like the rest of us educated types who never got our careers off the ground because there were no entry level positions for us.

Huh?

[Dekortage]

I agree with you, but you said... "InfoWorld has been running articles on this H-1B situation for a while. [snip] if the H-1B situation was really as cut and dried, criminal and downright treasonous as the Programmer's Guild says, wouldn't there be some other parties chiming in on the issue?"

Other parties like, say, InfoWorld?

Re:Bigotry and Cheap Labor

[FooAtWFU]

You need to retake Econ 150. That's not the "free market". This is the free market: everyone should be allowed to "cheat" by going anywhere -- except it's not cheating.

If a company can spend less to hire someone from India / Mexico / wherever, why on earth should we stop them? Why should they be forced to pay more money to hire someone from the US? This is utterly against the spirit of the free market.

In a completely free market, eventually wages for everybody doing a particular sort of job would end up about the same: as companies send work where it's cheapest, the local economy grows and thrives and the wages there will rise. Now, many things conspire to make markets non-free: sometimes things as simple and nigh unto insurmountable as Geography, sometimes things as ugly as petty politics.

Argue if you want that a free market is evil/bad/wrong. But recognize that any sort of visas and such are barriers to entry, and what you describe ("wages should be high because the skills are rare") is diametrically opposed to that: you are artificially limiting the supply by political machinations, almost exactly in the same way a monopolist can limit the supply of the product they can sell, in order to drive the price up so they can make the most profit.

Re:Some more info-Back slash.

[OrangeSpyderMan]

I only care about the country I was born in. The rest of the world can die in nuclear fire as far as I care.

And there was I about to feel sorry for you....

that's not very internationalist of you

[Trepidity]

I thought socialism-in-one-country was no longer in fashion amongst Marxists!

An old scheme

[CaroKann]

About a decade ago, when I was fresh out of college and trying to find a programming job, one of the resources I used was the local employment office. While I was going over a list of jobs with the employment office guy, I noticed some jobs I thought I should try for and asked about them. The guy told me that I was wasting my time, that it was a dishonest company, and that I had no chance of getting hired. He explained to me how that particular company only wanted to hire an HB1 visa employee, and that they only listed the job with the employment office because the law requires that they must make an effort to hire an American first. Every American that applies for the job will be found wanting, and, their legal obligations satisified, the company will then proceed to hire an HB1 employee. I was willing to work anywhere at that time, so I tried anyway, and of course i did not get the job.

That's only one of the schemes I've encountered while looking for work. The job market can be a scummy place.

Changes Nothing

[omegashenron]

Even though future employers may get a slap on the wrist for the way in which they advertise positi0ons, it will not (and can not) change their hiring policies. All this is going to do is be a waste of time for companies (ie interviewing/processing applications from unwanted candidates) and for the individual applying for the job (writing letters, e-mails, phone calls etc to a company that has no intent of hiring you).

Yes it does suck and is discriminatory, however in the land of free enterprise what can you do? Mandate they hire Americans? Easy solution for the company, off shore the jobs.

Things you should know about H1-B

[ax_1225]

The vast majority of the companies will not hire H1-B workers. Why? Because it's a PITA especially for small and medium companies. All the legal trouble and fees and restrictions are just too much hassle for most companies.

Also it is good to know there are minimum salary levels for the H1-B workers. A company can't hire a senior programmer from outside of US and pay 20k per year. This doesn't mean that some companies might not abuse the system and try different tricks to get cheaper work force but I really belive that the majority of H1-B workers came in US because companies couldn't find qualified people.

The truth is that there aren't many good programmers out there and there is still a lot of demand for them. I see many programmers coming for interviews at the company I work for and when someone good arrives (not very often) it is very difficult to get them as they already have several offers from other companies.

BTW I am also a H1-B worker and I'm payed a competitive salary and the company also pays a lot of legal fees for my H1-B and green card. Besides that I pay income taxes and spend all my money here in the US. America has a lot to win from the H1-B program.

Re:Bigotry and Cheap Labor

[FooAtWFU]

Because economics has become warfare- and unless you want to be forced to worship Krishna, there's a reason why we have national sovereignity.

Wow. This, sir, is truly a most unusual juxtaposition of viewpoints. I'll go so far as to say it's perhaps the most unusual one I've ever seen.

But let me say this. My dad is an award-winning economist (Jonathan Hughes Prize, actually) and he's a good man, and I've taken an introductory class myself, though it's been a while. Still, I know a few things. Economics is a science. It has laws. True, they are not as solid as the Laws Of Physics, but they're just as true. And the truth is that free markets, by and large, make peoples' lives better, not worse. Your rhetoric about how "markets never did any good for anybody" is extremism of the most ridiculous and absurd variety. What did help people then? Sustanance farming? People don't trade in a market , whether they're trading corn or computers or labor or lemons, unless both parties gain something. You may groan about your soul-sucking job, but the fact is that you'd be far worse off without it.

My father has argued that free trade is a fundamental human right: If someone in Cuba has something to sell me, and I want to buy it, what business has anyone stopping us? Anything else is simply coercing us. You argue "protectionism!" to build a strong local economy. Why must it be local? Are the people overseas less deserving of jobs, and the progress of the modern world? Ah, I am sure you will argue about "what progress?" and tell us of how they are so terribly exploited and make only sixty cents a day in a factory - but you have missed the alternative, that they were making the equivalent of thirty cents a day doing sustainence farming beforehand. Ah, you will say, but the companies, the evil companies of course, they are going to pass all the savings along to the CEOs, those rich evil bastards. In a truly free market, though, another company will gladly spring up doing the exact same thing, but NOT pay the CEOs a bunch of money, until the other company goes out of business (or changes).

Markets are not there to make your life better. They are there to make everybody's lives better. If it comes down to it, assuming you still have Free Will, you can always choose to exclude yourself - if you're willing to pay the price. But then- maybe the price is too high, maybe the government demands taxes or such beyond your ability to pay. But that's outside of the market. That's government.

Moreover, economics - many think it's the study of money. It's not. It's the study of choices. That's all a market is- a set of choices. People associate Economics with Money because Money is the easiest sort of choice to quantify, the easiest to measure, the easiest to analyze. Recognize that to economists, everything is a market unless it's coersion. You're not in favor of coersion for every little thing, are you? If you think people should have any sort of choice in anything they do, you are supporting a market. And I hope you're not aiming for totalitariansim in your politics, especially not intentionally. I'd like to think better of you than that.

You missed the whole point

[Dj-Zer0]

For me H1-B worker is same as your (Great x N) grand dad, (unless your a native american or non us-citizen, )

They are also here to fulfil their american dream. Many of them are with Much talent but rather than talent they also have a good attitude towards their employees, unlike some us-citizen counterparts who always in demand of high salary.

Working as a programmer is not just about salary you also need to have a passion for it, if your just being a programmer just for the money i would never want to hire you.

I have seen H1B program abused with my own eyes

[Tablizer]

I have seen companies hire a mix of citizens and H1B's (I think the law requires this above a certain quantity), and then fire the citizens they didn't like much when the project ramped down a bit. It was not that the citizens sucked, it is just that they were not top performers. In theory the H1B program is not meant to replace C citizens with A visa workers, but satisfy "skill shortages".

Another time they paid the H1B's only once every six months (the full amount though). The workers couldn't do anything about it because reporting it would have their sponsor put out of business, sending them back home.

EE-Times study shows 23% wage discrepency

[Tablizer]

http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArti cle.jhtml?articleID=189500671

"Immigrant[1] engineers with H-1B visas may be earning up to 23 percent less on average than American engineers with similar jobs, according to documents filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Salary data from Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) lends credence to arguments that lower compensation paid to H-1B workers suppresses the wages of other electronics professionals...."

[1] H-1B's are not immigrants. This may be a mis-wording.

I'd love to work in the USA for a while

[Harald Paulsen]

I don't know about other people, but I live in Norway and one of my dreams is to get a H-1B visa and work in the USA for 6-24 months to improve my english and have something nice on my resumé. Then I'd return to my own wonderful country with lots of experience and some great memories.

It's an easy problem to solve

[labcfo]

The government created a mechanism called "prevailing wage". If they actually made the prevailing wage something like 2x what a company could pay a citizen, the only time a company would hire a H1B is when the really couldn't find a citizen to work in that role. In my business - environmental chemistry - the "prevailing wage" is something around 2x what we can afford to pay a chemist. So we don't hire any H1B's. It is just too damn expensive. So if your average techie makes 80k a year, the government could make the prevailing wage $200k. Then the companies would have to choose between; a.) paying the person 2.5x what a citizen would make, b.) breaking federal laws which sends the VP's to jail for a good long time, or c.) not hiring H1B's. If there is a real talent shortage, a company would be willing (and able to pass along the cost) of an H1B. If there isn't a shortage, the government can make the economics so bad that it doesn't make sense to hire a non-citizen.

just my 2c.

Well sometime it's the law that need to be fixed..

[Arthur B.]

Protectionism is bad idea, be it for good or jobs.
So you don't want Indian to come and take jobs in the US? Well think of the consequences:
  - The company will outsource to India, and Indian worked cost far less when he Lives in India than in the US.
  - If a worker offer a lower labor cost it's a gift to the american economy. The goods will be cheaper, the consumer will save money, invest in other sectors etc..
  - If someone wishes a workvisa it means he intends to work, not live on welfare. The intent to work should be a plus for immigrants not a minus...

Protectionism is the most dangerous economic fallacy ever. Come on you're the US, you are liberals, don't fall for that old interventionnist trick.

Nothing's changed here in 20 years...

[smilindog2000]

In 1986, I got a job after graduating from Berkeley with a BS in EECS for $29,500/year. The last hire I made that I'd consider comparable was an Indian student from a state university with a masters. We hired him for $60K/year. I checked out this site for inflation rates:

http://eh.net/hmit/compare/

In short, a smart engineer with a college degree makes the same today as he did 20 years ago. Even back then, half engineers I graduated with were Indian or Chinese. It's no different today.

Sure, we engineers have to compete globally, which makes us poorer on average than doctors and lawyers. I's still rather be an engineer.

The first month after taking that first job, I was approached by communist picketers outside my workplace. They were pushing for unions, and higher wages. These Programmers Guild people are no different. It was a bad idea then, just as it is now.

Re:Bigotry and Cheap Labor

[dal20402]

In a truly free market, though, another company will gladly spring up doing the exact same thing, but NOT pay the CEOs a bunch of money, until the other company goes out of business (or changes).

...

Recognize that to economists, everything is a market unless it's coersion.

Unlike Marxist Hacker 42, who I don't think will be comfortable until there's blood in the streets, I'm not going to tell you I have no use for a free market. In fact, my goal would be for as many people as possible to make any rational trades they want, which is probably the outcome you're thinking of when you say "free market."

But you don't get there by removing all the rules. That Econ class should have taught you that all that happens when you remove all the rules is that people take advantage of disparities in bargaining power and information to coerce or fool other parties into non-rational transactions.

The CEO case is a perfect example. The CEOs hornswoggle or pay off the directors, who in turn do the same to the shareholders. Shareholders and employees are left holding the bag. Since there is no incentive for CEOs not to do this, as they profit much more handsomely than they could from simply doing good business, there is no incentive for a CEO to lead your "another company" into the picture.

Thus active public intervention is required to ensure a market where all parties who bargain and inform themselves to the best of their ability realize positive outcomes. The great failing of many people inclined toward a viewpoint informed by classical economics is that they fail to realize this -- effectively embracing a course which inevitably leads to feudalism, not free markets. In this specific situation, the public intervention needed is simply enforced regulation: if Americans won't take your job because you're offering a low salary at which they turn up their noses, that's fine, but actively excluding Americans in order to take advantage of the H-1Bs should be (and is) outlawed.

This is a case where the existing law makes sense and should be enforced, for the sake of a fair and free market.

Re:Why would anyone want an H-1B worker?

[Zheng Yi Quan]

Actually I do hiring, and our lawyers have advised me that for anti-discrimination reasons, I can't ask potential employees whether they are U.S. citizens--only whether they can work legally in the U.S. I don't remember if that's federal or state law or if it's just to protect us against lawsuits, but the end result is about the same. The only reason I would deliberately try to hire an H-1B worker is if that worker were some kind of superstar who would bring so much value that it would justify the legal costs and wrangling. Otherwise they're simply not worth the effort.

Training Damage

[Tablizer]

The truth is that there aren't many good programmers out there and there is still a lot of demand for them.

You seem to be suggesting that companies be allowed to replace/substitute average citizen programmers with top-notch foreign guest workers. Regardless of whether this is "right" or not, it is not the premise that the H-1B program is supposed to be based on. Besides, how are average programmers going to get good with practice if all the jobs are given away to foreign workers? C-level citizens will be forever stuck at C-level because they are passed over for A-level foreign workers. Spot-shortages are necessary for people to transfer out of spot-gluts. This oppurtunity is taken away.

Another thing is that everybody has a different idea of what "best" is. Some companies value good factoring, others value fast copy-and-pasters, for example. A bigger pool allows them to pick people who fit their very specific, idiosyncratic views of what "good" is at the expense of citizens. It is like opening a new jewery store next to an existing one. Half the customers will go to the other store even if the average deals are the same.

it's just not true...

[YesIAmAScript]

I've worked in the industry for quite some time now. Since 1991.

And it is very common to have many positions open you simply cannot fill. In the late 1990s it was even more true.

I remember at that time, see that one department, which was triple the size of most others fit onto a half-floor just like all the other departments. I asked the pertinent people and found that they could fit in that space because 2/3rds of their positions were unfilled.

I was not a hiring manager at the time, but I can say now that it very likely goes like this. You open a position. You get a lot of candidates. You interview the candidates and find none are suitable. You don't even talk money seriously with a candidate until after they pass the interview anyway. And then, the hiring manager doesn't care much anyway becuase it's not like he's paying out of his own pocket.

So, you never rejected anyone due to salary, and yet you still can't find anyone. It's natural then to say "if only we had a larger pool of candidates to draw from". And being able to draw from foreigners can help with this.

It's tough being picky about your candidates, but not being picky creates more problems in the long run.

Auction them off

[cfulmer]

So, industry claims that H1-B visas are needed because there are some skills which are just not available in the U.S. job market. The other side is that (1) yes, those skills are; and (2) even if they weren't, companies could hire Americans and train them.

The visas are obviously in high demand -- they disappear in an astonishingly short time after they become available every year.

IMO, the best way to approach this is to auction the H1-B visas off: If you have a position that you need filled, bid for an H1-B visa. If somebody else needs it more, they'll bid more and they'll win. Otherwise, if you need it more, you'll bid more and win.

The interesting thing is the feedback mechanism -- if the visas are going for $200,000 each, that's a pretty good indication that the job isn't availble in the US and it's really hard to train Americans to do it. But, on the other hand, if companies are just trying to save a few bucks, then the visas will go for a lot less, maybe $20,000. That would indicate that there are too many H1-B visas, and companies are just using them to get cheap labor. If the price is too high, that would indicate the need to raise the cap. Otherwise, it would indicate a need to lower it.+

Restrict H1Bs to people with US degrees

[yahyamf]

Why not restrict H1Bs to students graduating from US universities. There are thousands of them, and they're already familiar with the culture and have similar training as Americans. They're also unlikely to work for significantly lower pay. Currently many international students head back to their home countries right after graduation, so the US gets no benefit of their education.

Re:Some more info-Back slash.

[CarpetShark]

It's OK, you can feel sorry for him when his is the last country, and he realises that it no longer functions alone :)

Of course they prefer H1B

[billcopc]

I just happen to live in a very broadly multicultural area that also just happens to be fairly dense in high-tech and medium-tech businesses. I had a fellow from India explain some of this stuff to me. Up here people typically just obtain their citizenship and apply for work like everyone else, on equal terms. In the states where he had previously worked as well as many of his college mates, the attitude is to fly people over on a work visa, then the employers use that non-resident status as a cattle prod. He told me he was often afraid of being fired and exiled back to India for no valid reason, other than the company trying to pressure him into working longer hours. The work visa then becomes the slave driver's whip.

So the guy moved up north to the land of beavers, poutine and warm busty women. Sure, it took a little work to get the papers done but now he's a permanent citizen just like me, and he works the same job, gets the same pay, enjoys the same benefits and pays the same ridiculously high taxes as everyone else. We don't throw around many work visas because frankly, if you're going to work in Canada, you might as well live here too and keep the money recirculating (and re-taxing) in our system.

Some Myths About H1B

[Naum]

1. H1B candidates are needed because there are a shortage of American high tech professionals. No, incorrect, H1B has been used to displace American workers and it has undercut median wage for programmers and engineers. I've witnessed firsthand at multiple companies the saga of staff replacement with a mix of offshore programmers/improted NIV programmers. I've seen company programs that recruited and promoted internal talent scrapped so that $said_company could join the race to the bottom.
   
   
2. H1B candidates are paid prevailing wage. True for some, but most are shuffled about and treated like chattel, in worse fashion that the traditional American bodyshops treated their personnel. And a H1B candidate is much more restricted in job mobility than an American would be. Yes, there has been a recent uptick in contract/job advertisements but the pay rates, outside of specialty realms, is still total suckage. Rates/salaries lower than I made 12+ years ago. If there is such a strong demand being unfulfilled, why are not salaries/contract rates increasing significantly?
   
   
3. H1B candidates are "highly skilled" professionals, and are greatly desired and valued. In some cases, yes, but for the most part, these spots in no way can be construed as "highly skilled" -- again, in my experience, candidates sent to the U.S. might have had resumes boasting of requisite skills and experience, but when I met the candidate after his/her plane flight to the states, it would become readily apparent that their "skills and experience" consisted solely of a training curricullum overseas and a perusal of manuals on the plane ride over. Yet, as stated, we're doing a disservice to our own youth -- I realize many programmers opt for sexier type application devlopment like creating and deploying web applications, but even at the pay alotted to the offshore "bodyshop" vendors, these would be excellent jobs and career opportunities for young Americans. I have no problem with H1B or even citizen status for field luminaries like Linus Torvalds or others of genius level. But I believe it's a better national strategy to fill entry level positions with Americans, not foreigners.
   
   
4. Companies are legally prevented from replacing Americans with NIV workers.. Totally untrue, as if one takes time to research will discover. There are other legal provisions regarding how the H1B program operates, but enforcement is nil. Campaign contributions from "American" firms sway legislators into swallowing that corporate motives are benevolent. Employees are outright lied to. Again, I've experienced this firsthand.

But there is a dynamic at work here, namely that since "American" firms have invested so much (money, resources, strategy, time, etc....) in offshore vendors and importing NIV programmers they have created a defacto dependency on the paradigm. As they've chased Americans out of the field, in preference of a cheaper foreign factory approach, they now are much more reliant upon foreign engineers and programmers. Most of my colleagues have moved on to other career fields or they simply are hanging on as SMEs, marking the days to retirement. It's no wonder that computer and engineering student enrollments are declining -- there'll always be young Americans who answer to a calling despite potential career conditions and ramifications (i.e., see teaching), but statistics are now bearing out that the majority will pursue a more fruitful career path, both in terms of short term financial reward and long term job stability.

Ironically, or comically, or tragically (depending on your particular perspective!), from what I understand from conversing with friends who are directing such offshore/NIV programmer teams, the offshore vendors don't seem to acknowledge the great gift bestowed upon them. Instead, they've fouled it up, focused entirely on short term profits, managing their operations like multi-level marketing schemes. Shuffling workers to maintain a subserviant force, yet failing and leaving core systems of our largest companies in a sordid state of disrepair.