Slashdot Mirror
US Senator Blasts Microsoft's H-1B Push As It Lays 18,000 Off Workers
dcblogs (1096431) writes On the floor of U.S. Senate Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions delivered a scalding and sarcastic attack on the use of highly skilled foreign workers by U.S. corporations that was heavily aimed at Microsoft, a chief supporter of the practice. Sessions' speech began as a rebuttal to a recent New York Times op-ed column by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson ... But the senator's attack on "three of our greatest masters of the universe," and "super billionaires," was clearly primed by Microsoft's announcement, also on Thursday, that it was laying off 18,000 employees. "What did we see in the newspaper today?" said Sessions, "News from Microsoft. Was it that they are having to raise wages to try to get enough good, quality engineers to do the work? Are they expanding or are they hiring? No, that is not what the news was, unfortunately. Not at all."
Jeff Sessions, Tea Party Guy. Of course he's going to take the nativist view. He probably thinks Microsoft could just take the 18,000 people it's laying off and repurpose them to fill whatever positions it's trying to use H1B visas for. Because tech skills are interchangeable, right? And all those 18,000 are totally okay relocating across the country (or globe) right?
Well, we paid for all that with $17 trillion of debt, and a behavior/thought process that it was ok, starting with Reagan and continuing to this day.
Other countries are just waiting for it all to collapse and pick our bones.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The only skill Microsoft is seeking is a low daily wage.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
This is so easy to fix.
Establish what the standard rate is for whatever position and say "you can have all the H1-B visa applicants you want so long as you pay 20 percent more then what you're paying for domestic labor.
If its not a matter of pay and is a matter of limited labor supply, they'll import the labor and pay them more.
If it is about wanting cheap labor then they'll go with the domestic labor which will by law be cheaper.
End of discussion.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There are a *LOT* of other factors contributing to the US's superpower status pre-Reagan or Clinton. Things like:
1. massive natural resource endowment (particularly land area, educated population, and cheap energy reserves)
2. being the only large industrialized nation not bombed into oblivion post-1945.
to name just a few. Now we are witnessing a regression to the mean as some of these key points (education, cheap domestic energy, and unique industrialization) are challenged by the same globalization principles that we put in place. The fact that our government bureaucracy at all levels is a bloated and inefficient mess only serves to retard any attempts to correct our deficiencies and maintain our position.
Comment removed based on user account deletion