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Senator Who Calls STEM Shortage a Hoax Appointed To Head Immigration
dcblogs (1096431) writes The Senate's two top Republican critics of temporary worker immigration, specifically the H-1B and L-1 visas, now hold the two most important immigration posts in the Senate. They are Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who heads the Senate's Judiciary Committee, and his committee underling, Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who was appointed by Grassley on Thursday to head the immigration subcommittee. Sessions was appointed one week after accusing the tech industry of perpetuating a "hoax" by claiming there is a shortage of qualified U.S. tech workers. "The tech industry's promotion of expanded temporary visas — such as the H-1B — and green cards is driven by its desire for cheap, young and immobile labor," wrote Sessions, in a memo he sent last week to fellow lawmakers. Sessions, late Thursday, issued a statement about his new role as immigration subcommittee chairman, and said the committee "will give voice to those whose voice has been shut out," and that includes "the voice of the American IT workers who are being replaced with guest workers."
Sudden breakout of common sense??
Score one for the Republicans! I'm a pretty solid democrat, don't live in Arizona but I'm starting to like Jeff Sessions.
I wonder why the IEEE agrees with them? http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-wo...
"Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get" - Jerry Avins
To the outside world, my manager says there is a shortage of qualified labor. In managerial meetings, he states openly that his intention is to replace all new openings with H-1B workers for budgetary reasons. Entirely coincidentally, during that time it has become less and less pleasant to work here, and also coincidentally, all of the attrition last year was amongst regular (non-H-1B) employees.
What I take away from this is that "qualified" in this context means "willing to work for third world wages and no benefits".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Common sense requires choosing someone who doesn't have any ideas about how the job should be done?
Let me guess ...
You voted Obama, didn't you.
Both Canada and the US have no shortage of tech workers. What they have is a shortage of companies willing to pay the prevailing wage, benefits, etc.
I've lost three jobs over the years to "lowest price" bidders -- every single one of which was an Indian-run sweatshop bringing in their workers from overseas and working them to death without paying overtime.
I worked in the US on temporary visas for up to three years at a time (annual renewals), spending over 12 years in the US in total. Was I ever sponsored for residency? Of course not -- then I'd have had some rights and freedoms. The money was good, and I don't regret the time I spent there, but I'm firmly on the side of the anti-H1-B crowd -- it's all a scam to benefit the bottom line of big business, not a legitimate shortage of skilled workers.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's a tough problem to fix. If we come down too hard on companies for hiring guest workers, they'll often open off shore offices. If I had a choice between competing with a guest worker and competing with someone working in a country that has a cost of living that is a fraction of mine, I guess I'd rather have the guest worker. At least he's paid marginally more an will pay US taxes. Either way I'm out of a job though.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
(And without the advantages of being part of the Borg Collective.)
http://venturebeat.com/2015/01...
Pay particular attention to the chart showing -layoffs- across the IT sector!
Neither party is for the big guy or the little guy. They are each allied to certain interests and industries, and have certain positions on things that make sense to people with different ideologies.
The Republicans are traditionally allied to (dirty) energy industries: coal, oil, gas, as well as Big Ag, and military/defense contractors.
The Democrats are traditionally allied to finance (Wall Street), big media (RIAA/MPAA)/the "copyright cartel", unions (not so much these days), and these days, the tech industry (the CEOs, not the STEM workers).
They also push certain ideologies: the GOP is anti-abortion, anti-immigration (or at least anti-relaxing of immigration policy), anti-gun control, pro-religion, and get their votes from people who value these issues. The Democrats are pro-choice, pro-open borders, pro-gun control, pro-separation of church and state, and pro-environmentalism, and get their votes from people who value these issues. Once in office, they only do so much on these issues, while spending most of their energy working for the moneyed interests who got them there. Sometimes this results in some actual progress, usually to keep their "base" happy, sometimes perhaps because they actually want to do something good, other times probably because their interests (and the moneyed interests behind them) actually align with those of many of us peons.
Recently, Eric Holder **finally** did something about the ridiculous civil forfeiture rules at the federal level, something both parties have done nothing about for ages. This guy sounds like he's finally going to work for American STEM workers, something the Dems seem to oppose for some reason. Honestly, I can't think offhand which moneyed interest this guy's position would benefit, since the big tech companies and assholes like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs just want to exploit us for greater profit, and there's no STEM worker unions. It could just be like Obama: tough talk to appease the base, with zero actual results forthcoming. Or he's genuinely concerned about us STEM workers. Or the GOP wants to get STEM workers to switch sides (we're generally very strongly Democrat voters).
Personally, I agree with him, which is odd because I find most actions and positions of the GOP abhorrent. But like with Obama, who didn't really do much while in office despite all his grand rhetoric, we'll see how much progress this guy really makes. Maybe they'll blame it all on "Democrat obstructionism".
I do wonder, however, why Democrats seem to prioritize the interests of foreigners over those of American Citizens, even though what they're in effect doing is turning the job market into a libertarian hellhole, and doing the exact opposite of what Democrats of yore did in being big supporters of unions and workers' rights. Unionization is, at its very core, all about restricting the supply of labor to industry, so that a company can't just fire disgruntled workers and hire all-new staff so they can save some money; it's an attempt to give more power to the lower classes this way. Opening the borders to foreign workers is the exact opposite of this: it gives an endless supply of cheap labor to employers so they can exploit it and treat workers as disposable commodities. When exactly the Democrats became better friends of management rather than labor, I'm not sure.
Hire enough H1-B's and it becomes more likely you'll just outsource the entire project to some contracting company overseas. And those companies also have their own management structure possibly eliminating your own boss' position.
I do wonder, however, why Democrats seem to prioritize the interests of foreigners over those of American Citizens,
Democrats traditionally favor large government and using government assistance programs to buy votes of immigrants who in effect become their clients. Their problem is that they perpetually need to replenish the underclass as it becomes depleted by people pulling themselves up into the middle or upper class.
"My position on the subject has evolved."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
their problem is that they perpetually need to replenish the underclass as it becomes depleted by people pulling themselves up into the middle or upper class.
Wall Street has eliminated *that* problem.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Democrats are trying to avoid a worse alternative of everything getting outsourced, and jobs in the US disappearing. Take a look at the US networking industry for an illustrative example.
I predict that this senator will be swimming in campaign contributions from the tech industry in the future. And of course he'll see the light afterwards and understand how misguided he was as he was lacking crucial information about the desolate state of the US STEM sector and increased allotment of H1B visas is the only short-term solution to the industry's plight... But of course, long term solutions will be found. Certain industries have already shown that with depressed wages it is indeed cheaper to manufacture certain items in the US again. I am sure a similar solution can be found for the IT industry...
While there is no shortage, it's just business wanting cheaper labor, that isn't why they're taking this position, it's because they just want to halt ANY immigration. So much so that they'll do it even when it's against something they care as much about as business.
Or maybe they realize that H1B workers don't vote, but the out-of-work STEM workers they displaced do. And has been complaining to all and sundry that they lost their last job and can't get another one because of H1B workers.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I've been trying to hire a Senior-level EE for over a year. I have interviewed 2 candidates every week during that time, so basically 100 people.
These are people with 8-12 years experience as design engineers.
These are also people who can't tell me what the current in an inductor does when you put a DC voltage across it. It's one of my standard lead-in interview questions - some basic principles of EE that everyone working as an EE should know. I am shocked at how many people don't know it.
Usually, my interviews only go downhill from there. I will draw, for example, a very basic DC-DC or AC-DC converter and ask things like "what happens when this FET is turned on?" "What happens when it is turned off?" "What do the phase dots on this transformer symbol mean?" "What must you do to ensure this top-side FET is fully turned-on?"
These people can't figure it out. They can't reason their way through it. Most of them just end up guessing, and proving the point that there is, in fact, a dire shortage of QUALIFIED engineers in this country. These are all very simple questions that anyone working as a senior-level EE should know off the top of their head.
I think people are getting way too accustomed to having Google do their jobs for them, to be honest. "I don't have to know anything, I just have to know how to find a how-to online."
their problem is that they perpetually need to replenish the underclass as it becomes depleted by people pulling themselves up into the middle or upper class.
Wall Street has eliminated *that* problem.
LOL I read that and laugh like a madman. Google "The Great Depression" then you will see an example of bad fiscal policy and an out of control market really screwing up people's lives yet somehow people actually managed to improve their lot during that mess. The biggest problem the current generation has, is they have accepted the idea they can't when all the ones that have come before knew they could.
Cisco is still here in California. This outsourcing scare is just like the terrorism boogeyman, an excuse for them to bring in more Democrat voters (or so they think). Companies are not going to relocate everything to India; does anyone really think the corporate executives are going to pack their bags, sell their mansions, and cruise in their megayachts over to Mumbai and set up new lives over there? You can't run a company with the executives in one country and all the operations somewhere else.
The carrot works best when the donkey doesn't eat it, just as it held in front of it's muzzle and this in conjunction with the fear of the stick keeps the donkey ie the masses in check.
If you don't let the donkey have some real carrot now and then it will just sit there and tell you to go to hell, no matter how much you dangle.
The company I work for has fairly good diversity. The company is a chip company with a number of software teams for things like compilers, SDKs, drivers, the Linux kernel, bootloaders, etc. While it isn't 50:50 there are a lot of women developers and while the majority are indian there are a fair number of caucasian and other minorities as well. We hire what we can get. We have positions that have been open for months and the majority of those that we interview are of indian descent. We have a hard time finding good engineers, the key word being good. I have interviewed a lot of engineers of all nationalities who I do not consider competent. The competent ones usually have multiple offers.
The problem with the H1Bs are that they are abused by companies like Infosys and for less skilled engineers and IT people. Some companies also seem to have an inordinate number of H1Bs like Cisco. I'm of the firm belief that we need more good engineers and that we need a lot more people graduating from college with degrees in science and engineering.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Everything Warren spouts has been contrary to everything the Dems have been doing since the mid-2000s. She is no more representative of Democrats than Ron Paul was representative of Republicans.
Pay for the tech worker is 90th percentile of industry standard or 90th percentile at the company, which ever is higher.
Quick, simple, and will truly take into account the company's "needs".
Yes these tech worker visas are corrupt nonsense and we should limit the importation of skilled workers more than we do. But what we must not do is fail to import the cream of the crop of Asian engineers and scientists as well as the same from Europe or anywhere else for that matter. It would have been so easy to deny Einstein admission to the US as well as Goddard and many others. Some of the programmers coming out of places like Taiwan and Hong Kong are miraculously gifted and we would be fools not to ease the path for them to come here permanently. There may be many geniuses born but very few of those geniuses are trained in skilled areas that a nation must have to prosper and those people must be treasured if we are to survive as a nation. Yet I have seen immense prejudice against foreign workers who were highly skilled. One advanced engineer that I knew was working in a labor position and a school board thought he was some sort of lite weight with degrees from Romania. His boss was shocked when i told him that the man was a certifeied engineer with the American Association of Engineers. He got a much higher paying job in another branch of government as an engineer. A liberal arts degree from Romania might not mean much but a Ph.D. in a science or engineering means a person is quite skilled. One fellow told me he was a genius in France but every time his foot crossed our border he was instantly an idiot.
... from people that are just mad it was a republican.
We need to get beyond this tribal shit, chaps. There are a lot of people on both sides of the line that are complete fucking assholes. And there are a lot on both sides that are honestly trying to do good things.
Fuck the line. And saying "if you disagree on even one thing I believe in then I hate you" or other intolerant shit. People are going to have some differences of opinion.
Focus on what is important. Ignore the stuff that isn't... nearly all the things people bitch about are not important. Abortion for example doesn't matter because republicans aren't going to repeal it. Same thing for gun control... democrats aren't going to take your guns away. Neither side can do that. Focus on something that might actually happen and focus on the issues that actually matter.
We need to come together and solve common problems with solutions that most of us can accept. Anyone that says otherwise is literally the problem. Those guys thrive on the conflict and don't care if anything ever works. They just want to fight and start fires.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"Hey, Silicon Valley: we need paid-off with massive contributions or we'll grandstand on this (while not really giving a shit, other than having red meat to throw to our racist base)." -- GOP