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Ten US Senators Seek Investigation Into the Replacement of US Tech Workers

dcblogs notes this story about a bipartisan group of U.S. senators that has asked for an investigation into whether companies are firing American workers and replacing them with foreign workers for the sake of cutting costs. "Ten U.S. senators, representing the political spectrum, are seeking a federal investigation into displacement of IT workers by H-1B-using contractors. They are asking the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department to investigate the use of the H-1B program "to replace large numbers of American workers" at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers. The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the secretaries of the two other departments, was signed by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Justice Department. The other signers are Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), a longtime ally of Grassley on H-1B issues; Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Vitter (R-La.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Neither California senator signed on. "Southern California Edison ought to be the tipping point that finally compels Washington to take needed actions to protect American workers," Sessions said. Five hundred IT workers at SCE were cut, and many had to train their replacements."

21 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. And it's not even an election year by plopez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They could be serious.

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    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if they would only realize that by making US employment of americans stronger, we will be able to AFFORD to buy the toys that our very companies are making (toys being used in the very general sense).

      what will happen to all those who came or want to come to the US? well, this will force their own countries to deal with their own problems instead of the 'I cant fix my own country, so I'll just go to the US, instead' mentality. if mobility was a bit more limited, people in their own countries would have to deal with and fix their own problems. that's a win/win for everyone.

      by allowing cheap labor to displace US workers, its lose/lose. nothing in india (and we all know, india is the #1 source of h1b tech workers) will get better if their 'top talent' all moves here for jobs; and the US struggles to keep its own people employed.

      we have let the ceo's ruin our economy for decades! their selfishness has stunted the entire US economy for all but the one percenters.

      then again, congress is all about the one percenters and so, expecting a fix from those who can't even SEE the problem is a bit overly optimistic.

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    2. Re:And it's not even an election year by Dracos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because the corporations, in all their greedy shortsightedness, can hire the replacement workers cheaper, with the side effect of gaining the illusion of ethnic diversity in their workforce.

      .

    3. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But you still want to sell to those countries, I'm guessing. So you're for free movement of goods, but not of people. Gotcha.

      It's incorrect to say that the home countries of H1-Bs don't benefit. In the first place, a lot of people send money home to their families. In the second place, a lot of those workers will eventually go home, taking with them the skills and experience they've gained in the USA, to the benefit of their own countries.

      Don't get me wrong, I understand that you have a problem with H1-Bs, and that's a perfectly valid concern. But don't try to dress up your concerns as "for the benefit of the poor foreign countries", because that's just bullshit.

    4. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      While it is true that collectively the lower classes must have money in order for the upper classes to make money off them, that money doesn't get there by flowing *down* from the upper classes. It gets there by flowing *up* from the lowest class (the working class). Wealth creation has always been the purview of the lowest class of society, after all, and today is no different.

      Incidentally, why do you think that you are entitled to a specific salary if other workers are ready, willing, and able to do the same job for less pay? You want the freedom to buy competing products for a lower price, or to buy the same product at a price point that is appropriate for a foreign economy (think cheap DVDs encoded for some region other than 1, but still with the English soundtrack). Why in the world *shouldn't* an employer shop around for cheap talent?

    5. Re:And it's not even an election year by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A rich person doesn't want to give you money just so you can turn around and use it to buy stuff from him. Nobody gets richer that way.

      Really? you might want to tell Henry Ford about that. In fact their is an entire economic theory named after him because he did just that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    6. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      after you unwrap yourself from the flag, I'll tell you the real story.

      the real story is: what applied back in the turn of the century does not apply any longer. lots of reasons, we can list them but I'm sure you agree that what made sense (letting tons of people in) does not, any more.

      WHY are we obligated to solve the world's problems and give everyone in the world the same rights as people who have a lot invested and who plan to live here long-term.

      see, that's one thing your little jingoistic story leaves out. the ellis island folks, by and large, did not plan to move here for a short stay, make a lot of money and return home. they were INVESTED here, they eventually learned the language and merged in. that was then.

      what we have now is a 'grab, take, return home' situation. we don't give these folks citizenship. look, if they are valuable, give them citizenship and let them be like the rest of us! let them live with the long-term results of what we all are going to face. if you come to shit in my country, take what's good and then leave, do you think people will want to like you?

      we don't give citizenship, really; we give h1b. 'temp work permits'. in that, its nothing like ellis island days. nothing AT ALL.

      stop playing star spangled banner and smell the real coffee. what worked 100 years ago is not applicable now. the workforce is too crowded, the unemployment is sky high and we are borderline on depression, again and again. is that a time you think of as a 'work surplus' era? I sure don't! if you have no surplus, you have no right giving out jobs to people who are not as invested as those who were born and raised here.

      and yes, I do think that being born in a country and raised there DOES give you more rights over those who just moved in. try moving to germany or france or austria or switzerland or probably most other european countries and trying to be 'a citizen'. in some places, if you were not born there, you'll NEVER be one of them. jobs won't go to you first, etc etc. why do we have to import the word's labor force - especially when our own people are being routinely refused a living wage in the field they are WELL qualified to work in.

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    7. Re:And it's not even an election year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm on the other side of the fence.

      Got my arm twisted to come to the Bay Area. Nice weather to be sure. I got some special qualifications, which got me here, and as I later found out much cheaper that a local would have been.

      Needless to say, I'm on the verge of flipping the finger and head back home. Well that experience will pay off, I suppose. When I apply at the competitors'.

    8. Re: And it's not even an election year by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But would they pay competitive US market rates?

    9. Re: And it's not even an election year by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty well experienced in US tech. after college, I stayed in boston for 10 years working at a well known new england computer company. I later moved to the bay area and have been here 25+ years. all working for tech (software eng). I know this field, I have worked at quite a few top-name companies and so have real experience in matters that we're discussing.

      when I moved here 25 or so years ago, seeing the mix of imported labor vs US born was more reasonable. still not representative, but not outrageous. maybe half of my group were from asia/india and the rest US born. over the years, its gotton to be about 90% asia/india, for any given group other than upper management. in engineering, you can now walk the hallways of many bay area companies and if its an engineering building, english will be the exception, not the rule. I am not lying, those who live here can verify this if they are brave enough to speak up about it.

      now, it would be fair if you found about 10% or so of each group being imported labor. I can agree that there may be some jobs that are so specialized that no one locally can do. but when it gets to 50%, 70%, 90% of the typical group (sw, hw, sysadmin, devops, etc) - then I really question that *everyone* there is special and could not be done by a willing and able local person. most companies are run on the meat and potatoes person - competant, able, but no genius. for that, you should be able to find local employees. but when you see that 90% of a software or hardware group is h1b, you really know that its all a scam and a lie that 'no one local could be found' for all those regular old jobs.

      hey, I started out wanting the glory jobs. I think I'm pretty good, I've been around, I've done lots of things. I was not getting the jobs that I applied for. so I lowered the threshold and applied for the so-called meat and potato jobs. the ones that even average people can do (and who is often hired). nope, shut out of those, too. all staffed with indian and chinese folks. I was willing to do nearly any software work that paid a living wage, and could not find it. I've personally been looking for a few months, now, and its this way for many of us.

      again, if the 10% cream-of-the-cream jobs were only fillable with international talent, fine, cool, I'm ok with that. but that's not even close to what the actual reality is. its abused beyond abuse.

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    10. Re:And it's not even an election year by tburkhol · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uh, I thought we *were* investing in the education of Americans.

      Then you're not paying attention. Sure, all the politicians say they're committed to improving education, but they've been saying that for 200 years. It's the verbal equivalent of shaking hands.

      Meanwhile, when the dollars hit the budget, it turns out that tax cuts, health care, and defense/police/security are much higher priorities. 20 years ago, the cost of educating a student in a state university was largely born by the state. Today, it's largely born by the student. You can look up your own state's numbers: here in Georgia, over the past 10 years, we've gone from 60% state funding to 38%. The per-student cost has gone up 3%/year, just like inflation, but the student's share has gone up 10%/year. The loss of state funding has encouraged these schools to more aggressively recruit foreign students and their uncapped tuition.

      Curiously, because all of our politicians are wealthy, this makes the education they can provide for their own children just a little more valuable.

    11. Re: And it's not even an election year by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why does it not work? Even the Irish and Chinese railroad workers were made citizens. We brought in temp workers, and kept them. Africa first, others later. All were made citizens (and yes, slaves were citizens, just not free ones). We've always had a love-hate relationship with workers, but, until recently, were happy to make them citizens.

      That's the point, though. All the asians I know of who are citizens didn't become citizens via H1-B, they did it on our own.

      Yes, my state - and probably yours - is full of towns whose names and history reflect the fact that someone brought over people en-masse from some other town, village or country primarily to serve as cheap - and frequently semi-captive labor. That's not even touching the importation of slaves from Africa.

      And those people often brought financial hurt to established citizens because they were easier to control and to keep under low wages.

      But they were nevertheless brought in as permanent residents with citizenship rights - even the slaves, allowing for differences in who got what "citizenship rights".

      The H1-B program was specifically designed to bring in temporary immigrants, not people who'd eventually grow to become a permanent part of the tax-paying populace and even to demand competitive wages instead of exploitative ones.

    12. Re: And it's not even an election year by bored · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The biggest secret to having good people isn't hiring H1B's it's working to retain the people you have.

      But... This would imply that people aren't "human resources" that can be swapped with each other at will. It implies that someone who works on a project for a few years can contribute more meaningfully to a product than someone just hired.

      I've seen this a few times in my career, an "average" developer with a few years experience on a project may not be as celebrated as the rock star that was just hired, but a couple years down the line when the rock star has moved on, its the "average" developer's code that doesn't need weekly maintenance. Its, often the guys that have been there for a couple years tasked with cleaning up the mess. A problem, much harder than creating it in the first place. That is if they are still around, because even an average developer can put their resume out there and get a pay bump if they put the effort into it.

      Bottom line, I totally agree, retention of good solid "average" developers is what companies should be focusing on. Everyone is looking for a magic solution, but in reality a lot of software development is just slogging through loads and loads of unstimulating work.

  2. Meanwhile at the shareholder meeting ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    10 major shareholders representing 40% of open an investigation into why the company still has American workers and hasn't fired them and replaced them with foreign workers to cut costs.

  3. But but but by abulafia · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The dead hand of government interfering with private contracts between adults is un-American.

    Just ask John Galt.

    Or most slash-dotters who rant about unions.

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    I forget what 8 was for.
  4. Re:About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'll bite.

    1. The sole purpose of a government is to protect the people it governs. This may not be done right, due to special interest groups, but that is the idea. The government is to protect supply / trade lines. It is to prevent crime as dictated by its laws. It is to provide security against foreign or local invaders. It is also suppose to work towards the general betterment of the nation (roads, sewers, etc). You wouldn't see a country one-sidedly give away chunks of its GDP without cause.

    2. By giving jobs to H1-Bs or other foreign individuals preference over local employees (even if they got paid the same, which they don't), the companies are investing in foreign countries, and stopping local investment by the people that would live in the US for an extended period of time. H1-Bs aren't going to buy a house to live in. They aren't going to care about property values or anything of the like. They aren't going to be able to start a family here either. I will assume they at least pay income tax and sales tax, so they only really have that going for them.

    3. If these people's talents were so much better than our local talents, why are the companies working out of the US instead of say India or China? Simply put, they want to use the government and social structure (quality of life and laws and enforcement), while paying at the rate of the foreign protections (which are worse than ours). Companies that have their employees-to-be-fired train their H1-B replacements, that shows at the very least the new hires don't have skills needed.

    The real question is, what do these foreign workers have that they deserve to use us? There are certainly exceptions, such as the rare (in comparison) actually skilled individual. They can likely get in through other means aside from a temp worker program.

  5. multiculturalism is propaganda fuel of immigration by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 2, Insightful

    we can only stop the mass immigration invasion of cheap foreign labor when we realize that the plutocrats/corporations have been molding the minds of young americans via the educational curriculum using anti-white race-guilt propaganda. They tell young and impressionable whites that racism is the ultimate evil, and that being against the foreign invasion of third worlders is racist. Stop the multiculti indoctrination of edupropaganda --that is the first step.

  6. Easy Solution To H1B Problem by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Have the local IT union hold the H1B. They can make sure the H1B's wages are exactly the same as anyone else's and if the H1B guy doesn't like the company, the union can place him somewhere else.

    Also: Create a local IT union. Seriously. You people keep complaining that you're getting fucked and fucked and fucked and yet the moment someone suggests creating a union... well... comments to follow.

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    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  7. Re:you cannot fight the tide by rcase5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't buy that. Much of the innovation that occurs in the technology originates here in the United States. The only reason we're seeing this "competition" from the rest of the world is technology execs (mostly American) see a way to do much of the same work for less money. So they're simply taking advantage of what they see is a relatively cheap international labor market.

    The problem with this is, if we keep giving away the store like we are now, innovation will start happening more and more in other countries, and less and less here. What American tech execs don't realize is, with innovation occurring outside the United States, they'll be less call for their services as well. Then they'll be the ones crying poor mouth because they no longer have their cushy jobs and vacation homes around the world. The irony will be is that they did it to themselves.

    It's standard American business practice to do things as cheaply as possible without regard to the consequences. So while American business "eats it's own tail", to to speak, there will be less and less to go around. Then, we'll be the third-world country, and countries where we once shopped for cheap tech labor will be shopping for cheap labor here. I don't see this happening for a good long while, but it will happen eventually if we aren't careful. The point is it doesn't have to happen at all.

    Some more food for thought: H1-B Visas are issued by the United States Government. The U.S. Government is supposed to represent the interests of the American people. We need to make our voices heard to our representatives. If our representatives don't act the way we want, then we need to replace them with representatives who will. We do not have to accept a lower standard of living if we don't want to. If we do, then it's our own fault!

  8. Work permits for the 1% ONLY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Give a work permit to anyone with $250k+ of W2 income per year: they'd have to post a bond for the equivalent in taxes for their first year.
    That would cover 90% of foreign job creators, and exclude 90% of job destroyers (cheap indentured servants).

    Full disclosure: I came to the US 17 years ago as an L1, then H1B.
    In that time I've created lots of jobs and paid > $10m in Fed and local taxes, but I'm a strong opponent of the current H1B system.
    It's crony capitalism at its worst.

  9. Re:Please Let Me Play Devils Advocate by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which is PRECISELY why the corporations MUST be controlled via strong force of law, NOT relaxed pampering and pandering.

    Since a corporations fiduciary obligation is the center of the corporation's universe, and all other considerations take second or even third stage (if at all!), then some other agency MUST step in to intercede to protect the system from the otherwise inevitable collapse. THAT IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT.

    The problem is that government panders to the corporations and gives them whatever they want, (and what they want is less legal restrictions on their ability to meet their fiduciary obligations, at the expense of all other concerns and practices) instead of busting their chops and holding their asses to the fire so they have to fly right.

    Going "But think of the poor corporations, just doing what they are forced to do by their evil share holders!" is bullshit. Instead, you should be demanding that government do its fucking job, instead of whoring itself out for career re-election dollars.