Slashdot Mirror
Ted Cruz Wants Minimum H-1B Wage of $110,000 (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has morphed from a vocal supporter of the H-1B program to a leading critic of it. He has done so in a new H-1B reform bill (PDF) that sets a minimum wage of $110,000 for H-1B workers. By raising the cost of temporary visa workers, Cruz is hoping to discourage their use. Cruz also wants to eliminate Optional Practical Training Program (OPT). The co-sponsor of this bill, The American Jobs First Act of 2015, is U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who called the OPT program "a backdoor method for replacing American workers."
If a company truly needs expertise that just simply cannot be found in the US, then a six figure salary is probably a bargain. Of course, this will never pass. I can dream, though.
Ted Cruz used to be the Republican candidate who I considered the most arrogant, and most annoying to listen to (he started running for president years ago!).
Sometimes things change.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I still say Ted Cruz is actually Al Lewis from The Munsters.
Yea, I noticed that too... But still, Mr. Lewis certainly wouldn't have the same politics and I think he'd be more interesting to listen too. However, who he looks like has nothing to do with his politics....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This makes it an imperfect idea, perhaps... but not a bad one.
The main argument against H-1B visas (at least the most vocal argument) is that big corps are using cheap foreign labor to cut costs, at the expense of American workers. Do you disagree?
Putting a high threshold on entry is an elegant solution. Much more creative and clever than the usual thinking present in Washington. Maybe the exact numbers proposed are imperfect. Those can be fiddled with easily enough. But the broad concept of a minimum H-1B wage allows the original spirit of the H1B program to soldier forth -bringing the best and the brightest from around the world to help the USA- while reducing the abuse as laid out in the above paragraph.
The main argument against H-1B visas (at least the most vocal argument) is that big corps are using cheap foreign labor to cut costs, at the expense of American workers. Do you disagree?
It is one strong argument citing abuse. Other good arguments are: second class (non)citizens, lack of freedom to negotiate salaries, lack of freedom to leave bad employers, not to mention idealistic failure.
Putting a high threshold on entry is an elegant solution.
It is not high for say: engineering R&D, it's quite low, entry level in some fields. It may be high for IT... hard for me to say. However it WILL sound high to a lot of voting americans, particularly the ones voting republican. It is a political stunt. Divide your enemies against each other, most americans can't differentiate between "wealthier middle class" and "filthy rich". They do this all the time in union areas to try to deflate strikes.
bringing the best and the brightest from around the world to help the USA-
Or, we give qualified candidate first dibs at green cards, and allow them to negotiate with their own employer. Some might believe this is more in the spirit of "free market" than a federal fiat is. Except we don't like free markets when they work against the rich guy.
That salary might be low in some places and high in others. It might be low in one industry or high in another.
This.
H1-B jobs are supposed to be paid at the prevailing wage for the position and the industry it's in. We can be cynical about how some employers scoff at this and misuse H1-Bs, but the solution is to enforce the existing law, not break it with an unworkable across-the-board salary threshold.
The prevailing wage is not good enough because it can be gamed and also because foreign workers can be treated more harshly because they can't quit. A better solution would be pay the h1b holder the prevailing wage but then pay an additional 50% tax on their salary on top. I wouldn't be opposed to even a 100% tax. That money should then be donated to organizations that are able to train americans to do whatever job that apparently has no local talent (colleges, trade schools, etc.. depending on what industry the h1b1 is being granted in).
I used to work in network operations for a company that did this sort of thing. Housewife in Minot, ND, sits down to her computer in the spare bedroom and logs in. A script pops up on her computer and her phone rings. "Welcome to Chikin Lickin, may I take your order?" When done, a minute or two later, the popup/phone again, "Thank you for calling Fat Burner Delux, the miracle weight loss supplement endorsed by Dr. Oz." It could be anything that someone had contracted with the company to do "virtual call center" for, ranging from very much upstanding legitimate companies and organizations, to ... not so much.
At the time (it was years ago) their phone answering people were all U.S. based, and that was one of their selling points, that they were Americans and sounded like it. I'm not sure if that's still the case or not, but there's certainly little barrier to having phone reps anywhere on Earth.
That salary might be low in some places and high in others. It might be low in one industry or high in another.
This.
H1-B jobs are supposed to be paid at the prevailing wage for the position and the industry it's in. We can be cynical about how some employers scoff at this and misuse H1-Bs, but the solution is to enforce the existing law, not break it with an unworkable across-the-board salary threshold.
You need both: a requirement to pay at least the prevailing wage and a requirement to pay at least a fixed wage.
Prevailing wage should generally be best but, without a hard number, it is too easy to game. That is what the fixed minimum would come in. No matter how you classify a position to try to work around the prevailing wage requirement, you can't pay less than the fixed minimum.
The bill also calls for:
that within 730 daysâ"two yearsâ"of âoean employee strike, an employer lockout, layoffs, furloughs, or other types of involuntary employee terminations other than for-cause dismissals,â a company cannot bring aboard any H-1B labor
I think this is an even bigger deal than the $110k provision.
I aggree with this. The main problem is that H1B employees are fairly "trapped" in their job. That creates an artificial pool of employees that are likely not to leave the company which drives bargaining power down for the workers.
Also you could tie future H1B visa for a company to the number of retained H1B.
Silicon Valley tech companies that hire H-1Bs won't care much. Very few of their H-1B employees make less than $110K anyway. If the definition of "wage" includes not just base salary but also bonus (actual awarded amount) and stock (actual value, not some notional future value), then it's likely that all of their H-1B employees already meet this requirement.
Here are the numbers for 2015:
Rank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA * Average Salary
1 Infosys 23,816 $76,794
2 Tata Consultancy Services 14,096 $67,673
3 Wipro 8,365 $69,936
I suppose that these workers might have received some significant additional compensation above their salary, but my guess is that the probability is pretty close to zero.
These top three companies received 46,277 visas, which is over half of the total visa issued. Their average salaries are way below $110k.
If the speculation that companies above abuse H1B visas by importing low-wage earners is true, then the $110k wage limit would eliminate those visa uses. Of course, that assumes that the changes forces companies to actually pay that much. I can easily think of many ways to circumvent the $110k limit, including paying that amount and deducting most of it back (a la indentured servitude).
But the key point is that the abuse is predicated on saving money for the ultimate users of the companies' services. Kill off the financial incentive, and the problem completely disappears.
There is actually a reasonable case for some companies to need something like an H1B. There are actually quite a few US companies that pay decent H1B wages. Instituting a minimum financial threshold allows separation of these arguably more legitimate cases from the arguably job killing cases.
13 Google 3,059 $125,596
18 Amazon 1,600 $113,163
19 Qualcomm Technologies 1,585 $111,816
21 Apple 1,464 $133,593
24 Oracle America 1,073 $119,506
40 Facebook 780 $133,535
50 Ebay 664 $121,691
55 Yahoo! 619 $132,752
59 Paypal 576 $124,616
63 VM Ware 535 $121,203
70 Cisco Systems 494 $121,899
74 Salesforce.Com 483 $124,063
96 Linkedin 382 $139,634
Many tech companies already pay more than $100k per employee. Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. Making a minimum wage is a benefit for those companies, because they will be able to get more H1-B visas for themselves, whereas companies in middle-America where cost of living is lower won't be able to afford hiring people on the visa anymore.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."