With Carly Fiorina As Running Mate, Cruz's H-1B Stance Now In Question (computerworld.com)

dcblogs quotes a report from Computerworld: In 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz emerged as one of the Senate's top H-1B visa supporters, and argued for a 500% visa cap increase. But during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Cruz had a conversion. Cruz's presidential platform proposed a $110,000 minimum wage for visa workers, among other restrictions, as a way of ending their use as low-cost labor. The move marked a complete turnabout on the H-1B issue. Cruz's decision Wednesday to add former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate if he wins the nomination, may make his newly found H-1B beliefs a hard sell. At HP, Fiorina was a prominent supporter of the offshore outsourcing model, said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at Howard University. "To pump up profits, she was an early adopter of the practice, which given HP's status as a leading Silicon Valley firm, pushed other firms to adopt offshoring," said Hira. As offshoring gained, Fiorina played a leading role in defending globalization. To make her point, in 2004, Fiorina said: "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Comments

Re:Why does Slashdot oppose H-1B?

[amiga3D]

I think the problem is bringing them here at the same wages they make in India. If they force the corps to pay them a wage equivalent to what an American worker in the same job normally makes then it's not a problem. Using them as cheap labor is racist.

-1 Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I modded you down because I disagree with you. It's not racism. H-1B takes jobs away from qualified Americans. I hope I was quick enough that nobody sees your post. Please stop posting crap that's wrong. Otherwise I'll keep modding down all of your garbage that I disagree with. I'm posting anonymously so I don't undo your well deserved downmod.

- chipschap

Re:-1 Disagree

[AK Marc]

The H1-B visa holders are doing jobs Americans are willing and able to take (illegal) and the H1-B visa holders are being paid below market for the position (also illegal).

What do you see that makes you think they are being done right?

Re:-1 Disagree

[Shadow99_1]

Well the main problem in general is no one checks the 'why' in why a person is not hired. The companies get to say "We tried to find a local, but none were suitable for this position", the majority get thrown out during the paperwork phase before even getting an interview. Less than 1% get interviews and of those any reason under the sun is 'valid'. Technically they can't avoid hiring you for age, gender, or other protected status traits, but even that happens all the time because the company doesn't even have to tell you why you weren't hired. Most people get form letters that simply say "We found a more qualified applicant". Which is hilarious if the same job then appears in the paper (or online) the next week at that same company.

If the company had to disclose why they didn't hire someone and could only hire an H1B for skill, things would be much different. The companies would hate it though.

Re:-1 Disagree

[Trailer Trash]

Well the main problem in general is no one checks the 'why' in why a person is not hired. The companies get to say "We tried to find a local, but none were suitable for this position", the majority get thrown out during the paperwork phase before even getting an interview. Less than 1% get interviews and of those any reason under the sun is 'valid'. Technically they can't avoid hiring you for age, gender, or other protected status traits, but even that happens all the time because the company doesn't even have to tell you why you weren't hired. Most people get form letters that simply say "We found a more qualified applicant". Which is hilarious if the same job then appears in the paper (or online) the next week at that same company.

If the company had to disclose why they didn't hire someone and could only hire an H1B for skill, things would be much different. The companies would hate it though.

I looked at the requirements for hiring H1Bs as an employer - this is pretty much spot on. You basically have to swear that you can't find a local qualified worker and that's the end of it. Oh, and pay a few thousand bucks to the government. After that you can bring your H1B(s) over as long as you get a slot.

The whole thing needs to be shut down. You can read elsewhere on here where I describe the conditions around my wife coming here 23 years ago as an H1A. It's the exact same thing only in the medical industry. Most of the foreign nurses that you see here are the equivalent of the cheap programmer, with the main difference being that nursing is easier (bluntly speaking) and more standardized with a required board exam, so they do as good a job as an American would. Just much cheaper, and that's the point. Get rid of H1B and wages would rise and more Americans would be interested in being nurses. Allowing H1Bs simply manipulates the market in favor of business, cronyism 101.

Re:-1 Disagree

[kilfarsnar]

Funny. When lefties talk about illegal immigration from Mexico they're all "tear down the wall" "no human is illegal" and so on. But when they talk about H1B, i.e. something that makes THEM loose jobs, instead of some "dirty rotten fascist Republican-voting redneck in his farm in Texas" then suddenly it seems that all men may be made equal, but when it comes to techie jobs, Americans are more equal than Asians.

You know what's even funnier, other than your caricature of "lefties"? That you think the Right gives a crap about illegal immigration. There is one sure way to stop illegal immigration: aggressively identify and prosecute the businesses that hire them. If they can't get jobs, they won't come here. But you don't hear or see anyone doing that, do you? That's how you know that no one, left or right, gives crap. So forget "lefties". Look to the Chamber of Commerce and the politicians they have in their pocket.

Only complete idiots

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

ever believed Cruz's "H1-B visa stance". It's all just propaganda. Before he started running he was advocating for a 500% increase in H1-B visas in 2013.

Re:Carly Fiorina is...

[MightyMartian]

She was an utter moron, the very picture of the idiot CEO who has no fucking idea what the business they've been put in charge of does, and just starts running amok through various business units, building debt with shit purchases, and then firing the R&D people because they can't get the two or three quarter turnarounds the fucking retards put on the Board by the institutional investors (read: corporate rapists) think is needed.

Who cares?

[jenningsthecat]

Cruz strikes me as an opportunist who will engage in policy-based evidence making. It doesn't matter how good or bad the H1-B program is - he will denigrate it or support it based entirely on what will win votes and/or please major campaign contributors and/or result in some concession in some sleazy backroom deal. Cruz will do with H1-B whatever gains him the most political capital, and Carly's position is irrelevant.

Not that Cruz is much different from most of the other contenders, Democrat or Republican.

Re:In question now?

[MightyMartian]

The guy is a sociopath. He has no sincerely held views, no real beliefs, he's just a pure political animal, a Frank Underwood with eyeliner.

And the other side

[s.petry]

H1Bs even if implemented "correctly" are bad for the nation. If that person is so exceptional, the company can pay for them to immigrate. You know, like we did for the majority of human history.

Your thesis works if, and only if, there is a single global economy with the same rules for all workers. The whole "but we are global" argument falls flat on it's face because that scenario does not, and will not ever, exist. It's always about higher profits at the expense of the worker, always. If China required unemployment insurance, health insurance, retirement plans, caps on hours a person was allowed to work and/or forced to work, and all of the safety and regulation training companies are required to provide in the US, do you think labor would still be pennies on the dollar in exchange? H1B workers receive huge tax breaks, and allow companies to bypass legal work restrictions. You know, like that one company who literally had slaves escape last year who were here on H1B visas? (One of how many obvious violations, and how many under the table threats.. yeah)

Look, if Politicians and Uber wealthy people really had _your_ interests in mind they would stop lining their own pockets and start lining yours. They don't, you are delusional if you believe they are on your side and looking out for you, the end.

Re:He doesn't have a running mate...

[shanen]

The party bosses hate Cruz just slightly less than Trump. They'll try to find a way to nominate !Jeb but failing that it'll be Rubio or Kasich. It should be an interesting election. They say Hillary will get the women's vote and I suspect that is true but I don't know that many men that feel good about her. I guess I'll end up voting for whoever runs against her. I just hope it's not !Jeb.

I don't like Hillary that much, but I have to respect her for her taste in enemies. Mindless and irrational, usually sexist.

Congratulations. You're 3 out of 3!

Anyway, my #1 beef with Hillary is her personal identity. All of us have many of them, but I think her top one is probably "corporate lawyer" and certainly not "idealist". It's Bill Clinton who is first and foremost a "politician". Probably Obama, too.

None of which is related to the original H1B topic, unless you [amiga3D] are one of the folk who think President Obama needs one. (Also, I don't think Trump believed the birther nonsense any more than he believes most of the crazy stuff he says. His #1 identity is "salesman" or "con man" and he is just telling the 'customers' (the so-called Republicans voting in the primaries) what they want to hear.)

Re:He doesn't have a running mate...

[MachineShedFred]

I have no idea why people paint dislike of Hillary as automatically sexist. I have no problem with her being a woman. I do have a problem with a leading candidate for President being a habitual liar, a follower of the poll of the week rather than a leader who joins the debate in order to sway public opinion, and someone with a long history of patronage and hypocrisy.

None of that has jack shit to do with gender.