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Will Trump Protect America's IT Workers From H-1B Visa Abuses? (cio.com.au)
Monday president-elect Donald Trump sent "the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office," according to CIO.
Slashdot reader OverTheGeicoE summarizes their report:
President-elect Donald Trump released a video message outlining his policy plans for his first 100 days in office. At 1 minute, 56 seconds into the message, he states that he will direct the Department of Labor to investigate "all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker." During his presidential campaign, Trump was critical of the H-1B visa program that has been widely criticized for displacing U.S. high-technology workers. "Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans," said Trump at an Ohio rally. At other rallies, Trump invited former IT workers from Disney who had been forced to train their H-1B replacements to speak.
"What he didn't say was that he was going to close the door to skilled immigrants," one tech entrepreneur told CNN Money -- although Trump's selection for attorney general has called the shortage of qualified American tech workers "a hoax".
"What he didn't say was that he was going to close the door to skilled immigrants," one tech entrepreneur told CNN Money -- although Trump's selection for attorney general has called the shortage of qualified American tech workers "a hoax".
As with all things Trump, you'll never know until he does it. The best "advice" I saw was to ignore the mouth in front of the man.
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Go to the transition website. Use the feature to submit an idea and tell them about H1B abuse. I did. Probably does nothing. Couldn't hurt. Tell them if your company is doing it. Name names and give numbers. I did. Probably does nothing. Couldn't hurt.
Look at who he is stocking his cabinet with... If you think he is going to do anything to protect workers, you drank too much of the koolaid.
Despite the things you expect him to fuck up, he will probably do some beneficial things, too... with an eye towards beneficial is in the eye of the beholder.
Geeesh! Are there no wives tales left?
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The most common usage I see in Seattle is through contracting firms. Usually Indian 'mom and pop' ones that already have their green card running several H1B 'spots'. If you are an immigrant, you pay in to them for the opportunity to be hired for a job through their company. So you get to live in the US and go on interviews till someone hires you, then you pay that time off by getting shit pay while they charge 5 or 6 times more than they pay you. Consulting and contract companies should never be allocated H1B.
They would have offshored it to begin with if offshoring was the same as hiring cheap on-shore labor. Even at its most evil, doing H1B involves a bunch over inherent overhead that doesn't exist in pure offshoring.
It's not the same, though, because they gain a bunch of benefits from on-premise H1Bs they wouldn't have with off-shoring -- control over the product, direct management involvement, less travel, an ability to use H1B labor more strategically through partial replacement, and so on.
If they can't use H1B, offshoring isn't a direct replacement. A business may decide that the added costs and risks of total offshoring aren't worth it.
IMHO, part of the goal here is make business incur either the total cost of offshoring or hire American workers. Maybe in some cases they decide for offshoring completely, but I think in many cases the calculus would work out that the incremental cost of losing all on-shore benefits was higher than hiring and paying American workers.
Remember folks, in many cases companies will simply offshore the work if they don't perceive American labor as the most cost-effective option.
Labor isn't the only cost. Why do you think that offshore companies want to relocate workers here to the United States on visas rather than basing them in say India or wherever they're from? Here in the US a worker benefits from strong military and police protection, rule of law, good infrastructure, reliable power supply, large concentrations of the best educated and most experienced tech workers in the world and the list goes on. Compare that with a country like India say, where the power is only on about half the time, you need a fortress campus with armed guards, you need to build your own infrastructure (water purification, power, sewage, etc) because the local shit for brains government provides nothing. American workers paying American taxes built America. It's our right to benefit from that first. If a company wants to relocate to an offshore shit hole and compete from there, more power to them, but we must end the H1-B visa fraud at the expense of our American workers. It's our country. We voted for Trump so that he would throw the bums out. Let them compete from their developing nations, but it's time to send the liars, cheaters and scammers a message that the party is over. From now on we're going to be looking out for America first and that includes the American worker.
Hard to say for sure since Trump himself probably doesn't know but I found this quote interesting:
...
"Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said he had already been in communication with members of Mr. Trump's transition team, as the chamber pushes its priorities like securing approval for the Keystone Pipeline, the oil pipeline project blocked by the Obama administration, or reopening more federal lands to oil and gas exploration."
"The chamber already knows there are certain items Mr. Trump has said he will not support, like the current versions of trade deals with Asia or comprehensive changes in the nation's immigration laws, which the chamber pushed during Mr. Obama's tenure. But there are aspects of each of these plans, like increasing the number of visas for highly skilled foreign workers, that Mr. Josten said he expects Mr. Trump to endorse.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/politics/lobbyists-trump.html
The H1B visa workers help foster profits for the top mangers of the companies that employ them. Donald Trump's policies are _all_ aimed at putting power and money in the hands of the wealthy. It should be trivial, as the president and with a Rep8ublican congress, to "reduce H1B visas" for his supporting voters but leave in large loopholes to protect their broad corporate use.
Yep. If he gets out of line the GOP congress will impeach him on any one of his many real scandals resulting in Mike Pence as president.
There are split teams: An American team as well as an Indian team. We've been doing this since the late nineties. And over the years, the ratio of American/Indian work has steadily fell.
It boosts the ROI of the product. And that's what's gonna continue to happen. As companies like mine continue to send more and more work that is getting more and more complicated, the Indians are getting better and better and I dare say that in most instances they are just a good as Americans now.
Don't forget, quite a few who went to school and worked over here went back home and opened up shop. So, my point is that offshoring has come to the point where American work can be off-shored without compromises.
I didn't vote for him but I have to wonder... what if he does a good job? What if he was actually able to do better than previous presidents?
I think the man is very vain. He is 70 years old. But a righteous legacy would be something he might sell his soul for.
He does know business and money. But it's real estate. Which means construction and turnover. Other rich don't necessarily like him because he doesn't care about keeping them rich. He is anti PAC. He has committed that his own cabinet won't be able to turn around and take insider jobs at companies. He is politically and financially not a friend to the rich.
I compare him to Nixon whom was also both very smart and naive about certain things. While Reagan wanted to outspend Russia in the cold war. Nixon wanted to steer China toward a liberal Fascism by marrying them to money and markets. (Kind of similar to how old kingdoms would arrange marriage [hostages] and guests so that there were personal ties of interest to both.) But China isn't spending western money. It's more like they are trying to bankrupt western nations.
Back on topic: Trump seems to support a more protectionist economy with an eye at least toward balancing trade. So it makes sense for him to be anti loop hole H1B. EVERYONE knows it's about cheaper tech workers to keep down tech salaries. I can only wish he would audit American companies and well known brands and show how they cheated the system and for how much. But he will use that instead as bargaining power; maybe shame a couple known companies in the beginning.
I think shamming companies on public TV will be a major theme for him. He does understand the PR game and how that would affect their stock prices in the short run. I expect an across the board minimum tax for businesses at least in the low double digits with phase ins and tax breaks for those that move/build facilities for manufacturing here. So there will definitely be a boom in construction and real estate which is generally good for the middle class.
This I believe is the problem H1B visa utilization today. As long as the balance sheet at the end of the quarter shows that it was the better economical decision, then they will continue to use it as currently design. Its original intent was to bring in outside talent not available in the local work force and the minimum pay was a "fixed amount". THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Instead of a fixed amount a percentage above the industry standard rate could effectively close this loophole as this could allow the company to get a person who has the skills currently at a higher rate than what they are paying an existing employee or a potential new employee.
Disney and others went a step further than that and had their current staff "train" the cheaper H1B visa holders as replacements, thus blatantly abusing the visa program as a whole.
that the grifter who's been cheating people for 70s years and who doesn't pay his contractors is gonna keep on doing what he's been doing.
But it's a moot point anyway. His cabinet picks alone are all other completely corrupt, completely incompetent or both. Whatever he wants to do doesn't matter. The important decisions will be made for him to the benefit of the 1% and the detriment of the rest of us.
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Here's the trend I'm seeing - unless you have the talent to go to Stanford, MIT or some other top school, you're not going to have much of a career here as an American.
I graduated from the eighth grade with fifth grade math and writing skills, and college-level reading comprehension. I never went to high school. When I entered the community college, it took two years of remedial classes and two years of college classes to graduate with an A.A. degree in General Ed. A decade later I would go back to get an A.S. in Computer Programming and make the college president's list for maintaining a 4.0 GPA in my major. I'm in my 22th year of my technical career.
Once you're in test or support, you're stuck there.
What's wrong with test or support? I've done software testing for six years, help desk support for six years, PC refresh projects and built out data centers on short-term contracts, and I'm currently doing computer security for government IT. These are not glamorous jobs (a.k.a., virtual ditch digging) but someone has to do them.
Yep. If he gets out of line the GOP congress will impeach him on any one of his many real scandals resulting in Mike Pence as president.
Not sure what delusions you have but impeaching their own president would be an ever bigger scandal for the GOP and be a months long circus show so unless it's proven that he takes orders direct from Putin it'd never happen. And even then they'd probably bury their heads in the sand and claim it's a fabrication. A million to one odds that won't happen.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The factors are complex. You also have to factor in demand and cost of living. FYI, a large tech company whose initials are HPE is shutting down Silly Valley RnD for "lower cost geographies". They just don't want to pay the salaries developers demand to work there.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
No site licence needed to learn/teach C++. gcc is free (and runs on windows too, not only linux).
According to the surveys that the college sent out to the surrounding Silicon Valley companies, employers wanted Visual Studio for their C++ programmers. Administration had declared that C++ can't be taught without Visual Studio. The dean taught C++ with gcc in his Linux Admin classes. When the college renewed the Microsoft site license, Visual Studio .NET refused to run on the older computers. The dean had everyone boot into Linux and taught the C++ class with gcc instead, as the textbook was compiler neutral.
If there is steady work in it so what. I have a friend who ended up in AC electrical despite wanting to get into micro electronics, which later begat computer engineering et. al. He always had steady work, commercial and industrial, and he figured that while his salary looked lower than some of his friends and cohorts he made more money over 20+ years because his line of work rarely had layoffs. He never went months with out pay and he never had to dip into savings.
To heck with sexy tech, show me the money.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
hmm, first of all including graduates and other exemptions it's more. Second of all it's about 100k+ new ones per year so about 600k working h1b's at any given moment. If your numbers are right its about 10% of tech workforce. Also you have to remember that tech jobs in a wide classification and only a part of those jobs are h1b targets unproportionally dev jobs.
As someone in a management position in an indian IT shop, we would rather keep workers here in india. Margins are much higher (~90%) for indian labour than an H1B(50%). Infrastructure is pretty good in india - the govt helps with a lot of the infrastructure, and infrastructure costs are even more cheaper in india. Plus the IT industry is exempt from labour laws so you can make 'em work long hours, weekends, whatever. Developers are seen as mostly disposable - colleges churn out tons of STEM grads, so most of the older ones who don't leave or don't work their asses off are kicked out in the name of performance anyway to make way for young blood.
Power gone for half the time and armed guards? Power is not an issue in the cities, and armed guards? even the cops here don't carry arms. only the ones in our movies do.
the only reason we do H1B's is when a client insists on someone there. and we try to discourage them as far as we can.
I had a 3.9 on my Calculas and Computer Science classes, but because I got a D+ in Chemistry and a D in Middle Eastern History (mostly because I just didn't give a damn about those classes), I had to apply for an excemption and personally argue my case to avoid being removed from Ohio State University's engineering school.
So what do you do about the parts of a programming job that you don't give a damn about? D+ and D-level work?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No it would not.
If it were only the popular vote, then approx 3 states or so would call the shots for ALL the states in the union, and that does not represent the vastly different interests of each state due to its peoples' outlooks, and its needs based on its geography.
We'd basically have CA and NY for the most part deciding the presidents for the US going forward.
The way things were set up, you are a citizen of your STATE first...and then a citizen of the United States. This is for a very good reason. One size in a nation this large does not fit. That's why most power is supposed to reside with each state and the federal govt is constitutionally supposed to be weak in regard to that balance of power.
But we are a nation of states....and the balance needs to be kept on that level, not on pure population levels in very isolated regions.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You say that as if it means something. It doesn't. The goal of the candidates was to win the electoral vote, not the popular vote. It has been this way in the US for 200+ years. Both candidates knew this and based their campaign strategy on it. If the goal was to win the popular vote, it would have been a different campaign, different people would have voted, and Trump may have won that, too.
When the contest is for the electoral vote, candidates concentrate on campaigning in the swing states while giving relatively little attention to states that are already heavily in favor of one candidate or the other. If the contest was for the popular vote, candidates would campaign in the largest population centers instead.
With the current system, a Republican voter in a heavily Democratic state (or vice versa) may as well not vote, because it won't count anyway. If the winner was based on the popular vote, everyone's vote would count, and people would come out to vote regardless of which way their state was leaning.
They are different games. You can't say, "We lost the football game, but we would have won if it was rugby." Well, you could, but people would just laugh at you.
No ... the only thing that matters is some kind of ratty conspiracy theory connection between politifact and Democrats. Add a gratuitous slur on mrs. Clinton (nevermind that several investigative committees failed to come up with paydirt).
Nah, typical Trump supporters don't deal with facts. Too much hassle. Makes their poor little minds tired and confused.
Much better go with something that sounds good and writes quick. Like a hint at conspiracy. Saves time, thinking, and effort. Great!
I don't have a problem. People who don't understand how (and why) the system works have a problem. Let's look at an example...
In California, Hillary won the popular vote by about 3 million votes. But it doesn't matter whether she won by 3 million, 1 million, or 10 million. It was a foregone conclusion that Hillary would win California and its 55 electoral votes, so neither candidate spent much time there. And I suspect many California Republicans did not vote, because they knew their vote wouldn't matter anyway. But if the election were to be based on the popular vote, the campaign would have been completely different -- the candidates would have concentrated their efforts on the most populous states (like California) and ignored the smaller states. Voter turnout would have been different and the results would have been different.
This is not a bug, it is a feature. It was designed this way so that smaller states would not, in effect, be shut out of the presidential election. For example, the population of California is about 65 times the population of Wyoming, but only has about 18 times the electoral votes. Without this protection, smaller states would have been reluctant to join the Union in the first place.
You might argue that the system should be changed. But when the system, as it is, is based on the electoral vote, candidates run their campaigns to win the electoral vote and the winner of the electoral vote becomes president. The results of the popular vote are irrelevant because that is not what they were campaigning for. If the winner was based on the popular vote, it would have been a different campaign and a different election -- and Trump may have won anyway.
Even if it's unfair compulsory stuff has to be taken seriously and if it was an elective you are suppose to try to pass.
Back when I was teaching in the 1990s I kept being pestered by first year electrical engineering students that thought an incredibly easy and dumbed down materials science subject (with a lot about semiconductors) was not relevant to them. They kept saying they would just hire someone who knew the stuff, as if they would have the authority to actually do something like that in their internship or first job. They seemed to think it was as irrelevant as Middle Eastern History to them.
From looking from the other side of the fence that happens a lot and only complete bastards remove people from courses when they fail things outside of the core stream.
American workers paying American taxes built America.
Guess where H1B workers pay their taxes in?..
In fact, they pay more than you, because they pay all the welfare taxes too, but aren't eligible for any of it.
It's a feature, but the purpose isn't to make smaller states relevant. The feature exists because the framers of the Constitution didn't trust direct democracy and wanted electors who would buck the will of the people if those people were making a bad choice. We can argue about unintendedeffects like increasing the voice of middle-America, but that wasn't it's intent.
If it were only the popular vote, then approx 3 states or so would call the shots for ALL the states in the union
This is wrong.
If it's a popular vote, States don't matter. No one will be fighting for votes in Bakersfield, California. Even though California is the highest population state. Instead, popular vote would mean cities are the important target for a presidential candidate. Those are much more geographically distributed than you imply.
Additionally, you're ignoring the fact that Republican voters in states like CA and NY, and Democratic voters in states like TX would actually matter. Instead of being utterly ignored by Presidential candidates.
The balance for geography vs. population was designed to be in Congress, with the massively boost in power to rural states in the Senate. Since the number of Electors from each state is mostly controlled by the size of the House delegation, the Electoral College is not supposed to be the bulwark protecting rural states. In fact, if you apply the formula the Founders actually came up with for the size of the House, you get an Electoral College much closer to a popular vote.
That broke when we stopped expanding the House in the 1910s. Since we can't go below 1 House seat per state, we're left with a rural-overpowered House, a rural-dominated Senate, and a rural-overpowered President. Perhaps one federal election should actually give a damn about Los Angeles County, which has more people in it than 40 states. The Founders thought so when they created the House.
But we'd need more than 1000 House seats to actually have it represent "the people" as intended, and that's a massive logistical nightmare. So perhaps we should have presidential elections fill more of that role. It would be a lot easier than building 2-3 more Capitol buildings and tripling the population of DC.
Trump will do what is in his best interests. In this case I believe he will almost certainly follow up on his claim to "fix" the H1b abuses. Why?
4 Reasons:
1) It literally has zero negative impact on his own business holdings
2) He ran (and won) on bringing American jobs back
3) If he wants to win those "Blue" states on re-election like California this is the way to do it. Same idea except white collar VS blue
4) It give the middle finger to all those IT CEO's that bad mouthed him in the past election
Seem pretty straight forward to me. As for other republicans trying to block him, I don't think it will work, as some other had mentioned, he pretty much got elected without a lot of republican support to begin with and I don't think he would even blink before throwing a few republic opponents under the bus and fast if only as simply a statement of who is boss...
As to how fair or draconian the actual policy will be or even how effective it is remains to be scene...