Will Ceiling Fall?

Date: Monday, April 28, 2003 6:02 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Harris Miller, president of the ITAA, may be changing course. For years
he has been the king of H-1B shills. Now he seems to be hinting that he
is going to pay more attention to outsourcing. ITAA's lobbying in New
Jersey against the anti-outsourcing bill may be just one example of
what we might expect from him in the future. Harris Miller said:

"Offshore is the challenge, not H-1Bs. It's more of a
challenge to [have workers] be paid one-third or one-fourth
of what U.S. workers are being paid than have [companies]
saying, 'Bring workers here."

Miller seemed very coy about whether he would lobby to keep the yearly
cap on H-1Bs at it's present high level.

This article discusses the fact that the number of H-1Bs entering the
country has dropped, but it doesn't mention the fact that there are
between 400,000 - 900,000 H-1Bs working in U.S. - and that isn't even
counting the L-1s. The point was made that even if H-1B is reduced, the
jobs might not ever come back anyway. Even if true, Congress should
abolish H-1B so that American citizens can have those jobs back.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1037113,00.asp

April 21, 2003
Will Ceiling Fall?

By Lisa Vaas

During the year he was out of work due to a dearth of consulting work,
Boris Galinsky devoted his time not only to a job search but also to
educating and haranguing legislators about the reasons so many tech
workers are jobless in the first place.

"I didn't want to take [the job situation] lying down," said Galinsky,
in Summit, N.J. "Something has to be done about the practice of giving
away our jobs to foreign workers."

Galinsky's campaign didn't end when he got rehired. He is still one of
a growing number of irate technology workers some unemployed, some
underemployed, some simply concerned that has been meeting with U.S.
and state lawmakers.

The purpose of the meetings: Galinsky and others like him are being
galvanized not only by technology job loss but also by the possibility
of getting legislators to push down the H-1B visa ceiling. That quota
is scheduled to drop from its current level of 195,000 to 65,000 by
Oct. 1, failing U.S. congressional action to maintain current numbers.

How likely is that? Early signs show that legislators such as Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., after
watching jobs vanish in their areas, may vote to lower the ceiling. In
addition, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee the agency that determines key immigration
legislation such as the ceiling number earlier in the year addressed an
Indian business group, telling members that the H-1B visa program will
be "tightened," according to reports in Indian newspapers.

Participation in pro-labor groups such as the Programmers Guild is also
growing, with technology workers "crawling out of the woodwork" to
tackle issues involving technology jobs, said John Miano, former
chairman of the guild.

So many people are showing up at Programmers Guild meetings which are
held in Morris Plains, N.J. that the group is considering splitting in
two.

Meanwhile, groups that have traditionally lobbied for a high visa
ceiling including the Information Technology Association of America and
India's National Association of Software and Service Companies are
keeping a low profile.

Nasscom did not reply to requests for information. Harris Miller,
president of the ITAA, based in Arlington, Va., said ITAA's member
companies have not had to press for a high H-1B visa cap because demand
for the visas has been declining sharply only 79,100 were issued in
fiscal year 2002, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service.

The ITAA is "just going to see the way things go," rather than push to
keep the 195,000 level, Miller said.

Indeed, with the mounting political pressure, many industry watchers
expect the ceiling to fall. But some experts say it will be a matter of
closing the barn door after the horse has run away, since many jobs
have already been shipped overseas.

"The door may have already closed, as far as H-1B visas go," said Rep.
Ballenger. "More and more of our tech jobs, all the big banks and
telecommunications companies, they're hiring out jobs in India."

For Ballenger, the message from his constituents has been loud and
clear the fewer H-1B visas granted, the better. Ballenger's district is
home to a number of fiber-optic cable companies' manufacturing
facilities.

Companies including Alcatel, Corning Inc. and CommScope Inc. used to
employ 17,000 people in North Carolina before the economy tanked; the
number of jobs in that sector has since shrunk to between 4,000 and
5,000, Ballenger said, as unemployment in his district remains above 9
percent.

Offshore outsourcing has also contributed to the ITAA's disinterest
when it comes to lobbying for a higher ceiling.

"Offshore is the challenge, not H-1Bs," Miller said. "It's more of a
challenge to [have workers] be paid one-third or one-fourth of what
U.S. workers are being paid than have [companies] saying, 'Bring
workers here.'"

Senior Writer Lisa Vaas can be reached at lisa_vaas@ziffdavis.com.

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