Congress faces decision on visas for foreign workers

Date: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 3:32 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Phyllis Schlafly's depth of understanding of the H-1B/L-1 issue is very
impressive.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/ps20030506.shtml

Congress faces decision on visas for foreign workers

Phyllis Schlafly (back to web version)

May 6, 2003

Congressional Republicans will soon have a chance to prove whether they
do the bidding of corporate contributors or side with hardworking
voters.

Corporations are lobbying to extend a Clinton Administration law that
raised the number of workers entering the United States with H-1B visas
to 195,000 a year. The law is scheduled to expire on Sept. 30 and
revert to the 1999 level of 65,000 H-1B workers per year.

H-1B visas allow corporations to displace U.S. citizens with skilled
labor imPORT 66,69,254,99,130,87 lost 241,000 jobs in the past two
years. Computer scientists and systems analysts lost 175,000 jobs, the
IEEE said.

IEEE president John Steadman said he has "never heard" of such high
unemployment, and that the wide-open importation of H-1B aliens has
substantially contributed to the hardship of U.S. engineers and
computer scientists. The result, he said, is "a very substantial and
negative effect on the economic conditions of the United States."

Corporations continue importing H-1B aliens at the same time they lay
off U.S. citizens. With hundreds of thousands of unemployed U.S.
engineers, why should corporations receive special privileges to import
even more foreign workers?

Corporations love H-1B aliens, not only because they work longer hours
for lower wages, but also because it is more difficult for them to
change jobs. This system is an affront to free enterprise because the
regulations confine the foreigners to their sponsoring corporations
like indentured servants.

Government officials don't check for violations of H-1B regulations or
determine if there really is an actual shortage of U.S. skilled
workers.

The national media treat H-1B visas as a non-issue, but local
newspapers across the country are full of reports about how U.S.
workers are laid off and replaced with foreign workers. The San Jose
Mercury News found scores of complaints filed by attorneys, the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission and the Departments of Justice and
Labor.

"One recruiter flatly told me they have 50 H-1Bs willing to work cheap
ahead of me in line," a Dallas database administrator said.

Another U.S. citizen who filed a complaint with the EEOC alleged that
SwitchOn Networks fired him after six months and replaced him with an
H-1B alien with less education and less experience, paying him $30,000
a year less.

Bob Simoni, who has a master's degree in business administration from
the University of California, Los Angeles, thought he had a good job
with Toshiba installing software, but Toshiba suddenly outsourced his
division to an India-based company, Infosys, which employs workers with
H-1B visas in the United States. Simoni was allowed to stay for three
weeks to do "knowledge transfer," a euphemism for training an H-1B
worker to replace him.

Computer science expert Dr. Norman Matloff provided ample proof to the
U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration that H-1B aliens
depress wages for all workers. He cited a UCLA study that H-1B
engineers were paid 33 percent less than comparable U.S. citizens; a
Cornell University study that found wages 20 percent to 30 percent
less; and a Forbes Magazine report that wages earned by workers with
H-1B visas are 25 percent to 30 percent less.

This is not free-market economics. It is collusion between corporations
that pour big money into politics to pass legislation that replaces
U.S. workers with foreign substitutes. The law keeps wages artificially
low for the benefit of corporate profits.

Another device used by employers to bring in alien workers is the L-1
visa. L-1 visas are intended to enable multinational corporations to
transfer executives, managers and employees with specialized skills
from a foreign office to a U.S. location or affiliate. But L-1 visas
have fewer stipulations and are easy to abuse.

Mike Emmons told how his former employer, Siemens ICN, used L-1 visas
to replace 20 U.S. computer workers with aliens from India.

"Management mandated we train our foreign replacements, then Americans
were shown the door," Emmons said. "It was the most demoralizing thing
I have ever experienced."

Tell your representatives in Congress that importing hundreds of
thousands of alien workers at a time of unemployment and economic
recession is not only absurd, but an insult to all U.S. citizens.

)2003 Copley News Service

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