Harris Miller goes to Tamil Nadu

Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 10:28 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Harris Miller gave the Tamil Nadu State Council quite a pep talk about
the future of outsourcing. He assured them that unlike Europe, the
free-traders in the United States will continue to send jobs to India.
He wants to use the WTO to ensure that American workers are powerless
to protect their jobs.

Miller also commented that the "anti-immigration campaigners" against
H-1B don't have an economic argument. He is correct that corruption and
abuse occur, but he avoided the real issue. Our major complaint is that
H-1B legally allows the wholesale replacement of American workers - and
that's an economic argument that can't be disputed.

One thing for sure, Miller got it right when he called H-1B a regime:
"The ITAA fully supports expansion of the visa regime on condition that
there is fair play", Mr. Miller declared.

One question about his condition: Fair play for who?

http://www.hinduonnet.com//2001/03/16/stories/0616000d.htm

'Indian IT industry can benefit from opening of service sector'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MARCH 15. It will be in the interest of India realising the
full potential of its information technology (IT) industry if it
resists protectionist impulses and advocates free trade in the next
round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, according to Mr.
Harris Miller, President of the Information Technology Association of
America (ITAA).

India's IT industry will benefit if there is progress in the opening up
of the service sector, which is one of the largest clientele of IT, Mr.
Miller said today.

Speaking at the annual session of the Tamil Nadu State Council of the
Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region (CII-SR), Mr. Miller
expressed the hope that India would not emulate the example of some
European countries, which were keen on constraining the IT industry
through taxes and regulation of content. ``In the eyes of the world,
India is not just a developing country, but a leading democracy and
economy, to which other developing countries look for leadership'' in
global negotiations, he said.

Mr. Miller, who is also the head of the World Information Technology
and Services Alliance (WITSA), said there was no need for pessimism on
the future of IT merely because of the ups and downs in the stock
market. The present decline in the valuation of several dot.com and IT
companies was a good development, inasmuch as the earlier bullish trend
did not reflect the poor business potential of several companies.

Mr. Miller also discounted the possibility of the U.S. economic growth
trends affecting the Indian IT industry in the medium and long term.
The growth rate that the U.S. economy had recorded in 1999-2000 was too
high to be sustainable. But this did not mean there would be a negative
growth or recession in the U.S.

He cited results of surveys that showed that the bulk of the companies
covered were planning an increase in spending on IT in the current
year. A substantial part this spending would be directed at
strengthening security in cyberspace.The U.S. IT market offered ``not
guarantees but opportunities'' to the Indian IT industry, which would
have to compete with others from Eastern Europe or Asian countries such
as the Philippines and Vietnam. Opportunities would expand particularly
for offshore development, he said. Pointing out that the sharp increase
in the aggregate H1B visa ceiling to nearly two lakhs had been approved
almost unanimously by the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives,
Mr. Miller said anti-immigration campaigners would be strengthened not
by their economic arguments, but by abuses of the H1B visas, even if by
a handful of foreign IT companies.

``Indian IT companies should play by the rules of the game, and not
resort to false representation of facts to visa officials or evade wage
standards. The ITAA fully supports expansion of the visa regime on
condition that there is fair play'', Mr. Miller declared.

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