Most 'green card' requests from Intel
Most 'green card' requests from Intel
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 1:19 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
May 18, 2005 No. 1261
In order to fully understand what Intel is up to in the article below,
it's necessary to understand how H-1B and Green Card visas differ when
it comes to the responsibilities of employers to look for qualified
American workers.
-- Green Card visas --
Employers are required to perform a "good faith" effort to recruit
American workers before they hire a foreign worker.
-- H-1B visas --
Employers are not required to look for a qualified American workers.
Employers can hire an H-1B without even considering a U.S. citizen.
The Green Card requirement is called a "labor market test" but it's
really nothing more than a loophole to allow employers to discriminate
against Americans. Typically employers use fake job ads in the local
newspaper to show that they looked for American workers. Employers
don't have to interview people that apply for the ads so the labor
market test is nothing but a charade to placate the public.
Go to the following webpage to see how Intel colludes with local
governments to run fake job ads. In this case, the State of Arizona did
a follow-up to question Intel but because Arizona has no enforcement
power nothing more than a paper shuffle occurred.
To learn how Intel rigs their hiring process, be sure to check out this
web page:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/Library/Archives/AZDES.htm
Kim Berry of the Programmer's Guild has done extensive research on the
issue of fake job ads. Intel claims that they look for Americans before
they file for Green Card visas but since the mid 1990's Intel has
gotten sloppy and very careless. Now they don't even bother running ads
in the newspaper - they just hire the Green Card holders without ever
considering hiring an American. Kim Berry's analysis follows the
article below and has further detail on Intel's flippant attitude
towards the law.
Intel spokeswoman Gail Dundas claims that before hiring foreign workers
on H-1B visas or green cards Intel makes "extensive efforts to hire
Americans". CEO Craig Barrett didn't share the same commitment to
hiring Americans when he recently told Thomas Friedman, "Intel can be a
totally successful company without ever hiring another American."
Unlike Dundas who is a professional corporate spin doctor, Barrett is
honest about his anti-American views.
Immigration attorney Joel Stewart was interviewed in the article and
without doubt he wants to keep his shameless reputation intact.
Stewart's infamous statement is a classic:
When employers feel the need to legalize aliens, it may
be due to a shortage of suitable U.S. workers, but even
in a depressed economy, Employers who favor aliens have
an arsenal of legal means to reject all U.S.
workers who apply.
Stewart's cavalier attitude towards the American workforce rears its
ugly head again. His statement about prevailing wages would be true if
the DOL enforced the prevailing wage law, but they don't. To borrow
Stewart's terminology, there is an arsenal of legal means to skirt the
prevailing wage laws, and perhaps even more important is that a
prevailing wage doesn't necessarily mean a fair wage.
"There is absolutely no way an H-1B or (green-card) worker
can be paid less than the prevailing wage. [Joel Stewart]
It's actually rather humorous that Stewart would say such a thing
because it's very well known how to underpay foreign workers. Stewart
is a member of AILA and probably gives seminars to employers on how to
underpay H-1Bs and other types of foreign workers. Be sure to read this
webpage to see how to underpay H-1Bs:
http://www.programmersguild.org/archives/howtounderpay.htm
The next statement is classic Joel Stewart. He thinks that foreign
workers are paid too much! If he had his way he would lower prevailing
wages to make sure they got paid less.
"Everyone in the business" considers the prevailing wages
too high, he said, rather than too low.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7869058/
Most 'green card' requests come from Intel
By Mark Larson
Sacramento Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET May 15, 2005
Over the past five years, companies based or active in Greater
Sacramento applied for more than 2,000 permanent worker certifications
for foreign-born employees -- known as "green cards" -- and about 75
percent of them have been granted, according to federal applications
data obtained by the Business Journal.
Nearly three-fourths of all the applications came from a single
company, but some major employers didn't show up at all. It's unclear
whether that's because they filed their applications from other sites,
had other companies handle their applications, or simply didn't seek
green cards. The application data covered companies that listed an
address in Sacramento, Davis, Folsom or Roseville, and a period from
Oct. 1, 1999 to Sept. 30, 2004.
The numbers add some definition to a continuing industry debate over
how extensively tech employers use foreign workers to fill U.S. jobs.
Critics call the practice a source of inexpensive labor, while tech
industry leaders say they need green-card workers to have full access
to the world's most talented scientists, and sometimes to fill
specialized jobs that would otherwise go empty.
The Folsom campus of Intel Corp. applied for the lion's share locally,
seeking green cards from that site for foreign workers in California
and seven other states. Nearly 800 were for workers at Intel's
California sites -- more than half of the 1,494 it filed during the
period -- but the federal data don't specify whether they worked at the
Santa Clara headquarters, in Folsom or elsewhere.
Intel did not respond when asked to estimate its green-card tally for
its Folsom campus, which employs 6,500 workers handling research and
development, marketing and other tasks.
Of 798 applications for California workers during the five-year span,
Intel won certification for 659, about 83 percent. Intel's success rate
approached 86 percent for job sites in other states, with 597 approvals
out of 696 applications.
Local companies in high-tech consulting, dentistry, energy and the two
largest local universities -- California State University Sacramento
and UC Davis -- filled out the top 10, but their combined total was
dwarfed by Intel's tally.
Hewlett-Packard Co., the Palo Alto-based tech giant which employs fewer
than 4,000 people in Roseville, was conspicuously absent from the local
applications; H-P makes such filings from its human resources center in
Sunnyvale, but comparable green-card application data for the company
were not immediately available.
A company spokeswoman did not respond when asked how many Roseville
employees have green-card certifications or whether companies supplying
H-P with contract employees apply for green cards for foreign workers.
Permanent status
Applying for a green card is the next logical step for foreign workers
with temporary work visas -- dubbed H-1B visas -- which are good for
three to six years. Federal records show that Greater Sacramento
employers sought at least 2,700 H-1B applications from October 2001 to
October 2004.
One reason Intel employs a lot of foreign-born tech workers, said
spokeswoman Gail Dundas, is because the science programs of U.S.
colleges and universities are full of them.
"More than 50 percent of the folks coming out of U.S. universities are
foreign nationals to start with," she said. "Those would have been the
people we would sponsor for green cards."
Dundas is quick to note that Intel sees a need to get more science and
math students coming up through the American education system. She said
that's why it spends more than $100 million annually on schools. The
idea is to help inspire more U.S. kids to pursue a math and
science-based career.
She also rejects the notion that companies like Intel can get more
brain-power for their buck by hiring foreign nationals. "The argument
that you could pay less just doesn't hold water," she said. "We
certainly pay them competitively with those that do not hold H-1B
visas."
Dundas said unemployed U.S. techies who have complained they've been
pushed out of jobs are "typically software engineers -- we're not
hiring that type."
Green-card applications by Intel covered engineering jobs in software,
electronics, electronics design, systems software, electrical design
and computer hardware, and programmer analysts, computer system
analysts, computer programmers, database design analysts, testing,
industrial, manufacturing, mechanical, packaging, quality control,
sales, systems analyst and tech support.
"Frankly, these people are very sought after because of their highly
specialized level of skill and education," Dundas said, adding that
Intel makes extensive efforts to hire Americans for its jobs. If it
can't, a foreign national with those skills is hired.
Sparring over ads
Those efforts are a point of contention. The government requires
companies seeking a green card for a worker to post ads for the job the
worker would hold. The notices go up at the job site and in local
newspapers.
For workers who need a degree, companies advertise with on-campus
recruiters, in professional journals, with employee referral programs,
in radio and TV announcements, on the employer's Web page and at other
job sites. If the company deems it has no qualified applicants from the
ads, it documents that and asks the government to approve a green card.
Kim Berry, a local engineer and tech labor activist, believes the
advertising requirements are a sham, part of a virtual rubber-stamping
of applications by the government. He suspects that the job ads are
written by attorneys hired to craft a description matching the exact
qualifications of the foreign national already on the job, likely on a
temporary work visa. That would let the company dismiss local
applicants as unqualified and seek a green card for the foreign worker.
Berry says there is no shortage of qualified U.S. tech workers. "These
are American jobs that they are giving away," he said.
Berry closely tracks technology job ads in The Sacramento Bee, and said
he's seen "dozens" in recent years that have all the characteristics of
ones designed to exclude American workers. As for Intel, he said,
"There have been no Intel help-wanted ads in the Sunday Bee for at
least two years."
Joel Stewart, a Miami attorney who specializes in foreign labor law,
defends the recently updated green-card application system as a
legitimate way for companies to staff when American workers can't meet
their needs.
On the pay issue, he said, "There is absolutely no way an H-1B or
(green-card) worker can be paid less than the prevailing wage. The
prevailing wage is very strictly and rigorously determined and applied"
by the U.S. Labor Department.
"Everyone in the business" considers the prevailing wages too high, he
said, rather than too low.
Stewart also said the tailoring of job ads to a foreign national's
risumi, in order to get that person a green card, is scrutinized by
the government. Applications from companies that do that, he said,
"cannot be approved, in my view."
"In all honesty," he said, the Department of Labor "has made the
immigration process very difficult and restrictive. Those that prevail
are the ones with the most motivation, highest qualifications, and
(who) wish to work honestly in the United States."
A 2000 article available on the ILW.com immigration law site, entitled
"Legal Rejection of U.S. Workers" and credited to Stewart, concludes
"When employers feel the need to legalize aliens, it may be due to a
shortage of suitable U.S. workers, but even in a depressed economy,
employers who favor aliens have an arsenal of legal means to reject all
U.S. workers who apply."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Sunday, May 15, 2005 10:47 PM
While many media have jumped into the H-1B issue over the past few
years, the subsequent process of converting the "temporary" H-1B
workers into permanent green-card holders - virtually assuring
citizenship - has been largely ignored - until now.
Mark Larson of the Sacramento Business Journal has exposed the scam on
the front page of the March 13th edition. Hopefully other media will
get on the bandwagon.
Intel is busted, claiming it makes extensive efforts to hire Americans
for its jobs." Mark then quotes me that Intel has not run a help wanted
ad in the Sacramento Bee for at least two years (I check every
weekend.) Intel further claims that they are not hiring foreign workers
for "software engineer" positions. Really? See the hundreds of
"software engineer" LCAs at this link:
http://www.h1b.info/lca_job_list.php?page=7&name=INTEL+CORP&company
=intel&city=&state=CA&year=ALL&sort=
Intel also claims that "50% of the people coming out of U.S. colleges
are foreign nationals." Well, if true, this is outrageous. Why are we
educating our economic adversaries? Why does UC and other schools turn
away up to 90% of qualified U.S. students each semester?
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/mbajournal/01hardgrave/2.ht
m
My one regret is that R-Systems got overlooked, because its in El
Dorado Hills in a different county. They hire almost exclusively H-1B,
and have dozens of green card applications in the pipe. An unwritten
job requirement at R-Systems appears to be "Indian National" - which is
good enough for DOL.
Joel Stewart is disingenuous in his claim that "There is absolutely no
way an H-1B or (green-card) worker can be paid less than the prevailing
wage." In fact DOL has approved LCAs for degreed, experienced,
programmers for salaries as low as $25k per year. See e.g.:
http://www.h1b.info/lca_job_list.php?name=TATA+CONSULTANCY+SERVICES&co
mpany=tata&city=&state=&year=ALL
R-Systems pays the same about $38k/year. While this may be "prevailing
wage" under some study, it is far below what other employers are paying
for comparable U.S. workers in this area. Joel Stewart continues that
"everyone considers these prevailing wages too high."
See this page for a comparison of U.S. worker vs H-1B wages:
http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/h1b_abuses_april2005.html
Ive chronicled the Sacramento Bee fake job ads at this page, in the
weekly emails to the editors: www.programmersguild.org/RIR/. (Contact
info for Joel Stewart is also here)
Most Americans would agree that if there are qualified Americans that
can fill a job, then the job should not be filled by a foreign worker.
DOL, Congress, Intel, and many CEOs would respectfully disagree.
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