13 Articles Worth Reading
13 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 1:00 AM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
September 28, 2005 No. 1338
--- COMMENTS FROM ROB ---
According to Article #3, the cheap labor lobby says we won't be able to eat sweet raisons anymore if farmers aren't allowed to hire illegal aliens.
In Article #5, IBM is trying to convince its older workers to become math and science teachers. IBM is setting these employees up for failure because they know darned well that schools would prefer to hire H-1Bs than older workers. IBM is herding their sheeple to the unemployment slaughterhouse.
Be sure to click the link for Article #7 to read comments on the Iowa State website.
We have often said that H-1B could be used by terrorists. The USDOJ press release featured on Article #8 should be used whenever there are doubters.
You will be sobbing when you read Article #9 written by an immigration attorney. He complains that the U.S. only allows 600,000 foreigners to come here every year to take jobs. Kinda sad how low the limits are, huh?
It's bad enough that construction companies are hiring illegal aliens to clean up after the recent hurricanes. Now the hurricane rescue call centers have been outsourced to India. Read #10. Don't be surprised if they outsource FEMA next!
#12 wins the Iditorial of the week award for yellow journalism.
--- End of COMMENTS ---
Article 1:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/168251/1/.html
Police smash illegal employment syndicate
SINGAPORE : The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has smashed an illegal employment syndicate supplying illegal foreign workers to food outlets. Under the Immigration Act, the penalty for overstaying and illegal entry is a jail term of up to six months and caning of at least three strokes.
Article 2:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-boeing18sep18,0,6536347.story?track=tothtml
Strike Is About More Than Pay and Benefits
Boeing's increasing reliance on foreign suppliers for jetliner parts is resulting in the loss of skilled manufacturing jobs at home. Just "the threat of outsourcing" has allowed employers to keep a lid on compensation while increasing productivity and profits, explained Tobias Levkovich, U.S. equity strategist with Citigroup Smith Barney in New York.
Article 3:
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-farmlabor0915.artsep15,0,1253389.story?coll=hc-headlines-business
But raisin farmers aren't the only ones scrambling for workers. Farmers growing a majority of the nation's vegetables and fruits need a reliable supply of laborers willing to work for the prevailing wage of $7 to $8 an hour to stay competitive in the global market. Construction jobs, starting at $10 an hour, are a big draw, especially in fast-growing inland areas such as the Central Valley, the state's farm belt, experts said. Meanwhile, a beefed-up border patrol has led to more arrests along the Mexican border, making it harder for illegal immigrants to reach jobs awaiting them in California fields.
Article 4:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3362747
Bush to press lawmakers for guest-worker program
Plan would not require illegal immigrants to leave while they await legal status
A Bush administration reform plan reportedly would allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States using guest worker visas for up to six years. Political pressure comes from conservative voters who prefer a tough line on illegal immigration, businesses that want low-wage workers and other Americans who want to give immigrants a new path to U.S. citizenship.
Article 5:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/09/16/ibm.education.ap/
IBM pushes math and science education
International Business Machines Corp., worried the United States is losing its competitive edge, will financially back employees who want to leave the company to become math and science teachers. The company expects older workers nearing retirement to be the most likely candidates, partly because they would have more financial wherewithal to take the pay cut that becoming a teacher likely would entail.
Article 6:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/627264.html
U.S. work visa quotas will be full by October
"Our government should immediately increase pressure on the U.S. to approve a special country quota intended strictly for Israeli companies, similar to the quotas it has provided for Australia, Chile and Singapore," he said.
Article 7:
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/13/43265b8190eb8
Unemployment opportunities
As visas become harder to obtain, international students have fewer chances to work in the U.S.
International student Yong Huang works as a cashier in the Memorial Union food court Monday. As work visas, which allow people from abroad to work in the United States, become harder to obtain, ISU international students appear to have fewer opportunities for employment and a greater possibility of returning home after graduation.
Article 8:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2005/114.html
OWNER OF IMMIGRATION CONSULTING FIRM SENTENCED TO 30 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR FILING 100s OF FALSE VISA PETITIONS
Akhter and Shaikh filed the fraudulent petitions to obtain visas for hundreds of aliens seeking to come to, or stay in, the United States. Akhter and Shaikh filed the fraudulent petitions ostensibly on behalf of employers who needed to hire alien workers to fill construction and computer programming jobs.
Article 9:
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=10276
Modern-Day Immigration Laws Take Business Must Rest Concept to Absurdly Low Point
These patient foreign citizens, whose employers have already proven to the satisfaction of the U.S. Department of Labor that there are no more American workers available to fill these needed jobs, may be required to wait up to 15 additional years before attaining U.S. green cards. There are even more blue notes and perpetual blue days to come. The supply of H-1B visas for professional workers dropped from 195,000 in Fiscal Year 2004 to a meager 58,000 visas in FY 2005 and will remain at this paltry level for three years. This, says Angelo A. Paparelli, managing partner of Paparelli & Partners LLP, will result in even more disruptions.
Article 10:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/170345/1/.html
Indian call centre helps Hurricane Rita evacuees find shelter
A call centre in India's western Gujarat state has helped Texas residents find shelter after their homes were damaged by Hurricane Rita, a company executive said Monday. Jim Iyoob, the call centre director, said he received a distress call on Saturday from a senior judge in Texas, Robert Hurst, who requested a 24-hour helpline be set up in India for evacuees of Hurricane Rita.
Article 11:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20050925-102112-4588r.htm
Law firms send case work overseas to boost efficiency
Law firms are outsourcing some of the work on their cases to other countries, joining a growing national trend of trying to cut costs by using a labor force paid at a lower rate than American workers.
"Clients are entitled to get these things done in an efficient way," said Jim Shea, managing partner of Venable LLP, one of the Washington area's biggest law firms. His firm has used Indian companies to draft patent applications for Venable clients. The foreign companies also have done "coding" of legal documents in which they index and annotate them before transferring them to computer software.
Article 12:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/12718279.htm
Flow of valued workers is slowed
OUR OPINION: EASE VISA CAPS TO BOOST U.S. BUSINESSES
The fundamental problem is that U.S. visa limits have no basis in today's reality. Currently only 620,000 immigrant visas are available per year. The cap on temporary visas for highly skilled workers, called H-1Bs, should also be hiked.
Text not included
Article 13:
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050921_nd.htm
National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Looking (In Vain) For the Geek Shortage
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
For years high-tech corporations have warned of a shortage of scientists and engineers. [See Why Americans Dont Study Science - It Doesnt Pay] The latest (alleged) evidence: the cap of 65,000 H-1b visas for fiscal 2006 was reached in August, 14 months prior to the fiscal year in which the visas would be used.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/168251/1/.html
Police smash illegal employment syndicate
By :
Date : 14 September 2005 2045 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/168251/1/.html
SINGAPORE : The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has smashed an illegal employment syndicate supplying illegal foreign workers to food outlets.
Three syndicate members were arrested on Tuesday. Twenty illegal workers, aged between 20 and 51 years old, were also arrested during follow-up checks at various food outlets in Marine Parade, Eunos, Scotts Road and Serangoon Road.
All were immigration offenders.
The men, most of them Sri Lankan nationals, had been employed as cleaners and dishwashers.
The three syndicate members and 20 immigration offenders have been referred to the police for further investigations.
According to the ICA, two of the syndicate members, a 40-year-old Indian national and a 42-year-old Sri Lankan, were illegal immigrants.
The Indian national's job was to recruit illegal immigrants and liaise with the food outlets to supply the workers, while the Sri Lankan man was to collect payment from the food outlets and pay salary to the workers.
The third syndicate member, a 41-year-old Singaporean woman, was in charge of banking the checks issued by the food outlets for the workers.
During the operation, ICA officers also recovered a laptop computer, a printer and contractual agreements to supply labour to the various food outlets.
Under the Immigration Act, the penalty for overstaying and illegal entry is a jail term of up to six months and caning of at least three strokes.
Those employing immigration offenders can be jailed between six months and two years and fined up to $6000.
ICA says employers can check the validity of work passes at the Manpower Ministry website at www.mom.gov.sg
Homeowners can verify the immigration status of their prospective tenants on the ICA website at www.ica.gov.sg.
Public with information about immigration offenders can also call ICA at 1800-391 6150 or contact the Police at 999.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-boeing18sep18,0,6536347.story?track=tothtml
Strike Is About More Than Pay and Benefits
Boeing's increasing reliance on foreign suppliers for jetliner parts is resulting in the loss of skilled manufacturing jobs at home.
By Evelyn Iritani
Times Staff Writer
September 18, 2005
Garth Luark took a job at Boeing Co. in Seattle a decade ago hoping for a well-paying career that would last until retirement and provide medical benefits for his diabetic wife.
But now the 36-year-old logistics specialist is unsure whether his position will survive even a few more years, which is one reason he's walking a picket line.
For Luark and other members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers who voted to go on strike two weeks ago, the global economy is an increasingly powerful presence at the negotiating table. At issue in this contract dispute is more than just pensions and healthcare. Boeing workers, union leaders and their supporters now wonder whether even the most sophisticated U.S. manufacturing jobs can survive in an increasingly brutal global economy - and what, if anything, can be done to protect what remains.
Two decades ago, most of the parts for Boeing's aircraft were produced in the United States, primarily in the Seattle area. But 60% to 70% of the airframe of the company's next-generation 787 Dreamliner will be made overseas, including key parts such as the fuselage and wings, analysts say. Only one part, the vertical fin, will be manufactured in the Puget Sound area.
Luark understands that Boeing benefits from open borders: Foreign airlines buy three-quarters of its planes. But he is convinced that those same global forces are pitting him in a losing battle against overseas workers whose companies can offer lower costs or are willing to buy airplanes in exchange for a piece of the production.
"What at one point I thought was going to be a secure job is no longer secure," said Luark, a Seattle native who fears that his position will be eliminated as Boeing begins shipping outsourced parts directly to its assembly line. "Someone else will be doing what I used to do."
Decades ago, America's low-paid factory workers making toys, shoes and T-shirts felt the brunt of cheap foreign competition. Then it was higher-paid auto workers and shipbuilders. Now, aided by foreign technology and capital, countries such as China and India have pushed themselves even further up the industrial ladder, expanding the competition to more skilled professions such as Boeing machinists and engineers, Silicon Valley software engineers and Hollywood animators.
Aerospace manufacturing was considered less vulnerable to outsourcing because of the high entry costs, the sophisticated manufacturing processes and its ties to national security. But lower trade barriers and rising cost pressures have made it more attractive for companies such as Boeing to look to emerging economies such as those of Russia and China, where they have found skilled engineers and production workers willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages.
Much of the concern about outsourcing has focused on the threat of U.S. jobs fleeing to low-cost locations. But less attention has been paid to the effect global competition has had on the wages and working conditions of those workers left behind, who face growing pressure to increase their productivity or risk seeing their jobs disappear.
"What's new about the global economy is First World productivity combined with Third World wages," said Harley Shaiken, a labor economist at UC Berkeley. "That can create some real downward pressure on high-wage countries."
The last time the machinists union struck Boeing, in 1995, it had 32,500 members in Boeing facilities in the Seattle area, Portland, Ore. and Wichita, Kan. Today, the union is down to 18,400 members, with more than 30% of those job cuts occurring after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Those numbers represent a dramatic shift in Boeing's strategy, analysts say. Boeing, long the symbol of U.S. industrial preeminence, is getting out of the business of manufacturing. Instead, the firm is becoming a designer, marketer and assembler of airplanes from parts produced by thousands of suppliers scattered around the globe.
By focusing on "large-scale systems integration" and outsourcing other work, Boeing has developed a more efficient, lower-cost model for commercial airplane production, said Chaz Bickers, a company spokesman.
Boeing's new direction seems to paying off. Although it has slipped into the No. 2 spot behind Europe's Airbus in aircraft produced, last year's $1.87 billion in profit was more than double that of the previous year. After shipping 281 airplanes in 2003, the company is on schedule to deliver 320 planes this year and 395 in 2006. In the last year, it has added 7,000 jobs in the Puget Sound area, but fewer than half of them were filled by union members.
Boeing, which employs 153,000 people worldwide, is still America's leading exporter and much of its outsourced work is going to lower-cost suppliers in the United States. But the company is also importing a much larger share of each plane.
In the case of the 200-to-300-seat 787, that means more manufacturing positions in Nagoya, Japan, and Chengdu, China, and fewer jobs in Everett, Wash., where the plane will be put together. The 787 assembly line is expected to have 850 to 1,200 employees, far fewer than were required to build its 747.
"If a company outsources, whether it's Boeing or Kmart, and it costs American jobs, it's not good for the existing employees," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of Leeham Co., an aviation consulting firm. "But I think the companies don't have a choice. If a company can go to China and get a widget for 10 cents an hour, and it costs $1 an hour in the U.S., what's the company to do?"
Increased global competition was part of the reason that wages and benefits in the U.S. did not rise more quickly after the 2001 recession, economists say. In the past, as the economy picked up speed and unemployment shrank, firms were forced to raise salaries to keep their best workers. Productivity and wages generally rose in tandem.
But technology improvements, trade liberalization and economic reforms in China and India have dramatically increased the potential labor pool, particularly in manufacturing.
Economists say that's been good for the overall economy because it has kept wage inflation in check and interest rates low. Just "the threat of outsourcing" has allowed employers to keep a lid on compensation while increasing productivity and profits, explained Tobias Levkovich, U.S. equity strategist with Citigroup Smith Barney in New York.
But for most Americans, that means wages failed to keep pace with rising living costs in 2004, according to the Labor Department's National Compensation Survey, which was released this month. The overall hourly wage for American workers was $18.09 in July 2004, up 1.9% over the previous year. Over the same period, inflation rose 3%.
Labor experts say it is difficult to determine just how much global competition has depressed wages because there are other factors influencing union bargaining power, such as new technology.
"One of the key ways in which globalization puts downward pressure on wages is through the threat effect," said Thea Lee, assistant director for international economics at the AFL-CIO. "If you increase the mobility of capital, you have increased the credibility of the threat that a company will close down rather than allow unionization or pay higher wages."
In Boeing's case, machinists still have the ability to shut down the assembly line, which is what happened when they went on strike. Analysts say the company can sustain a few weeks without serious damage but will have to delay deliveries if the strike drags on for months.
The union said it wasn't sharing in Boeing's improving fortunes, which is why it urged its members to reject the company's "best and final" offer of a 5.5% wage increase over the life of the three-year contract, $6,000 in bonuses and a 10% increase in the pension multiplier from $60 to $66 for each year of time served. On average, machinists will earn about $62,500 a year by the end of the year, excluding overtime, according to the company.
Wages aren't the issue, said Dick Schneider, the union's chief Boeing coordinator. With the average union member pushing 50 years of age, preserving a secure future is crucial. The union also is unhappy with the company's pension offer, its demand that employees shoulder more of the healthcare costs and the creation of a different wage and benefits scale for employees in Wichita.
Staunching the outflow of work is another priority. In an innovative clause in its 1995 contract, Boeing agreed to provide advance warning on any future outsourcing deals so that the union could produce a competing bid to keep the work in-house. Schneider said that program needed to be restructured so that the union could get involved early enough to produce a serious alternative.
"We know we're in a global economy," Schneider said, "but giving away the farm all in the name of competition is not the way to compete."
Boeing executives say the contract being offered is generous by industry standards but is aimed at streamlining the production process and keeping a lid on costs. Healthcare costs alone rose 30% between 2001 and 2004, according to the company. In a recent memo to managers, Alan Mulally, president and chief executive of Boeing's commercial airplane division, said the union's offer was $1 billion more than the company could provide and stay competitive.
Cost is not the only reason for Boeing to send work overseas. With the price tag for developing a new airplane running into the billions of dollars, the Chicago aerospace giant needs financial partners willing to help fund the development and buy the airplanes. And in return, foreign governments usually want a piece of the manufacturing.
Boeing is engaged in a fierce battle with Airbus for market share in Japan and China, whose governments have targeted the aerospace industry as a priority for development. Of the 263 announced orders for the 787, 140 have come from Japanese and Chinese airlines.
In exchange for shouldering a big share of the financial risk in the 787, Japan's leading aerospace firms were granted a 35% share of the production, including the wings and the fuselage.
In June, Boeing signed contracts with Chinese suppliers to produce $600 million worth of components, including the Dreamliner's composite rudder.
David Pritchard, a research associate at State University of New York at Buffalo, contends that Boeing is sowing the seeds of its own destruction by sharing valuable technology with foreign governments intent on setting up their own aerospace industry.
In addition, he said the U.S. was losing key manufacturing skills and the development of new materials that are crucial to maintaining U.S. industrial and military leadership.
"From a business model standpoint, they're doing all the right things," Pritchard said of Boeing.
"The trouble is, they're not helping the United States."
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-farmlabor0915.artsep15,0,1253389.story?coll=hc-headlines-business
A Thin Crop Of Workers
By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press
September 15 2005
FRESNO, Calif. -- Raisin grower Richard Garabedian knows the gamble: The longer his grapes stay on the vine, the sweeter the raisins - but the higher the chance they'll get caught by the rain that can ruin a year's worth of work.
This season, the stakes are even higher. The raisin harvest is peaking, but agriculture's primary workforce - unauthorized immigrants - is scarce, likely drained by a booming construction industry and tighter enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. The problem has some calling for a guest worker program.
"We just don't have enough people, and it's a perishable crop," Garabedian said, worried not just for himself, but also for an industry emerging from a glut that forced growers to rip out nearly 100,000 acres of grapevines during the past five years.
Last year, Jerald Rebensdorf, president of the Fresno Cooperative Raisin Growers, had 110 people picking his 600 acres. This year, he has 51.
Raisins remain one of the nation's most labor-intensive harvests. About 40,000 workers are needed to hand-pick the grapes over six weeks, then dry them in the sun. This year, growers expect to harvest at least 240,000 tons of raisins. It takes about five pounds of grapes to make one pound of raisins - and all that fruit has to be off the vines before Sept. 20 or crop insurers won't cover any losses caused by rain.
In a year such as this one, in which cool rains lasted well into the spring, farmers are trying to squeeze the usually tight harvest into even fewer weeks.
But raisin farmers aren't the only ones scrambling for workers. Farmers growing a majority of the nation's vegetables and fruits need a reliable supply of laborers willing to work for the prevailing wage of $7 to $8 an hour to stay competitive in the global market.
For the past couple of years, growers said they've felt the labor pool tightening as workers leave low-wage, seasonal jobs for better-paying, year-round city jobs.
Construction jobs, starting at $10 an hour, are a big draw, especially in fast-growing inland areas such as the Central Valley, the state's farm belt, experts said.
Meanwhile, a beefed-up border patrol has led to more arrests along the Mexican border, making it harder for illegal immigrants to reach jobs awaiting them in California fields.
About 53 percent of the farm workers in the country were here illegally in 2001, according to the National Agricultural Workers Survey.
Growers estimate that the number is higher in California - and readily acknowledge their dependence on these workers.
"It's next to impossible, with all the phony papers, to check," Garabedian said.
Garabedian and other growers have supported different versions of guest worker programs that would guarantee a steady supply of workers at harvest time, but some farm labor experts question assertions that there is a worker shortage.
Bruce Goldstein, executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, said the industry wants "an oversupply of vulnerable workers so that they can keep wages low and avoid unionization."
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3362747
Sept. 20, 2005, 10:09PM
Bush to press lawmakers for guest-worker program
Plan would not require illegal immigrants to leave while they await legal status
By SAMANTHA LEVINE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A Bush administration reform plan reportedly would allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States using guest worker visas for up to six years.
ADVERTISEMENT
The White House approach departs from a proposal by Sen. John Cornyn to require illegal workers to leave the country before they could achieve legal status as guest workers.
Highlights of the administration plan were reported in the Arizona Daily Star and The Hill, a Washington newspaper, after White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and other administration officials met last week with Republican Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
The White House and the lawmakers declined Tuesday to discuss the meeting further.
Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced his plans for immigration reform this summer with Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.
Their bill would, among other things, require illegal immigrants to declare themselves to U.S. authorities and leave within five years.
Once in their home countries, they could apply for the guest worker program or permanent residency.
If they failed to leave the United States, they would be barred for 10 years from applying for the guest worker program or permanent residency.
Making the people leave is an unacceptable facet of the bill, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.. said. He and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., along with Kolbe and Flake, introduced a bill last spring that would allow the immigrants to remain in the United States while they go through a lengthy process to gain citizenship.
Under the Bush plan they could apply for permanent U.S. residency after leaving the country.
Cornyn, who chairs the Senate's immigration subcommittee, said lawmakers and the White House agree on most of the other provisions of a comprehensive plan: increased border security, tougher enforcement of immigration laws and harsher penalties for employers who hire illegals.
"I have made a proposal, and others have made proposals, and we will work out the differences," Cornyn said.
The question of how to handle the estimated 10 million or more illegal immigrants in the United States continues to stymie policymakers.
Political pressure comes from conservative voters who prefer a tough line on illegal immigration, businesses that want low-wage workers and other Americans who want to give immigrants a new path to U.S. citizenship.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Tuesday restated his preference for congressional priorities on immigration.
"I don't think the American people will let us even discuss a guest worker program until we prove to them that we are going to secure our borders and enforce the law," he said.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/biztech/09/16/ibm.education.ap/
IBM pushes math and science education
NEW YORK (AP) -- International Business Machines Corp., worried the United States is losing its competitive edge, will financially back employees who want to leave the company to become math and science teachers.
The new program, being announced Friday with city and state education officials, reflects tech industry fears that U.S. students are falling behind peers from Bangalore to Beijing in the sciences.
Up to 100 IBM employees will be eligible for the program in its trial phase. The goal is to help fill shortfalls in the nation's teaching ranks, a problem expected to grow with the retirement of today's educators.
Math and science are of particular concern to companies in many U.S. industries that expect to need technical workers but see low test scores in those subjects and waning interest in science careers.
"Over a quarter-million math and science teachers are needed, and it's hard to tell where the pipeline is," said Stanley Litow, head of the IBM Foundation, the Armonk, New York-based company's community service wing. "That is like a ticking time bomb not just for technology companies, but for business and the U.S. economy."
While many companies encourage their employees to tutor schoolchildren or do other things to get involved in education, IBM believes it's the first to guide workers toward switching into a teaching career.
The company expects older workers nearing retirement to be the most likely candidates, partly because they would have more financial wherewithal to take the pay cut that becoming a teacher likely would entail.
The workers would have to get approval from their managers to participate. If selected, the employees would be allowed to take a leave of absence from the company, which includes full benefits and up to half their salary, depending on length of service.
In addition, the employees could get up to $15,000 in tuition reimbursements and stipends while they seek teaching credentials and begin student-teaching.
From then on, the IBM people would become school employees -- the program will encourage them to work in public schools but they can go private if they wish -- and leave Big Blue's payroll.
But IBM plans to offer a mentoring program that would give its former workers guidance and teaching materials over the Internet.
"It's not an easy transition to make," said Litow, a former deputy schools chancellor in New York City.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/627264.html
Last update - 01:11 21/09/2005
U.S. work visa quotas will be full by October
By Haim Bior
In a surprise move, the U.S. State Department announced yesterday that it expects to fill its quota of visas in the Employment Based Third Preference (EB3) Immigrant Visa Category by next month.
The visas are allotted to professionals with a B.A. degree
The development is expected to immediately impact citizens of China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. At a later stage, it will affect additional countries such as Israel.
Starting in October, priority for handling cases will be given to those applicants submitting their requests from March 1, 2001, according to the bulletin. Anyone submitting their application after September 30 is liable to wait several years to receive a visa.
Israeli companies are already reeling from the U.S. Defense Department's announcement last month that all temporary H1B visas had been used up. Employment sources estimate that some 1,000 Israeli engineers are placed in U.S. jobs annually under H1B status.
Attorney Liam Schwartz of the Kan-Tor & Schwartz law firm said a real possibility exists for additional restrictions in issuing employment visas for workers and foreign specialists in the U.S.
"Therefore, our government should immediately increase pressure on the U.S. to approve a special country quota intended strictly for Israeli companies, similar to the quotas it has provided for Australia, Chile and Singapore," he said.
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/13/43265b8190eb8
September 13, 2005
Unemployment opportunities
As visas become harder to obtain, international students have fewer chances to work in the U.S.
International student Yong Huang works as a cashier in the Memorial Union food court Monday. It was Yong's fourth day of working the cash register. Work visas are becoming harder to obtain, which is making it harder for international students to find jobs in the United States after graduation.
By Takeru Kise
Daily Staff Writer
As work visas, which allow people from abroad to work in the United States, become harder to obtain, ISU international students appear to have fewer opportunities for employment and a greater possibility of returning home after graduation.
Each year, several hundred international students at Iowa State apply for Employment Authorization Document, called Optional Practical Training, which grants international students an F-1 visa to gain work experience for one year.
Getting an Employment Authorization Document, however, does not guarantee a job or practical training.
Virginia McCallum, program coordinator of International Students and Scholars, said almost 99 percent of international students seek an Employment Authorization Document in hopes of applying the knowledge they obtained in the classroom to practical experience.
Although not categorized as a visa, gaining practical work experience with an Employment Authorization Document may serve as the ladder to get to the next level of employment.
"Companies are trying to hire the best-qualified people," McCallum said. "They are really pressuring Congress that they didn't find enough Americans qualified to fill the positions."
The more exhaustive procedures and scrutiny that were added to the process of hiring international students after Sept. 11 have weighed on students, she said.
Companies, as a sponsor for work visas, also shoulder the added burden.
"There is a lot of paperwork to hire international students, which costs a company a lot," McCallum said.
The number of visas issued each fiscal year has been slashed by two-thirds, from 195,000 for the 2003 fiscal year to 65,000 in 2004. The annual cap on H-1B visas - the ones necessary for most international students to gain employment after an Employment Authorization Document expires - has since fallen, as well.
"U.S. jobs for international students are certainly less available due to the H-1B visa," said Larry Hanneman, engineering career services director. "Availability of H-1B visas is a significant factor."
A sponsoring U.S. employer is required to obtain H-1B status.
Mark Peterson, director of graduate career services for the College of Business, said most of the companies are closely looking into visa sponsorship.
"The majority of companies are not recruiting international students," he said. "They don't want to take a risk."
The employer is required to submit a labor condition application, payment of prevailing wages for the position and working conditions offered, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Web site.
ISU international students in MBA programs, however, might be among the most successful in finding an employer who, despite the troublesome procedure, agrees to become a sponsor.
Peterson said approximately 80 percent of students in the MBA program at Iowa State who tried to find a job last year in the United States found one, although international students still faced the biggest challenge.
"More and more U.S. companies are expressing interests in international students," he said.
McCallum, Hanneman and Peterson all said they agree graduate students are in a better position than undergraduates on the grounds of the more specialized knowledge and skills they have.
"Having a graduate degree makes everything much easier," McCallum said.
An additional 20,000 H-1B visas introduced in 2004, which were available only for those with a master's or higher degree, are another edge over undergraduates, she said.
She said International Students and Scholars is coordinating with other career services on campus, planning to hold a workshop designed for international students, possibly next spring. Another way they try to reach out to students is to occasionally invite a lawyer who is well-versed in visa procedure to help students and companies understand its intricacy.
"What Iowa State can do to help ISU international students is help the companies that interview here to understand the various possibilities allowing the international students to work in the U.S.," McCallum said.
"The H-1B is not the only option."
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2005/114.html
U.S. Department of Justice
Debra Wong Yang
United States Attorney
Central District of California
United States Courthouse
312 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2005 For Information, Contact Public Affairs
Thom Mrozek (213) 894-6947
OWNER OF IMMIGRATION CONSULTING FIRM SENTENCED TO 30 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR FILING 100s OF FALSE VISA PETITIONS
Los Angeles, CA - A federal judge in Santa Ana has sentenced the owner of a now-defunct immigration consulting firm to 30 months in federal prison for submitting hundreds of fraudulent visa petitions and for money laundering.
Nuruddin Shaikh, 47, of Norwalk, was sentenced late Monday by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who remanded the defendant into custody immediately after sentencing.
Shaikh's co-defendant and former partner, Naveed Akhter, 41, of Huntington Beach, was sentenced by Judge Carney on June 6 to a term of 41 months in federal prison. Both Shaikh and Akhter face deportation from the Untied States after they serve their sentences.
Shaikh and Akhter engaged in the immigration fraud scheme through Reachworld, Inc., an immigration consulting firm doing business under the name of "Reach USA." Reachworld's offices were located in Fountain Valley.
Akhter and Shaikh filed the fraudulent petitions to obtain visas for hundreds of aliens seeking to come to, or stay in, the United States. Akhter and Shaikh filed the fraudulent petitions ostensibly on behalf of employers who needed to hire alien workers to fill construction and computer programming jobs. The alien customers of Reachworld were listed on the petitions as the workers that the employers wanted to hire. In fact, the petitioning employers were fictitious entities created by Akhter and Shaikh, and the alleged jobs did not exist.
During the course of their scheme, Akhter and Shaikh filed more than 200 fraudulent petitions containing statements that they verified falsely under penalty of perjury. The petitions were filed with the California Employment Development Department and the United States Department of Labor.
The case was investigated by Special Agents from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement; the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General; the Office of Citizenship & Immigration Services, Fraud Detection Unit; the United States Postal Inspection Service; and the California Employment Development Department, Criminal Investigation Division.
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=10276
Modern-Day Immigration Laws Take Business Must Rest Concept to Absurdly Low Point
Irvine, CA 92614 September 26, 2005
In the 24/7 world that is the 21st Century, with on-demand services only mouse clicks away, our nation's employment-based immigration laws are reverting to Puritan times.
How so? Remember the infamous Blue Laws of the Colonial era, when government officials decreed that the economy must shut down during every Sunday, the Sabbath, for rest? This same attitude has been carried forward to modern-day immigration blue laws, which take the ?usiness must rest?concept to an absurdly low point.
As the State Department has announced, the waiting time for virtually all categories of employment-based immigrant visas (e.g. the coveted ?reen Card? will retrogress, or move back in time, on Oct. 1. In practice, this means that individuals who have already waited patiently for years in the legal-immigration queue, especially those born in China, India, the Philippines and Mexico, must wait much, much longer still.
These patient foreign citizens, whose employers have already proven to the satisfaction of the U.S. Department of Labor that there are no more American workers available to fill these needed jobs, may be required to wait up to 15 additional years before attaining U.S. green cards. The potential for a Green Card blackout of more than a decade also means that the workers' spouses and children must wait just as long before they may receive employment permission and work-authorized Social Security numbers. As a result, the family must rely on a single income, and the career aspirations of family members must be put on (blue?) ice. Meanwhile, foreign workers and their families better be prepared for multiple trips to the Department of Motor Vehicles, since the driver's licenses must be renewed as often as non-immigrant status, usually annually.
The laws also don't single out only foreign workers and their families; they are just as unfriendly to American businesses. The Green Card blackout requires U.S. employers of sponsored foreign workers to repeatedly extend their employees' work visas status and suffer interruptions of business projects and absenteeism on the job since workers must travel often to a U.S. consular post overseas to obtain their visa renewal stamps.
There are even more blue notes and perpetual blue days to come. The supply of H-1B visas for professional workers dropped from 195,000 in Fiscal Year 2004 to a meager 58,000 visas in FY 2005 and will remain at this paltry level for three years. This, says Angelo A. Paparelli, managing partner of Paparelli & Partners LLP, will result in even more disruptions.
?ot surprisingly, the entire national supply of H-1B visas for computer professionals, architects, scientists, researchers, consultants, fashion models and other workers in 'specialty occupations' who hold a bachelor's degree or a foreign graduate degree ran out on Aug. 10 ?two months before the start of the new fiscal year,?he said. ?s a result, the immigration blue days will continue for these H-1B workers and their U.S. employers for at least the next 14 months.?BR>
What should be done? We should all let Congress and the White House know that our country's weakening position in the global economy cannot afford these costly immigration blue laws. As a recent editorial in The Miami Herald pointed out, the situation is urgent. We must make sure our government officials act in our nation's economic self interest and, instead of blue laws, give the green light to enlightened, employment-based immigration reform.
##
Paparelli & Partners LLP, www.entertheusa.com, is an Irvine, Calif.-based law firm dedicated to the practice of all areas of U.S. immigration law. The firm represents Fortune 500 businesses, privately-held and emerging-growth companies in a wide array of industries, entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, artists, athletes, universities and national law firms. The firm has gained special expertise in legislative advocacy, due diligence and immigration compliance in mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, immigration PR messaging, Sarbanes-Oxley style audits of immigration-related business practices for publicly-traded and private companies, representation in immigration-related enforcement actions against employers, management guidance in formulating immigration-related corporate policies and collaboration with international tax attorneys, employment lawyers and criminal-defense counsel in sophisticated ?hite-collar?immigration matters.
10. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/170345/1/.html
Title : Indian call centre helps Hurricane Rita evacuees find shelter
By :
Date : 26 September 2005 1709 hrs (SST)
AHMEDABAD, India : A call centre in India's western Gujarat state has helped Texas residents find shelter after their homes were damaged by Hurricane Rita, a company executive said Monday.
Jim Iyoob, the call centre director, said he received a distress call on Saturday from a senior judge in Texas, Robert Hurst, who requested a 24-hour helpline be set up in India for evacuees of Hurricane Rita.
"When I got the frantic call well after midnight, I set up the helpline in order to assist evacuees from near Gulf of Mexico to locate places for shelter," said Iyoob, who lives in Gandhinagar, the state capital of Gujarat.
"Around 12 persons are manning the helpline," he said.
In the first twelve hours of operation the centre received 500 calls from residents in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico hunting for a safe haven.
Millions were evacuated before Hurricane Rita hit the US Gulf Coast at the weekend and caused renewed flooding in New Orleans as well as power and property damage along the Texas-Louisiana coast.
Iyoob, who previously lived in Texas, said he was familiar with the hurricane-affected areas, which helped the centre in dealing with callers.
After the company's centres at Nacogdoches and Lufkin, both in Texas, closed down because of the hurricane threat, calls pouring in from evacuees were routed to the Indian centre at Gandhinagar.
The call centre employees used information about evacuation plans provided by local authorities in Texas and maps to direct callers to shelters away from the path of the hurricane.
India is a major centre for outsourcing with a large English-speaking population. The industry, which employs almost 350,000 workers, earned more than five billion dollars in the year ended March 2005.
11. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20050925-102112-4588r.htm
Law firms send case work overseas to boost efficiency
By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published September 26, 2005
Law firms are outsourcing some of the work on their cases to other countries, joining a growing national trend of trying to cut costs by using a labor force paid at a lower rate than American workers.
"Clients are entitled to get these things done in an efficient way," said Jim Shea, managing partner of Venable LLP, one of the Washington area's biggest law firms.
His firm has used Indian companies to draft patent applications for Venable clients. The foreign companies also have done "coding" of legal documents in which they index and annotate them before transferring them to computer software.
The Indian firms can do legal work for about $40 an hour, compared with $120 an hour charged by many U.S. law firms.
Mr. Shea said the quality of work does not suffer from using foreign workers because it is reviewed by U.S. lawyers.
"We apply the legal experience and expertise we're required to apply," he said.
Other Washington law firms that occasionally outsource legal work include Arnold & Porter LLP and Howrey LLP.
Although most of Howrey's outsourcing is done in the United States, some of its contractors have partnerships with companies overseas.
The work is limited to coding and electronic data processing, said Brian Conlon, Howrey's chief information officer.
About 695,000 lawyers and 200,000 paralegals were employed in the United States in 2002, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
About 1,300 Indian workers provide services for U.S. lawyers, generating about $52 million in revenue, according to Evalueserve, a business and legal research firm with more than 800 employees in India.
By 2015, their billings to U.S. firms would increase to $970 million at the current growth rate.
Alok Aggarwal, Evalueserve's chief executive officer, said the kind of "grunt work" done by his company avoids any privacy problems for law firm clients.
"Of course, many U.S. lawyers have expressed their reservations about Evalueserve doing legal research for them, and this concern is often related to confidentiality aspects and quality of deliverables," Mr. Aggarwal said. "However, once we do a few pilot projects with them, we have been able to overcome their reservations."
In addition to patent drafting and coding, the company writes simple contracts, leases and legal memoranda.
Growth of work outsourced to India would make up 2 percent of new legal jobs in the United States in the next 10 years at the current rate, according to Evalueserve.
Major corporations that outsource legal work include United Technologies Corp., Oracle Corp. and Bayer AG, whose officials did not return calls and e-mails for comment.
More than 3 million U.S. jobs have been outsourced to other countries in the past four years, according to the U.S. government. More than 13 million are forecast to move offshore in the next 10 years.
Many of the jobs have been concentrated in manufacturing and information technology, and Internet connectivity and Indian economic policy have made the country friendly to foreign business.
"It's only in the last year and a half or two this has started to gain the focus and attention of law firms," said Liam Brown, chief executive officer of Integreon, a New York outsourcing company for professional services founded seven years ago.
Of the company's nearly 1,000 employees, about 950 work in India. Its clients include some of the largest investment banks and law firms with offices in the Washington area.
He said outsourcing of legal work is unlikely to move beyond support services to include advice or representation of clients.
"That is core to what a law firm does," Mr. Brown said.
American Bar Association officials say they know law firms outsource work to foreign countries, but they have not seen problems arise from it.
"We have not either endorsed it or opposed it," said Nancy Slonim, the association's deputy director for policy communications.
12. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/12718279.htm
Posted on Fri, Sep. 23, 2005
Flow of valued workers is slowed
OUR OPINION: EASE VISA CAPS TO BOOST U.S. BUSINESSES
A change in the arcane way that immigrant visas are processed is causing shock waves in the business community, and for good reason. Newly announced limits on employer-sponsored immigrant visas threaten to cut off a supply of highly skilled and essential workers for many firms.
The change means that Florida hospitals facing an acute nursing shortage will no longer be able to hire nurses from the Philippines and that technology firms can't rely on talent from India or China. Because there are enormous backlogs of visa applications already being processed, the delays are likely to grow for potential employees from all over the world.
Hunting for specialists
In short, the new restrictions will make getting an employer-sponsored visa for a foreign national impractical if not impossible for years to come. This means that highly skilled talent will go elsewhere, a boon to U.S. competitors overseas. Meanwhile, U.S. employers will go hunting for specialists that this country lacks. When those needed experts can't be found here, the firms would likely consider shipping those highly paid white-collar jobs where employees are, overseas.
This need not happen. The fundamental problem is that U.S. visa limits have no basis in today's reality. Currently only 620,000 immigrant visas are available per year. While the bulk of those are alloted for immigrants petitioned by U.S. relatives, only 140,000 go for immigrants sponsored by businesses. That's less than one-tenth of one percent of the 150 million employees in the U.S. labor market. That number is inadequate for what U.S. industry demands.
Set 15 years ago, the 140,000 cap is outdated. To stay competitive in today's globalized marketplace, U.S. businesses need the best talent worldwide. They also need more employees who understand the demands of international markets.
A business crisis
Ultimately, the U.S. immigration system should be reformed. More urgently, however, short-term fixes can help avert a business-visa crisis.
Congress should lift the 140,000 cap altogether since these visas have a built-in regulator: A foreign worker can be hired only via an employer-sponsored visa when the Labor Department has certified that no American is capable or willing to do the job in question. In fact, 300,000 such visas were left unused in years that the cap was not reached. Another option would be to make those unused visas available.
The cap on temporary visas for highly skilled workers, called H-1Bs, should also be hiked. That the 65,000 H-1B quota was filled in less than two days last year shows the problem. Skilled foreign labor is essential for U.S. industry and our economy's health.
www.ZaZona.com
Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe, Unsubscribe or to view the Archive go to:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm
Back to archives