Update on the PG Discrimination Complaints

Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 11:22 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1519 -- 07/12/2006 >>>>>

On June 20th I reported that John Miano, on behalf of the Programmer's
Guild, filed complaints about discriminatory job ads that are for H-1Bs
only. You can read that newsletter at:

http://www.ZaZona.com/ShameH1B/JobDestructionNews.htm
2006-06-20 Discrimination Complaints Filed Against H-1B Employers

The jury is still out on the PG effort. One of the complaints sank like a
lead-filled balloon when for once in the history of the Department of
Labor, they acted quickly and decisively. Less than a week after receiving
the complaint the DOL declared that they will do nothing because of a lack
of evidence.

Miano's complaint contained hundreds of job ads like this one in the
newsletter "2006-04-17 Job Ads - For Indian H-1Bs only" that said in their
requirements: "We require candidates for H1B from India."

That's a lack of evidence??? Surely Elaine Chao can do better than that,
can't she?

I asked John Miano for an update on what has happened since the complaints
were filed. He gave me permission to publish the summary below. Fortunately
Miano had the insight to file several different complaints to several
different government agencies. Despite the DOL's lack of backbone the
effort to combat these job ads is still very much alive.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

by John Miano
http://www.programmersguild.org/6/28/2006

Most of us in the computer industry are aware that discrimination against
U.S. workers is widespread. There are many companies that simply do not
hire U.S. workers in favor of foreign guestworkers.

In the past this practice of discrimination has taken place under cover. We
knew who these companies were and did not bother applying. They knew that
if they received a resume from a U.S. worker that it was probably a test.
The practice of "H-1B only" hiring has become so established that employers
now feel free to engage in it openly. Over the past few weeks I have found
over 1,500 "H-1B only" ads from over 350 employers.

The Programmers Guild is in the process of filing complaints against
employers making this job postings that are intended to prevent U.S.
workers from applying. We filing two types of complaints.

The first type of complaint is with the Office of Special Counsel for
Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination in the Department of Justice.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, discrimination based upon
immigration status is illegal.

We have filed a number of similar complaints in the past and have been
successful in all but one of them. The challenge now is that we are
persuing a large volume of complaints at once. Unfortunately, the penalties
in the previous type of complaint are rather small. So we are filing a
second type of complaint with the Wage & Hour division of the Department of
Labor. In these, we allege that H-1B dependent employers are not recruiting
U.S. workers in "Good Faith". So far we have not had much success with
complaints to the Department of Labor. For our first attempt we sent copies
of 130 advertisements from a single employer. The Department of Labor
responded that this was not sufficient evidence to investigate.

If 130 ads stating the company prefers H-1B holders or that only H-1B
holders can apply is not sufficient evidence to even investigate, what is?

What happens in the case of a big H-1B bodyshop that does not advertise in
the U.S. at all?

The bottom line is the law is very weak when it comes to protecting U.S.
workers. However, we are using the avenues available to us to bring
complaints against companies that violate the law.

Support this Newsletter and www.ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

To View the Newsletter Archive go to:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm

To Be removed from this mailing list, reply to this
email with UNSUbSCRIBE in the subject window

Back to archives