Grassley and Durbin send questions to Indian bodyshops
Grassley and Durbin send questions to Indian bodyshops
Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 3:01 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1692 -- 5/16/2007 >>>>>
Senators Durbin and Grassley sent a letter to a few Indian owned bodyshops
with some questions about their use of H-1B visas. The questions are loaded
-- but mostly with blanks!
Before debating the merits of the questions in the letter, perhaps we
should discuss the intent of the letter.
The letters are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B program
is being used for its intended purpose which is to fill a worker
shortage for a temporary time period. He said that he expects
the companies to cooperate and answer his questions to ensure that
accurate information is being used as Congress begins debate on
new immigration policy.
As you all know, if you read my last newsletter, Sen. Reid is going to try
to force cloture on the comprehensive immigration bill by Wednesday, May
16. If the Senate can't agree on cloture, the bill might have to go onto
next week to get voted on. That would put voting of the bill by May 25 at
the latest.
Guess when the answers from the bodyshops are due? May 29, 2007!
So Durbin and Grassley will unravel the mysteries of H-1B long after the
Senate has voted for the immigration bill. Does anyone here besides me
smell a rat?
Either Durbin and Grassley are very naive, or they are cynical manipulators
of public opinion. Based on the contents of the letters it's very tough to
determine which one.
Let's be very clear that the bodyshops questioned are under no legal
obligation to answer the letter. The only way Durbin and Grassley can force
them to answer would be to subpoena them. My guess is that the bodyshops
will mail answers back just to avoid further hassle, but don't expect them
to volunteerily hang themselves.
Grassley had a press release on his website with a statement that needs
closer examination.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Richard Durbin today asked the top
nine foreign based companies in 2006 that used nearly 20,000 of
the available H-1B visas to disclose further details about their
workforce and their use of the special visa program.
That statement leaves the impression that nine foreign companies use a
majority of the H-1B visas but that is just not true. Both of these
Senators are vague about what "available visas" mean. There are three
possibilities and the percentages change with each of them.
1) If they mean the old 65,000 cap, then the top nine companies gobbled up
30% of the visas.
2) Of course we now have a cap of 85,000 so that percentage is more likely
to be 23% of the visas.
3) Both the figures in #1 and #2 are too low because they don't include the
number of exempt visas issued. The USCIS has been very slow to give updated
data, but in the year 2005 they issued 116,927 total visas. Assuming 2006
has similar numbers, the top nine Indian owned companies employed 17% of
the total number of visas. Neither Durbin nor Grassley said whether their
20,000 figure included exempts, and I'm not convinced that they would know
the difference. Keep in mind that bodyshops probably have less than average
renewals for H-1B visas because like most contract agencies, their foreign
employees are probably very short term. It would be fair to say that the
17% figure is probably too high.
Even assuming that 30% of the visas were taken by these companies, that
means that 70% weren't. In other words, Grassley and Durbin are letting
about 2/3 of the employers totally off the hook - companies like IBM,
Intel, Microsoft, and Microsoft.
Durbin and Grassley are not helping to find facts by spreading
misinformation. As a result of the Durbin/Grassley campaign to promote
their reform bill, even Lou Dobbs was fooled.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/05/ldt.01.html
DOBBS: We should point out -- you mentioned those three Indian
companies. We should point out that 70 percent of -- 70 percent
of all of those visa applications are originating with those
Indian corporations. Those aren't American corporations seeking
those workers.
Of course Dobbs is talking about visa applications, which is different than
the visas issued that Durbin and Grassley have been talking about. That
small distinction of terms is significant but it would be totally lost on
the audience of Lou Dobbs, and without doubt Lou Dobbs is confused also. I
find it highly unlikely that bodyshops applied for 70% of the visas but got
less than 30% of the H-1Bs so to be blunt, Dobbs is just flat out wrong on
this one and he isn't the only one on the show to repeat this error. Dobbs
isn't the only journalist to be mislead by Durbin and Grassley becasue
similar statistics are showing up all over the media.
Considering the fact that the big bodyshops hire a minority of the visas,
why aren't bodyshops from other countries besides India questioned, and
what about U.S. owned companies who should be subjected to similar
questions? This has every appearance of being a witch hunt against Indian
owned companies. As all of you know, Indian owned bodyshops aren't the only
ones who use H-1B in an exploitive fashion so I see no reason they should
be singled out.
So just what are Durbin and Grassley hoping to prove? Let's look at a few
of their questions to get a better idea. I'll use the letter to Infosys,
but all of them are similar.
Q: How many citizens do you employ in the [U.S.]?
Indian owned bodyshops hire almost exclusively Indian nationals. The
question is interesting but even if Infosys answered "none", it wouldn't
matter.
Q: Is your company an H-1B dependent employer?
"H-1B dependent" means that at least 15% of the employees are H-1Bs. It
would be hard to imagine any of the bodyshops not being H-1B dependent
since they hire foreign workers almost exclusively. This question is a trap
because if they answer yes, they had better have been smart enough to file
the extra paperwork involved. It's unlikely that any of these bodyshops
would be stupid enough not to have done their legal work, but it's always a
possibility. If they were found guilty of violating this they could be
barred from hiring new H-1Bs for several months. The penalty would probably
not be a death blow but it would be expensive and inconvenient.
Q: How many visa petitions did you submit to the Citizenship and
Immigration Service for Fiscal Year 2007?
Duh! That was answered just a few questions later: "Of the 4,908 visas your
company received in 2006, how many of those workers are currently employed
and paid by Infosys Technologies Limited?"
Q: How many H-1B visa holders is your company currently employing? What
percentage of your total workforce are H-1B visa holders?
This question is just another way to see if they are H-1B dependent. It's
sort of lawyerly the way they ask the same question several different ways.
Q: What is the average age of the H-1B visa holders that your company
currently employs? What is the average number of years of experience of
your employed H-1B visa holders?
The average age is young, perhaps 25. It's not a big deal for the bodyshops
because all they have to do is to claim that older workers don't have the
skills they need.
Q: Please describe your efforts to recruit Americans for the positions for
which you employ H-1B workers.
Duh! All the bodyshops need to do is to say they ran an ad in a newspaper
or Dice.com. As long as they can fake it that they made a "good faith"
effort to hire Americans they are off the hook.
Indian owned bodyshops are racist, ageist, and they routinely discriminate
based on national origin. Having said all of that, nothing has happened to
them yet, and this transparent question isn't about to get the bodyshops in
trouble.
Q: What is the average wage of your companys H-1B visa holders? What is
the median wage? What is the highest and the lowest salaries for those
H-1B visa holders currently employed by your company? What is the average
wage of your companys workers who are citizens in the same occupations?
The bodyshops could probably claim this question is irrelevant, especially
if they claim that they don't have Americans that do similar things. In
this case, the fewer Americans they hire, the less chance they can get into
trouble.
Q: Of the 4,908 visas your company received in 2006, how many of those
workers are currently employed and paid by Infosys Technologies Limited? Of
the 4,908 visas your company received in 2006, how many were outsourced to
other companies and how many employees salaries were paid for by a firm
other than Infosys Technologies Limited?
This question is just for show to justify the Durbin/Grassley bill. Many
opponents of the bodyshops think that the Durbin/Grassley bill will
instigate a near fatal blow to the bodyshops because they won't be able to
farm workers out to other companies. Nothing could be further from the
truth but it probably sounds good to those of you that haven't worked as a
contractor. When contracting, the agencies will pay their H-1Bs directly by
putting their name on the paycheck, or the company who is hiring you will
put their name on the check. All that Infosys and the other bodyshops have
to do is to pay ALL their employees directly with their checks.
This question merely gives Infosys and the other bodyshops a need to change
their pay checks. It's nothing but an accounting issue.
Q: Has your company experienced any layoffs in the in the past year? Any
lay offs in 2005? If so, how many people lost their jobs?
This question makes me want to laugh. Of course the bodyshops haven't had
layoffs -- they are in the business of replacing American workers. Layoffs
could occur at the companies who are using bodyshops. The question is sort
of interesting but it rather moot since Infosys and the other bodyshops
cannot get in trouble no matter how they answer.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=5380
For Immediate Release
May 14th, 2007
GRASSLEY, DURBIN ASK FOR DETAILS ON COMPANIES USE OF H-1B VISAS
Top Nine Foreign Based Companies Use Nearly 20,000 H-1B Visas
WASHINGTON -- Senators Chuck Grassley and Richard Durbin today asked the
top nine foreign based companies in 2006 that used nearly 20,000 of the
available H-1B visas to disclose further details about their workforce and
their use of the special visa program.
"More and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas
to displace qualified, American workers," Grassley said. "Now, as we move
closer to debate on an immigration bill, I continue to hear how people want
to increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to companies.
Considering the high amount of fraud and abuse in the visa program, we need
to take a good, hard look at the employers who are using H-1B visas and how
they are using them."
"Supporters claim the goal of the H-1B program is to help the
American economy by allowing companies to hire needed foreign workers. The
reality is that too many H-1B visas are being used to facilitate the
outsourcing of American jobs to other countries," Durbin said. "We have to
look at the system that generates these visas and the way they are used.
This legislation will help protect American workers first by stopping H-1Bs
from being exploited and used as outsourcing visas."
The letters are part of an effort to determine if the H-1B program is being
used for its intended purpose which is to fill a worker shortage for a
temporary time period. He said that he expects the companies to cooperate
and answer his questions to ensure that accurate information is being used
as Congress begins debate on new immigration policy.
Grassley and Durbin recently introduced legislation that would overhaul the
H-1B and L-1 visa programs to give priority to American workers and crack
down on unscrupulous employers who deprive qualified Americans of
high-skill jobs.
Here is a copy of one of the letters. Click here to see a copy of each
letter.
May 14, 2007
Mr. Nanden M. Nilekani
Chief Executive Officer
Infosys Technologies Limited
6607 Kaiser Drive
Fremont, California 94555
Dear Mr. Nilekani:
As members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security and Refugees, we have a responsibility to oversee and
evaluate our countrys visa policies. We have been concerned about
reported fraud and abuse of the H-1B and L visa programs, and their impact
on American workers. We are also concerned that the program is not being
used as Congress intended.
While some Members of Congress have focused on increasing the annual cap of
the H-1B program, we believe it is important to understand how H-1B visas
are being used by companies in the . We have received helpful data from
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service with regard to H-1B visa
approvals in 2006 for the top 200 participating companies. Your company
was one of the top companies on the list. Therefore, we are requesting
your cooperation in providing additional statistics and information on your
use of H-1B visa workers.
First, some groups, such as the Programmers Guild, have analyzed the wages
paid to H-1B visa holders. They have found that the average annual salary
of foreign workers is significantly lower than that of new graduates.
Second, a number of consulting firms reportedly recruit foreign workers and
then outsource the individuals to other job sites or companies. Many of
the top 20 companies that used H-1B visas in 2006 are firms, such as yours,
that specialize in offshore outsourcing.
Third, a number of firms have allegedly laid off American workers while
continuing to employ H-1B visa holders. The American people are concerned
about such lay offs at a time when the demand for visa issuances and the
recruitment of foreign workers appear to be increasing.
NUMBERS
* How many citizens do you employ in the ?
* Is your company an H-1B dependent employer?
* How many visa petitions did you submit to the Citizenship and
Immigration Service for Fiscal Year 2007?
* Of the total number of petitions requested, how many have been
approved for Fiscal Year 2007, if known?
* How many H-1B visa holders is your company currently employing? What
percentage of your total workforce are H-1B visa holders?
* What is the average age of the H-1B visa holders that your company
currently employs?
* What is the average number of years of experience of your employed
H-1B visa holders?
* Please describe your efforts to recruit Americans for the positions
for which you employ H-1B workers.
WAGES
* What is the average wage of your companys H-1B visa holders? What
is the median wage? What is the highest and the lowest salaries for those
H-1B visa holders currently employed by your company?
* What is the average wage of your companys workers who are citizens
in the same occupations?
OUTSOURCING
* Of the 4,908 visas your company received in 2006, how many of those
workers are currently employed and paid by Infosys Technologies Limited?
* Of the 4,908 visas your company received in 2006, how many were
outsourced to other companies and how many employees salaries were paid
for by a firm other than Infosys Technologies Limited?
LAY OFFS
* Has your company experienced any layoffs in the in the past year?
Any lay offs in 2005? If so, how many people lost their jobs?
* If your company has laid off workers in the , what job positions were
part of that lay off?
* If your company has laid off workers in the , how many of those
workers were H-1B visa holders?
* If your company has laid off workers in the , did any H-1B visa
holders replace those dislocated workers, or take over any of the laid off
employees job responsibilities?
We appreciate your cooperation, and respectfully request that you respond
to our questions no later than May 29, 2007.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator
United States Senator
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