reactions to Cohen&Grigsby Seminar

Date: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 9:01 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1713 -- 6/20/2007 >>>>>

Reactions to the Cohen&Grigsby immigration seminar are flaring all over the
internet -- mostly in blogs. Nothing has been written in the mainstream media
so far unless you count Lou Dobbs. It will be interesting to see if this will
be another case where the blogs push the mainstream media into reporting the
story. Time will tell.

The last commentary included by Rick Oltman raises a very poignant
question:

In a nation where college girls dancing mindlessly in their bikinis
can generate millions of views on the Internet within 48 hours, a
cadre of lawyers calmly plotting to make sure Americans are driven
out of entire industries is evidently not 'hot' enough (or what we
used to call boring) that it may actually shield them from any
backlash of consequence.

I'm including some commentaries along with an excellent analysis written by
Dr. Norm Matloff.

Programmer's Guild Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Lou Dobbs -- Cohen&Grigsby seminar
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bsp2V3ifZjM

Materials Included Below

"gotcha" immigration law firm videos make a big splash Matloff Newsletter

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9025268&intsrc=news_ts_head
H-1B video shocker: 'Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified ... U.S.
worker'

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/06/youtube_you_scr.html
YouTube, You Screwed?

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/16421
Lawyers in a how-to video: as in how to avoid hiring an American

http://www.jbs.org/node/4469
The Worker Shortage Fraud

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2007/06/watch_what_you_.html
Watch What You Say at a Conference -- It Might Wind Up on YouTube

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,126186.shtml
Busted! A Video Captures What Working Americans Have Known All Along

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Norm Matloff [mailto:matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 10:46 PM
> To: Norm Matloff
> Subject: "gotcha" immigration law firm videos make a big splash

Recall that a set of videos was placed onto YouTube by a law firm that
handles business immigration (and other) cases. They also placed a link to
the videos on their own Web page. The conference itself is described at
http://www.cohenlaw.com/news-events-134.html Apparently they thought this
would be good advertising, but it is turning out to be a major
embarrassment to them, as they unintentionally showed the world just how
dirty the system is. It is also, as such, a major embarrassment to those
who are pushing Congress for expanded H-1B and green card programs.

As most of you know, my constant message over the years has been that abuse
of the H-1B work visa and employer-sponsored green cards stems NOT from
lack of enforcement of the law, but rather from LOOPHOLES in the law. Some
fraud exists, yes, but the vast majority of abuse comes in full compliance
with the law, due to the gaping loopholes.

This set of videos gave a dramatic inside look at some of the loopholes,
especially in the case of the employer-sponsored green cards. Here you
have lawyers openly stating that their goals are to (a) help employers
avoid hiring immigrants, and (b) help employers hire immigrants on the
cheap--and to do all this FULLY LEGALLY.

In this posting:

1. I'll report on the news that the videos have now been removed
from YouTube.

2. I'll give some more excerpts from the videos, so that
you can get a closeup look at some of the loopholes.

3. I'll cite a quote from one of the firm's lawyers made to the
press in one of the industry's many planted articles. You'll
find that the contrast between his public claims and what he
and others from the firm said in the conference is striking,
and shows rank hypocrisy.

4. I will also enclose reports on the videos from InformationWeek,
Computerworld (titled "H-1B Shocker") and Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Before I get to that material, let me reiterate the importance of
loopholes, which I regard as the central issue in H-1B and
employer-sponsored green cards. Reform legislation currently being
considered in Congress is missing the boat, as it deals mainly with
anti-fraud measures, and addresses the loopholes only to a limited degree.

OK, now to the videos. The conference was held by the firm of Cohen and
Grigsby. One of the partners, Larry Lebowitz, is the moderator. Other
lawyers from the firm who speak include Jennifer Pack, Matthew Phillips,
Jennifer Barton, and Alex Castrodale.

Let's start with some material near the end of video 9 of the set. To
explain what is involved there, note first that although the law requires
that American workers must be sought before the employer resorts to hiring
a foreign worker for a job (a requirement NOT in H-1B), this requirement is
routinely circumvented. Though Computerworld called the video set
described below as a "shocker," readers of this e-newsletter know, for
instance, the outrageous comments by a well-known immigration attorney:
"Employers who favor aliens have an arsenal of legal means to reject all
U.S. workers who apply" (Joel Stewart, "Legal Rejection of U.S. Workers,"
Immigration Daily, April 24, 2000; available at
www.ilw.com/articles/2000,0424-Stewart.shtm). See also Stewart's "Dear
Abby"-style help column for employers, at
http://www.ilw.com/articles/2006,0606-citations.shtm in which he advises an
employer how to hire a foreign worker instead of an American applicant,
even though the American "appears qualified and has good references."

So when you read the material below, keep in mind that this is NOT a rogue
law firm. Indeed, one of the firm's lawyers, John Brendel (who also speaks
in the videos), was formerly Chair of the Immigration Policy Committee of
the ITAA, the prominent industry lobbying group. What this firm is doing
is LEGAL and STANDARD.

Now, here is the theme of video 9. Lebowitz asks Pack to speak about the
Dept. of Labor's PERM requirements for recruiting Americans for the job in
question. Again, remember that the law on employer-sponsored green cards
requires that an employer who wants to sponsor a foreign national for a
green card must first try to recruit qualified Americans
for the job. Lebowitz and Pack show how an employer can comply with the
law while at the same time doing his best to NOT find a qualified American.

One way to do that is to advertise in obscure places. Here's what

Lebowitz says:

# And our goal is clearly, not to find a qualified and interested U.S.
# worker. And you know in a sense that sounds funny, but it's what we're
# trying to do here. We are complying with the law fully, but ah, our
# objective is to get this person a green card, and get through the labor
# certification process. So certainly we are not going to try to find a
# place [at which to advertise the job] where the applicants are the most
# numerous. We're going to try to find a place where we can comply with
# the law, and hoping, and likely, not to find qualified and interested
# worker applicants.

Those remarks immediately followed Pack's presentation on advertising
venues, in which she said:

# Fortunately, DOL gives 10 options, from which you can select three.

As can be seen from Lebowitz's followup, Pack's meaning is that you select
the three most obscure places you can find. Pack also recommends,

# You can also advertise in local and ethnic newspapers, such as the
# Pittsburgh Courier.

The Courier is a black newspaper. While ordinarily placing ads there would
be commendable minority outreach, here Pack obviously means to that one
should choose that venue because of the anticipated small number of
American applications it will generate.

Yet they will receive some American applications, and video 10, the firm
then explains what to do with them--i.e. how to reject them. First, the
employer can describe the applicant as not interested in the position!
Barton says:

# If they [the American applicant] don't like the salary, don't like the
# work location, [we deem them to be] not interested...Those are ways
# we can disqualify them, get them out of the market...

Note the "don't like the salary" part. In the free market, employers would
have to negotiate with applicants. But having access to foreign workers
changes that. So here is one of many, many ways in which employers can
hire foreign workers more cheaply than Americans--and remember, it's all
FULLY LEGAL.

Barton continues:

# If it gets to the point where somebodys' looking like they're very
# qualified, we ask [the employer] to have the manager of that specific
# position step in and go over the qualifications with them--if necessary
# schedule an interview, go through the whole process to find a legal
# basis to disqualify them for this position--in most cases there doesn't
# seem to be a problem.

In other words, there is always a way to reject any American applicant,
just as Stewart said.

In video 12, the key issue of prevailing wage is discussed in detail.
Remember, this applies to both employer-sponsored green cards and H-1B.
Since the hiring of foreign nationals in either case is fundamentally about
acquiring cheap labor, the loopholes here are especially important.

The law states that the employer must pay the foreign worker at least the
prevailing wage. This is defined in the law and regulations, and it is
here where so many loopholes reside.

Pack tells employers what to do if the prevailing wage they claim is deemed
too low by the Dept. of Labor:

# First, we have to remember that the wage offered to the [foreign]
# employee is the wage the the employee will be earning when he or she
# gets his or her green card, not the salary he'll be making now. So
# if the prevailing wage comes back $3,000 or $4,000 higher than the
# employee's actual salary, then we can estimate that it will probably
# be three or four years until he gets his green card, then it is
# reasonable for that employee's salary to be increased by that amount
# at the time he gets his green card. Then we have no issues...

This loophole is a new one to me, very interesting. Workers normally get
raises each year, but the prevailing wage law/regs allow the employer to
UNDERPAY the person for a few years!

And there is an even more important subtlety here. Did you notice that she
is projecting only a $3,000 or $4,000 raise over the course of three to
four years? An American would get much higher raises than that. But the
foreign worker is captive, a de facto indentured servant, so the employer
can get away with giving him smaller raises than Americans.

Pack then notes that the employer can try to find an alternate wage survey.

Many critics of H-1B mistakenly cite this as the major reason why the

legally required "prevailing wage" is typically well under the market wage.

But actually, the next one cited by Pack can reap much larger savings for

the employer. (That "projected future wage" looks like it could be worked
into a much larger bounty than $3,000 or $4,000 too.)

# ...let's say [the government prevailing wage] is $10,000 or $15,000
# higher than the employee is going to be making, then we may want to
# consider reworking our requirements, maybe scaling back from a Master's
# degree to a Bachelor's, or going from five years of prior experience to
# two

This is a loophole I've mentioned many times. The key point is that the
legal definition of prevailing wage is tied to the JOB, not to the WORKER.
So if the job requires only a Bachelor's degree and a Master's would be
just considered a plus, then prevailing wage is legally defined as the
Bachelor's-level salary. In other words, the employer gets to
hire a foreign worker with a Master's degree but pay him only a
Bachelor's-level salary, again FULLY LEGALLY.

As Pack mentions, the employer can then also hire a more-experienced
foreign worker for the salary of a less-experienced American, again FULLY
LEGALLY.

This is also related to the age issue, which central to H-1B. Employers
hire young H-1Bs (median age 27.4) instead of 40-year-old (i.e. more
experienced) Americans.

Castrodale notes that you should put in all the technical skills ("UNIX,
SQL, SAP") that the job requires, in order to disqualify many of the
American applicants. Now, he does not actually say that the employer
should load up the job description with so many skills that the foreign
national being sponsored is the only person in the world to qualify, but in
practice this is often what is done.

Even more importantly, this goes to the prevailing wage issue. Prevailing
wage determination, either by government agency or by private wage survey,
generally does NOT take into account "hot" technical skills. So, the
employer can hire a foreign worker with hot skills but not have to pay him
the hefty premium that those skills would command on
the open market. Meanwhile, the employer can use that skill set to
disqualify most or all of the American applicants. A double win for the
employer, and a double whammy for the U.S. worker.

And remember, the above examples are only a few of the many giant loopholes
in the law.

For those of you readers who are journalists, Hill staffers, academics and
so on, I hope you keep these videos in mind every time you see an
immigration lawyer quoted in the press, saying that employers hire foreign
workers only as a last resort when no Americans are available. Always keep
in mind that, as you can see above, what they are really doing is helping
employers AVOID finding American workers.

There is a perfect example of this gross duplicity with that same law firm,
in a quote of attorney Phillips of that firm. Here is an excerpt from
Crush of Applicants for Visas Has Firms Fearing Staff Losses, Anya Sostek,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 5, 2007:

# The visas are so essential, they say, because there just aren't
# qualified Americans to fill the jobs.

# "If the numbers [of U.S. workers] were available in the economy, no
# one would pay us to do this [visa application process]," said
# Phillips, noting that in addition to legal costs, companies pay
# thousands of dollars to the government for each visa application.

I hate to use such a strong word as "lying," but what other conclusion can
one come to? Phillips and the others are claiming to the press and to
Congress that employers really try hard to find Americans before hiring
foreign workers, while the videos from Phillips' firm show exactly the
opposite.

Concerning Phillips' citing of the legal costs, remember that employers are
often saving $100,000 or more over the six-year span of an H-1B. (Green
cards are often taking that long now too, an issue also discussed in the
videos.) So the legal costs are minor in comparison to the amount saved.

Unfortunately, the videos are no longer on YouTube. I wrote last Friday
that as soon as the law firm got wind of the fact that their videos were
being viewed and used by critics of the H-1B program, they would remove the
videos from YouTube. As the enclosed article reports, that indeed happened
yesterday afternoon.

However, as of the moment, the Programmers Guild has an annotated excerpt
of Part 9 of the video at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

This is well worth watching, to get a feel as to how slimy (sorry to put it
that way) these immigration lawyers actually are. You've got to hear these
people's tones of voice, see their body language, etc., and above all see
their complete lack of scruples, all in front of a crowd of people.

The three items from the press follow below. Note that they do not always
distinguish between H-1B and employer-sponsored green cards, so you have to
be a bit careful, but since almost all of the green card sponsorees are
H-1Bs, it doesn't really matter that much.

Norm

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

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9025268&intsrc=news_ts_head

H-1B video shocker: 'Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified ... U.S.
worker'

Patrick Thibodeau

June 19, 2007 (Computerworld) The high-tech industry can tap big names,

such as Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, to argue that the U.S. needs
more foreign workers with IT skills. But opponents of the H-1B visa program
have a weapon that may prove just as effective: YouTube.

The Programmers Guild, a professional organization in Summit, N.J., has
posted a video (see below) on YouTube LLC's Web site featuring excerpts
from a series of videos that had been posted previously by Pittsburgh-based
law firm Cohen & Grigsby PC. The law firm's videos were recorded May 15
during a seminar and apparently were intended to provide free legal tips to
hiring managers and other viewers.

But the video put together by the Programmers Guild is providing explosive
material for H-1B critics.

In the video, a person identified as Lawrence Lebowitz, an attorney at
Cohen & Grigsby, explains a method that can be used for hiring foreign
workers under the U.S. government's Program Electronic Review Management
process. PERM stipulates requirements for placing help wanted ads to fill
job vacancies, with the intent of either hiring U.S. workers or showing
that no qualified Americans are available.

The YouTube video put together by the Programmers Guild.
However, Lebowitz focuses only on the latter in the video. "Our goal is
clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," he said. "And
that, in a sense, sounds funny, but it's what we are trying to do here."

He added that while "complying with the law fully," the objective is to get
a prospective foreign worker a green card "and to get through the labor
certification process." He and other panelists go on to explain the ways in
which employers can legally reject applicants to meet that goal.

Lebowitz didn't answer calls to his office seeking comment on the matter,
and a receptionist at Cohen & Grigsby referred calls to a public relations
representative, who didn't return them.

The Programmers Guild has added subtitled commentary and some music to the
video to help dramatize key points. For instance, in one subtitle, the text
asks: "If there were a 'shortage of U.S. workers,' would employers need to
hire these immigration attorneys to help them avoid finding qualified
candidates?"

But John Miano, the group's founder and treasurer, said via e-mail that he
wasn't surprised by what he saw. "There is nothing new here," he wrote.
"We've known this has been going on for years. There have been printed
accounts in the past, but the video makes the point much better."

Miano added that he hopes people take away the message that "worker
protections in the [H-1B] law are a joke. Here we see how blatant people
are about getting around them."

Last year, the Programmers Guild filed complaints with the U.S. Department
of Justice against hundreds of IT employers that it claimed were
discriminating against U.S. citizens and permanent residents by placing
help wanted ads that specifically seek "H-1B only" visa holders or workers
who have student or L-1 visas.

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

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/06/youtube_you_scr.html

YouTube, You Screwed?

Posted by Mary Hayes Weier, Jun 19, 2007 04:34 PM ; E-Mail

More businesses want to get involved with YouTube. It's young, it's hip,
it's "Web 2.0." But don't mistake YouTube for child's play. As a Pittsburgh
law firm is learning, there can be ugly repercussions to posting video for
the whole world to see.

The firm, Cohen & Grigsby, recorded its immigration law conference in May
and posted it to YouTube. In one segment of the hours-long video, two
attorneys are seen telling the audience how to minimally advertise job
postings to best avoid hearing from "qualified and interested" U.S. workers
if they have a foreign worker in mind for the job. Federal law requires
that an employer make a permanent job posting available to qualified U.S.
citizens before hiring a non-citizen.

An anti-outsourcing/anti-H1-B organization of IT pros called the
Programmers Guild got hold of the video, and that's all she wrote. The
organization copied the video and continues to play it at the site,
adorning it with accusations such as advertising fake jobs is an act of
fraud.

When I called Cohen & Grigsby yesterday afternoon I could tell damage
control had been launched (and no comment yet from the firm). Within two
hours of that call, it pulled its video from YouTube. The Programmers Guild
gleefully noted it still had a copy for anyone to view online, and there's
nothing the firm could do about that. (Here's yesterday's news story.)

Let's set aside the question of these attorney's ethics and the whole
is-it-xenophobia-or-corporate-greed? debate. That topic gets discussed a
lot on our Web site in readers' comments to blogs and news articles. What's
really fascinating, I think, is the power of YouTube to enlighten, and to
destroy.

Cohen & Grigsby obviously saw an opportunity to offer its conference
attendees a back-up; they could go to YouTube and view any segments they
might have missed. The firm probably saw it as some extra PR, too. But my
guess is it didn't turn out to be the kind they hoped for.

The law firm conference video reminds me of another incident, reported back
in August by the Washington Post, in which a Lockheed Martin engineer
ratted on his company for producing what he claimed were poorly designed
Coasts Guard patrol boats. The engineer complained to his bosses,
government investigators, and congress people. Unsatisfied with the lack of
responses, he posted a 10-minute video about the allegedly faulty boats on
YouTube.

This should be wake-up calls to businesses everywhere. With YouTube, the
whole world is watching. Don't brush it off as a cutesy Web 2.0 technology.
This is powerful stuff.

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

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/16421

Lawyers in a how-to video: as in how to avoid hiring an American

Submitted by Paul McNamara on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 9:18am.
Watch this video and keep it in mind the next time you hear a high-tech
industry titan such as Bill Gates complain that he simply cannot find
qualified American employees and therefore the country needs more H-1B
visas: You'll see a panel discussion that looks like a sit-down with "the
families" on The Sopranos, only instead of talking about organized crime
these lawyers are discussing the ins and outs of helping employers
side-step immigration law.

The objective, says Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president of marketing at Cohen
& Grigsby, couldn't be more straightforward.

"Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified U.S. worker ... our objective
is to get this person a green card," Lebowitz tells his audience.

And how does an employer go about doing that in light of the legal
obligation to first search for a qualified American? It's all about where
you search, he says.

"Clearly we are not going to find a place where the applicants are most
numerous, we're going to find a place where - again we're complying with
the law - and hoping and likely not to find qualified worker applicants,"
Lebowitz says.

And if despite looking in all the wrong places a gem of an American
candidate pops up anyway?

"If someone looks like they are very qualified, if necessary schedule an
interview; go through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify
them," he says.

That's just a taste; there are lots more.

Lebowitz prefaced that first remark - the one about the objective being
"not to find a qualified U.S. worker" - by saying, "this may sound funny."

Don't know about anyone else, but I didn't even crack a smile. It doesn't
sound funny. It sounds like it ought to be illegal. At the very least, it
sounds like Congress should be tightening the screws on current law before
increasing the number of H-1Bs.

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

http://www.jbs.org/node/4469

The Worker Shortage Fraud

By Dennis Behreandt
Created 2007-06-19 21:44
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
American employers in the high-tech sector complain about a worker shortage
and demand increases in the H1-B visa program as a result. The trouble is,
the shortage is a lie.

Follow this link to the original source: "Fake Job Ads defraud Americans
[1]"

COMMENTARY:
Rumors of an unprecedented labor shortage in the high-tech industry go back
almost a decade. Since then, the rumors of a worker shortage have remained
largely the same and they continue to get frequent repetition from industry
leaders. Earlier this month, for instance, Google Vice President Lazlo Bock
told a congressional hearing: "The US scientific, engineering, and tech
communities cannot hope to maintain their present position of international
leadership if they are unable to hire and retain highly educated foreign
talent."

The persistence of the rumor of a worker shortage, and the enthusiasm with
which it is repeated by industry execs, does nothing to improve on its
basic lack of accuracy. Indeed, as long ago as 1998, Professor Norman
Matloff of the UC-Davis Department of Computer Science proved conclusively
that no such shortage exists. In his lengthy testimony [2]to Congress on
the subject that he has kept updated since, Dr. Matloff noted that
"Industry employers claim a 'desperate' labor shortage, but in fact their
extreme pickiness in hiring shows they are not desperate at all. They are
flooded with resumes but hire only a small percentage of the applicants."
As Dr. Matloff asks, if there is such a shortage of workers, why do tech
firms hire so few of the applicants that send them resumes?

The answer, it seems, is that there is no shortage and that tech firms
simply do not want to hire American workers. Instead, they fraudulently
advertise openings and then dismiss the American applicants that contact
them in order to claim that there are no qualified Americans. They go
through all this trouble in order to hire foreign workers that they can
employ at lower wage rates. The so-called worker shortage is really an
employment swindle --- and Americans are the losers.

How the swindle operates was revealed in a video compiled by the law firm
Cohen & Grigsby [3]. In the video, which has now been edited and
distributed on YouTube by the Programmers Guild --- an organization
critical of tech industry hiring practices --- a lawyer is seen giving a
presentation on how employers can pretend to recruit Americans in order to
make the false claim that no Americans are qualified for high-tech
positions.

In the video, attorney Lawrence Lebowitz tells the audience: "Our goal is
clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. You know that,
in a sense, sounds funny, but it is what we're trying to do here.... We are
complying with the law fully, but our objective is to get this person a
green card and to get through the labor certification process. So certainly
we are not going to try to find a place where the applicants are going to
be the most numerous. We're going to try to find a place where, again,
we're complying with the law, and hoping, and likely, not to find qualified
and interested worker applicants."

Clearly, there is no real shortage of American high tech workers. As the
Programmers Guild notes: "It's a fiction that the United States suffers a
shortage of skilled labor, and most H-1B aliens fill entry-level jobs. By
far the most H-1Bs are issued to people from India, with the second largest
number coming from China. Corporations continue importing H-1B aliens at
the same time they lay off U.S. citizens. In 2002 the DOL [Department of
Labor] granted 8000 LCAs for H-1B visas to Intel, even as Intel was laying
of it's American IT workers."

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

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2007/06/watch_what_you_.html

Watch What You Say at a Conference -- It Might Wind Up on YouTube

I'm sure you've been to a conference at one point or another where a
speaker has given inside tips on how to legally skirt a process if the
recommended approach doesn't seem entirely ethical. Now one law firm, Cohen
& Grigsby, has discovered the hard way that dispensing this type of
"lawyerly" advice on how to get around the law can land you in hot water
online.

As this article and accompanying YouTube video describe, Cohen & Grigsby's
grew out of what seemed like a clever marketing idea at the time. The firm
apparently posted a video of a conference at which a C&G attorney gave
advice on how companies that want to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas
could meet the government's labor certification requirement. By way of
background, in order for a company to hire foreign workers, it must certify
that there are no qualified U.S. workers. So, the C&G attorneys advised
companies to advertise open positions in places that would generate a less
desirable applicant pool -- such as on Monster.com or at job fairs -- to
meet certification requirements. As the C&G attorney summed up, the
ultimate objective of this is "to not find a qualified U.S. worker" -- but
rather, to get a green card for a foreign worker.

C&G's advice didn't sit well with the Programmers Guild, an organization of
IT professionals trying to keep jobs within the United States. The guild
put together it's own video, excerpting parts of the C&G video and
commenting that the ads posted by many U.S. companies "constitute fraud on
job seekers." C&G has since taken its conference video down, though the
Programmers Guild video remains up on YouTube.

So, if you're a law firm, give some thought to the kind of advice that you
decide to put on the Internet and how it may be perceived by others. Many
lawyers fear that a sites like Avvo or Lawyerratingz.com may tarnish their
reputations. But as C&G's recent incident shows, ultimately, the biggest
threat to your online reputation are your own actions.

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

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,126186.shtml

Busted! A Video Captures What Working Americans Have Known All Along

Posted on : 2007-06-21 | Author : Californians for Population Stabilization

News Category : PressRelease

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the Senate
prepares to renew its push for the most sweeping mass amnesty in the
history of nations, a group of lawyers from the Pennsylvanian law firm of
Cohen & Grigsby committed a rather nasty faux pas in this Age of YouTube:
it let the cat out of the immigration bag.

Caught on camera addressing a conference on immigration law last month, a
lawyer blithely offered detailed descriptions of how the firm helps their
business clients make sure that Americans are not hired for job openings --
all the while complying with the letter of the law that states such
positions must first be offered to citizens.

Portions of the conference were posted to YouTube earlier this week and
have now been picked up on CNN. It's hard to imagine a more damning
sequence of footage. While the 'comprehensive reform' legislation being
pushed in the Senate requires that Americans must be offered jobs first,
before new visas are issued, Cohen & Grigsby's crew cleared up just how
that process actually works.

The video shows Lawrence M. Lebowitz, vice president of marketing for the
firm, repeatedly stressing that the goal of helping businesses comply with
the Department of Labor's PERM process was to make sure Americans were
disqualified for the particular job opening, thus allowing a foreign worker
to qualify for an H-1b visa and be brought in to fill the position.

"Yeah, because our goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number
one; but also do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our
goal," Lebowitz said. "And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and
interested U.S. worker."

For an instant, Lebowitz seemed bemused by his own blunt assessment of what
his firm actually does for its business clients in this regard. "And, you
know, in a sense that sounds funny," Lebowitz says of the efforts to make
sure Americans don't get hired. "But it's what we are trying to do here."

Lebowitz's matter-of-fact description of how the American worker is
targeted for elimination from the job market is stunning for its candor,
but equally chilling (or enraging) is the blase reaction his words inspired
among his colleagues assembled on stage with him.

Two of his female cohorts are emotionless as they describe the best tactics
to employ when attempting to make sure that the fewest number of citizens
possible will even see the job opening, and those that do apply will be
disqualified for the job by virtually any means necessary.

One woman describes interviewing candidates for jobs not as a vetting
process to find the right qualified worker, but as a necessary
inconvenience employers sometimes face while finding "a legal basis to
disqualify" Americans seeking the job.

She adds reassuringly "In most cases that doesn't seem to be a problem."

The footage delivers hard proof of what working Americans have known all
along: businesses -- and not just big corporations -- are gaming
immigration and employment laws in order to hire foreign workers that drive
wages down and boost profits up.

But it also reveals something far darker, far more insidious that has been
eating away at the American people like a cancer that slowly spreads.
Lebowitz and his colleagues discussed banishing the American worker in such
casually arrogant tones that it's clear they didn't feel they were at any
risk whatsoever.

There's certainly no risk of the government taking action, since the
government has played along with this 'compliance' game with a wink and a
grin for decades; and now seeks to actually expand the program.

Apparently they see no real threat of the villagers marching by torchlight
onto the commons for a tar and feathering party either. And they may yet be
proven right.

Proponents of the Senate's mass amnesty plan will either ignore this
damning footage altogether or dismiss it as an anomaly. As for the wrath of
the American worker? Well, five days after it was first posted to YouTube,
it has been viewed less than 30,000 times.

In a nation where college girls dancing mindlessly in their bikinis can
generate millions of views on the Internet within 48 hours, a cadre of
lawyers calmly plotting to make sure Americans are driven out of entire
industries is evidently not 'hot' enough (or what we used to call boring)
that it may actually shield them from any backlash of consequence.

If the fallout isn't grim for the businesses that use such tactics to deny
Americans a chance to work and for the elected officials who continue to
pander to them, then no one should be surprised if the next video we see on
YouTube goes even further.

Perhaps then we'll see a clip featuring lawyers polishing their stand-up
routine by riffing on the 'stupid Americans' standing in the unemployment
line, or moving out of their foreclosed home.

If so, the joke will rightly be on us. Mark Cromer is a Senior Writing
Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS),
http://www.capsweb.org/. He can be reached at Mrcromer@aol.com or
info@capsweb.org.

Californians for Population Stabilization
CONTACT: Rick Oltman of Californians for Population Stabilization
(CAPS), +1-415-215-9550, or +1-805-564-6626

Web site: http://www.capsweb.org/

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