Rep. Courtney seeks probe of H-1B visa program

Date: Monday, December 08, 2008 5:28 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1942 -- 12/08/2008 >>>>>

Have you noticed that when a politician wants to pass the buck on a problem
often the response is to order a new government study?

This time around U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) wants to be perceived as doing
something about the fiasco at Pfizer by calling for a government investigation
of the H-1B visa program. Apparently the Americans at Pfizer who are being
forced to train their H-1B replacements are raising enough of a fuss to get
the Congress critters nervous.

While it's wonderful that Courtney wants to do another GAO study of H-1B, he
could use the ones that have already been completed, and then he could
actually propose legislation that actually does something to alleviate the
problems. Come to think of it, if Courtney really wanted to do something about
H-1B he could sponsor a House version of the bill in the Senate by
Durbin/Grassley (S. 1035).

The sad reality for the Pfizer people is that studies and new legislation will
come far too late to save what's left of the jobs there. It's far too late for
political posturing.

There are several good GAO studies on H-1B -- the problem is that everyone in
Congress ignores them. Norm Matloff described what happened in 2000 when
Congress rammed the H-1B cap increase down our throats (AC 21 which raised the
cap to 195,000 per year):

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Mich.pdf

About a month before the vote on AC 21, the GAO released a
report which was highly critical of the H-1B program. Yet
the entire 19,000-word discussion of the bill in the Senate
consisted of praise for the bill;
the GAO report was not mentioned even once.

So why, may I ask, does Courtney want the GAO to do another report that will
be universally ignored by Congress?

Here are some examples of GAO reports, and there have been many others by
government agencies that came to similar conclusions.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-881
High-Skill Training: Grants from H-1B Visa Fees Meet Specific Workforce Needs,
but at Varying Skill Levels
GAO-02-881 September 20, 2002

http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/pre_1998/06-96-002-03-321.pdf
The Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification Programs: The System is
Broken and Needs to be Fixed, Audit Report, U.S. Department of Labor Office of
Inspector General, May 22, 1996

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03883.pdf
Better Tracking Needed to Help Determine H-1B Program s Effects on U.S.
Workforce, 1998

UPDATE: So far Courtney's website doesn't say anything about a GAO
investigation, so he may have been blowing hot air last week. I also checked
the Congressional Record and couldn't find any menton of Courtney asking for
an investigation.

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

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=a3f1d1bf-2e31-4944-ace8-49e84e5cd084

Courtney seeks probe of visa program tied to outsourcing

Published on 12/6/2008 in
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney said Friday he will be calling for a government
investigation of a guestworker visa program that critics say has allowed
multinational corporations such as Pfizer Inc. to outsource thousands of
American jobs to foreign nations over the past two decades.
Courtney, D-2nd District, said his call for a probe by the Government
Accountability Office - Congress's investigatory arm - is tied to his concern
that the H-1B visa program is being misused by corporations at the expense of
American workers. His decision to ask for a GAO investigation comes after a
series of reports in The Day outlining allegations that Pfizer is using large
numbers of foreign workers at their R&D campuses in Groton and New London in a
systematic effort to replace their local information-technology contracting
force.

"We're in a tough economy right now, and companies are struggling,"
Courtney said in a phone interview. "It's hard to know what is the right way
to respond."

Courtney said he contemplated calling for a U.S. Department of Labor
investigation of Pfizer's use of H-1B visas, but ultimately was persuaded not
to go that route.

He said former Connecticut congressman Bruce Morrison, an opponent of H-1Bs,
told him that the use of the guestworker program is a gray area and it is not
clear that Pfizer's use of the visas would constitute a clear violation of
law. In addition, Courtney said the Labor Department under the current Bush
administration "has been pathetic in terms of upholding the law" as it
pertains to protecting employees, so he had little faith it would act.

Sources have told The Day that H-1B visas have been used locally over the past
three years to transform a largely American IT force at Pfizer's Groton and
New London campuses into a place more and more composed of foreign workers.
The H-1B workers, the sources said, are often supplied by Indian companies
such as Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services rather than Pfizer
itself, which said Friday that it has only 60 H-1B workers companywide.

In the past few months, according to sources, Pfizer has been ratcheting up
the number of foreign workers locally. According to several sources, the
effort is part of a plan to outsource much of the company's local information
technology work from American contractors to outside contracting firms that
hire employees largely from India.

"They're taking jobs from people who live and work here," said one source, who
asked not to be identified for fear of being fired. "It's all about the money.
The Pfizer family is going out the window."

"This is a David and Goliath situation," said another source, indicating that
laid-off contractors felt powerless to fight the turnover at Pfizer.

Two sources said this week that Pfizer's outsourcing frenzy had been expected
to be completed by the end of this month, dovetailing with a contingent-worker
policy called Procedure 117 that required, as of the beginning of this year,
no contractor to work longer than one year or the length of a contract. But
the sources said Pfizer is now asking American contractors to stay an extra
three months to continue training the workers who, allegedly, will eventually
replace them.

Pfizer's outsourcing process is expected to save the company millions of
dollars and cost local contractors hundreds of jobs, the sources said.

Pfizer has been unwilling to discuss specifics or even acknowledge that there
has been an increase of foreign workers on the Groton and New London campuses.

But according to a transcript of an October conference call in which Pfizer
officials discussed their third-quarter earnings report, both company chief
executive Jeffrey B. Kindler and Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio
trumpeted the company's cost-savings plans, which cut $460 million during the
most recent financial reporting period.

D'Amelio promised even more cuts in the fourth quarter - at least $300 million
- to fulfill or perhaps surpass Pfizer's two-year "Adapting to Scale" goal of
saving up to $2 billion.

"We have a wide array of outsourcing opportunities in various stages of
implementation," D'Amelio said.

"Manufacturing, logistics, finance, facilities and IT are among the functions
contributing to the financial and operational benefits of the strategy."

Still, Pfizer has been less than forthcoming about what is happening to its IT
force in Groton and New London. A list of questions sent to Pfizer this week
elicited few additional details, other than both foreign and U.S.
firms would be used in the company's outsourcing efforts.

"Workforce reduction continues to be a reality in our business," said Pfizer
spokeswoman Joan Campion.

Previously, Toni Hoover, a senior vice president at Pfizer, admitted that the
company has been "pursuing further outsourcing opportunities in IT,"
but didn't address whether the pharmaceutical giant was involved in a
systematic effort to drop much of its U.S. contracting force in favor of
foreign workers.

Courtney said he has been in discussions with Pfizer over the past few days
about the allegations about the New York-based pharmaceutical giant's
outsourcing practices, but has gleaned few additional details.

Courtney and U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., in response to The Day's story
last month about Pfizer's IT outsourcing, wrote a letter to Pfizer asking the
company to reconsider laying off its longtime contractor work force.

Courtney and Dodd also asked Pfizer to quantify the number of local workers
who would be replaced by foreign contractors on H1-B visas.

By asking for a GAO investigation, Courtney said he hoped to get an unbiased
view of H-1B problems so that fixes can be made in the next immigration bill,
which Congress hopes to pass next year.

"I think it will be helpful," Courtney said. "We will be starting with a clean
slate and a new administration. I think it will be good to take a look at it
in a nonpartisan fashion."

L.HOWARD@THEDAY.COM

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Newsletter Homepage:
http://www.JobDestruction.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm

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

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

Back to archives